Divebombing "The Mark" (Marky keep out)

[Dive Bomber1]

January 19, 1942 – Another tired NLF unit landed at Mussau this turn, the last untouched "dot" base in the PNG/Solomons area. At the same time, another nearly burned out NLF captured Thousand Ship Bay before being reloaded on transports and sent on its way back behind the lines for a well-deserved rest. Now I don't have to be bothered by the reports of "x Japanese ships spotted" that occur when my TFs sail past Allied dot bases. The next set of "dots" that I will go after are those in the Santa Cruz Islands, but I will wait a while before I go after them; not only in order to rest up my NLF units but also to take care of the Allied build-up in the central South Pacific.

My subs spotted two sizable TFs roughly centered between Canton Island, Wallis Island and Pago Pago this turn. One TF appears to have transport ships in it and the other has a number of first rate US DDs. My guess is that Marky is bringing some sizeable defensive force to Wallis Island where he already has a base force of some indeterminate size in place. The weather has been fairly poor in the region, which I hope will continue, because I want it to mask my next moves as I send the KB and a strong surface battle group down to the region from Kwajalein.

Both TFs will stop at Tarawa first to refuel and allow me to assess the situation. Although my subs haven't reported any ship-based floatplanes in the area of those two US TFs, I did notice that Marky lost an F3F from an operational loss last turn, which suggests that he may well have some CVs in action. I would love to chance the KB against the US carriers early, even though that has cost me a number of CVs in my other pbems – I'm hoping that I've learned how to handle my CVs better, and I also haven't split up the KB this time. [:-]

The big surprise for me this turn was that Marky has abandoned that crossroads between Hengchow and Changsha, opening up the full central Chinese railway to my use. So I am going to start to use it immediately to reposition my forces and to start to send some "nuisance" forces up towards the far western Chinese bases, just to keep Marky guessing.

It also appears that Marky has moved around a third of his units away from the second crossroads to the north of that main railway crossroads between Hengchow and Changsha. He had been keeping 38 units there for quite some time. Maybe he is getting a bit nervous. He ought to get even more nervous when he sees this turn because I just cut the road to the east of Kweiyang. Will he send units out of his forts to contest my interdiction or will he sit back and keep on building up fortifications?

The bombers in my Chinese Expeditionary Force finally flew with some strength this turn against Ichang. It was a week too late to help me capture the base, but it is still nice to see the planes fly effectively while not taking much damage or fatigue. My land units also completed their withdrawal from Ichang unscathed, although one artillery unit "retreated" for no obvious reason, even though it wasn't attacked. In the end that doesn't matter because I have my forces where they want them and Marky continues to bring more units into a base that is hard for him to supply and easy for me to attack from the air.

In Burma my main attacking force moved closer to an assault on Mandalay. The armoured unit in the attack force was getting ahead of the others, so I reset it to stay where it is for a turn while the other slower units cover the ground ahead. I prefer to have infantry units go against entrenched enemy forces first and have armoured and support units come in afterwards.

Surprisingly, Marky is not trying to bomb my advancing forces. Instead he has a mass of fighters flying CAP over Mandalay. While it is certainly tempting to consider sending in a mass sweep of four Daitais of Zeros against Mandalay, I'm not quite ready to risk my main offensive weapon at this point because I'm not guaranteed of total air superiority. I would much rather let the ground forces push Marky out of Mandalay and use my Zeros in overwhelming air attacks during my upcoming invasion of Java.

Speaking of the DEI, I have a base force and an Aviation Regiment about to land at Palembang, so Marky's forces on Java will soon get to feel the strength of my Army Air Corp that is nicely rested up from their efforts against Singapore. Once again, I'll use Oscars to support the Sallys, with the Zeros in reserve in case Marky tries to bring in any decent Allied fighters.

Speaking of Singapore, my minesweepers swept more mines this turn, but yet another PC "swept" a mine the "hard way", but at least this time it didn't sink right off the bat. Despite the residual mines I loaded my most-rested Engineering Regiment on a transport TF and sent it on its way to Naga and Manila to assist in the siege there.

Speaking of Manila, my army bombers in Luzon finally flew some decent missions against Manila and Bataan, causing damage and casualties. There is still enough flak being thrown up against my planes that I have to rest half of them each turn in order to repair damage and improve morale. The artillery bombardment of Manila also went better this turn, probably because it followed a fairly strong air attack. Never-the-less, I can't see a good reason to do another deliberate attack until that fresh engineering regiment shows up in a couple of game-weeks.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 20, 1942 – My air force finally got into action again in a number of places; I only wonder how long the weather will remain conducive to flying. Sian, Ichang, Medan, Tarakan, Manila and Bataan all received nice air attacks and for the most part the flak was light. However, the flak is still pretty heavy over Manila, which is an indication that the Allied forces there aren't quite ready to give up yet.

In an even more satisfying air attack, Nells from Victoria Point spotted a small Allied TF just to the northeast of the Andaman Islands and hit it hard. All three ships - a tanker, an AK and a PG - were hit with torpedoes and the AK and PG both sank. My land-based LBA hasn't done much at all in this game against Marky so this was a very pleasant sight.

In addition to the aerial bombardments, bombardment TFs hit Pontianak and Amboina. The coastal guns at Amboina are still shooting back and one of the DDs in the bombardment TF was hit hard. It's still better than having an invasion TF hit.

The only artillery attack this turn was at Manila. The results were okay, but not great, which backs up the feeling that I got from the flak - Manila isn't ready to fall yet. The only other land combat this turn was an NLF unit capturing Mussau. So that's it for the first phase of my invasions.

All-in-all, things worked out okay so far. I've captured all of Malaya, half of Sumatra, the northern half of Borneo, most of the Philippines except for Manila, Bataan and those two isolated island bases, most of New Guinea including Gili Gili and Rabaul, all of the Solomons, the Gilberts and even Baker Island. In addition Marky has given up half of China and half of Burma.

In other news, my minesweepers finally cleaned the remaining mines out of Singapore Harbour. Now I can start to send ships into port for repairs and upgrades. Also, a base force unloaded at Palembang so I will be able to cover my moves into Java now from the air. And finally, my Burma Expeditionary Force ought to start to move into Mandalay next turn.

[princep01]

Captured Port Moresby already, too, right?  Your advance has gone rapidly forward at reasonable costs.  Very instructive things here.
 
Maky's defense has been a little unusual too, and that is equally interesting.
 
Keep up the great AAR.  Again, I really like this style.  It economizes on space and still tells thereader what is going on, as well as what is planned.  Well done.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: princep01

Captured Port Moresby already, too, right?  Your advance has gone rapidly forward at reasonable costs.  Very instructive things here.

Maky's defense has been a little unusual too, and that is equally interesting.

Keep up the great AAR.  Again, I really like this style.  It economizes on space and still tells thereader what is going on, as well as what is planned.  Well done.

Ooops - right, I don't know why I keep on mixing up Port Moresby with Rabaul... Maybe because I now expect Marky to make PM the big Allied target instead of Rabaul...

Actually, I went after Port Moresby early because of my other pbems in which my opponents started to put reinforcements into PM and Gili-Gili very early, which caused me a lot of headaches later on. If I had realized before hand that Marky would pull back as much as he had, I might have waited a bit... But then, things worked out fine, so I'm not going to complain... [;)]

Thanks again for the nice comments!

[Dive Bomber1]

January 21, 1942 – I've got the feeling that I've been "snookered" again by Marky. With more of my air missions flying lately I've noticed less and less response in various areas, and in particular it looks as if Marky has pulled out of most of the bases along the south coast of Borneo and maybe even the northern half of Java! [X(] I tend not to trust aerial reconnaissance too much, even when it done is by dedicated recon planes, but once the bombers hit too and there are no signs of any troops left I've got to believe that there has been a pull back.

So, for example, my other INTEL tells me that there are now 9 Allied ground units at Balikpapan. That sounds like the right amount for the total at south coast of Borneo, and is similar to what Marky has done in other locations when he could – that is, to pull all his units into one base and try to fortify it as much as possible.

So I've loaded a spare SNLF unit onto transports and I'm sending it off to Tarakan. I'm also sending a cruiser and destroyer force to hit that base ahead of time just in case my INTEL is wrong - not doing so has cost me dearly in this and other pbems. I find that naval bombardments tend to give the best direct INTEL on what is actually in a base.

The next best INTEL comes from submarine contacts, and my subs in the south central Pacific got a lot of that again this turn. A US hunter-killer group sank one of my subs at Wallis Island and another of my subs found that transport TF that went missing last turn to now be about halfway between Wallis Island and Fiji. There are other US TFs at Palmyra, and my recon says that there are ships in port at Pago Pago and Noumea.

So I've decided to do "something" about this, despite a change in the weather to the better, which isn't quite what I wanted, since this reduces my chances of surprise. But I don't want to let these TFs get away, and if that TF to the west of Wallis is a transport TF the KB can catch up to it regardless of how it tries to run. Thus I've ordered the KB to the waters north of Fiji while I am sending my battle squadron down to Wallis in the hopes of catching those DDs. If the DDs move off I'll have the battle squadron bombard Wallis in order to see what is really there.

Otherwise, for the most part my plans are continuing according to schedule. Medan was hit by a good bombardment run again and troops will land next turn. Troops also landed at Kuala this turn and will attack next turn. And Nabire was captured, which brings all of the north coast of New Guinea, from one end to another, under my control – including all of the "dots".

My Burma Expeditionary Force continued its march towards Mandalay. As often happens, the progress of the troops has slowed down for no obvious reason, although I am starting to get the feeling that bad weather affects troop movement and attacks too, and not just air and naval forces. For example, when the weather is bad at Manila the bombardment attacks by my forces are always weaker, regardless of the results from aerial bombardments. [8|]

In other news in Burma, Sallys based in Rangoon hit a PG in a TF at Andaman Islands. I'm not certain if this is the same TF that the Nells hit last turn, but that PG should sink sooner rather than later.

In China Marky continues to hang back, so I am moving units to flank that lone Chinese unit that is sitting across the river from the crossroads between Changsha and Hengchow. I am also moving more units to the west and will harass Marky there sometime in the future. My bombers continued to hit Ichang and Sian, just for practice and to keep Marky "honest". [;)]

Finally, having learned that there is at least one SNLF unit that is paradrop-capable, I found one such unit, but as luck would have it, it is already deployed at a forward and malarial position. Since I don't have any truly useful targets for that unit in that region right now, I'll pull it back to a non-malarial main base and let it rest up until I find some significant use for it. Paratroop units are almost more valuable as threats than they are in action. [:D]

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

Paratroop units are almost more valuable as threats than they are in action. [:D]

[8|]

[ctangus]

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1
Paratroop units are almost more valuable as threats than they are in action. [:D]

I'll over a different opinion - [:)]

Yokosuka 1st, 2nd & 3rd SNLFs. They start the game at Camranh bay and one of the Taiwan bases.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: ctangus

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1
Paratroop units are almost more valuable as threats than they are in action. [:D]

I'll over a different opinion - [:)]

Yokosuka 1st, 2nd & 3rd SNLFs. They start the game at Camranh bay and one of the Taiwan bases.

Good point! If I had realized at the start of my games that I could paradrop them, I would have done some things differently... [:(]

Thanks -

[ctangus]

No problem.

Personally I'm a newb as a Japanese player, but having had them used against me as an allied player, I made sure I figured out what the para-capable units were when I started my first Japanese game. [;)]

[Dive Bomber1]

January 22, 1942 – I found out where the other paradrop-capable SNLF units are currently located… As luck would have it, they are all in front line positions and nowhere near any place where they would be useful as paratroops. Oh well, I'll just have to remember this the next time that I start a game.

So while my paratroops sit around and wait to be reassigned, my naval invasions are going ahead quite nicely as planned. The troops that landed at Kuala captured the base readily, and the other invasion force landed easily at Medan. No coastal guns opposed either landing, so my softening-up strategy worked well.

With the mines gone from Singapore I've started to move my main naval forces to that base from Saigon. Since Marky is staying very low profile in Burma I'm even sending the minesweepers from Singapore up to Rangoon to clear the mines there. Usually my opponents keep another air power at the bases in the region to make it difficult for me to bring ships to Rangoon.

I had lots of planes out on recon and patrol missions this turn, particularly in the South Pacific, but wouldn't you know it – bad weather popped up suddenly and my planes and subs lost track of all of the Allied TFs in the region. The only good side to this is that my own TFs were also not spotted. So I moved my subs to try to cover where I think that the Allied TFs will go, and I've got my two attack TFs still continuing on their courses. Hopefully next turn I will find some targets.

Marky appears to be changing his mind about his China strategy as he suddenly moved more units back into that crossroads two hexes north of the river along the road to Chunking. I suspect that he is reacting to my unit that cut the road to the west. I am moving into the region more of the forces that I pulled out of the unsuccessful siege of Ichang, and I also started to bomb Marky's forces from the air.

Marky had a lot of subs and his remaining Dutch PTs at Batavia this turn. I didn't notice a ship symbol there, so I don't think that Marky has an AS in port to reload his subs, but my recon hasn't been working that well, so I'm not 100% certain. On the other hand, Marky could be pulling out troops, bringing in troops, or even loading supplies for Manila, although I didn't see any of those rare telltale messages about subs loading supplies that pop up every so often during Combat Replays.

My bombers and artillery continued to hit Manila nicely, while the Attack Value of my forces there continues to climb back up. Importantly, the number of combat engineers is increasing, which I need in order to overcome the fortifications. From the nature of the INTEL I am receiving I suspect that Marky may well have "replacements on" for his troops in Manila. That delays the inevitable, but it also removes replacements from his other forces that aren't under siege, so I don't really mind that much.

My Sallys at Rangoon hit that PG at Andaman Island again, and this time sank it. It's been a slow process to try to sink Marky's ships since he hasn't been risking them for the most part.

And I haven't forgotten Burma, it's just that my troops make progress on the trail there quite randomly - sometimes more, sometimes less - and I'm not sure what is the controlling factor, other than my observation that the thunderstorms from last turn were replaced by rain this turn, and in parallel my troops seemed to move further this time than last.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 23, 1942 - My invasion of Medan worked exactly to plan. A final bombardment TF hit the base first, followed by an aerial bombardment, and then when my troops attacked the Dutch defenders folded like a bad hand of cards. My troops only suffered 17 casualties. And Marky didn't pull his troops; in fact he brought his best troops in northern Sumatra to Medan for the last stand.

So the Straight of Malacca is mine, and I can now sail ships into the Indian Ocean without alerting Marky. Sure, he has a number of troops in the Andaman Islands, but that will just be a bullseye for my forces to practice upon as they sail by towards more important targets. Whatever those 10K or so troops are at Andaman, they will be missed at Ceylon or the Indian mainland… [:D]

The Burmese Front is about to get some action again as my first unit pulled into Mandalay and the rest of the Expeditionary Force ought to arrive next turn. Marky has put everyone that he has in the region into Mandalay, so he is taking a big risk. I'm betting that my three crack divisions, along with an armored regiment and an experienced HQ will be able to crack the defense.

Swinging over to the Central Pacific, thunderstorms kept my attack TFs from finding anything to attack, and also kept Marky from finding out that I have two TFs right in the middle of his patrol zone. However, my subs found a number of TFs at Canton and another between Canton and Palmyra. My subs put torpedoes into two big US APs, but one sub was sunk and a couple more damaged in the exchange. Both US APs had troops on board.

So I was faced with a decision - should I continue with my original plan, or should I race to the east to try to catch those TFs at Canton Island? It was more than one day's travel away for both of my TFs, I would be moving from thunderstorms into clear weather, and Marky has heavy bombers at Canton which are already harassing my subs in the region. In addition, that big transport TF that I had spotted to the west of Wallis Island couldn't have made it back to Canton, so it was likely still traveling west or southwest and thus outside of the range of Marky's defenses at Canton and Palmyra.

Considering all those things, I decided to continue to the southwest as I had originally planned. I have the KB racing to the western side of Suva, with my planes set to naval attack with port and airfield attacks as alternates. My subs report that there ought to be some ships in the harbor at Suva. Also, a couple of days further west my subs have reported even more ships sitting in Noumea harbor. I much prefer to go after easy prey than running into the teeth of Marky's defense when I'm not really prepared to stick around and slug it out. BTW - I set the surface combat TF to "bombard" and sent it towards Nukufetau. Hopefully, when it hits, some of the patrol planes at the base will be caught on the water.

Elsewhere, my forces continued with their regular artillery and air bombardments of Manila. I intend to hammer those Allied units into the ground until I can capture the base without trouble. I am also still sending bombers after Bataan because I don't want the units there raising the fortifications.

I also continued my efforts to surround Amboina by landing troops at Bulla. This time I'm landing a base force along with the NLF so that I can start to project my air power towards the northern Australian coast and also Timor. Speaking of base forces and Australia, a base force finally reached Port Moresby and started to deploy. I immediately brought in a Zero Daitai and a Daitai of Bettys, just to keep Marky honest along the northeastern coast of Australia. I've been sending recon flights over Cairns lately, so this ought to help to keep him nervous.

In other news, the Shoho arrived, so I filled in its air groups and immediately sent it off to join the rest of the mini-KB. The mini-KB won't be so "mini" after Shoho joins it.

BTW - I have figured out where to gainfully employ some of my paratroop SNLFs so I will be reassigning them to Palembang as soon as transports can reach them.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Sure, he has a number of troops in the Andaman Islands, but that will just be a bullseye for my forces to practice upon as they sail by towards more important targets. Whatever those 10K or so troops are at Andaman, they will be missed at Ceylon or the Indian mainland…

Our game is 8 days ahead of yours and Marky, and the huge differences in tactical situations are amusing, as well as the similarities. As to Andaman Island, I suspect he may have done the same thing as I. [8D]

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: AU Tiger

Sure, he has a number of troops in the Andaman Islands, but that will just be a bullseye for my forces to practice upon as they sail by towards more important targets. Whatever those 10K or so troops are at Andaman, they will be missed at Ceylon or the Indian mainland…

Our game is 8 days ahead of yours and Marky, and the huge differences in tactical situations are amusing, as well as the similarities. As to Andaman Island, I suspect he may have done the same thing as I. [8D]

Marky's tactics aside, the first big difference between this game and the latest game between you and me was directly related to the fundamental differences between the Historic start and the non-historic start. Using the Historic start in our latest game meant that most of my useful shipping was far away from any useful locations. As a result, one decision I made was to try to march my Burma invasion forces overland to Bangkok. That turned into a huge disaster that I'll never repeat.

The other big difference was that I decided to use the KB to cover my move into PNG against Marky, while in our game I brought the KB into the DEI early and hammered your ships while they were just recovering from their escape from Manila. Without having the KB to cover an invasion of PM I would be at a huge risk from your US CVs.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 24, 1942 - The Sun didn't smile much upon his Japanese sons this turn, as the KB got totally rained out, spotted nothing, attacked nothing, and even was spotted by Allied air patrols. Fortunately, the surface bombardment TF did find the mark and hit Nukufetau. However, even there the results were feeble; there was some damage to the port and the Allied forces took some casualties, but no patrol planes were caught.

BTW - Marky knew about the bombardment TF because his INTEL did spot them last turn, even though I didn't notice an Allied report. But Marky sent me a link to a screen shot that showed the TF heading SE, not knowing that I had changed the heading to NW already. But what bothered me the most about the screen shot was not that Marky had spotted my TF, but that he is not using the "standard" map. I'm just hoping that whatever brightly colored map that Marky is using doesn't have any substantial changes in the "guts" underneath the pretty pictures. I asked Marky about this but he hasn't commented back to me about it yet.

In any event, with Marky's TFs in full retreat away from Canton Island and his air defenses alerted, I decided to call off this misbegotten mission and send both TFs back to the Gilbert/Marshalls, albeit at slow speeds just in case something worth attacking does show up. At least I know that Marky only has a small fragment of a base force at Nukufetau and thus I should be able to grab that base and the others around it quite easily if I can move quickly enough. My long awaited reinforcements for the Central Pacific are finally within a few days sailing time from Kwajalein, so I should be able to go back to the south central Pacific shortly, and stay this time.

Elsewhere, my troops took Bulla and a base force was along for the ride, so I've already put patrol planes in place. I am still resting up my main invasion force for Amboina and I intend to make certain that Marky won't be able to interfere with that invasion when it occurs.

In southern Borneo, my bombardment TF confirmed that Tarakan is empty, so my invasion TF is continuing along as planned. Now I have to find a spare base force to put into that base. It will be nice to start to pull out the oil and resources from it too.

Speaking of pull outs, Marky pulled most of his fighters out of Mandalay this turn, so I've ordered some bombers, backed up by a good Zero Daitai and some good Oscars, to start to bomb the base. Two thirds of my besiegers arrived at Mandalay, but Marky didn't try any sort of counterattack, not even a bombardment attack. I'm not so "shy", so I ordered my troops to start artillery attacks next turn.

In Luzon some of my planes hit Bataan again, but no planes flew against Manila. The subsequent artillery attack was discouragingly feeble, despite the continuing increase in attack value of my troops. Obviously, unless I can start to get some regular heavy air attacks going against Manila it will hold for quite some time. Fortunately, the port at Naga finally increased to level 3, which will speed up the unloading of supplies and of the rested combat engineering unit that ought to reach there in a few more days.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 25, 1942 – This was a day where things didn't go well, but on the other hand, they didn't go badly either, and I learned a few things without suffering from the lessons. Bad weather affected most of my more important air missions, but one odd mission flew off – a full strike of Kates from the KB against the pitiful little port at Nukufetau. I had forgotten to turn off airfield and port attacks for the bombers of the KB, so the Kates flew on their own. Fortunately, they didn't suffer any damage, although they didn't appear to do much either. More worrisome was that fact that no fighters flew escort with them, although my fighters were all set to "escort".

I will have to remember this and be more careful in the future. If those Kates had flown off against a defended target they would have been slaughtered. My experience is that I have to give my escorts a base target in order to assure a reasonable chance that they will fly with my bombers. And if I forget to set a target for the bombers and let them go off on their own, then there is a good chance that they will do something that I don't want, such as happened this turn.

In Burma my troops started their bombardment of Mandalay. Marky's troops aren't shooting back and he has now pulled out almost all of his aircraft. I will continue with bombardments for a while to allow my troops to rest up a bit and reduce the disruption that they got from their march. My bombers didn't fly against Mandalay, and with the bad weather in that region I expect that it will be a "bonus" if they do fly.

My planes in Luzon didn't fly either, but at least the artillery attack on Manila did a little more damage than usual. Maybe Marky is finally running low on supplies. I've got yet another supply TF in port in Naga to provide supplies to my troops. That engineering reinforcement unit is still several days away from Naga.

I am still positioning my forces for my drive on Java. I want to have a fully supported air force base in Palembang before I make my move. I intend to use paratroops to secure some landing sites in Java too. Right now my biggest challenge is to bring supply transports to the Front so that I can take advantage of the supply that is sitting in the region waiting to be used.

I am continuing along with the other piece of my pincer attack on the DEI and started out the invasion TF for Amboina this turn. Marky is not doing much to defend this region so I hope to grab Timor and cut his forces off in Java while he is still reinforcing the east coast of Australia and the south-eastern Pacific islands.

Marky is keeping his ASW TFs at Canton Island and Palmyra, so he must feel fairly confident that he can protect them against the KB. He is even flaunting the fact that he has spotted the KB. That's fine with me; I'm more than happy to see the US fleet sitting out in that region of the Pacific while I move in the DEI. My reinforcements are finally just about at Kwajalein now, so I will be extending my perimeter very soon in that region.

Things continue to be fairly quiet in China. It appears that Marky has decided to pull the bulk of his forces back to Chungking. That's a good move on his part, because they just eat up supplies and take damage when they are sitting out in the open. I'm taking the opportunity to reorganize my forces in China and position them for future advances on his wings.

[Dive Bomber1]

January 26, 1942 – Marky had the AVG flying LR CAP over Mandalay this turn, and they stood up very well against my best Oscar and Zero Daitais, shooting down three times as many Japanese fighters as they lost themselves, despite my having a greater number of planes. Unfortunately for me, the AVG took on the Oscars first and the Zeros afterwards. Overall the result was a disappointment for me, but I still have more Oscars and Zeros than Marky has P-40Bs, so I'll accept this for now, although I will obviously have to modify my tactics. The other birght side is that this also means that Marky isn't using the AVG to harass my weaker air units in China.

Now that the AVG is busy over Mandalay, I'm wondering if Marky has pulled back his air cover over Lashio, so I've ordered some recon flights over that base. I still have a paratroop unit in position, but I don't want to fly them into the teeth of the AVG if I don't need to do so.

I have also ordered my Burma Expeditionary Force to do an attack on Mandalay. I'm hoping that Marky hasn't been able to build up the fortifications too high already. But given my luck on the ground, I'll probably lose a ton of engineers in the attack.

My air units in Luzon finally got off a good attack on Manila, and that was followed by a good artillery attack, so things are looking up a bit there. I'm still not going to launch another ground attack until I get that new engineer regiment in place. I'm also still unloading more supplies. Ground combat is not easy in this game and I have been consistently underestimating the amount of force I must bring to battle, so I want to be a bit conservative at this stage so that I don't fritter away my land forces early, as I am unfortunately doing in my other pbems.

The port at Singapore reached level 9 this turn, so now I can start to load mines onto my subs there. I will also be better able to repair my subs there, which is important because a lot of my subs are out of action with heavy damage at this point. To give you an idea of my luck with subs, I-23 attacked AK Mapele which had troops on board and was alone in the eastern Pacific. But I-23 attacked on the surface and received three good hits from the Mapele's guns before sinking the ship with two torpedoes. Now I-23 is limping home to join dozens of her sister subs in repair ports.

Otherwise, things are progressing as planned, with my forces moving into position for future attacks.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Seven days and no update? Have you taken Pearl yet?

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: AU Tiger

Seven days and no update? Have you taken Pearl yet?

I was away for five of those days, and I only got the next turn late last night, so it will be this evening before I get it done.

[AU Tiger_MatrixForum]

Results - not excuses.
[8D]

[Dive Bomber1]

January 27, 1942 – I'm back, and fortunately I seem to be able to remember what I was doing in this game. Troops landed at Babo as part of my efforts to surround and cut off Amboina and the northeast corner of Australia, and another unit landed at Tarakan which Marky abandoned. One of my surface TFs did another bombardment of Amboina in anticipation of the upcoming invasion which ought to arrive in three or four more days. Marky isn't showing any signs of contesting any of those invasions.

Marky's forces did defend at Mandalay this turn against a deliberate attack by my three divisions and armoured regiment. My troops got a 1:1 result, with even losses on both sides, and the fortifications were reduced from level 3 to level 2. I will rest my troops next turn and just have them do an artillery attack.

I am also sending another air attack against Mandalay next turn, despite any potential presence of AVG fighters. There is no guarantee that the weather will allow the missions, but it is worth a try. Most of my air missions this turn were rained out with the exception of some small nuisance bombing runs that I sent out in China, which ended up having little effect anyway.

My big risk next turn will be an attempt to air drop paratroops on Lashio. I have a good Zero Daitai in place to provide LR CAP over Lashio, so I hope that they will stop any part of the AVG that Marky may still have hanging around Lashio.

The lack of aerial attacks at Manila was evident again as my artillery attack gave pitiful results. It will still be several days before the engineering reinforcements arrive, so I hope that at least some of my bombers in Luzon fly this turn. I'm also hoping that I don't have to bring in another division in order to capture Manila, but one never knows.

In other news, the port at Truk finally reached level 9, so I can now replenish minelayers there. Also, my reinforcements for the Eastern Pacific finally reached Kwajalein. I'll rest them up for a turn or two and then start them off on my expansion into the South Pacific. Marky is still keeping plenty of ships around Palmyra, and as well it appears that he is sending a TF up towards Johnston Island, so it will be interesting to see Marky's response once he sees my movements.

Otherwise, things were fairly quiet as I prepare for my next major move, the advance into Java.