Weathering the Storm: East Wind Rain (Joint AAR-Tallyho! v gillesthib)

[saj42]

Here is a repeat of my initial aims/plans - so how did I fair?

STRATEGY
Well that’s easy for 1941 – survive as best I can.
DEI / PI / Malaya - Spoiling attacks from Air and Sea assets will be used where the opportunity presents itself. Redeployment of LCUs to create strong-points is the No1 priority. Move Dutch oil to Oz.
India / Burma - Move units up to strengthen defences, between Colombo & Dacca. Move supplies forward to Calcutta whilst I’ve got the Indian Ocean to myself.
Pacific - Sit tight in Hawaii. Push reinforcements forward to garrison Palmyra, Canton, Pago Pago, Suva and Nandi.
West Coast – move supplies and fuel forward to hubs along the US-Oz supply route.
China – Reorganise!. Move SEAC units to Lashio, and units East of Wuchow into Canton (to disrupt the attack on HK)


PI - Well the IJA blitzkreig stopped all preconceived ideas I had here. I had no time to build sufficient forts to delay the 'normal' strength Japanese players employ here - let alone this massive effort. Bataan fell before the reinforcements arrival date. Cagayan, the last base in the PI is bearly holding (date 420203).The early fall of Jolo Is and the basing of Bettys there prevented any redeployments by ship in the Sulu and Celebes Seas.
DEI - The North Borneo coastal bases were seized early on. Nells at Kuching effectively ceased and shipborne traffic between Singapore/Palembang/Batavia. Have managed to reposition outlying Dutch units into my designated strongpoints. Amboina was a very early target (with bases in western tip of Papua). Only in the last few days of Jan 42 have places like Tarakan, Balikpapan and Kendari been targetted. My sea sniping attacks have been successful, but I had not sufficient force to challenge the 25 ship IJN SCTFs.
Malaya - NO land attacks here. This was a big surprise and left me confused as to what to do. My Singapore defence is well prepared but untested. When the land 'deathstar' arrives from PI there will be no countering it and Malaya will be crushed.
Burma - Things are only just starting to develop here. It took a long time for the IJA Burma army to march overland to Tuang Gyi - lets hope I can delay the closure of the Burma Road to China.
India - Preparations are well advanced for a defence in depth. Not planning to succumb to a PzB style loss of India.
China - As expected, with some reversals and problems due to slow movement.
Pacific - Ahh now we are talking. The leisure cruise of the KB around Hawaii (from NW to NE to SE) over a 4 week period reaaly put a big spanner in my works. I'm not one to immediately send the PH strike cripples back to CONUS, so I didn't loose combat assets. However the early resupply convoys took a hit and some 30+ AKs and TKs went down. (no troop convoys were caught thankfully). The Invasion of Canton Is was a surprise - but there was no way I could have stopped a Division+ assualt this early in the game. The US CVs gave a good account of themselves against babyKB and the mass of transport and SC TFs. Fortunately the KB didn't make the rendezvous as the IJN plan called for, so I got away with it.

THE FUTURE

Well I suppose that I can expect Japanese expansion to continue in the obvious places, so I will plan accordingly. I have some intel and hunches, but no more on that for now.

Heh Gilles, how did your interview with the Emporer go ?