May 42 Start
He probably posted the toggles in his AAR, so I won't bother.
Well, we started off quietly enough. He took Gili Gili and started blasting Port Moresby all to hell, but curiously did not attempt a Coral Sea Operation.
What the bastard DID do was to form the Kido Butai Death Star (which is doctrinally correct) and in June (?)sneak up on my convoys supplying Midway and raided the friggin area, while I was in SoPac with all my CVs prancing around... Sank CVE Long Island (doing ASW work) and a ton of shipping, including an AS or 2, a few subs (I was using Midway as a refueling point for my subs.)
He then retired. And I sent all my CVs scurrying back to Pearl to try to cut him off...
So then he went to Brisabane, and a month later (July?) friggin obliterated the place... for 3 days... meantime, I'm caught fueling...
If it were happening to someone else, it would have been a beautiful sight.
Meantime, he's kicking my lame-ass Chinese all over the friggin map, driving through me like crap through a goose where he can, out-flanking me where he can't. General friggin mayhem... most turns are viewed with groans from me and decisions on where to stop the bleeding.
He's also driving though Burma and I decide to stop him cold at Kohima in NE India. I pull everything I can over there to stop him and dig in. Speedy is the first opponent to mass his forces and make a seaborne operation into India. I totally mis-read his ops and thought he was going the land route. Even the first raiding missions of his I thought were hit and run and so I kept my assets in SoPac expecting a run on Australia. Even 2 RN CVs were operating near Oz as back up.
Re-took Lunga and Tulagi, but lately, his LBA from Rabaul has been killing me, and my BBs. I'm working to get air assets over there, but it's been hell to co-ordinate after the raids screwed up my shipping assets.
So when he landed in Madras, it came as quite a shock... even then, I waited (too long I see) to respond, thinking it was a feint and that he was still headed for SoPac/SWPac. He faked me out of my shorts.
Seeing that he had ALL of KdB INCLUDING his aux CVs and CVLs in the Indian Ocean, in late August, I began moving ALL of my CVs (6 US, 2 RN) from SoPac, around Oz, and across to the Indian Ocean.
Unfortunately, I was too late to catch him raiding Bombay and Karachi, and I had once managed to move the RN BBs out of harms way. But, when I assaulted Bombay, I kept using them to hit his troops there, and he caught them.
in one of his raids on Karachi, I managed to sink CVL Shoho with LBA and heavily damage CV Akagi. I suspect Akagi is hiding in Panji, but I can't seem to get to her. I was hoping he was going to retreat to Madras like he did last time, but he did not, and is now parked with heavy naval assets there.
I waited 5 days athwart is line of retreat, hoping he would move some damaged ships back to Madras, so I have decided to put the CVs into Karachi to refuel, as I tapped out the AO's that came with me [:D].
So that's where we are now. I have also abandoned Kohima to relieve the seige on Bombay, or so he thinks. What my plan is to let him come thru chasing me, then cut him off and crush him. My units seem to sometimes have minds of their own though damn it. One of my ARMoured units was supposed to stay stationed outside of Bombay to wait for a link up while some ARTy went in. 255 Armoured follwed them in damn it. So I have to round them up like wayward children again.
The only good thing about all the rain is the fact that my CVs haven't been spotted to my knowledge. As soon as I refuel, I will move out and launch an attack.
