Rising Sun over the Rockies - F.K. vs OSO - Wake captured by US

[FeurerKrieg]

August 22nd, 1943
No major attacks in Burma, but our skirmishes over Akyab continue. Today we lose 3 Nicks and 1 A6M3 Zero, and take down 2 Kittyhawk IIIs and 2 P-66s. Tomorrow we will try to catch the enemy off guard with a major CAP effort over Akyab. All available planes at Magwe will be sent to cover the base.

In the North Pacific, 9 B-24D bombers attack our convoy unloading supplies at OJ. Our Tonys and Tojos are there however and manage to take down three of the heavy bombers. One bomber still manages to hit the AK Shin'yo Maru, but the ship should be able to return to base without sinking.

[center]
The next phase of the NoPac campaign[/center]

I-29, while trying to make it home was bombed by a Coronado further damaging the sub. It is highly unlikely it will reach a friendly base now.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 23, 1943
Our ambush over Akyab worked well as 9 P-66 and 21 Wellington bombers flew into a strong CAP of Japanese fighters as shown below. 2 of the P-66 fled for home, but all the Wellingtons were shot down before they could unload their bombs.

[center]
Ambush over Akyab[/center]

At OJ, enemy B-24Ds attacked our ships in four waves consisting of 11, 6, 5, and 3 bombers in each wave. Each wave met more fighters as our pilots scrambled from the initial attack. The final 3 bombers faced 22 Tojo and 55 Tonies! In all 13 of the B-24D were shot down and no ships were hit.

War-wide total air losses for the day were 42 Allied to 9 Japanese.

[bigbaba]

nice air victory over burma..again.

when will the japanese get radar for their base forces in this MOD?

i can imagine, with radar support, your CAP will be even more effective against the anglo-american aggressors.[;)]

[FeurerKrieg]

Fortunately the base forces get radar early in this mod, not sure if it is a bug or not, but they started upgrading to radar, 1 base force every couple days, in the first months of the war. By now they have all been upgraded.

So, unfortunately, that means our land based CAP won't be improving over what we see now.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 24th, 1943
The Allies get some revenge today.

First, in the north Pacific, 9 PB4Y Liberators attack a tanker group unloading fuel at OJ. 20 Tojos and 45 Tonys manage to bring down 5 of the Liberators, but 4 get through and hit a single tanker twice. The fuel on board makes the fires even worse and the ship heads west to try and make Etorofu for repairs.

In Burma, Akyab is hit with a couple waves of medium bombers.

The big action is at Rangoon where an initial wave of 83 Liberator IIIs and 63 B-17E bomb the airfields. We have a pretty solid CAP up, but against so many planes they can only do so much. A follow on raid of 99 B-24D Liberators adds to the damage. We do bring down several bombers: 18 B-17E, 9 Liberator III and 8 B-24D. Our planes will leave Rangoon for now while the base is repaired, but we will maintain a moderate CAP from Moulemein in case the Allies expect to get free attacks on the base now that the airbase is closed. Clearly we need to get more Jacks in the area since they can do a better job of bringing down the heavy bombers. All Nicks are being removed to training duty now. They have not performed to expectation and are being replaced in the field with Tojos immediately.

[center]
Major bomber attack on Rangoon[/center]


At Mandalay, 26 Spitfires and 22 P-47C Thunderbolts flew sweep and tangled with 10 Tojo and 39 Tony fighters. We lost 13 Tonys and 2 Tojos to 6 Spitfires and 7 Thunderbolts. Several pilots were recovered near Mandalay.

[center]
Allied fighter sweep[/center]

For the day, war wide, losses were 101 Japanese to 62 Allied. However, 73 of those losses for the Japanese were planes lost on the ground. Looking at just Air to Air losses, it was 54 Allies to 18 Japanese.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 25th, 1943
Near PJ, the SS Spearfish hit APD Patrol Boat No. 1 with a torpedo.

In Burma, the Allies continue to push hard. This is partly because the weather has been nice for a few days running now. I would much prefer a return to the thunderstorms that were raging for so many months.

At Akyab, our fighters at Magwe form a small presence. The Allies have two attacks here today, the first meets only 4 Tojos, who manage to shoot down 1 Vengeance dive bomber. The second wave meets 10 Tojos and 5 Tonys. They manage to bring down 3 P-66 Vanguards, 2 Blenheim IVs and 5 Wellingtons. No losses to our fighters there.

At Rangoon, more bombers return, but we still have CAP over the base flying out of Moulmein. 52 B-24D Liberators meet 44 Tojo fighters. We manage to bring down 16 of the heavy bombers, and although they hit the airfield, it has already been evacuated and no aircraft are lost on the ground.

[center]
Allied bombers hit Rangoon for the second day in a row[/center]

At Meiktila, the enemy send 112(!) P-38G's on sweep. They meet our sizeable CAP there and massive dogfight ensues. When the smoke clears, 58 of the P-38Gs have gone down, while we lost 9 Tojos, 22 Tony and 14 Jacks (so 45 Jap to 58 Allied A2A losses). Certainly this is the most Jacks we have lost in A2A in one battle. Thankfully several of those Jack pilots were rescued, but I think we did still lose 8 of the pilots. Our units will shuffle around a bit but heavy CAP will be maintained at Meiktila, as the base is rather central to our air defense of Burma.

[center]
Massive P-38 sweep at Meiktila[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

August 26th, 1943
Compared to the past couple days, today is very quiet.

The SS Bass is hit by a Mary dive bomber at OJ. The Tanker hit there a couple days back sunk today before it could reach a safe port.

Our minesweeper cleared enemy sub laid minefield at Port Blair.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 27th, 1943
Another quiet day in Burma as bad weather grounds many planes.

In China, our fighters, all of them, including the very green pilots in their Oscar I's, flew a sweep over Chungking. They lost 4 of the Oscars and 1 Tony, but did manage to shoot down every enemy plane encountered - 3 P-40N and 7 P-43A.

[center]
Combat training in China[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

August 28th, 1943
After two days of rest the Allies were back in Burma. I moved some air units back into Rangoon, perhaps prematurely. That might not have been the wisest thing to do, and I'll be a little more careful next time.

At Rangoon, we had a sizeable CAP up, which would have been fine for fighting off P-38s or fighting bombers - but not both.

Wave 1: 71 P-38G fly sweep. We bring down 45 P-38Gs and lose 1 Jack (pilot rescued), 14 Tojos and 2 Tonys.
Wave 2: 85 Liberator III and 52 B-17s flying in to attempt to shut down the airfield again. Our tired fighters only manage to bring down 2 B-17Es and the airfield is trashed again.
Wave 3: 66 B-24D Liberators join the fun, and our slight CAP is only able to shoot down one of the bombers.

[center]
The first wave at Rangoon, nasty P-38Gs[/center]

Over all we lose 24 aircraft on the ground. Not the end of the world, but it could have been avoided.

At Mandalay, 17 Spitfires and 16 P-47C Thunderbolts fly a sweep, meeting only 4 Jacks and 3 A6M3a Zeros. We lose all the Zeros, but only 1 Jack. They do well though, taking out 2 Spits and 4 of the P-47cs.

And one more sweep to round of the day occurs at Magwe. Our planes there were mostly at Meiktila providing CAP but the few that remained did okay. 24 Kittyhawk III and 18 P-38Gs tangled with 5 Jacks, 5 A6M3a Zeros, 2 Tojo and 21 Tonys. We lost 6 planes (1 A6M3a, 1 Tojo, and 4 Tony) but the enemy lost 15 Kittyhawks and 8 P-38Gs. Nearly 4 to 1 odds on the losses.

All these attacks against Rangoon has made me decide to pull back our planes from Magwe and Lashio. I will stay in Magwe a couple more days, but after that, we will use those planes to help ensure we are ready when we return to Rangoon again.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 29th, 1943
Our bombers hit Chungking this time, along with escorting fighters. 3 out of 3 P-43A are shot down in the air and 2 SB-2c are destroyed on the ground.

Before pulling back from Magwe, I wanted to take one more parting shot, so I put all planes there on CAP over Akyab. Worked out well, as the enemy flew a sweep of 9 Kittyhawk III and 8 P-38G over Magwe, which encountered only 2 Tojos who bugged out.

At Akyab, out planes lost only 1 Tojo and 1 Tony but took down 6 Hurricanes, 8 Beaufighter VIC, 9 Vengeances and 13 B-25G/H Mitchells. A nice going away present I'd say.

[center]
Last ambush at Akyab for a while[/center]

In the north Pacific, the PG Zuiko Maru, which was hit several weeks ago, was finally written off at Shukuka after it was decide the ship would be worth more as scrap metal than the expense of repairs needed.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 30th, 1943
At Chungking, our planes settle into a regular routine. Tonys and Zeros fly sweep in the morning, and then the bombers, escorted by 3 sentais of rookie Oscar Is, bomb the place in the afternoon. Today they hit 3 SB-2c on the ground.

At Rangoon the bombers come again, but as promised, this time we are ready. Using planes from not just Moulmein, but also Rahaeng, we manage to put up one of the strongest CAPs we have in the war. The first wave of 36 B-17s and 62 Liberator IIIs sees 24 B-17s and 29 Liberators go down. The only reason that 12 B-17's made it was because they ditched and headed home. The Liberators did still get over 30 planes through and those hit our factories in the area (HI).

The second wave didn't show up until the afternoon which gave our CAP a chance to rearm and return. This time it was 76 B-24D Liberators aiming for the ports. We shot down 27 of the big planes. At the docks, 1 barge was hit as was the submarine tender in port. Neither ship is likely to sink.

[center]
Heavy bomber casualties over Rangoon[/center]

The airfield at Rangoon is repairing quickly and we will soon be able to put some Army planes at the base again. That combined with the CAP from Moulmein and Rahaeng should be enough to protect the place, or at least make it really expensive for them to attack.

[FeurerKrieg]

August 31st, 1943
The month closes on a quieter note, as no major attacks occur today.

Our bomber hits Chungking, destroying 1 SB-2c on the ground.

In Burma, some Hurricanes and Beaufighters attack one of our garrison units in the jungle west of Mandalay.

[FeurerKrieg]

The air war over Burma shows in the stats this month. We did very well on the A2A side of things, taking down 812 planes with only 282 losses. We lost many more on the ground, but I am less concerned for those losses because we have the production to keep up - it is the pilot losses that hurt the most. Overall we still did okay at 1022 Allied losses to 603 Japanese losses.

Ship losses were light, but worse than Allies as we lost a couple submarines.


[center]




September 1, 1943













[/center]

[Durbik]

An outstanding empire - and AAR. Always hungry for your cool screenshots!

[Alikchi2]

No sub kills for six months! That's got to be distressing.

But yeah, total agreement with the above. You're holding up astonishingly well.

[FeurerKrieg]

Sub kills are low, but then again, I have most of them hanging out in port. I've decided to save them for when my opponents supply lines become longer, and also to use them as a counter to superb Allied damage control.

If in future invasion I can put 20-30 subs in the enemy retreat routes, anything that gets damaged is more likely to become a kill of my subs can get them, which they are more likely to do against damaged targets.

That's my theory at least... we'll see how it plays out.

[FeurerKrieg]

September 1st, 1943
In the Timor Sea, the AK Allara (which I had hoped to sink a couple weeks back) was spotted leaving Darwin and our Bettys and Helen hit the ship with 6 bombs and 3 torpedoes, sinking it easily this time.

At Rangoon, the damage to the AS Chogei was apparently more extensive than initially appear and the ship was written off.

The airfield at Boela in the DEI was expanded today. (sz 3).

[FeurerKrieg]

September 2nd, 1943
A quite day with now real combat. Several patrol planes and recon planes went down, but otherwise very quiet.

The airfield at Shikuka, on Sakhalin Island, was expanded today. (sz 5)

[FeurerKrieg]

September 3rd, 1943
Another big push from the Allied air forces in Burma today. If they thought we put up a big CAP last time, this time there was even more!

First though, in China the morning saw our 26 Tonys sweep empty airspace over Chungking. Then later in the day our bombers came in and hit the enemy base, destroying 2 P-40N and 2 SB-2cs on the ground.

In Burma, the enemy flew a sweep of 20 Spitfires and 17 P-47C Thunderbolts which met 2 Tojos and 43 Tonys. 1 Tojo and 9 Tony went down, but so did 6 Spitfires and 9 Thunderbolts.

Next up was another attack on Rangoon. This time, 68 P-38Gs flew a sweep from Cox's Bazaar. They were met by a massive CAP of 242 fighters. Losses are below, but only a single P-38G managed to make it home. Even our night-fighter J1N1-S Irvings managed to get behind three P-38Gs and shoot them down! Our losses were mostly from the Tojos, and mostly our lower experienced guys. Several were rescued at Rangoon. The good thing about no enemy survivors is that even the best pilots of those units probably went down.

After the P-38Gs, 40 B-17E and 85 B-24D were sent in to hit the local production areas (resources) around Rangoon. 2 B-17s ran home, but the rest either went down or drop their bombs.

Losses at Rangoon
Japan
Ki-44-IIb Tojo: 33
Ki-61-Ib Tony: 5
J2M Jack: 1
A6M3a Zero: 1
J1N1-S Irving: 1
A6M3 Zero: 1

Total: 42

Allies
P-38G Lightning: 67
B-24D Liberator: 32
B-17E Fortress: 11

Total: 110

For the day, Allied losses were 139 from all causes, compared to 58 for the Japanese.

The last thing to note, is that the airfield at Admiralty Island was finished today. (sz 4)

[center]
We let one guy go, to tell the horror story back at base[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

September 4th, 1943
A quiet day today. The airfield at Wewak on New Guinea, expanded today. (sz 2)

Rangoon airfield is now totally repaired, although the facilities there still need some work (runway 0/service 70).