Mines in the Pacific

[EUBanana]

The defence of Java - not really much I can do! I decided to send the KNIL forces to the north. There is always the danger of Java being cut in half, I'd be surprised if he doesn't do this, but assuming he /does/ do this, I'd rather have all the KNIL on one side of thta half rather than being split up. May as well be the north side.

Naval forces have all pulled back now, Saratoga's sortie is the last action far as I'm concerned.

[EUBanana]

Here is Burma. To my own surprise Pegu is holding though my units there bleed to artillery daily. Rangoon is garrisoned with an anti-para battalion, thats it. His airpower in the Rangoon/Pegu area is crushing, my own airfarce has been forced to pull north out of range, Rangoon was bombed flat.

The RN can be seen heading towards Sumatra, as mentioned earlier in this thread.

[EUBanana]

These guys are one hex northwest of Sian. They are the remnants of being battered to crap by artillery, then chased up the roads. There are about 200 disabled squads there but they are completely out of it, as you can see.

At Loyang the defence is now so weak one shock attack would probably take it but he's content to shell them into submission. Field Marshal Haig would love it. "Not even a rat will have survived.". Unlike in WW1 though that assessment is quite accurate in China!

My only sadness is that by the time three regiments of world class US artillery arrives they'll have been nerfed and so payback time won't happen. [:(]

[EUBanana]

OK, I lied a bit, more like 100 squads between them. Those Chinese were savaged quite badly.

Here is the globe, gives you an idea of the extent of the Rising Sun. He's been so quiet in CENTPAC that I'm tempted to waltz into Tarawa and wipe out whatever he's garrisonned it with with the 1st USMC. When Wasp shows up and Saratoga is in position I may well do this. I suspect he'll send KB over to Burma to break the deadlock there, which might well give the USN/USMC the chance to sting him.

No real plans as of yet in SOPAC/CENTPAC beyond trying to manage the retreat and hurt him wherever the opportunity presents itself.

[EUBanana]

Actually a quick look at my OOB tells me 1st USMC doesnt arrive for another 48 days.

Any adventurism at Tarawa would probably have to involve units currently based at Hawaii - a thought to entertain if nothing else.

[EUBanana]

Poor old Presterjohn met the Royal Navy this turn. His email mentions frustrations, I think he overlooked something or was surprised by something. My recon earlier regarding Japanese ships headed north from Singapore was spot on.

In the morning CL Glasgow buzzed Port Blair and found two Japanese destroyers - not sure what they were doing there, but Glasgow sunk one and hit the other with three 6 inch shells, not for heavy damage unfortunately. The British CVs then hit a transport TF, unfortunately at max range. We're not talking a big strike here, it's just one Illustrious-class and CVL Hermes, still, one xAK was sunk, one xAP hit by 3 x 500lb for heavy damage, and one xAP hit by one 500lb for light damage.

Other errors around Java - I sent some AOs to Soerabaja to suck the last vestiges of fuel from the place (Perth is sucked dry and I got damaged warships there I need to move elsewhere, this is highly relevant) and unescorted Betties bombed ineffectually from high altitude. Soerabaja's CAP was not ineffective, half a dozen Betties were shot down and three times that damaged.

[EUBanana]

Made some progress, it's February 19th.

BURMA/INDIA
Deadlock at Pegu continues. Japanese subs have been sighted off the west coast of India, an unescorted TK was sunk off of Bombay. Unfortunately the Brits don't have nearly enough escorts to escort everything. OTOH the merchant navy is enormous so some losses can be absorbed.
A minor but tense action between Sumatra and Ceylon. 2 AKs and a DD (Electra) carrying some remnants of Singaporean forces were attacked by two AMCs. Electra, though outgunned, managed to hold them off, and put half a dozen 4.7" shells into one of the AMCs to boot. Next day the AMCs appeared again but the Allies successfully disengaged. Day after RN CVs arrived on the scene and swept the area, and CL Glasgow joined up with the escaping AKs if the AMCs somehow attacked them a third time.
Didn't find the AMCs, I guess they retreated due to the damage, but Electra and her wards arrived in Colombo safely in the end.

CHINA
I'm beginning to think that gutting Chinese corps with artillery but never attacking them is actually his strategy. I have 5 corps near Loyang (which has fallen to him as I pulled out) with every single squad disabled - and about 300 plus squads apiece! They may as well be destroyed, but as they are not destroyed, I won't be getting them back. So I guess the plan is to gut them, and leave them.



I've not seen a deliberate Japanese attack in China for weeks on end. The only one attacking is me, in my quest to at least cause some casualties to the Japanese.

A Japanese tank unit took Ninsiang in the far and barren north near the Mongolian border. Deadlock in the forests south of Liuchow despite his attempts to reinforce and break through. Deadlock at Sian but not for long as he's going to have very significant reinforcements there soon. He's actually retreated from an unsuccessful siege at Kansienh in the centre-south. In the air the AVG have issues, they can't fly due to lack of supply where they are needed, and the Chinese engineering guys aren't plentiful enough to fix them...

JAVA/SRA
At Java he 's been attempting to break out from his landing at Merak. First he attempted to flank Batavia at Buitenzorg, but I anticipated that and moved up some reinforcements. A couple of regiments plus the Mobile Einheid shock attacked and actually drove a Japanese regiment back.
Now he's reinforcing his siege at Batavia. More units have been dropped off at Merak, so he now has about 15 LCUs crammed into the north of the island - theres no way the Dutch can hold off that many. So far though the KNIL has amazingly not crumpled like a wet rag yet. I figure it will next week though.
Been some fairly heavy naval action off of Merak as submarines and PTs are sent in in force. Fairly indecisive, and fairly unlucky too, there have been a lot of S-boats with cruisers in their sights missing, and even S-boats armed with dud torpedoes. PTs have nailed a couple more APs but the Dutch PT force is down to 3 boats. :p S-18 was badly damaged by depth charges and pulled back to one of the ports just behind Batavia, chances of her making it out in one piece are pretty low I think.

KB raided near Perth and bagged a few APs, fortunately she didnt raid Perth itself where the ABDACOM cruisers are laid up, badly damaged from early warring. Then she made her way back to the Makassar area and is now bombing Soerabaja into tar. The Dutch a/f is a shadow of its former self already but made a few attacks on KB with skipbombing Martins, all that achieved was wiping out what few bombers remained. He's not attacked the airfield yet but blew the port away - fortunately I evacced the port completely a couple of weeks ago. Still, AS Zuiderkris and AD Black Hawk were left behind, and got nuked.


SOPAC/CENTPAC
He began landing at Buna today, a couple of AKLs/AKs. Buna has no ground forces. However the Banshees at Port Moresby attacked, sunk one AKL, badly damaged another, and hit the AK on top! So not bloodless.
I like having cruiser forces just behind the combat zone ready to raid as targets present themselves. In SOPAC after the earlier defeats the place has been bare, but now the shipyards and reinforcement has done its thing, and I have a 1 CA, 1 CL and 4 DD force at Townsville ready to pounce.
The real shortage is LCUs, I got nothing, nothing at all, to really defend Port Moresby or Noumea. Can't do anything there, but wait.

East coast of Australia is logistically sound. Perth has a serious fuel shortage though. Thats bad as a lot of the refugees from the DEI are coming through this way. I have many Dutch navy and merchant ships essentially stuck there (very fortunate that KB did not attack Perth itself). Fuel is en route, from Cape Town and Sydney, so this should be fixed in a couple of weeks.

CENTPAC
Very quiet, my defence line is now slowly solidifying. Proof of that near Christmas Island, which is now an airfield 5. Bolos and B17s spotted an AMC nearby, however they didn't attack it. Maybe next turn.

[EUBanana]

Still pressing on. We've updated to the latest patch.

A lot has been going on!

March 3rd 1942

BURMA/INDIA
Pegu is buckling a bit, a deliberate attack caused 3:1 casualties and knocked the forts down to 2. I'm ordering them to fall back to Mandalay, which has significant reinforcement (the Chinese divs) and is nicely built up.

There was some naval action around Port Blair. He was unloading so I sent in CA Exeter and some DDs, while the British aircraft carriers loitered in the Bay of Bengal just in case. Two Japanese DDs were sunk at Port Blair, but then a BB SAG based around Nagato showed up just to the south as Exeter was making her getaway. In a night engagement Exeter was lightly damaged but managed to escape despite multiple engagements with Nagato and her friends.

Then during the day 1 or 2 Japanese CVs made a very long range strike on the Brit CVs, just a handful of Kates bombing. The FAA chalked up a few kills, and then soon as I had the chance everybody withdrew to Colombo.

After a bit of R&R (for some reason the RN CVs had 50% damaged aircraft so I waited a bit for them to be fixed) I sortied the RN again, so I have CVs and a cruiser SAG loitering in what is hopefully just outside his range in the Bay of Bengal. SS Truant is patrolling south of Port Blair and I have Catalinas at Rangoon still (tho not for much longer) providing recon between the Andaman Islands and the mainland.


China
The patch has caused his offensive to essentially halt. Massive casualties for the Chinese as he mops up around Loyang, but three Chinese corps on the road to Sian have held off vastly superior forces, and the Japanese artillery at Sian itself is doing 300 casualties a day now, not 3000. If anything it's a bit too gutless.
In the south he's withdrawn from around Nanning. Victory!

I have 1800 AV with most of the Chinese artillery ready to make an assault NE of Chungking, have to see how that goes... poorly no doubt.

JAVA/DEI
Batavia has fallen, he's about halfway through Java now. The defenders of Batavia managed to retreat in the wrong direction, to Betuinzorg or whatever it's called - thats essentially a one way trip. Silly idiots. The only way out of there to the southeast is a trail, so they were surrouned and destroyed. The penalty for incompetence is death. Unfortunately, that was 2/3rds of the KNIL so Soerabaja will go down like a wet rag when he arrives.

He's landed on Timor, taken the eastern half. And some mopping up in the DEI in general. Makassar has managed to hold out. I raided Ambon but he's fixed his search arcs it seems, CA Chicago was torpedoed though not sunk. The only naval forces in the area are 3 DDs at Darwin, which i may well send in to hit his forces at Timor - they seem quite light.

Shokaku was sighted by a sub in the Java Sea headed NW.

SOPAC
He took Port Moresby with a division in what I thought was quite a daring move, with Kaga, Hosho and Ryujo escorting. CA Portland and some DDs raided from Townsville and found the CVTF! Hosho took 3 8 inch, Kaga took 3 8 inch, but Portland and 3 DDs were sunk by carrier air the next air phase. None for heavy damage, but some fires were caused, and a few days later SS Sturgeon put dud torpedoes into a smoking Kaga so I think there's yard time involved at least.
He's just landed on Lunga as well. Any further moves he will have to really fight for, as Efate is my first really defended position.

Noumea is still empty, I'm still pinning my hopes on being able to interdict Noumea from Efate/Espiritu Santo. an EAB is en route to Efate, whose development is very slow.

CENTPAC
The US defence improves daily. Savaii is an airfield 2 now, so Pago Pago/Savaii form a little nest of resistance. There are several squadrons there. Suva is another nest of resistance but a little less so. Christmas Island is an airfield 5 and is the biggest airfield in theatre aside from Pearl of course. Tahiti is being built up. Naval search aircraft have the area, IMHO, very well covered, especially the route to Australia.


The sub war has gone my way lately. I sent some subs to the Hokkaido area based on things I read about the Japanese economy in the war room, and it's been very productive, one TK and several AKs sunk by US submarines. One US sub was mined at Hakodate after beign a bit too aggressive. 6 S boats are en route to a forward sub base at Attu Island, should increase the mayhem. [:)] Off the southwest coast of Kyushu has been productive, too, and subs in the SOPAC area have scored a few hits between Rabaul and Truk.

Japanese subs seem to be very busy off the West Coast but it's not very target rich, I send one enormous convoy off every two weeks or so and thats about it. Plenty of ASW activity around Pearl/USA as well, a few hits have been reported by Allied aircraft.

[EUBanana]

Oh dear me.

The loss of some speed by Kaga thanks to the heroic and suicidal gesture of the US heavy cruiser has had an uplifting epilogue.

[:D][:D][:D]

[EUBanana]

Been quiet due to Christmas and little going.

And then... everything changed.

He's landed a division at CALCUTTA.

CBI
He's bogged down on the roads to Sian. Forested hexes are extremely defensible, the kill ratios are even in my favour. Heavily, in fact! (7000 to 1000 today).
In the centre around Wuchang my diversionary attack has gone miserably, as expected, and it's the shortest offensive in history, I'm pullin gout.


But the main action is India, of course!

A single division has been landed at Diamond Harbour, the defences will be overrun by the end of the day. There's about a divisions worth of Allied troops of very mixed quality at Calcutta. Forts are weak though, I was building stuff elsewhere. Oops. He's also landed and taken Akyab. I have two brigades at Chittagong though and Akyab was empty, so I'm not scared yet about that.

At sea he has two battleships, which absorbed the vast majority of Allied ordnance harmlessly (a dozen 250lb bomb hits from Blenheims) and a bit of ordnance not so harmlessly (a Vildebeest torpedo ). He has carriers but not many, Shokaku and Ryujo are confirmed, and he's launched a few 20-30 Val size strikes.

It's crunch time so the RN carriers have sortied and are seeking battle. Their defences are based around AA guns pretty much, and the CAP is set low accordingly... goodbye carriers! But as it doesn't look like the entire KB is there I think I can do some damage, and then the excellent RN surface forces might be more decisive.

DEI
He's now 2/3rds the way down Java, and continues to hoover up bases around the DEI. Only Lautem is left in Allied hands in Timor. B17s have been moved out of the DEI now and are at Darwin - a 25 unit P40E squadron is making its way to Darwin base skipping from Sydney.

SOPAC/AUS
Jap activity around the Solomons continues, should be a naval engagement tomorrow though as USN cruisers are in the area. The entire Solomon chain pretty much has seen tiny Jap landings.

The USN is sort of concentrating in the Fiji area, such as it is. Adventurism in India must be punished by Allied aggression elsewhere, I feel, so there might be some raids in force around here.

NORPAC

A Jap AMC raided Dutch Harbor and sunk a couple of AMcs. Then BB Colorado showed up, put a single 16" into the AMC and sent her packing, but not sunk. USN submarines have found Hokkaido highly productive but very dangerous waters, my six S-boat reinforcements are almost here and an AO and an AS are a few days from Attu.

[EUBanana]

Time to talk dispositions in India I think.

Calcutta has 419 AV currently. After some rejiggling there are 69 fighters, 50 level bombers, and about twenty or so torpedo bombers. All RAF/Commonwealth stuff aside from 25 P40Es. One asset I do have is a fair bit of artillery sitting in Calcutta, so it's not all bad.

There are also two Australian Bdes en route, which is another 280 AV. Forts at 2, quite a lot of engineers.

Dacca has another 50 odd a/c, and Chittagong a squadron of Hurricanes, and 60 AV of Black Force.

Chittagong is defended by 19th Indian Division, which is essentially a reservist unit, 200 AV but very green.

The rest of the Bengal area is pretty bare, a few Bn's here and there. Fortifications are very bare as well. Howrah and Calcutta are somewhat dug in, Asansol is the third base that I think is very important, no engineers there yet but I've a couple of construction battalions on their way now.

Elsewhere in India, Madras has almost 500 AV but mostly green troops, Hyderabad has 200 British units. There are two more Australian brigades of I Australian Corps landing at Karachi, they are probably going to Bengal asap. Ceylon is obviously very important and has a garrison of about 500 AV of high quality troops.

Burma is obviously in danger. Bummer, given my risky forward defence, I've been very much called on that I feel! There is 600 AV at Mandalay, but it is almost all Chinese. There are only about 200 AV of Commonwealth units in all Burma, but thats because of heavy fighting in the south mostly - they are used up. I'm going to order them out of Burma asafp, but they are not really going to be combat ready for some time anyway so really, whether they end up in Chungking or Madras isnt' such a huge deal.

In 17 days India is reinforced by another 2 divisions, one green Indian division that arrives at Madras and a British division at Aden. The British division at least is probably also going to end up in Bengal, so we're talking 1000 AV probably by the end of the month.

...I doubt this is enough.


At sea the Royal Navy has a CVTF currently packing 50 planes. In a couple of weeks there will also be CV Formidable, bringing another 40 aircraft. These guys could handle baby KB in my reckoning but not much more than that. There's obviously a lot of RN battleships and cruisers around, but whether they can be used depends on his forbearance.


The US can't help directly, I'm seriously strapped for LCUs already in the Pacific to even garrison adequately. Some USAAF units are already in India, but they aren't of any real quality, most of them are training in Madras.


The plan is obviously to rush to Calcutta and bottle him up for as long as possible, while trying to establish fallback lines at Asansol, Howrah and maybe Darjeeling.




The other area of consideration is SOPAC really. Question is, would an aggressive Allied strategy in SOPAC usefully draw off Japanese power from India? Or would it be better to draw Allied units back to India for a defensive strategy?

I'm inclined to the latter. One reason being two USN CVs are at Balboa having only just arrived on map, and Cape Town is only three weeks away for them.

[EUBanana]

March 18th

Something of a morale raiser in the Doolittle vein at Sakhalin...

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Mar 17, 42
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Shikuka at 126,43, Range 1,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
SC CHa-1, Shell hits 16, and is sunk

Allied Ships
BB Colorado
DD Jarvis



Reduced sighting due to 0% moonlight
Maximum visibility in Overcast Conditions and 0% moonlight: 2,000 yards
Range closes to 17,000 yards...
Range closes to 12,000 yards...
Range closes to 9,000 yards...
Range closes to 7,000 yards...
Range closes to 5,000 yards...
Range closes to 3,000 yards...
Range closes to 1,000 yards...
BB Colorado engages SC CHa-1 at 1,000 yards
SC CHa-1 sunk by DD Jarvis at 1,000 yards
Combat ends with last Japanese ship sunk...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Time Surface Combat, near Shikuka at 127,44, Range 20,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
PB Yoshida Maru, Shell hits 12, and is sunk
xAK Nitti Maru
xAK Turuga Maru, Shell hits 2
xAK Delagoa Maru
xAK Taian Maru
xAK Tokati Maru
xAK Calcutta Maru, Shell hits 6, and is sunk
xAK Koki Maru
xAK Saiho Maru, Shell hits 4, heavy fires
xAK Zinzan Maru, Shell hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
SC Ch 33, Shell hits 1, and is sunk

Allied Ships
BB Colorado
DD Jarvis

So far Colorado has lived to tell the tale. [;)]


Of course the main action is in Bengal. I have a plan for my fallback line now, .jpg attached gives dispositions of my forces in the area, and the line I intend to be the main line of resistance if/when Calcutta falls.

I will make a stab at bottling him up in Calcutta because in his current position he lacks a major port to land supply at Bengal and he has a totally inadequate airfield. If he takes Calcutta then it'll be me with the totally inadequate airfields. I assume he's brought enough to the party though that this will be unfeasible and so my engineers priorities are to fortify the fallback line marked. (This does mean that I've already written off the entirety of Bengal).

My airfarce has been brutalised badly over Calcutta, on day 1 it was 66 Allied planes for 7 Japanese (3 to 1 in his favour in fighters, the rest Blenheims), on day 2 it was 22 RAF/USAAF aircraft for 0, yes, 0, Japanese kills despite actually outnumbering the defending Oscars. Clearly his machines/men utterly outclass anything I have (those were actually pretty decent Hurri and P40 squadrons) as per the allied fighters suck thread. Unfortunately there is little to be done but withdraw, rebuild. One of the AVG squadrons (P400s in a few days, seem to be the best fighter available at present) is being pulled from China, thats how bad it is. I've resorted to night bombing with the Blenheims but thats obviously never going to be nothing more than a minor drip drip of casualties.

I've taken the decision to pull almost the entirety of I Australia Corps from Oz back to India. Currently about half is in India already. The exception is the MG Battalion defending Darwin as its too remote to easily be withdrawn. Shipping is en route from Cape Town to Perth in readiness, Queen Mary is involved, some units are already loading up at Perth. They will head for Cape Town rather than the direct route.

I garnered some intel by fleeing cargo ships blundering into his CVs (amazingly almost all lived to tell the tale) - he has six fleet CVs in the Bay of Bengal so the RN has scurried away to Cochin, near the southern tip of India, where it's safe. Some TKs are headed to Cochin from Abadan, this will replace Colombo as my main fleet harbour for now. There has also been a realignment of my submarine forces, the two subs available (Truant and a Dutch sub) have been ordered to patrol the area between Calcutta and Rangoon. A couple more Dutch subs have been ordered to Colombo from the Java area, and two US fleet subs at Balboa have been ordered to Cape Town so that I should have a submarine force of half a dozen or so in the area within a few weeks, hopefully making targets of his supply convoys.


Elsewhere I've been probing the periphery of his empire with Catalinas and AVPs at forward bases. I'm considering an early move to take Guadalcanal from him, it is currently very lightly defended according to my intel. (As is Tarawa, but Lunga is a juicier target). A couple of US regiments (2/3rds of Americal Division) are prepping and en route to Noumea in readiness for such a move. They are being taken from Pearl, which currently seems to be rather over defended given his apparent priorities, that will put Pearl's garrison down to about a division and a half.

I think the situation in India is about as bad as it can get for the Allies really, I kinda gambled he wouldn't move in that direction, and I gambled poorly. So this will now be a very interesting game I think! It's not all bad though, the rail network allows me to swiftly redeploy my units so the 'pants down' effect at the operational art level will be fairly minimal I think, though the defence will be deprived of many units due to strategic miscalculation. Also I am heartened by his comments in his emails, apparently my aggression around Port Blair with the RN delayed his offensive by a couple of weeks in his view - and I really need every day I can get.

[EUBanana]

First attack on Calcutta today, went poorly for him. He's not yet amassed his forces but his leading division just got a mauling at least.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ground combat at Calcutta (52,37)

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 11683 troops, 113 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 381

Defending force 19040 troops, 404 guns, 489 vehicles, Assault Value = 580

Japanese adjusted assault: 174

Allied adjusted defense: 1545

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 8 (fort level 2)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+), disruption(-)

Japanese ground losses:
2059 casualties reported
Squads: 6 destroyed, 94 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 126 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 5 disabled
Guns lost 1 (0 destroyed, 1 disabled)


Allied ground losses:
150 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 15 disabled
Non Combat: 4 destroyed, 11 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 2 (0 destroyed, 2 disabled)
Vehicles lost 6 (0 destroyed, 6 disabled)


Assaulting units:
4th Division

Defending units:
254th Armoured Brigade
3rd Indian Coastal Artillery Regiment
7th Aus Div Cav Regiment
B Sqn 3rd Hussars Regiment
25th Australian Brigade
Fort William
43rd Cavalry Regiment
63rd Indian Brigade
224 Group RAF
Eastern Command
2/9th Field Regiment
2/13th Field Regiment
21st Light AA Regiment
23rd Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
85th British AT Gun Regiment
2/11th Field Regiment
35th Light AA Regiment
RAF 224 Group Base Force

[EUBanana]

Things are starting to develop in Calcutta...

Hokkaido has suddenly become interesting, now my S-boats are in position there have been half a dozen ASW attacks by Jap PBs in the area. I guess the hornets nest has been stirred.

Colorado is almost back to friendly waters now, just as well, she's outta ammo.

[EUBanana]

A few days have passed. There has been heavy IJ use of airpower and the Allied fighter force is buckling though not yet broken. Kill ratios have been anywhere between 1:1 and about 2:1 in his favour. The Hurricane pool is almost depleted, however the P40 and Airacobra pools have 50 planes apiece so I'm not too worried - yet.

He attempted to outflank Calcutta with an armoured brigade. It was heavily bombed by the RAF and took fairly heavy damage, suffering about 20-30 disabled AFVs over a few days. In the process his airforce became vulnerable, forced to LRCAP over his tanks, and combinations of very high altitude Hurricane sweeps plus low altitude P40 escorts actually inflicted some damage on him. This has generally been cancelled out by crushingly vast air attacks on Dacca, which isn't actually a very large airfield, basing 4 squadrons.

Fighter squadrons are now about 3/4 of all air squadrons deployed to Bengal. Madras is being used to resupply squadrons, one AVG is currently there now. Losses are of the order of 20-25 Allied and 5-15 Japanese per day. High tempo of combat.

Recon suggests he's landed well over 30 ([X(]) land units at Diamond Harbour/Calcutta now. I hope most of those are support! Calcutta is besieged by two full divisions and a couple of regiments, looks like this is roughly half of his power so far, but is thus far holding very well, the Calcutta hex is apparently very defensible terrain. I appear to have a superiority in artillery so he can't just bash me into dust like he has done everywhere else.

He took an undefended base with a paradrop of some sort of recon battalion, cutting Dacca off from the rest of India's rail network and trapping a few squadrons there. I had noticed this weakness and had a battalion of the Assam rifles en route but I was literally one hex away when he dropped, knocking them out of strategic movement. The Indian division at Chittagong and the Assam Rifles are going to liberate it. Chittagong is highly important as it is a largish port but I dont have much choice I fear, if he keeps a hold on it that Indian division is also cut off.

I've amassed a cruiser SAG at Madras, based around CA Exeter, they may well raid Diamond Harbor soonish. Whether they roll or not depends on if I find KB - I've lost track of the Jap carriers. One problem is the massed battleships at Diamond Harbour that thus far in the war, despite their other flaws, have proven quite effective at seeing off cruisers. I'm dispatching various minor engineering detachments to bases on the east coast of India to get the best air search cover possible over the Bay of Bengal.

Immediate plans are just to hang on! My chosen defensive line is looking better by the day though, really the rail lines let you react very quickly if need be, it's been about a week since he landed and already things are coming together.


Elsewhere the war goes on. On Java he continues his advance to Soerabaja - of more important now is just what force may be freed up and sent to India - he has the Imperial Guard and one other division currently based on Java. In China he has a LOT of units on the road to Sian and finally cleared the Chinese off of it several weeks of them being a pain in his ass - the Chinese defeat meant 10,000 casualties, completely gutting four Chinese corps which I will now have to send in to surrender. However the time they bought has given me chance to rush reinforcements from Chungking to Sian and there are now 2500 AV there, with even more en route.

SOPAC and CENTPAC remain quiet. He's had some success with submarines - torpedoing a BB at Fiji and a CA at Efate. [8|] The USN will be quiet for a while though as its almost April - the Upgrade Month.

A brigade of Aussies is en route to Cape Town. Two more brigades of Aussies are waiting at Perth for transportation. CV Formidable is almost on the map, as is another Royal Navy cruiser SAG. In 7 days time now there is a major British wave of reinforcements which are badly needed - among other things a full strength British division, a badly understrength British division and some artillery. Very timely, but I am worried about the weak British reinforcement pool, I think I Australian Corps will remain the core defensive unit in preference as compared to the British they are actually fairly numerous in replacements! The Indian Army is still almost useless IMHO.

[EUBanana]

April 1st 1942

BURMA/INDIA

The Japs took Silchar with another paradrop, and one battalion it looks like have moved to Imphal, where another Assam Rifles battalion is waiting. No idea if it can hold yet. He's trying to flank Calcutta again, this time he has 6 units coming around to attack that Aus Bde. I've attempted to stem the tide and an Indian division is relocating to that base but I think it's going to be too late. No doubt the Aussies will retreat in the wrong direction as every time there's been a retreat the hex they move to has been the worst one imaginable so far in this game, but I have to try, another delay of a week or two would be invaluable.

Japanese air superiority is absolutely crushing. One day of Allied sweeps resulted in a kill ratio of 30 to 1 despite parity in numbers and them being among the best Allied fighter squadrons available - I guess the JFBs bitching about the Zero worked, eh. Almost all the RAF fighter pools are exhausted, the USAAF has about 80 fighters in the pools still but obviously a few more days like that and even the US is going to be out of aircraft. As far as bombers are concerned the picture is even worse, there are pretty much no bombers in any pools, anywhere, and India is probably down to about 30-40 bombers all told, almost all of which are earmarked for naval search.

Accordingly I've pretty much conceded air superiority over Bengal to him. Dacca has been emptied, he's bombed it into tar but most of the airframes left got out. Massive Japanese sweeps - 100 plus fighters in total, every one apparently invincible - fly unopposed over Allied bases.

Diamond Harbor is now an airfield 2, so the Royal Navy can't sail anywhere nearby on the assumption Betties are present. Afternoon bombing by Nells in Bengal tells me that the Netties are out there. The RN is staying put at Cochin.

I've moved all my transport aircraft to Darjeeling where they will assist in the extraction of units in Bengal as and when they become cut off. The first units of Burma Corps will be crossing the border in this coming week, assuming Imphal can be held/taken back, chances are i'll be airlifting them out.

The long awaited reinforcements have arrived and are en route to Karachi. Including the first Wellington bomber squadron which I plan to use for night bombing as they are essentially irreplaceable. Also a number of Allied subs are finally getting into position, over the course of the next week half a dozen subs minimum will be strewn out around Diamond Harbor, Rangoon, Port Blair and the Malayan coast.

CHINA

Without Brit/Indian supplies the place is back to crumpling again. However the Chinese are kinda dug in in the right spots now and are proving hard to dislodge even if ill supplied. Japanese airpower is again crushing, and operating in the northeast where I have no viable airfields due to supply issues so the AVG cannot intervene.


DEI/Northern Australia
He's taken all of it now pretty much bar Soerabaja and Koepang. He's sailing around with impunity around Timor, so I moved some bombers to Koepang just in case. He already has enough troops on Timor to capture the place though so chances are there won't be another landing.

B17s at Darwin have begun bombing enemy resources in range with some success. They are currently unopposed. I'm building up Darwin's airfield, also a supply convoy of AKLs is headed there from Perth, be interesting to see if they make it.


SOPAC
I've finally landed on Noumea in strength - a division. Baseforces and EABs are a week or two from both Noumea and Efate. Once Efate has been built up I'll move to Luganville, forming a nest of resistance around New Caledonia which is in B17 range of Guadalcanal/Tarawa. An AGP that strayed too near Tarawa was sunk by Netties, so any moves here will have to be in strength.

Half a dozen Allied subs are operating in the area, the ones in the Solomons have scored repeated success this week, sinking several cargo ships without loss.

CENTPAC/West Coast
Very quiet, my defences are deemed adequate. About half of the USN is upgrading, so there won't be much naval action out of me this month. Convoys are broadly speaking going from Pearl/San Fran -> Christmas Island -> Pago Pago -> Sydney, each of these bases is now quite built up with a minimum of 50 aircraft. ASW efforts seem to have kept IJN subs mostly at bay.

NORPAC
The waters around Hokkaido are very busy, S boats torpedoing the odd AK and being depth charged in turn. Not sure who is winning this battle, I've lost no subs yet but half a dozen are badly damaged in this little campaign.

[EUBanana]

April 6th 1942

BURMA/INDIA
18th Indian Division has retaken Comilla having marched up from Chittagong. East of Comilla it looks like his paras are headed NE. My main goal is to extricate them really though, I think they are going to have fight their way out with all the railroads cut.
Dacca is undergoing an air evacuation by the transports at Darjeeling, a Jap para unit approaches, not sure if they'll be able to take it, the baseforce there includes some RAF battalion guys.

Shades of WW1 around Calcutta - "The Race for Jessore" - he's apparently given up trying to take Calcutta itself by attacking head on and instead focused on Jessore. The Allied defence was beefed up by two Indian brigades so it's now an understrength divisional battle but he outnumbers me heavily and Jessore is a plains hex, not very fortified. I've ordered my units back to Calcutta, whether they'll make it or not is anyone's guess. The Jessore adventure has held him up for two weeks though.

My own Fabian tactics in the air are sorta bearing fruit. Losses are manageable, and about comparable to his if you include ops losses - air armadas from tiny airfields have their cost. The AVG was committed on April 4th sweeping Jessore and the end result was 1:1 kills, so not bad. I've got quite an intensive training programme going on at Madras with a good dozen fighter squadrons of all nationalities hard training, if I can keep losses manageable I should be able to ensure air skill 65+ pilots at the front at least. Hurricane Is are being used as trainers so I've freed up a few frames for the front lines as a result, but not many, air replacements for British units are still dire.

Looks like he'll take Jessore any day now which will mean anything east/northeast of Calcutta is in a very dangerous position. Burma Corps units should be arriving any day now at the dot hex SW of Imphal, I think they may well have to dig a primitive airstrip and be airlifted out by my Darjeeling transports, but Darjeeling itself will be under threat very soon after Jessore goes.

CHINA
Some tussling with the AVG units here in the centre. To my surprise his units that cleared the road to Sian have left the road and pursued my Chinese units that retreated in the direction of Ichang. Makes me think his schwerpunkt has changed from Sian to the centre. Lots of units are moving in around Chengchow or whatever it's called. I have quite a stack at Ichang though, so I'm not bothered yet.


DEI
He's one hex from Soerabaja. AV is under 100, they won't last long. The KNIL airforce has been used up skip bombing the Imperial Guard, got virtually no Dutch air units left now but they have done quite a few casualties, a thousand or so I would imagine. Cebu is the lone holdout in the Philippines but will fall soon.
My bombers at Koepang have not flown for whatever reason despite nearby targets.

SOPAC
Efate now houses B17s. Airacobras are en route from Sydney to Noumea. Things are building up quite nicely. I plan on moving up further to Luganville and beyond to try and put Guadalcanal under the threat Allied air power. Need a lot more engineers to do this, there are some more coming but the Pacific is big and San Francisco is a long way away. I would estimate he's going to feel some slight pressure here from a few B17s quite soon, greater pressure, if I get him under medium bomber range, is a good one or two months out yet minimum.

NORPAC/CENTPAC
Quiet lately. Lots of subs are upgrading. All the CVs bar Enterprise are upgrading. Enterprise has 50 days to go before she's fixed.

[EUBanana]

April 12th

It's like a frickin' epic, this game. The Indian campaign has really spiced things up - this is WITP at its very best IMHO. I'm enjoying myself immensely. [:)]

Air losses over the past week have been manageable. On average we are getting 10-15 losses each across the whole map, mostly in Bengal or China. Losses are about 1:1 - he wins in the air usually but suffers much more ops losses and his bombers suffer constant damage from Allied flak. The British have a lot of AA units in Bengal, every base he's targeting has at least 1, often as many as 3 AA units.

INDIA
His armour has begun to advance map north from Calcutta. Exposed on the roads it's been heavily bombed by what bombers the Allies have - ~30 Blenheims, ~10 Hudsons, ~10 Lysanders. Results are quite good, with the AVG escorting at 6000' his air defences - looks like one squadron apiece of Oscars and Zeroes - are apparently inadequate. There is minor attrition to both sides but acceptable.

Main news of the week was heavy fighting at Jessore, one hex east of Calcutta. 2 Australian brigades, one of which only just made it time, out on the flank of the Allied position met approximately 5 regiments of Japanese, mostly armoured but some infantry regiments as well. After a few days heroic resistance they were forced out of Jessore but retreated in good order (no 'disorg' results for the AIF!). There was a couple more days of heavy resistance on the roads north of Jessore but away from the base hex the diggers were in trouble. They made it back to Howrah in one piece but one brigade is almost entirely disabled and the other badly beat up, they need a few weeks R&R so they are now in the process of getting out of the battlezone. Their heroic and stalwart defence is buying time for other British and Indian units to get into position though, and losses were actually less than I anticipated - the value of elite troops I think.

His armour continued to advance down the road to Asansol attempting to sweep around the Allied flank. He's apparently not eager to cross the river and hit Howrah directly - there's an Indian division plus artillery and the works dug in at Howrah just in case he does. The battalion of Assam Rifles at Asansol won't stop anything other than paras but he seems to think it's something bigger than he expects and his extreme forward armour has stopped, waiting for his infantry I assume - up till now whenever his armour advances it immediately gets spanked badly, I think I've got into his head here as he should really just keep going.

Those three British brigades I keep talking about are now on the Indian rail network and rushing forward, not a moment too soon. This game really is as close to the wire as it gets I think. Very tense. [:D]

In Calcutta itself two full Japanese divisions, a regiment and a lot of support units are being tied down by one full strength and one half strength Indian division. Fort level was 4 but he dropped it to 3 today. My plan here is to feed in just enough force to stop him taking the place, but the lack of forces available means I'm about a brigade short of what I'd like! Still, I don't think it'll fall just yet.

In North East India Dacca falls to a shock attack by his paras, the RAF battalion guys were not enough to hold an unfortified hex. Elements of 18th Indian have been airlifted to Darjeeling, Eenough to repel a para assault at least. Another 30 transport aircraft are on the Indian rail net for Darjeeling but until they arrive I don't have enough units for divisional size airlifts. The remainder of 18th Indian is making for the nearest rail terminal to attempt to fight their way out if at all possible. Three Chinese divisions of Burma Corps meanwhile inch ever nearer to Imphal on the border.

My main line of resistance is still being fortified. Behind that, in the Indian interior, I'm beginning to work on some airfields that if time permits I plan to build all the way up to 5, to house Wimpeys and B17s for a night bombing campaign. Over the last week several American bomber units have been released from the West Coast and are headed for Cape Town, if I can cling on for a couple of months (!) then Uncle Sam will be able to help. A couple more Aussie brigades should be showing up in the next month, now well en route from Aus to India.


DEI/AUS
Soerabaja is besieged. He also daringly began landings on the lil island chain about eight hexes from Darwin, east of Timor. Ballsy. Hudsons and B17s sortied, the Hudsons skip bombing. Their pilots are up to low level naval bombing skill around 55 now, as this was one of my naval attack units, and it sure works, one AP was blown away by a hail of bombs.
A damaged CA Chicago is en route from Darwin to Perth - no bombs. Convoys are in the danger zone south of Timor en route to Darwin - no bombs. Good stuff.

SOPAC/CENTPAC
Still building up Efate/Noumea. Av support is up to about 80 in each now. Fighter aircraft from the Aus mainland are a couple of days out, some medium bombers are at Efate now, B17s are reconning Guadalcanal daily. Engineers from all over the Pacific are slowly being reallocated to the South Pacific. Going to take a lot more time to build this place up - wouldn't be surprised if any Guadalcanal adventures happen on a more or less historical timescale.

[EUBanana]

Here's the situation in India, the critical area.

[EUBanana]

April 22nd 1942

The war grinds on.

INDIA/BURMA

Been some ups and downs in the air war here. Some torpedo bombers and 18 USMC Dauntlesses were moved up from Madras to Cuttack and successfully torpedoed four Jap AKs at Diamond Harbor protected by a very mediocre CAP - I think he was surprised as I've not made any offensive moves for some time. The next day I moved the irreplaceable torpedo bombers back to Madras and tried with just the Dauntlesses - they got separated from their P40 escort and attacked 'bare' into the Japanese buzzsaw, 12 out of 18 shot down. The penalty for incompetence in war is death. The SBDs were, however, far more expendable than the torp bombers.

In fact thats kinda the story of the air war lately. When my bombers are escorted results are good, which is why I keep ordering it. However sometimes bombers attack without escort for whatever reason (escorts are always ordered by me, just doesn't always play out that way) and because Allied bomber production is so minimal the odd error can be catastrophic. For example 12 out of 12 Lysanders were shot down when they attacked without escort into a handful of Zeroes - and thats serious as there are only about 50 Lysanders in all of India.

Aside from the Diamond Harbor episode I've not targeted any Japanese held bases at all with air units since last post. I've not ordered any CAP whatsoever over Allied bases either, my tactic is to keep moving around and keep him guessing. In general these tactics have worked pretty well I think. When the IJ comes knocking they do it with 60 plus aircraft sweeps - there is no way that the Allied fighter force can challenge that as bitter experience shows. Fighter to fighter kill ratios, when combat happens, is of the order of 1 to 1 now.

On the ground things have been moving. He crossed the river northeast of Howrah in some force and while I thought the risk of being cut off was fairly minimal I felt it even a small risk was intolerable given the fairly dire strategic situation and so ordered an evac from Calcutta, which was achieved with good order and no real casualties. He's beginning to come up against my main line of defence and so far at least in insufficient force to breach it.

Further north east 18th Indian Division is trying to hack its way through a bunch of Japanese para units. He's landed a much bigger force at Chittagong so time is running out. He's made a lot of apparent progress here by paradropping fragments just about everywhere but there isn't much there that can stop 18th Indian. Imphal meanwhile has been the focus of a major airlift op, so far about 80 AV of Chinese units have been successfully pulled to Howrah so I'd say it's been fairly successful, though this only represents about a fifth of Burma Corps, and some units (7th Armoured) aren't air liftable.

Speaking of paras he's been landing them pretty much everywhere, in fragments, which I think is horribly gamey. Capturing vast swathes of India with a tiny handful of men is, frankly, bullshit, and i've seen Yokusuka SNLF in about five different places now. (My first opponent actually agreed to houserules about this old and cheap tactic but due to him ducking out practically immediately I ended up playing this other guy without any house rules at all). I've pondered having a word with him about it but aside from Bengal I'm not too exposed so I've let it slide so far. I've got a lot of rear area Indian units not good enough for the front and a lot of armoured units still using technicals in the rear areas, so his para assaults in the Indian interior have either failed or will be easily contained by armour. I've split up the reserve Indian divisions at Madras and Bombay and tried to garrison all the major rail hubs - there are a few exposed areas vulnerable to paras but not many.

My feelings for the future - my fighter strength in India is going to be getting a lot better as time goes on. I'm pondering more offensive tactics with my fighters and pondering beginning to CAP my airfields as a result. There are a lot of American P40 squadrons due to arrive fairly soon and the American fighter pools are quite substantial. however there are almost no bombers and very few coming for months and months, until 10th USAAF really begins to arrive in late 42. So I am pensive about the air war, especially given how every failure by a numpty squadron leader leads to a dozen irreplaceable bombers being shot down. On the ground I'm fairly confident that my defensive line will hold in the short term, though I'm kinda worried about the more northern areas, around Patna and up to Cawnpore, which are very thin on the ground.

DEI
Soerabaja fell this week so all of Java now is in his hands. This frees up two Japanese divisions, which has implications elsewhere. He could invade and capture Darwin with those. I think it's more likely that he attacks India with them though. Ceylon or Madras would be my targets probably, so I've kept a strong garrison of about 600 AV on Ceylon. Madras is more vulnerable but I'm sending my bashed up front line troops there for R&R so as time goes on chances are there'll be a lot of AIF and British units there resting.

Koepang is still Allied, I'm pondering sending Sparrow Force from Darwin up there, which would be sufficient to hold off his SNLF marines and possibly force him to commit a major LCU. He has plenty of LCUs in Java though so might not be worth it, also transport assets are not available as I emptied Darwin a while ago. However I've successfully resupplied Darwin by sea recently so for now at least theres no reason not to send a convoy up there I suppose.

SOPAC
He invaded Rennell Island, CL Detroit happens to be nearby escorting a convoy at Efate, I detached it and sent it in. Not arrived yet, but we'll see what happens. Betties are about but not at Tarawa/Lunga as their airfields are only 1, so maybe Detroit will get away with it.

Efate is an airfield 3, almost 4. Noumea is developing nicely. Plenty of av support in the area - a couple of fighter squadrons, three bomber squadrons, some Catalinas. No navy really though as its all in upgrade. Just about every EAB in the Pacific is in the area building, building, building. Soon Efate will be a 4 and then I'm moving EABs to Luganville, which is in B25 range of Guadalcanal. Then things will get more interesting.


STRATEGIC STUFF

An American SWPAC Command division arrived at San Francisco today but I'm sending it to Cape Town. 1st USMC Division arrives within a month, I think that'll be adequate for SOPAC adventures. Most of the USN is going to be ready to roll in a couple of weeks. CV Enterprise is down to just over 30 days ETA at Sydney. Plenty of USN submarines are finally getting into their patrol areas now fitted with radar, theres been a sub war lull of late but hopefully that is coming to an end.