2nd January 1942
Blitzing through the turns at the moment, surely this can only be a good thing for me? The fast pace means there's always that chance that GBL forgets to do something, somewhere.
PACIFIC
An ASW TF departed San Diego and almost immediately they ran across a Japanese submarine. The I-1 launched a spread of torpedoes at USS Walke. The torpedoes missed, but the destroyer's counterattack was not much more effective. With I-1 identified there are now three confirmed subs along the West Coast (including Canada) and probably another suspected sub lurking near San Diego. USN forces amount to four destroyers available for ASW ops and half a dozen Canadian corvettes and minesweepers.
Another pair of submarines has been spotted closer to Hawaii, but outside the effective range of ASW aircraft. Luckily neither submarine managed to damage anything. Luckily for me, GBL's sub captains are terrible at target selection, with a pair of slow moving and damaged battleships available the first sub instead shot at an escorting destroyer. The other sub was spotted by the escort and forced to dive before it could launch torpedoes.
Christmas Island and Palmyra are building up nicely, CI is at fort level 3 with Palmyra getting close to completing lvl 3. By the time GBL is in a position to attempt any invasion of the Line Islands there should be enough defence between forts and infantry to make it a bloody attempt. Of course, he may not attack here in which case the islands are a useful stepping stone to the South Pacific air route.
NEW GUINEA AND THE SOLOMONS
Japanese forces have landed at Aitape and Gasmata. They face stiff Allied defences on these two bases, in the form of wooden cutouts of soldiers.
EAST INDIES
I got a warm fuzzy feeling from watching the replay after events in the East Indies. It won't last long but I'll take what I can get...
With Tarakan under Japanese control GBL has disbanded a number of ships into the port here. This made them sitting ducks for the last Philippines based B-17s. Although there were only three bombers available for missions today the crews excelled themselves. Three aircraft scored four hits on ships tied up in Tarakan harbour, one freighter and three minelayers each took a 500lb bomb with the minelayers showing as heavily damaged. Rounding out the attacks on GBL's minelayers was the redoubtable K-XII which attacked CM Ukishima which has been claimed as sunk.
A Japanese task force is reported to be moving towards Palembang, there's at least one freighter and a cruiser so it looks like an invasion TF. Hopefully they'll run headlong into some mines and get some nasty explosives dropped on them [:D] If it
is an invasion TF then it may be worth investing my Australian based B-17 force into flattening the refinery there.
Four Japanese battleships managed to wander past the sub picket in the Makassar straits and lob some HE rounds onto the defences at Balikpapan [:@][:@] What do I pay those sub captains for?....
CHINA
In a rather cheerful reversal of fortune, a Chinese force managed to stand up to a Japanese attack [8D]
Ground combat at 86,47
Japanese Shock attack
Attacking force 17599 troops, 167 guns, 105 vehicles, Assault Value = 636
Defending force 14074 troops, 113 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 393
Japanese adjusted assault: 470
Allied adjusted defense: 318
Japanese assault odds: 1 to 1
Combat modifiers
Defender: experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+), fatigue(-)
Japanese ground losses:
1050 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 86 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 83 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled
Allied ground losses:
228 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 33 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 28 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Assaulting units:
13th Division
13th Tank Regiment
1st Ind.Mixed Brigade
8th Ind. Engineer Regiment
52nd Ind.Mtn.Gun Battalion
Defending units:
48th Chinese Corps
29th Chinese Corps
85th Chinese Corps
31st Group Army
INDIA
Not much development on the combat front, but things are progressing fairly well in terms of the defences. New CH radars at Calcutta provide radar coverage as far south as the Indian border. The next installations are planned at Chittagong and Madras.
Aircraft are going to be the big issue for the Allied defence, apart from the P-38 there's nothing to counter the arrival of Tojo in June. Depending on how many of those GBL builds things could get rough until mid-43. In order to spread the casualties around there are USAAF and Canadian squadrons making their way to South Africa to travel across to India. The Canadians are unlikely to face much need for fighters at home so moving a couple of squadrons across to India seems the best use of what would otherwise be an unused resource.
