Constant rain forces an operational pause. The 4th RTA Division has now assumed garrison duties at Myitkyina, Lashio and Katha, which frees up 55th Division. Cribtop HQ orders a study of the possibility of attacking Akyab with Imperial Guards, 33rd and 55th Divisions.
Thailand units on garrison duty in Burma? I take it you guys have no house rule preventing that - do you require PP expenditure at least?
Upper portion used with permission of www.subart.net, copyright John Meeks
Actually this is an exception to our HR that requires payment of PPs to cross borders. RTA units are allowed in Burma only because part of the bribe/threat from Japan was that Thailand could occupy parts of Burma. I'm limiting myself voluntarily to a few RTA units in Burma as I think one could go overboard with this exception.
DDs escorting TKs near Soerabaja DC K XVII without effect. The sub then duds on a DD in the same TF. Damn good luck a Dutch sub duds!
Unfortunately, Flying Fish duds on one of the AMCs serving as a picket and "Aggie Oiler" for the CVE Raiders. Thus, CF now knows an AMC is out here. He doesn't know about the CVEs, but this is not great news for Operation Kraken.
4th Fleet, SE Fleet, 14th Army
No change.
16th Army
Selaroe occupied; Loewoek falls.
25th Army
SA at 44,77 achieves 177:1 odds and forces the surrender of the last 3 Dutch LCUs outside of the doomed garrison of Padang.
15th Army
2nd Raiding Regiment will arrive at Rangoon tomorrow and, together with 1st Raiding Regiment, will act as a local reserve.
China
We'll post a screenshot, but the Red Dragon force will begin to march on Liuchow tomorrow. Kanshien has been completely abandoned by the enemy and will fall as well to 13th Army.
Near Changsha, CF is trying to extricate a force he originally sent to try to rescue the encircled army nearby. We are bombing this force and plan to attack it soon as it's in clear terrain.
Attachments
South Chin.. 7, 1942.jpg (242.4 KiB) Viewed 271 times
Recon has revealed an opportunity. 29 ships are in port at Calcutta. The airfields are stacked there with 69 bombers and 11 auxiliary, but NO fighters. Ships ID'd in port include numerous LSTs (which makes Cribtop Intel wonder about CF's intentions for an amphib). The LSTs may well be misidentified, but the goose egg for fighters is not. Cribtop HQ orders all IJNAF and IJAAF bombers to move to bases in range of Calcutta for a massive port attack as soon as predicted weather is better than "Thunderstorms." Banzai!
An unfortunate reversal in China, but not a biggie.
Today was VERY quiet, so a short form report.
5th Fleet
No further sub contacts. After tomorrow's move we will be sitting astride the route from SF to Pearl.
15th Army
Waiting on the weather to hit Calcutta.
China
Odd situation in hex 83, 51. I thought I owned this hex, but apparently the first units from each side entered it on the same day, which (after I checked previous saves), meant that neither side owned any hexsides. This allowed several corps we thought were bottled up to cross overland into the hex yesterday. Today the enemy DAs and gets a 2:1, forcing 3 LCUs (110th Division, a regiment and an armored car unit) to retreat into Wuchang. Casualties are an annoying 1643(8) vs 4593(329). Ouch. The poor 110th is becoming the "bloody bucket" division, as it was previously chopped up entering Tienshui and triggering an unintended shock attack. This situation sucks but isn't catastrophic. We'll continue bombing the enemy to pieces in this clear hex, and numerous fresh LCUs were already en route for the planned attack here discussed in the recent screenie post.
On the better news front, we are beginning to unload another 150K supply at Canton and have a regular CS convoy running supplies to Hankow, so the disabled squads should recover. The dead squads will be replaced with cannon fodder, err, brave young samurai.
Escorts chase O16 away from a small TK convoy near Kuching. Escorts also ineffectually DC the bothersome Gato near Toyohara. As long as the enemy stays to deep water our DCs explode harmlessly above him. When did that US Congressman brag to the papers and give away the secret that IJN DCs were set to detonate too shallowly?
A wolfpack of long range subs is now blanketing the approaches to Karachi, looking for tankers inbound from the Mideast.
4th Fleet
No change.
SE Fleet
Munda Point makes level four airfield. A kamikaze xAK delivers supplies to bomb-ravaged Horn Island.
14th Army
No change.
16th Army
Gebe invaded and taken by SA. Damar and Togian-eilanden invaded as well. Our DBCL forces are just about done with this AO. Next stop is cleaning up 25th Army AO (the islands off Borneo and Sumatra).
25th Army
DA Padang takes the base and ends resistance on Sumatra with 5:1 odds. 4 enemy LCUs surrender. On to Luzon for 18th Division.
At Singapore, we are slowly upgrading DDs. 4 more enter the yards today.
15th Army
Bad weather scraps our sweeps as Mandalay airfield is closed by storms. However, the sweepers were unnecessary because recon was accurate - Calcutta has no fighters on CAP. The first raid, by 2 Netty groups, hits 14 xAKs and 1 PG hard. The second raid, by an IJAAF bomber wing, hits 15 xAKs, 1 xAP and 1 PG. Many ships are in very bad shape, and most would sink in the open water. Since they are in port and benefit from Allied damage control, many will probably survive but will need quite a while in the yards. As a bonus, the few bombs that missed enemy ships score about 12 fuel and 4 shipyard hits, so the repair facilities at Calcutta won't be at full strength. All in all, Cribtop HQ is very satisfied with this surprise attack. CF will now be forced to pull fighters back to the rear, dividing his strength. Banzai!
China
We are just a few days' march from Liuchow and Kweilin. CF has finished his withdrawal from Kanshien to Kukong. Kanshien will fall next turn. Cribtop Intel suspects the enemy will either try to cut off our salient by advancing toward Wuchow or will use the rail line to reinforce Kweilin. To forestall the latter possibility, we will again call upon the poor paratroops to land at Hengyang (sp?). They will die, but should prevent reinforcement of Kweilin until it's too late.
In the center, the enemy is following up his victory and moving to re-combine the former Wuchang stack (16 LCUs). We are moving additional forces into the hex and will have 1650 AS in rough terrain. That shoud be enough.
5th Fleet
In the night, the CVE Raiders bump into a convoy that somehow sailed right through our air search yesterday. [8|] Both forces evade combat and we end up 2 hexes away from the enemy. Two air raids later, we have almost PQ-17'd the enemy, with 5 USN xAKs in sinking condition. It would have been worse but both raids wasted ordnance on the 2 escorting DDs. Still, a nice haul! The only other regret is that this is clearly a supply convoy as no troop losses occur. We will try to finish this force tomorrow and then will consider options. Obviously surprise is now lost, but Cribtop Intel believes the enemy CVs are at Melbourne or in New Zealand. They could be at Pearl, of course, so we won't take too many chances. Probable course of action is to retire toward Alaska and hope to catch something up there before re-fueling at sea south of Adak and returning to Japan. This is two notches in the belt for the CVE Raiders (Umnak Island being the first), and Cribtop HQ is pleased with the results so far.
PS - Many sinking sounds are heard throughout the turn. Total losses for the two raids consist of 1 Zero, 1 Val and 1 Sally as Ops losses.
Party on, Grafin Zeppelin! We'll join you soon in sweet inebriation. [:D]
PS - the mysterious 36th page is now viewable by all. I guess it hid in Shangri La for a while.
I find the first posting of the next page not to cause the creation of a new link on the thread page .. and then after the second post it is there .. so .. its just click and then "next" on the thread until a second or third post happends ..its bizzare for sure ..but so is all software [;)]
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so"
We finish the enemy convoy while Red Dragon approaches a key phase line.
PS - Congrats to Michael on his Giants winning, which I frankly expected. At least the Cowboys made something of a game of it in the second half. I will have to console myself with the fact the Longhorns won the Holiday Bowl.
Subs
Our nets are spread now. Mostly waiting for fish. Over the next 48-72 hours another wolfpack of long range I-boats will blanket the channel between SE Oz and Tasmania. Cribtop Intel has high hopes for this region given the large number of "heavy volume" SigInt reports out of Melbourne and Adelaide in recent weeks. We'd love nothing more than for the USN CVs to sail into a trap here.
4th Fleet
We have allocated more xAKs to pulling resources from Nauru. We have the shipping and fuel, might as well use it while we have sea superiority.
SE Fleet
Engineers load for various destinations in our second defensive line. Port Moresby makes level 5 forts. Our kamikaze xAK successfully dumps supplies at Horn Island and heads for home. So far, these "kamikaze" missions have been amazingly safe.
14th Army
We are shuffling garrisons and will soon free up another regiment for use to finish Luzon and then man the perimeter.
16th Army
Quiet settles over the desert as both sides have committed fighters to stop the incessant bombing. We plan to resume air attacks here once our Sallys have upgraded.
Togian-eilanden and Damar fall to DBCL troops.
25th Army
Shipping is heading out to collect the disparate brigades of 18th Division, which now has a date with the enemy in Luzon. This is a calculated risk as we are further weakening the perimeter, but Cribtop HQ believes a quick knockout on Luzon is possible, and that will free up a lot more troops for defense.
Tomorrow we will invade Pamakasan with a regiment prepped for the base.
15th Army
Mandalay makes level 3 airfield. Forces are moving into position for a possible counterattack on Akyab.
China
Kanshien is occupied by portaging rowboats. [:D] We will use 13th Army to continue to harass the 22 LCUs now gathered in and near Kukong.
The southern pincer of Red Dragon will move troops into both the Liuchow and Kanshien hexes tomorrow. We expect the former will fall quickly, the latter will take a little longer but is under constant air attack by a full bomber wing. We have finally lugged ourselves out of the forest and onto the good roads. The offensive should pick up speed now.
In the center, the KMT's efforts to beat our reinforcements into the hex east (map) of Changsha are thwarted by our bombers. We will arrive tomorrow in combat mode and at best they will tie us. We plan to sneak an armored car unit in behind CF which will then fully isolate 16 LCUs. They may have the combat power to punch their way out, but we doubt it, and further reinforcements are on the way.
In a few days we will have enough PPs to buy out another Manchukuo division as well.
5th Fleet
We guessed that CF would divide the remnants of his convoy and scatter to try to avoid air attack. Thus our AMCs were ordered to swoop around trying for an intercept (and hoping we don't run into the 2 DDs formerly on escort duty). The plan works, but then fails. We get two "encounter" messages but no battles. Odd. Even if the enemy was too fast or the weather too bad we expected to see a combat screen.
In the end, this is just minutiae, because we guess right with the carriers and the CVE Raider TF ends up only a few hexes away from the enemy, who split into 3 TFs. AM and PM raids launch despite iffy weather and we sink what appears to be the remaining 3 xAKs. The DDs duck under a storm cloud but this is fine as it ensures enough planes fly against the merchies to nail them all. Many sinking sounds are heard during all phases of the turn, hopefully at least a few of which are the torched ships in Calcutta harbor.
Time for Operation Kraken to begin to wind down. We will retire due north and then back to Japan.
Sigh, I weep for the cesspool of suck the 'Boys have become in the last decade. I always said I pull for the Cowboys, Longhorns and Spurs because rooting for the underdog is for chumps. These teams have brought me 10 championships in my viewing lifetime, but things have been lean of late.
Two notes on the last turn:
1) Upon review, the rowboat corps capture of Kanshien somehow brought fort level 4.70 with it. I thought forts died when a base is captured, but maybe those steathly rowboat portagers took the place before the KMT could push the demolition plunger.
2) I have a mess with KB. I set the Zero groups (and only the Zero groups) to re-size once we got the July increases. For some reason, the Val and Kate groups also re-sized, but unevenly. The Vals went up to 27, the Kates stayed at 18. How can I reduce the size of the Val groups? I set them to re-size and they did, but they all still have more planes and pilots than I want.
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