With the shoot-down of this Buffalo I'm thinking that most of what Jim has left are parked at Georgetown so I'm thinking a week or less of
sweeping on that airbase ought to just about do it for Allied fighters. Then I can move some planes to other parts of the world. Maybe
China.
Okay, so, with a little help from my friends I've gotten the 53rd Division back into 1 piece and here's the line-up at Manila. I've got almost
everybody set to do a bombard tomorrow and this time the troops are involved as well. I'm hoping that the losses will be worth it.
I got two air base hits on the combat result but the mouseover is only now, after the combat has taken place, showing 1 air base hit so
the Allies are repairing the air base almost as fast as I can hit it. And the Allied casualties are easily absorbed. Maybe I need to hit the
port after I get "finished" with his air base, if ever.
And then I did my daily buck up the morale of the good guys on the ground but not much damage to show for it. I'll keep doing it of
course just to put in appearances and who knows, maybe some good IS coming of it. We'd have to ask Jim to know for sure I guess.
The combat result said 21 runway hits but the mouseover, now, after, that there are none. So those 21 runway hits were repaired almost
immediately. Pretty slick. Or there's some FOW going on and I really didn't get that many runway hits. Something like that.
And then a bunch of stuff happened in China and then this attack happened. He got away without a response from my CAP. I guess I'd
best look into why I have no CAP.
I moved a group of Oscars south to Kloung ( or however you spell it ) and put them on LRCAP missions with a little CAP as well. There's
only 8 of them or so, just about enough for escorts now-a-days, in this area of the world, for Japs.
This one attack signals Jim's intent to go down hard. He's attacking me, me, for crying out loud. I guess he can do that from time to
time. Not much damage was done, this time, so I'm thinking I ought to move some ground troops down there, some engineers, and
some supplies and maybe some air cover from a carrier or something. Maybe some LRCAP from some of those long-range Zero's.
And then there was a Jap ground bombardment not involving any of the troops just arty tubes. Tomorrow I've ordered the bombardment
with the men included. It should be a little bit different in the losses category.
If I can manage to overrun the city while he has planes parked there I can destroy some planes. That might explain the urgency in my
ordering another attack like this one tomorrow. Forts are down to 1 and I've got people willing to do the job as long as I give them the
supply they need. I'll look into the supply situation.
This attack tells me that I'm up against the engineers and people who work in the rear and that a deliberate attack might just be what's
in order here. So I schedule one for tomorrow. We'll see how the engineers stand up to real experienced combat troops.
Here's the Manila situation: Jim is beating me at my own game and he's got the preponderance of guns and can do that. I need to find
a bunch of guns really quick and move them to Manila. Plus there's some people from Clark Field that will arrive in a day or two and I
can always just cordon off the guys at Bataan and concentrate on Manila.
I'm going to put together a TF specific to repairing / tending subs and move them down to Shortlands so as to be in a better position to
service those subs I'm going to send to the east coast of OZ.