Damn the torpedoes, Full speed ahead! - dennishe vs njp72 - early 1944

[dennishe]

The situation early 1944:

Burmese front: totally stuck
Chinese front: stuck
Soviet front: crushed
Pacific front: a lot of action

The Japanese Army still holds the bases of Rabaul, Buna, Lunga and Roi-Ewinetok behind enemy lines

[dennishe]

Ponape is mine and Truk is down. Not too bad. Roi-Namur has still not been caught. Otherwise I controll the entire Pacific on the right of the yellow line in the Figure above.

[dennishe]

The Soviets seem to be out of the war. As in they are not going to make a difference anymore....[:(][:(][:(][:(][:(][:(][:(][:(]

The main problems were:
1) lack of scouts and information of the whereabouts of the Japanese garrisons
2) only little reinforcements arrived
3) reformed units take forever to fill out
4) The Japanese outsmarted the Soviets 9 out of 10 times...

[dennishe]

KB turned up exactly on the wrong moment. Not sure where it would go I decided to move the lancing crafts ahead to Ambon anyway as a retreat to Darwin may have been equally dangerous. It is going to be bloody from here on...

[dennishe]

I'm not sure where my surface TF was this turn. In the end it was nicely at Ambon where it supposed to be. Since I placed all cap above the surface TF (which was the only TF that was supposed to stay at Ambon), everything got screwed up. Nevertheless most of my units landed safely at Ambon and more are to come during the next couple of days. If I'm right, the Imperial Japanese Navy has only a few BBs and CAs operational and the carrier based aircraft are piloted by crappy pilots. If I'm wrong this may turn into a disaster...

[dennishe]

One thing is sure. This is going to be costly for both sides. The Japanese carrier based aircraft blasted a couple more transports out of the water, but in turn Allied fighters shot down almost 90 Japanese fighters. They cannot sustain many of these days. There are several Japanese task forces spotted. It seems they may try to reinforce Ambon. It for sure is going to be interesting. The Japanese have about 180 AV there behind lvl 6 fortresses and face about 300 Allied AV that is supported by daily bombardments by 100+ B24 bombers. I managed to get plenty of supplies on land. I expect the Japanese battleships to return shortly. To counter this I have 5 slightly damaged CA's and about 10 PT's waiting for him. And two 1 BB TFs as backup. Too bad I have only little battle ready carriers otherwise this would be the opportune moment to attack on the other side of the map...

[dennishe]

Got a fish in the Kirishima. She appears to be the only battle ready Japanese warship. The others haven't been spotted in a long time.

[dennishe]

But they got a fish in the CV16

[dennishe]

Ambon got snatched by the US I Corps on February 6th 1944. [:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[dennishe]

And immediately MacArthur dropped paratroopers at Ternate in a bold move, since the base was not occupied with a large Japanese garrison. On the Soviet front things are starting to go even worse. I will update soon...

[dennishe]

The Soviets are about to be kicked out of the war. They are going to hold out as long as possible so all those divisions cannot be send somewhere else...

[dennishe]

Moving on, but will have to keep Rabaul, Buna and Dobo in mind. The Japanese have still large bases there.

[dennishe]

The Japanese lines have fallen apart and the US Army and Australian troops have quickly moved forwards. Japanese troops are building a new line of defense in the Philippines. In the West I haven't spotted any troop movement yet. While I'm building up the newly acquired bases and moving in fresh troops from the rear, I'm considering where to strike next...

[dennishe]

The British have started another offensive to capture Ceylon

[dennishe]

Some Japanese carriers made it to the party. Is his carrier force this weak? Or was KB split?

[dennishe]

The Japanese warships turned up too late. The 14th Army has a strong foodhold at Ceylon...

[dennishe]

Got another one [:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

Hopefully...

[dennishe]

I was running a little behind with updates.

[dennishe]

Happy times for the Allied Aces

[dennishe]

Oooops. Didn't noticed the huge Japanese airbase at Jolo