The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[Canoerebel]

4/29/43

Battle of Sumatra: No invasions. Six sisters bombard Langsa. Enemy bombers focus on the east side Allied troops and on 1st Marines on the west side.

On the west side, 2nd IJA Tank Div. and an infantry division deliberate attack vs. 1st Marine Div. gaining 1:2 odds. Casualties are light, but favor the Marines.

Patrols report the 500-plane KB is posted at Georgetown. Recon has consistently shown 500 enemy aircraft at Port Blair for several weeks. I don't have eyes on other fields like the Nicobars, Sinabang, Georgetown, etc., but I bet they're loaded too.

I noticed a big jump in the points for enemy ships sunk. The Op report shows why: Fuso confirmed sunk in battle against Indiana on 2/18/43. So Indiana didn't die for naught. Over the past month, lots of reports of confirmed DD sinkings have come in - the Naval Battles of Sumatra cost John a lot of destroyers.

Operation Circus: SigInt reports an IJA brigade at Denpasar. This continues the long string of reinforcements in the Java Sea region. No recent reports of enemy activity in New Britain, Solomons, New Guinea. In a couple of days, I'm going to fly off a carrier F4F squadron and try to get a head start on the upgrade to Hellcats.

SoPac: John hasn't molested the Allied troops that recently took Canton Island. I keep expecting that to change.

[Canoerebel]

Battle of Sumatra, 4/29/43

[desicat]

Any plans on a force injection for Sabang shortly after Op Circus goes ashore to take advantage of John reacting and probably shuffling forces and focus?

[Canoerebel]

I have enough troops in Sumatra for the foreseeable future. I can hold with supply. I can turn Sumatra into an offensive threat once I can base ships and fighters at Sabang. Then, when the place is secure, I can insert new troops to begin the campaign for the island.

[Lecivius]

I can't believe John has not pulled the trigger yet. It's almost like he backed off [&:] Could he be waiting for units to prep?

[Canoerebel]

Possibly. I've been getting prep information (mainly Sabang, but Langsa too) for months now. But perhaps he found his forces not well configured and had to order additional preps that is taking time.

Perhaps the most likely explanation is that John is absolutely certain that I'm going to come to Sabang's relief, putting my carriers and combat ships in harm's way. He knows he has a massive reception committee waiting with interlocking airfields and the KB. He'd love nothing more than to have me come this way.

[BBfanboy]

I'm also thinking that he pulled a lot of his shipping to start reinforcing other parts of the perimeter when he got some kind of inkling you might be ready to move. He may not have had enough ships left to carry everything he needed for a direct invasion.

[Canoerebel]

That's a possibility.

[Canoerebel]

4/30/43 and 5/1/43

Battle of Sumatra: Two more days without invasion. Heavy bombrdments on the 1st at Langsa and Sabang. Heavy bombings target the troops on the east side both days. KB remains parked at Georgetown and Judys even fly a mission vs. a small unit. (John has his reasons for using this branch of the KB as he's doing, but it's a great help to me to know where it is.) No attacks on the east side nor the west side.

Operation Circus: The Allies have made the decision and leaned hard. Now that the Death Star is committed on the Circus side there's no hope to relieve Sumatra short term. It's now up to Circus to either draw John away from Sumatra or, if that's not successful, make him pay for his focus there. Wasp's fighter squadron upgraded from F4F to Hellcats. I have enough Hellcats to swap out to more carrier fighter squadrons tomorrow. That'll make four in all, leaving two with Wildcats. I've pre-loaded xAKs and LSTs with about 300k supply to guard against the last minute temptation to overload on troops and scimp on supply.

Loading of some slow TF (especially LSTs) that will move out first may commence as early as tomorrow or the next day.

Peanut 3, Cotton Candy 1, and Cracker Jack 1 and 2 will definitely be available for the invasions. There's a good chance Peanut 1 will be too. (Peanut 2 and Peanut 4 are unlikely except in follow up action if things go well.) There's a 50/50 chance Cracker Jack 3 will be available if I have a few days extra before everything's ready to go. But speed is everything now.

A big unrestricted Indian division just arrived at Aden. I've selected an "optimistic" prep target, though whether circumstances permit...well, who knows. I hereby dub thee Candy Corn 1.

[Canoerebel]

I should have mentioned that the opening curtaion on Circus really happened on the 1st, though John may not have noticed it.

Three Aussie infantry units and a base force are marching towards Tennant Creek. The computer routed them through the desert rather than by the road. I didn't know why until this turn: an enemy picket unit of unknown strength is astride the road, two hexes or so south of Tennant Creek. Two of my units are out in the desert adjacent. So John can see them if he's looking.

On the north side of Oz, an Aussie armored unit is marching through the desert to Exmouth. It should arrive in about five days.

I don't expect to grab Exmouth (an enemy brigade holds it); I do kind of expect to get Tennant Creek since it's garrison should be out of supply and badly disrupted by bombings. But the main purpose of these advances is to "feed John's notion" that the Allies are interested in the Java/Timor/West Oz sector. This, added to his focus on Sumatra, should give him plenty chew over.

[ny59giants]

When does "Bazooka Joe" start. I remember that gum and short comic. [;)]

[JohnDillworth]

When does "Bazooka Joe" start. I remember that gum and short comic.

Well operation "circus midget" got cancelled due to political incorrectness and operation "bearded lady" got postponed because we could not figure out what bathroom she should use

[Canoerebel]

Operation Bearded Lady is the upcoming invasion of Spitzbergen. I believe this will catch John by surprise. He'll be surprised I'm invading Spitzbergen. And he'll be surprised to see one of his favorite pinups in my AAR. John has a thing for the Bearded Lady from the Alfred Hitchcock movie Saboteur. (P.S. For operation Bearded Lady, I paid two PP to place John Dilworth in command).

[Canoerebel]

This is the icon for Operation Exquisite, the invasion of my daydreams.

[JohnDillworth]

Touche!!

[JohnDillworth]

you and me both brother

[desicat]

Wait, is this Mandrakes AAR?

[Canoerebel]

Does Cap do this kind of thing? I'm not able to read his AAR nor anything written by Geoff Lambert. They are way over my head.

[BillBrown]

You do not want to have a Gorn over your head. Think of the enormous Gorn Pies he puts out. [:D]

[Canoerebel]

5/2/43 and 5/3/43

Battle of Sumatra: The Japanese break through on the west side, pushing back 1st Marine Division after two days of bombardments by the Six Sisters and massed bombings. The shock attack achieved 2:1 odds and destroyed 48 squads. I did not expect the marines to fail to hold in the jungle-rough terrain against just two enemy divisions. This is a significant blow to the Allied position. This could well be the straw that breaks the camel's back, as John knows now that bombardments of ground troops in non-base hexes is effective.

The Allies had already forsaken the Sumatran lodgement to focus on Operation Circus, as regular readers know. The question now is whether Sumatra holds John's attention another week or ten days. I think it will. I think he'll be jazzed by his progress and continue to press forward on a ground campaign. That should take at least several weeks and probably more like a month to two months. Time is what I need and the ground campaign, while ultimeately successful for him, is still his slowest route to victory. I really don't think he'll invade in the short term, but even if he did, that probably would bleed sufficient time for my purposes.

I think the KB is still posted at or near Georgetown, judging by large Judy/Zero groups hitting the ground troops on the east side of Sumatra.

John sees my weakness in Sumatra. Too, he's seen subs coming into Sabang for weeks and probably rightly guesses they are brining supply. (Supply won't be a problem for at least three more weeks though.) I think he's almost positive that I'm going to try to relieve Sumatra. He probably can't imagine me not doing so with so many divisions posted there.

Operation Circus: Three carrier fighter squadrons upgraded to Hellcats. That brings the total to four (but one is Wasp's squadron with 22 fighters). The total Hellcat compliment will be 130. I won't swap out any more as I need to build the Hellcat pools to permit replacements to the newly equipped squadrons when battle attrition begins. All other carriers are fully equipped with F4Fs.

SigInt on the 4th that 116th IJA Div. is inbound to Darwin. This by no means falls into JIT III reinforcement category. John has seen the Aussie army moving from Alice Springs for Tennant Creek and has deduced (as I want him to) that the Allies are commencing an Australian campaign. So from his viewpoint and mine, this reinforcement makes perfect sense. Over on the west side, an Aussie armored unit is adjacent to Exmouth and will arrive there in just a few days. I don't know if John has spotted it yet, but I suspect he has. I suspect he's taking very careful stock of everything in this theater and drawing certain conclusions. The commitment of 116th Div. to this theater suggests he's drawing the conclusions I'd like him to draw.

Lots of enemy subs nosing around Oz ports. They still haven't found the right places to look. In particular John isn't thinking "Tasmania." The same thing happened in the summer of '42 when the Allies were massively building up for the (later aborted) invasion of New Guinea. Nearly all Allied activity was handled from the Tasman ports without interference from enemy subs.

It seemed like Circus was never going to get under way. It was like a trapeze artist's backswing. As he swings back he slows and then stops for just that brief instant. The trapeze artist's swing has reached its high point now. It's stopped. And momentarily he will swing forward, slowly at first but gathering momentum until he reaches maximum velocity, releases, and summersaults into the midst of enemy territory.