Meanwhile, in another corner of the multiverse (No Dmitry Z zone)

[John B.]

BBfanboy, they sure do get in the way!!

Well, the subs may not be willing to get off the wagon and help push, but the ground pounders are selling themselves dearly. This result was not nearly as lopsided as the last one assault, but, it looks like it took out another 700+ squads and devices. This is all good for when the final tally comes. The bad news is that he took the fort level down to 2 this time and got a 2-1. So it's probably a matter of days before Suva goes under. If Dmitry rests for a few days he'll go shock again and I don't see my boys holding off the next one.

I'm flying out as much as I can but only PBYs can make the troop pick up. On the plus side, I've gotten 80 or so squads out so that's 20 VP he won't get.

[John B.]

Well, the subs actually took four shots. They missed, of course, but at least they shot. [:)]

In the much better news department, you may recall at the end of the big disastrous naval battle off of Suva the BB Kirishima was badly damaged and on fire. It appears to have sunk in Nadi harbor. If true that evens up the losses a lot! [&o]

The Burma offensive is hitting high gear. I'll be in Lashio with the Chinese next turn, the Americans are one day away from cutting the rail to Mitykynia (sp?) and the Brits will be there in about three days but the airfield has been pretty much shut down.

[Lovejoy]

Oompf... that's a lot of destroyed Japanese squads. It looks like your Suva-grad has trashed a good number of Japanese units! Plus there's the added benefit of tying all those units down.

I know that the sunk ships list is FOW, but if half that list is really sunk, you've really pasted the Japanese surface fleet by mid-1942 standards

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Lovejoy

Oompf... that's a lot of destroyed Japanese squads. It looks like your Suva-grad has trashed a good number of Japanese units! Plus there's the added benefit of tying all those units down.

I know that the sunk ships list is FOW, but if half that list is really sunk, you've really pasted the Japanese surface fleet by mid-1942 standards

This game is not going very well for Japan, in my opinion.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: John B.
Well, the subs actually took four shots. They missed, of course, but at least they shot. [:)]

You have only 2 subs in the deep hex between Nadi and Suva? That's not a lot.
Plus you have non in the other deep hex next to Suva. I know that Bombardments with waypoints can go wrong, but here the distanced are short so maybe he can do it through Kandavu and around the subbed hex

[John B.]

Get Assista, you have a good point about the subs but when I have taken shots the TF reports have included CAs and CLs so I think he's going through that hex. I only have two subs in that hex because I remember BBFanboy telling me in my last game that if you have too many subs on patrol in a hex then they start to interfere with each other, sort of like having too many planes bombing or sweeping at the same altitude. The program gets iffy.

BBFanboy, if I've taken your name in vain I most humbly apologize. [:'(]

He has lost a number of BBs and I've lost a whole lot of CAs. I think my total loss for CAs is 14 or something. Many of mine are already being rebuilt and show up again in late 44 early 45.

[Lovejoy]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: Lovejoy

Oompf... that's a lot of destroyed Japanese squads. It looks like your Suva-grad has trashed a good number of Japanese units! Plus there's the added benefit of tying all those units down.

I know that the sunk ships list is FOW, but if half that list is really sunk, you've really pasted the Japanese surface fleet by mid-1942 standards

This game is not going very well for Japan, in my opinion.

I don't think that its going well for Japan either. Suva is valuable, but I'm not sure if its worth the amount of resources that Dmitry has invested in taking it.

[John B.]

The latest assault on Suva. Losses were lighter on both sides but still ran 3-1 or more in my favor and I suspect that Dmitry's troops were a bit tired since the previous assault was just 4 days before. He also only managed a 1-1 on me but he did drop the fort level down to 1. It won't be too long but each turn they hold out I'm getting out about 30 squads so that will help. None of the F4Fs have repaired so I'll lose about 100 of them. Wah Wah.

In Burma, I took Lasho and cut the rail lone to Mitkynia so it's essentially cut off and, if I can keep it that way, it should stay cut off.

[John B.]

Oh My goodness, MY SUBS ACTUALLY HIT SOMETHING. [X(] Ha Ha, just kidding. They shot twice more and missed twice more. Actually, to be technically accurate my fleet subs did get a hit but it was a dud. It's the smaller subs that now are on about 30 misses in a row. [8|]

Anyway, as you can see I think that the situation in Burma looks good for taking the jungle area in the north east. It's isolated and OOS. I have Lashio and have blocked the rail line. The downside is that I was a little too good in shutting down the lashio airfield because Dmitry was able to start bombing it before I could get it repaired. But, he does not have many forces at Mitikyina (sp?) I have two divisions and a brigade there and he appears to have 2-3 battalion/regiments. I don't think that he has a lot of forces in Burma so I may be able to pick up some ground here. And, hopefully start getting real supplies flowing into China since the red exclamation points are popping up all over the Middle Kingdom.

[John B.]

Drape the heavens in black, Suva has fallen. Quite a butchers bill. [:(] Too many support units on my part but otherwise, I figure I lost at a 2-1 margin to Dimitry on the land. Not in combat squads (note the light losses, many of them flew out) but in artillery and support squads. Was it worth it? Who knows, it's a very high price but it held up Dmitry for about 7 months and cost him a whole lot of planes. Not as many ships (thanks subs) where I also lost heavily but 2 BBs went down thanks to the fight there.

The next question is what does he do with the 9 divisions he has in Suva. Does he head on down to New Zealand? He can isolate it but it gets father and farther away and it will be more sieges for him. Time will tell.

Or, does he head back to Burma?

[BBfanboy]

His invasion bonus has expired and he will have to prep those nine divisions for their next targets. Should give you a breather and you might get a chance to hit the convoys withdrawing the divisions a little further away from Suva. You should have South Dakota and Washington soon, and better planes on your carriers.

[John B.]

The best news out of the sea battles around Suva was that he did not sink any of the flattops despite three separate combats against them (with the now departed Kirishima which, perhaps, sank itself in shame for hitting the Lex 3-4 times with no significant damage). That spate of luck may be why my subs no longer hit anything (missed again this turn [:)]) But, some part of the KB just appeared off of Canton Island. I have level six forts and a canadian brigade some maybe it can hold out for a little while.

[John B.]

Argghhhh, I clearly deeply offended some submarine god. My non-fleet subs are worthless since they're now on 31 misses in a row. My fleet subs were at 7 or so duds in a row and they got three more duds this turn. Including one against the Zuikaku!!!! I suspect that the recent updates to the game have been made by closet JFBs! [:)]

[John B.]

I think that there is a bug in the program. I had a non-fleet sub shoot, hit, and the torpedo exploded! And, on the same turn a fleet sub shot with a torpedo that exploded. [X(] Should I post this in the tech report section? [:)]

Anyway, beyond caterwauling about subs, the offensive in Burma continues apace. I finally took mytykina (sp?) with a shock attack. Dmitry has dropped a regiment into Bahmo on the road just south where it is fighting a Chinese division that arrived there on the same turn. My hope is that my British and Indian division are able to push that regiment out of the way and get to Lashio but it's been a tough slog thus far. Dmitry is getting reinforcements into Burma. He managed to push my armored regiment out of Prome when a fresh division showed up on the day that defense was about to crack. Lots of that in this game with people showing up at the same time.

Chinas supply levels keep dropping. He has devoted significant resources to taking Urmchi. I cut them out of supply but that just seems to have delayed things. The one upside is that I'm been able to pull off enough CAP traps in China that he is not really using his air force there.

[John B.]

A lot is going on. First, in Burma, I continue to make slow progress. I did catch his airforce overstacked and got a nice series of ground strikes in that basically eliminated the Sallys from the game. He was using them to bomb my airfields and to resupply the units around Mitykania. Now, it's a question of who will get reinforcements to Lashio first. He has some divisions coming in and has a better road so Dmitry may beat me to the punch.

[John B.]

Second, for reasons I don't quite understand, Dmitry sent the Kaga and the Akagi on a raid up the Indian West Coast. He sank a few MLs and shot down a few planes but that was about it. He may have been trying to distract me from Burma, but I have lots of Indian divisions that are not on the burma front plus and Australian division so I'm not too worried. When the carriers show up, I'll just run away. if he wants to invade, it's going to be a very tough slog for him.

[John B.]

but the current big battle news is Canton Island. I have a Canadian Brigade, a marine defense battalion, a marine raider battalion and a battalion of artillery and AA. But, I also have level 6 forts. And, that magic weapon, the PT boats. They did not sink much (a DD, a PB, and maybe 1-2 AKs), but, what they did do was make the amphbious TFs stop landing which meant that there were fewer troops ashore for the shock attacks that are triggered by the atoll. God Bless the PT boats, even if most of them are gone! [&o] Because, the fist day he lost most of an armored regiment. The next three days have gone as follows:

[John B.]

This is a heavy price to be paying for an Island that I don't think is worth very much.

[John B.]

The next day was not much better.

[John B.]

And the most recent day may have been worse. But no one can deny that Dmitry is ruthless and implacable! His odds are getting better as he pours troops ashore and continues with the bombardments. And, it looks like he has sent an entire infantry corps to take the island. But, it will be awhile if he does and I'm still at level 6 forts with about 30K supply. So, it may be an infantry corps that has seen better days when all is said and done.

I don't have nearly the support troops that I had on Suva so if it does fall there should not be as many prisoners. And, his units must be in terrible shape right now. The Canadians have gone from 25 experience to 47 in just three days which should give you and idea of just how intense the fighting is.

Oh, and, I did have a spate of sub torpedoes actually explode! Including one against a very large AO!