My apologies. Last turn was actually New Year's Eve. The dawn of 1943 brings with a very interesting scenario. John moved his carriers south, seemingly chasing after Allied riffraff as per his email and his recon'ing of various dot hexes: "Wanted some New Years fireworks but alas…" Perhaps he'll still get his fireworks, as his decision to move south puts his carriers only 11 hexes from my own. Moreover, he has no detection on my carriers, except for a 1/1 detection which could very well be sigint radio activity. Who knows? He might bring his carriers further south to chase this. Or he might move north towards Efate where he has spotted an auxiliary minesweeper.
One thing to note, if I can manage a carrier battle, I still have 36 DBs and ~130 fighters at Luganville that can try to pickoff fleeing ships. Next turn could be very interesting...or nothing at all if John simply moves north. Very flummoxed as to what I should do, with various options. I will not input my orders yet - what would you do in this scenario? How would you route my forces?
I should note, John's forces clearly seem to be composed of 1 surface force and 2 carrier forces, and this was consistent with scouting from yesterday as well. In total, he appears to have ~500 a/c to my ~700 a/c (659 rising to ~665 tomorrow due to maintenance; not including my CVE's further behind with 35 additional fighters). But his surface force looks very strong, probably some fast battleships and/or battlecruisers. I can stack a decent amount of fighters at Noumea. Currently, Noumea has 115 fighters, 96 LBs, and 12 TBs (poorly trained NZ unit). Luganville has 36 DBs and ~130 fighters. Efate has 38 fighters.
Elsewhere, we further degrade fleeing troops south of Chittagong...
Ground combat at 56,42 (near Chittagong)
Attacking force 19016 troops, 303 guns, 165 vehicles, Assault Value = 1004
Defending force 3498 troops, 63 guns, 3 vehicles, Assault Value = 149
Japanese ground losses:
1163 casualties reported
Squads: 50 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 29 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 8 (3 destroyed, 5 disabled)
Units retreated 3
Allied ground losses:
457 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 47 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 7 disabled
Defeated Japanese Units Retreating!
Defending units:
82nd Nav Gd /3
67th Div /23
1st Air Defense AA Regiment
" - BBfanboy
