Jan (J) vs Mark VII (A) - Bottlenecks+ Game on 11.27

[JanSako]

December 19, 1941
The heavies missed each other in the night. Three IJN TF's containing a total of 8 BB's were looking for a fight, but 0% moonlight is not great for night encounters. The Allied commander made the correct tactical decision & ordered both BB PoW and CA Houston TF's to retreat full steam South. One of them ended up at Denpassar, while the other likely just off Bima. I do not yet have the means to reach them there... I wonder if they will try to refuel on Indian Ocean side of Java or continue South to AU.
Macassar strait is now empty except the subs, though we are not ready to invade Balikpapan just yet.

A few xAKL's were again encountered by various patrolling units.
The allied subs scored a couple of hits today which is nothing unusual, but for the result of one of them. xAK Mito Maru, a Lima class cargo ship took one of the lighter 45 cm Dutch torps and I wonder if the crew sold (most of) the explosives from the warhead. This is the damage on that ship today:

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A Zero sweep over Batavia bagged a quartet of Dutch fighters, hopefully that means the newly posted Nells in Palembang will have a free reign over most of Java. This turn they savaged a small supply convoy in Tjilatjap.
Elsewhere our bombing damaged a few planes in Singapore and sunk the last few ships in Manila harbor.

In China, there are a couple of Cavalry Corps settled in Paotow and the hex to the E next door. Both of them are Mountain terrain so it will take a bit of digging to get them out. Paotow is safe enough and couple of tank regiments arrived to the next door hex to see if we can encourage the Chinese to move. Now we have a few broken tanks & the cavalrymen are laughing from up there between the rocks... looks like the Chinese will get to stay for a bit, at least until the following INF arrives. In the meantime, we shall call up a squadron of Sallies doing advanced training (read - raising XP) across the border in Jehol to see if they are interested in some live-fire exercise.

The 192nd Tank Battalion from Bayombong on Luzon has been routed by a shock attack by to IJA Tank regiments, with most of the Allied equipment left behind on the field. Still, this victory leaves a bitter taste as only one should have been allowed to attack according to the HR. Per my opponent request, the entire force in that hex will pause for a day.

It appears that the Allies are preparing to evacuate Manila & hole up in Clark Field & Bataan, which TBH is not my preferred option.

On Sumatra, a shock attack across the river by an INF regiment supported by a tank one was enough to convince the Dutch garrison recently retreated from Palembang to surrender. The road is now clear, should I drive towards Oosthaven or Benkolen?

[JanSako]

December 20, 1941

After a couple of missed Allied torp attack in the night, a rare success for IJN sub arm - SS I-16 was able to put one into a DMS off Pearl Harbor!

Old IJN cruisers around CA Yakumo visited Wenchow again, with hits landed across all parts of the city and its defenders. It will be a while until our ground troops get there, so I would prefer not to find a lvl 5 fort.
A Thai bombardment TF based on PG Sri Ayuthia (which also has a couple of double 8in turrets) softened up Singkawang for a SNLF company landing later on in the day.

At Manado/Menado (?) a Dutch sub, reportedly SS KVIII, was sighted by a couple of Ansyu class PB's and after a direct DC hit was forced to surface in the shallow water. Then she had the audacity to hit one of the pursuers with her 88mm deck gun... The PB's only carry a couple of 120mm guns each, but in this case it was enough and this sub will trouble us no more!

During the pre-invasion bombardment CL Tatsuta accidentally wiped out all of the defenders on Makin (AUS elite supertrained special forces masquerading as a weather station). The invasion forces just walked in & took possession of the atoll.

After yesterday's (lack of) surface action in the Macassar strait, the IJN heavies were ordered to pursue the spotted enemy cruisers into and past Denpasar. The fast BB's Kongo & Haruna, escorted by 4 cruisers & 7 DD's entered the base and found it to be a staging area of sorts. Several small task forces were engaged and destroyed first, which gave time to the Allied commander to position his ships in an ideal 'Crossing the T' position. The mixed British/Dutch force was too weak however, only having a couple of D class CL's (Durban & Dragon) and a trio of Dutch destroyers.

Crossing the T really did not work out for them. First Durban took a couple of 36 cm shells through her belt armour; this slowed her down enough that two Long Lance torpedoes fired from one of the IJN CA's were able to finish her off. She went down, only taking 6 shells. After this the Allied commander did the one sensible thing left for him & turned tail. This 'probably' saved CL Dragon. Although she also took a good number of hits, including 36cm and 8in from the CA's, most of these were into the superstructure (hard to hole a ship's side when she is steaming full speed away), causing heavy fires. Her fate is unknown, but Intel reported a CL sunk later, for whatever reason ID'd as Boise. I suspect it was really Dragon, as Boise would not have sunk from a single aerial torpedo she took about a week ago off Balikpapan. The fact that we caught up to DD Van Nes (originally from the same TF as CL Dragon) sailing solo & sunk it as well suggests that she was meant to escort the burning light cruiser.
As an icing on the cake, next we found a tanker, still loaded with fuel and escorted by one of the old WWI PG's. These boats are quite valuable for the Allies early on as they have good endurance and four DC racks.

The second heavy TF was set to patrol the area around Denpasar and also managed to catch a small Dutch SCTF. In what was admittedly an overkill, BB's Nagato, Mutsu, Ise & Hyuga + escorts piled on to CL Java and a couple of DD's. The gunnery officers later reported that at least several heavy shells appeared to hit the DD's but failed to cause any damage. (In game a hit was reported but 0 secondary effects, the ship did not even showed the smoke effect). The BB's were ordered to shoot HE shells next time. Perhaps due to this mishap, and CL Jintsu colliding with DD Hatsushimo, one of the pesky little DD's was able to escape.

In the air, the Allies again proved that quantity can be a substitute for quality when a 25 strong CAP consisting of P-26, P-35 and both B & E Warhawks roughly handled a flight of 9 Zeros sweeping over Bataan. We traded about 1:1 but there was enough CAP left over that the subsequent flights of Army & Navy bombers took some ugly losses.

A number of port strikes hit Singapore today, weather just as crap as before. Several ships in the harbour were still hit, including another Dutch sub - SS-KXII reported sunk (Banzai!) and DD Vendetta.

A Zero sweep over Batavia found a few more Dutch fighters up in the air, now there are a few less. The Dutch airforce is fairly active overall, if not really effective so far. I imagine the Allied command is treating them as the expendable units they are, as the Dutch in this mod get no airframe reinforcements beyond May-June '42 except a few Australian Catalinas & some transports later on.

In one of the last strikes of the day, H6K4 Mavis flying boats found and attacked DD Pope, an old USN DD in Ternate. Not sure if she was a part of fast transport TF picking up the Dutch unit in Ternate, or a raiding force for Manado & supply lines from Babeldaob. Measures were taken either way, we shall see.

[RangerJoe]

While you can bombard Wenchow, that can cause industrial damage. If you aerial bomb the port, that will slow the fort building plus possibly destroy fuel and supplies. Aerial bombing the airfield will not destroy fuel.

[JanSako]

While you can bombard Wenchow, that can cause industrial damage. If you aerial bomb the port, that will slow the fort building plus possibly destroy fuel and supplies. Aerial bombing the airfield will not destroy fuel.

I know, just don't have any air units available and I do have the old cruisers and not so many targets for them. Commuting between Shanghai & Wenchow, they stay in shallow water & I have an ASW TF + air search covering the area so they are 'reasonably' safe. Fixing LI is only 250 supply points in this mod & I have plenty of HI so I may not even repair what is there.

[JanSako]

December 21, 1941
The roaming IJN surface TF's caught a few more ships last night, including a small Dutch tanker with an AM escort and PG Asheville. An old USN DD John D Ford was also spotted and engaged, sailing solo South of the Malay barrier. She planted a 4in shell into BB Hyuga's face, then disappeared into the night.
A small IJN DD TF is playing whack-a-mole with Allied PT boats out of Bataan, but this time they got two of them before the rest withdrew.

The Allies scrambled what fighters they were able to fix up, over both Singapore and Manila today; no doubt after noticing that a part of the sweeping units have been sent to cover more forward bases.

We did well over Singapore and the bombers were able to perform their port attacks (almost) without further interference, but the USAAF units over Manila were able to use superior tactics (layered CAP) against a smaller sweeping force and shoot down several bombers from the subsequent waves. The tally was 6 Zeros lost against ~15 Allied fighters of various types.

B-17's put up an appearance today as well, two raids attacked Palembang oil. The first flight of 8 coming in high was handled by CAP who reported two shot down. The second flight of 5 cam in lower while the CAP was out of position and was able to drop their bombs unopposed. Several oil wells were damaged

Weak Dutch bomber raids against Miri were handled by Nate fighters just fine.

An invasion force landed today in Samarinda (because of the CD guns in Balikpapan), as well as on Tarawa. A good number of bases across all active theatres were taken, Including Malacca (pushing the cut-off British forces North), Singkawang - by an elite SNLF Company and Lucena on Luzon.
Looks like the Philippine native administration did not realize the Japanese troops are not there for sightseeing and brazenly took back control of Atimonan where we passed through a few days ago. A mobile Recon regiment was sent back to show them the error of their ways - Base flipped back to UK (!) control right after IJA moved out of the hex. We are only 90 miles from Manila, approaching from 3 directions. It appears that the Allied command has just about abandoned the city and they are digging in around Clark Field.
IJA 4th Division + supports tried to dislodge the forces holding Lingayen, but the attack got botched somehow. It looks like the order was given to attack a position that turned out to be not at all vital to the whole defense line. (Not sure why, perhaps weather or simply dice roll, a 425 v 275 raw AV turned out to be 60 to 33. Just missed 2:1 odds but still a good amount of casualties were inflicted on the enemy).

In China, a methodical (but quite slow) advance is happening. Today we have taken Suizhou (a dot base just E of SinYang), taking a step in Nanyang direction. We are not going to rush North too fast until the Pengpu to Sinyang road is clear and more forces arrive. On the Hangchow-Nanchang railroad, IJA forces are moving W towards Yuchan/Chushou, the first really good defensive spot (Wood/Rough terrain & forts 4). The 34th Division was sent out from Nanchang to see if we can help clear the way Eastbound, and a Chinese Corps was today pushed out of Dongxiang.

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[JanSako]

December 22, 1941
SS KX was engaged twice by ASW units in Manado base, reported sunk after two direct hits and a few 'minor hits'. She may still be afloat though, there is a sub reported just SW of the base. If this is KX, she has a bit of sailing to do to reach a semi-safe port. Hopefully this will make the Allies think twice about sending subs after my invasion forces into base hexes. Or hopefully it won't .

A functioning Mk14 torp found AMS RM Ramb II in the night, south of Yokohama. This is an Italian (!) commerce raider, completely inadequately armed for such role, but large enough so it can survive a single torpedo hit. TBH she was there as a torpedo magnet so I guess it worked, but I was hoping for a dud or two first!

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Those annoying B-17 D's again showed up above Palembang, completely avoided my CAP & blasted some more oil wells. Arrrghhh...

The air over both Singapore and Manila is still being contested, mostly because IJN does not have enough Zero units to properly clean out those pesky allied air groups & my opponent keeps feeding reinforcement airframes into the fight. When Zeros do show up in numbers, they do well, as expected; but those splintered fragments that come up before or after the main raid often get mobbed & take more losses than I would want. Leftover CAP then snacks on the Sallies .
The Air defense in both places is well stocked & it looks like most of the heavy AA is now in place so flak losses are starting to climb as well. It does look like Allied command is abandoning Manila so we shall see what we will do with Clark Field afterwards.

Today we managed to take Lingayen, wrecking a couple of Philippine divisions, one of the US Tank battalions (what was left of it) and the single mobile coastal gun unit on Luzon. Our armoured units also reached Cabantuan, which being Open terrain can be overrun with multiple tank regiments.

On Mindanao, the freshly recombined 56th Division took Cagayan, pushing a couple of RCT's + some smaller units into Malaybalay.

In Malaya, we are moving towards the center; the distance between Northern and Southern spearheads is now less than 100 miles. We can see a number of Allied units trapped behind (read: in between), including at least three brigades. I might leave them trapped someplace (Kuantan?), just to prevent the full divisions from getting to be 'recreated' inside Singapore.

Samarinda was taken today, as expected and the SNLF units are already on the road to Balikpapan, the real target of this force.

In China a single enemy unit was showing in Ichang yesterday, so we attacked. Turns out two more Chinese Corps arrived overnight, luckily they only have a regiment's worth of AV each so our losses were not too bad & we traded close to 1:1 in casualties. We won't be able to push them out if more arrive though, at least not without reinforcements.
We are also ready to take on the isolated Cavalry Corps in the mountains just E of Paotow, having assembled a couple of Tank Regiments, a Cavalry Brigade and an IMB. The first combat result was promising but it will take a while to dig them out yet.

[LargeSlowTarget]

I have found in the meantime that the armament of Ramb II is wrong, it should have 4x 120mm/45 guns. And it got a name change to Calitea II in early 1941 in order to mask its identity before being allowed to enter Japanese waters. Will be updated in the next version of the mod.

Edit: Mmh, there is conflicting info out there, a website of the Italian Ministry of Defence says she had 2x 120mm/40 guns - I guess they would know best?

[Cavalry Corp]

Looks interesting indeed

how do you give AT guns CD capability - I thought about that a while back for my mod as well. Will be interested to see how this goes.

[JanSako]

Looks interesting indeed

how do you give AT guns CD capability - I thought about that a while back for my mod as well. Will be interested to see how this goes.

Quick and dirty - change the weapon type from Army gun to Navy gun.
More clean - duplicate the device and change it afterwards, then set up a parallel upgrade chain.

I have not yet seen anything unexpected regarding the casualties inflicted or not inflicted to Japanese tank units, but I also have not attacked major and prepared/experienced Allied units either. The guns do scratch the early landing xAK types a bit.

[JanSako]

December 22, 1941
(this is the correct date, actually, at some point in the past I managed to skip ahead a day in labeling the AAR entries... oops)
The Imperial Navy was quite busy last night, be it chasing HDML's (Harbor Defense Motor Launches) or sinking unarmed sailboats with BB main guns.

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The sub arm, at least, managed something useful, first sinking a medium sized xAP off Balikpapan and then topping it with a nice prize - CL Raleigh that was a part of a convoy of damaged ships E of Pearl Harbor. She took one torpedo but chances are she was already damaged and the sub captain reported a magazine explosion. SS I-2 engaged the convoy again later on and Raleigh was not seem amongst the ships again. There is another heavily damaged CL (Detroit?) in that convoy, would be nice to get her too!
PG Isabel, a small patrol boat originally from the Philippines station was also sunk by a sub off Soerabaja.

The Allied subs are not resting either. One found a weakly escorted convoy transporting an AF unit out in the vast Philippine sea and the sub captain really took his time machinegunning the hapless merchie. xAKL Yamura Maru took 34 shell hits before she went down.

In the air, the weather was not great and the Allied fighters mostly stayed on the ground, except over Rangoon. There was an indication earlier that the British are maintaining a CAP over the base so we sent in a unit of Oscar Ib's and our first (and only) KI-44 Tojo Chutai (12 planes).
We found a CAP all right, a full unit of Flying Tigers and another of Buffaloes so the sweepers found themselves outnumbered. Neither the Oscar Ib nor the first Tojo are particularly good at the broom handle, but any Allied airframe shot down is one less they can use for training. They do not have too many early on either. At the end of the day we traded about 1:1, with the Tigers losing a couple of airplanes and the Brits about another 6. Not great, not terrible.

The USAA lost a couple of P-40E's as well today. One was shot down when a small flight of 3 birds engaged our bombing run over Wuchow - Oscar Ic's got one & chased away the rest, the other was shot down by an AAMG while strafing the Southern pincer of the Luzon force heading towards Batangas.

On the ground, we landed a small unit at Adak (more to come), smashed a 1/3 of an Infantry Division in Cabantuan on Luzon and in Malaya we took Georgetown against very light opposition and Batu Pahat (dot base in the Malacca Strait) just by walking in.
In China, another round of combat against the units in Ichang did not go so well, but one against the mountain-climbing cavalry E of Paotow did; hopefully we turned the corner there. Combined arms is the way!

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They are surrounded so I know they will respawn in Chungking but for now I just want them gone.

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[JanSako]

December 23, 1941

Small detachments of IJN light units continue to sweep future invasion targets and clear out, or at least trip potential ambushes. Last night a division of DD's entered Kendari, found and chased away a quartet of Dutch PT boats. Three were sunk (one at night and two others during the day), the last one was also reported hit by patrolling IJN planes but still afloat at the end of the turn.

IJN intel noticed some surface activity around Tanjoengpinang (the island just outside Singapore) in the past few days so a lone Fubuki class DD Furanami was dispatched to deal with suspected British minesweepers. (Did I say IJN is low on escorts yet?)
What she run into was a PG Scarab, a nasty Insect (class) leading a couple of small river monitor types.

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DD Uranami charged in Samurai style and managed to surprise the slower allied task force. She landed a few hits but then took a 6" shell through the side which is not so great for a little destroyer. The same hit, or perhaps the resulting fire then disabled the entire forward battery, but despite this minor setback she continued the fight, landing a total of 16 hits across all 3 enemy ships. Later on, during the day she engaged the last undamaged river boat while still on fire, landing another 9 hits. None of the enemy ships were reported sunk but the smaller two are only a 100 ton river boats so highly unlikely they would have survived multiple hits from 127mm guns. PG Scarab 'may' be still afloat but even if she is, I imagine she will get scuttled in Singapore very soon, too damaged to fight again.

A task force leg by CA Mogami visited Merak to close the strait from any shipping still trying to escape from around Batavia.
One of the priority targets in Southern DEI is Ambon, which in another universe (my game with LST) became a major pain for IJN. To prevent such buildup, a heavy TF of 4 battleships passed by the base, peppering it with heavy shells. Unfortunately the ship captains 'forgot' to send up spotter planes so the bombardment was less than what was hoped for.
Still, a few planes were damaged and the base suffered a number of hits.

Then in Ichang the Chinese river fleet put on an appearance, blasting away at the city, luckily with not much effect.

In the air, the CAP over Rangoon is now noticeably weaker, while B-17 D's were again encountered over - what a surprise - Palembang and Samarinda. The combination of bad weather and alert CAP precented further damage to OUR infrastructure, it was later reported that two of the beasts crashed on the way home, probably from being roughly handled by the Zeros over Palembang.
The Dutch fighters were able to cause a bit of a damage today, first a 'sweep' of 3 Buffalos over Samarinda shot down a Nate, then a bombing raid against Bandoeng run into a bunch of 75A Hawks on a training flight & they must have been listening to the instructor because they were able to take down a Zero. Who trains planes at 23000 feet???

Our air raids against Ichang got scattered due to the thunderstorms and no escorts flew either so the Flying tigers got a couple of kills again. Looks like at least one of the P-40E units from Luzon also got moved to China, they are causing mischief there as well.
On the ground. units are moving into positions. The only significant combat today was the mountain hex with the Chinese 5th Cavalry Corps by Kweisui. Our combined arms forces broke through and the Chinese retreated... East, deeper into Japanese-held territory. It is known the Chinese have three Cavalry Corps in the theatre, I wonder if the third one is holding Ningsia?

[RangerJoe]

A suggestion if you do not mind it is to have at least one float plane on Recon at night for your bombardments with a range set at "0" so it will recon the target.

That little insect sure has a nasty sting!

[JanSako]

A suggestion if you do not mind it is to have at least one float plane on Recon at night for your bombardments with a range set at "0" so it will recon the target.

That little insect sure has a nasty sting!

Suggestions are certainly welcome!

On IJN CA's I usually keep one of the planes on night duty & the other one on day. The battleships only have one & I needed the search cause they were going after the Allied Surface units a few days ago. Then I figured may as well fire off the remaining ammo at something, since I need to go refuel anyway. And forgot to switch the search planes.
Happens!

[RangerJoe]

But you had 4 battleships together! If you keep them that way, it does not hurt to do recon. If you think that the enemy has no fighters in the area, then increase the range. Who knows what you will find, especially if you have any bombers with a secondary mission of Port strike.

[JanSako]

Oh, I am following you.
I do normally set the search planes to night Recon when the ships are about to bombard. This time I plain forgot.

It is the case that one Recon plane can only direct the fire of one ship though, right? (if it passes the rolls, of course). So normally you want to have every ship launch their own recon plane.

I am more concerned about spotting the darn subs than finding some random boat hiding in a port. At least at this stage. The heavies are operating just at the edge of LBA search & my opponent is pretty good at positioning the subs.

[JanSako]

December 24, 1941
Christmas came early to Darwin this year when IJN popped in with a load of 8" presents. The Allies were so eager to receive them at first that they steamed out of the harbor full speed to welcome the Japanese cruisers, until they realized these are not just party poppers...
CA's Nachi, Myoko & Haguro with a just-good-enough DD escort did not find any Allied shipping in the Banda Sea in the last few days. Since they reported not to have been detected, they received orders to steam full speed South & visit Darwin. IJN Intel suspected the Allies were staging the ships escaping from DEI through there, and this time the weenies were right.
In a series of night encounters the TF first engaged a pair of USN DD's (Barker & Stewart) who managed to escape, a pair of Dutch ones (we got DD Witte de With who took an 8" shell that slowed it down enough that a Long Lance found its mark).
Then they run across TK Poseidon (a little Dutch TK) which went down after a single LL (Don't they just love shooting them off first chance they get?) and right after we found one of the Anti-sub measures the Allies call Boom & Net defenses. The Boom must be referring to the device that made a pretty big hole in the bottom of DD Amatsukaze, much bigger than what the little charges attached to the Japanese Anti-submarine nets would cause.

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The stricken ship was detached, with another DD for escort and the rest of the TF plowed on.
Next they spotted AO Pecos (cap ~8k), which took 36 shells before she went under, despite being at least partially loaded with fuel, and TK Havfru (cap ~5k) which only took 3 ... Long Lances...again...
At this point the ships were within range of Darwin proper so they shot the rest of the cruiser HE ammo at the base, with the spotter plane reporting a hit on a small craft in the harbor and several suspected gun emplacement destroyed as well.

The next target on the SRA conquest schedule is Kendari, the landing forces made it to the beach with only minor casualties. It looks like only the expected Dutch garrison is present, so tomorrow we will encourage them to relocate.

Allied aerial activity around Changsha was noted in the last few days, so the IJA command decided to concentrate what limited air assets it had in the area to... address the issue...
First sweeping Ki-43's engaged the AVG squadron on CAP, downing a couple of the pests. Next came a bombing run of a few elderly Ki-30 Ann and some Ki-48's, escorted by Nates (yeah, I know...). The Flying Tigers ate a Nate, but the bombers got through and at least scratched the runway a bit. No enemy bombers were seen on the ground, the A-29 Hudson unit operating from there was on the way to bomb Ichang.

The US Coast Guard got a taste of the war today when one of their patrol craft got too close to I-7 lurking just off Vancouver Island, hoping for some juicy loaded merchantmen. The 200 ton PC Reliance was hardly worth a torpedo, but it is surely better than taking a depth charge instead!

On the ground, the Malayan operation is progressing steadily, today the recon regiment of 5th Division captured Kuala Kubu without any losses when the 1. Mysore battalion simply surrendered as soon as the first shots were fired.
At the same time some 90 miles to the South, at Port Dickson, the remnants of 27th Australian brigade, the AT gun detachment of the 9th ID and a couple of base forces retreated to Port Swettenham, leaving the way to Kuala Lumpur and likely the city itself, open. Hopefully our two pincers will meet there in a couple of days!
The 1 Malay Battalion also ceased to exist during this attack, the reports are unclear if they were all destroyed or simply run off to the surrounding jungle.

In China a combat recon (bombardment) was performed today in Yushan/Chuchou on the Shanghai-Nanchang road, revealing two Chinese army Corps in pretty good shape, supported by an Army HQ. A force like this would normally not be much of a challenge for two full IJA divisions, a couple of IMB's and assorted RGC 'divisions' and 'brigades', except very bad terrain and heavy fortifications were also reported - WR with Fort Lvl 4 is expected. The 34th IJA Division supported by the 70th IMB pushing Eastwards from Nanchang is only 90 miles to the West, but is now also entering a forested area with unknown enemy strength.

[JanSako]

December 25, 1941
After IJN ships sailed through the straits of Merak without any ill effect, and not detecting any signs of minefields, it was decided to lay some of our own mines in case Allied subs try to pass through as well.
I-122 was dispatched, but it turns out there were minefields present after all. Unfortunately we may never know where exactly as she was lost with all hands. ON Luzon a bombardment TF targeting Iba passed through San Fernando on the way back and also reported seeing newly laid mines there. Luckily the DD's were able to clear a path with gunfire.

An allied sub was prowling the Chinese coastal waters just offshore Swatow for a while, avoiding all IJN ISW efforts. The passing convoys were warned though, and after sighting the raider, an escort reported a DC direct hit. Maybe the sub will go home for repairs, but a single Type 95 may not be enough for that. A few other subs were sighted and engaged, which is as good as we can hope for!

The IJN river flotilla bombarded Changsha again, damaging a couple of H81-A3 and a Hudson, as well as starting minor fires.

In SRA we are extending our naval search & destroy umbrella, today a couple of merchant ships were sunk by Netties, and by Kates from Mini KB. I hoped the latter will do better, sailing through the middle of Timor Sea, but so was a front of heavy weather so just one strike launched against a single Strait class island ferry...
The only other significant air action happened over Changsha today, with a heroic Oscar Ic flight (Hikotai) sweeping and getting jumped by a 20 strong Flying Tiger group. Three KI-43's did not return, the same amount of H81-A3 reported as destroyed.

A CA task force returning from a patrol along the Western side of Java got attacked by a strong formation of 18 Dutch Martin bombers (139WH-3.1), escorted by an assortment of Dutch and Aussie fighters. The ships we just outside of CAP cover from Palembang, but the ships AA gunners did well today, downing a couple of the bombers. No hits on friendly ships.
On the ground, the first attack against Yushan/Chushou went in & did well. Despite suffering a loss of over a thousand casualties (mostly from RGC units, so it does not really count), the first line of forts was taken (Forts 4->3), with the enemy losing about 20% of their initial AV from disablements. At Yingtan, 90 miles to the West on the road, our eastbound push appears to outnumber the enemy about 2:1 so that looks promising as well. Unfortunately both battlegrounds are bad terrain and air support, even if were any available, would not help much. PFI it is, again!

On Sumatra, 13th Tank rgt arrived to Oosthaven and wiped out Groep Zud regiment in the first attack. Looks like the Allies cleaned out the port though, as hardly any fuel or oil was captured. Kendari was also taken today, with the base force surrendering and the infantry garrison retreating East.

[JanSako]

December 26, 1941
Allied subs are all over again - xAK Enzyu Mary takes a Mark 10 torp off Wenchow (she may yet live) and later xAK Nissho Maru #2 takes two Mk14's (!) off Wakkanai .
A bunch of other sightings, ASW attacks and some dud hits also happened. The Supreme Command of the Empire is putting a lot of effort into ASW pilot courses but the results will take time. At least the first emergency PB conversions are starting to come out of the yards. The Kujira Patrol class only took 15 days to convert from xAKL, but they had to retain their original merchant crews so it will take a long time until they work up to anything resembling IJN standards. A good number of larger Ansyu class PB's are also in the works, will take another couple of weeks for those.

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The only Aerial combat today was over Changsha again. Oscars vs Flying Tigers. Not sure of we met the less experienced squadron members today, but our pilots claimed two downed and a few more damaged planes. Hopefully we will wear down the squadron shortly, or the Allied command pulls them back.

The Allied flak gunners compensated for their Airforce, shooting down or damaging too many Sallies over Singapore. Not much to do but take it I guess. Not attacking is not an option where there are still valuable ships in the harbor! Or were; looks like DD Vendetta has finally put to sea (and dodged a bunch of Nettie torps), as have at least one of the subs reported to be undergoing repairs.

The Dutch airforce has again launched several sorties against a patrolling DD TF off Batavia, killing a bunch of fish with those 300kg bombs. The AA gunners on DD Amagiri also took down one of the attacking Martin bombers.

Mini KB is hanging out in Timor sea, torpedoing sailboats and blowing up coastal minelayers. At least today they got a real prize - the Infamous AVP Arend. She was such a beast that it took 3 torpedoes to finally put her down.

The ground campaign in China is progressing; in the Nanyang direction we captured Zhonxian (just W of Tongbai). The single Chinese Corps could not hold despite heavy forts (4). IJA has 2 INF divisions supported by a single Tank regiment spearheading that push.
The forested area in Yingtan also turned out to have forts 4, but the outer defenses must have been manned by the Corps we defeated on the way here, so 34th INF division was able to get a 1:1 odds and lowered the forts to 3.The Chinese have two Corps and an HQ unit facing the 34th and the 20th IMB. We will continue the push tomorrow.

On Luzon, IJA armored spearheads arrived at the outskirts of Manila. We have ordered a recon in force by one of the tank regiments which reported seeing only a weak INF division a couple of support units. They also reported that it would be impossible to enter the city with more than one regiment at a time (a house rule forbids using more than one unsupported Tank regiment to attack in a non-clear hex). There are two more INF divisions in Batangas to the SE; taking Manila would cut them off from retreat so the southern pincer was ordered to fix them in place but we will see how that goes.
In Balikpapan, two SNLF units crossed the river and smashed the defenders, The two Dutch battalions and and the base forces retreated towards the interior, leaving behind all of their guns and equipment. Only minor damage to the oil production facilities is reported, and some 20k tons of fuel in the ready storage will come very handy to the strained logistic of the IJN.

[JanSako]

December 27, 1941.
The merchant skippers had a scary night, with many ships attacked all across the Pacific. We did manage to get off lightly, only one Akasi cargo class falling prey to a Mk 14 torpedo. IJN subs claimed another sailing boat...

An operation involving Kido Butai has kicked off in Papua-New Guinea, with the grouping currently 90 miles SE of Milne Bay. The aim of this operation is still classified, today's report are focusing on air strikes against enemy shipping. The search planes located a lone USN destroyer in the morning and a flight of Vals was dispatched, striking the ship with 4 250kg bombs. The sinking was not directly observed, but hopefully happened anyway.

Later on another search plane reported a TF lead by at least one battleship, just 180 miles West of the Carrier group's position. It is not clear if hubris was to blame or the search plane operator was not believed, but only an understrength flight of 18 Vals was dispatched. They found BB Prince of Wales, the only known undamaged Allied battleship in the entire SRA! The Vals did as well as could be expected, planting 4 bombs on the behemoth for little apparent effect, while she was swatting them from the sky. Our pilots today got the first taste of what real Allied AAA feels like, and for too many it was their last. Out of 18 Vals, 9 was shot down outright!

In the meantime, Kido-s main strike complement was sinking coastal steamers at Port Moresby harbor! At least they got a Sun-class medium tanker, but that is very little consolation for such a wasted opportunity. The PoW appears to be leading a 10 ship task force, with several more larger ships reported. Intel suspects they are either the USN CA's known to be in this area of operations, or possibly the RAN CA's.

IJA has launched a number of operations in China today, inflicting close to 10 000 casualties to the Chinese. The major successes were victories at Ichang and Huoqiu (on the Pengpu to Sinyang highway), the latter being on a main supply & reinforcement route for the Northbound push.
The Hangchow-Nanchang operation to open the road had mixed results. The Yingtan push (going East) was able to reduce the next line of forts (to two), but the Yushan/Chushou (Westbound) grouping was not, despite inflicting more on the enemy than losses suffered.

In Malaya, Kuala Lumpur was taken today which means the Railway is open for the whole peninsula, down to Johore. Elements f the 18th INF division are tasked to deal with the remaining holdouts, but the rest of the INF divisions should be able to recombine for the eventual assault on Singapore.
On Mindanao the first attack on Malaybalay went well, the enemy having only time enough to construct rudimentary fortifications which were promptly destroyed by today's attack. Reports indicate we are facing the remnants of three regiments and some support units. Well dug-in, they could have been a problem in the rough and jungle terrain, lucky for us they were not!

[JanSako]

December 28, 1941
The operation on Papua-New Guinea is targeting Port Moresby. The invasion force hugged the coast and it is now 90 miles from its target, but was intentionally held back in case RAN launched an overly bold counterattack.
Kido is covering the whole area between Horn Island and Cairns, as well as the invasion itself has a strong covering force. The way to PM was swept yesterday by a cruiser TF (2 CA + 4 DD), with every hex containing at least one sacrificial xAK or sailing ship or similar. One exception was DD Pope, which was engaged twice during the night and once during the day, yet escaped without a single scratch! At least Kido launched somewhat of a strike (2x 4 Vals!) at her & the Vals planted a couple of 250kg's on her deck.

Looking at the Allied ships all around, I am starting to understand why some players have an HR about single-ship xAKL TF's. My thoughts on this always were that as long as the ships are carrying stuff/going someplace, singleton xAKL TF's are legit. I know the Allied command always warned off merchants from any potential enemy forces, if at all possible. Placing civilian ships directly and deliberately into harms way would be... frowned upon. Again, if they are running a blockade or delivering vital supplies into an endangered base, or evacuating troops/civilians, then sure they have a legit reason to be there. Being deliberate ammo sponges, not so much. I have a mind to ask my opponent for an HR related to this; I am all ears if my esteemed readers have any opinion.
All of the marked hexes had a xAK (one of them had Pope) last turn:

2023-09-12_11-55-37.png (129.67 KiB) Viewed 1688 times

Back to action!
Dodging subs was the only notable series of naval actions today; we got off scot-free this time (phew), but so did the Allies. Light amphib forces landed in Milne Bay (looks deserted) and Tandjoengbalai (Sumatra), which does not. The Allies are trying to night bomb, mostly Palembang and Mersing, the former had severe storms and the latter a good amount of AA so no damage was reported. AAA for Palembang is also en-route, unfortunately the next few days the moonlight will be perfect.
The air action did not favor the Imperial forces today, owning to tenacious CAP over Rangoon, several follow up flights of light bombers were molested by Allied fighters. Not great. Even a trio of P-35's, originally from Luzon showed up over a Sonia milk run just outside Canton! Then to top it up, a pair of P-26 peashooters strafed our armored forces in Manila! Not that they caused any losses, but the indignity!
Mini KB got a little success today - they had orders to move into Arafura Sea to cut off any Allied ships trying to escape NE from Port Moresby area. I doubt any can pass by that way; today the Jakes got a small Straits class xAP that was nonetheless loaded to the gills with troops. Looked like a battalion sized unit went into the drink just E of Horn Island. I wonder if it was one of the bird battalions...

Port attacks in Singapore managed a hit on an AG and xAK despite thunderstorms. Obviously if we can hit the port, the enemy AAA can and will hit our planes as well.
On the ground IJA continues as planned, today Malaybalay was taken, the Allies retreated NE to Butuan. I will spank them one more time, then probably pull the 56th Division out & just use the 8th Tank regiment to finish them off.
In Yingtan, China we got 1:2 odds but thanks to our superior quality units we still inflicted twice as many casualties as the enemy, and reduced the forts to 1. There was no attack today on the Eastern end of the push, 4:1 raw AV is not enough for fort 3 and WR terrain.
In Malaya, the 55th Regiment destroyed the 27th Aussie brigade and some base forces in Port Swettenham, but in Jerantur the 56the Regiment run into another cut-off brigade - the 8th Indian, together with FMSV brigade and the 1st Hydarabad Btl. It will take a bit to dig them out, but they are too inexperienced to cause much trouble.

My opponent is pursuing a very interesting strategy, being of a mix of 'leave in place to die' units and aggressively withdrawing other units, be it naval, land or air. He is also not afraid to swat us with backhand blow, given half a chance! It makes for an interesting game, for sure, offering both risks and opportunities to inflict damage on assets that could have been safely hidden until sometimes next year. The Prince of Wales TF yesterday was definitely not left where it was by mistake! That Kido wasted the opportunity to...waste her, is on IJN.