Surface Combat
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Night Time Surface Combat at 5,27
Japanese Ships - I tried to intercept a transport with my retreating bb, gave up and then they found one [:'(]
BB Ise (27 sys damage, heading back to Singapore)
DD Nagatsuki
Allied Ships
AK Nora Moller, Shell hits 10, on fire, heavy damage - takes several 14" hits
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Sub/ASW Attacks
Sub attack at 16,4
Japanese Ships
SS I-153, hits 1
Allied Ships
DD Banckert
DD Napier
DD Witte de With
DD Kortenaer
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ASW attack at 63,80
Japanese Ships - annoying, put all my best ASW ships into this tf, of course they didn't even scratch the sub...
APD APD-37
APD APD-36
APD APD-34
APD APD-32
APD APD-2
APD APD-1
Allied Ships
SS Haddock
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Air Combat
Day Air attack on Diamond Harbor , at 28,23
Japanese aircraft - wanted to hit the bb's at Diamond Harbour again, they're money in the bank [:)]
G3M Nell x 26
G4M1 Betty x 51
Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell: 8 damaged
G4M1 Betty: 14 damaged
Allied Ships
BB Ramilles, Bomb hits 2, heavy damage
BB Revenge, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
BB Warspite, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
Allied ground losses:
113 casualties reported
Guns lost 4
Vehicles lost 1
Port hits 8
Port fuel hits 1
Port supply hits 2
Aircraft Attacking:
All Betty and Nell dropping 800 kg bombs from 6000 feet
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Day Air attack on Calcutta , at 29,23
Japanese aircraft - finally got a regular bombing run going against Calcutta again!
A6M2 Zero x 30
Ki-21 Sally x 47
Ki-48 Lily x 23
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21 Sally: 1 damaged
Ki-48 Lily: 1 damaged
Allied ground losses:
85 casualties reported
Guns lost 4
Airbase hits 20
Airbase supply hits 7
Runway hits 95
Aircraft Attacking:
All Sally and Ki-48 Lily bombing at 6000 feet
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Day Air attack on Hyderabad , at 20,17 - my first major raid from Madras didn't find much to destroy here...
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 20
G3M Nell x 33
G4M1 Betty x 43
C5M Babs x 1
Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell: 1 damaged
Aircraft Attacking:
All Nell and G4M1 Betty bombing at 6000 feet
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Day Air attack on Colombo , at 14,24
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 3
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 8
Ki-21 Sally x 12
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21 Sally: 5 destroyed, 8 damaged - heavy flak!
Allied ground losses:
56 casualties reported
Guns lost 4
Airbase hits 1
Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 10
Aircraft Attacking:
All Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet
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Day Air attack on Tarawa , at 85,91
Allied aircraft - the first strike of 'Operation Nighthawk' - according to Wobbly!
F4F-4 Wildcat x 16
SBD Dauntless x 99
Allied aircraft losses
SBD Dauntless: 5 destroyed, 29 damaged- 3 SBS's were lost
Japanese ground losses:
398 casualties reported - they claimed a lot of causalties
Guns lost 6
Port hits 3
Port supply hits 10
Aircraft Attacking:
All SBD Dauntless bombing at 2000 feet
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Ground Combat
Ground combat at Calcutta
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 90349 troops, 512 guns, 426 vehicles
Defending force 58740 troops, 350 guns, 478 vehicles
Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 6 - the forts have been rebuilt, and once more reduced [:'(]
Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 6)
Japanese ground losses:
1029 casualties reported - a rather positive exchange of causalties though
Guns lost 21
Vehicles lost 5
Allied ground losses:
1323 casualties reported
Guns lost 28
Vehicles lost 7
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Ground combat at Lunga
Allied Shock attack
Attacking force 6494 troops, 51 guns, 4 vehicles
Defending force 165 troops, 0 guns, 0 vehicles
Allied assault odds: 87 to 1
Japanese ground losses: - the last defenders of Lunga are wiped out!
267 casualties reported
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Situation Report
India
The cat and mouse game in the Indian Ocean continues, Al runs south with his surface ships this time. I'm running low on fuel [:(] Going to send the KB after them while the battleships hits Karachi and Bombay. Got a replenishment group enroute, will refuel my carriers and try to find the enemy transports if the carriers gets away.
The enemy ships are all in range of my Betties and Nells now, if they only could take to the air...
Enemy armoured unit has withdrawn from the railroad hex east of Calcutta. Going to move a regiment north towards Asansol - want to keep my lines of communictation open. Al should have kept it closes..difficult to get rid of 255 afv's with infantry only!
Ordered the 2 divs' that were resting to attack and will try to slowly get rid of the forts at Calcutta - then Allied casualties will become untolerable and we will finally be able to march on Asansol and Diamond Harbour.
Also moving bombers back to Chandpur - they will hit ground targets at Calcutta.
Central & South Pacific
The Yanks are finally on the move - Wobbly declared Op Nighthawk but not Op Rapier. Hm, this means that he got more
fun on the way... Tawawa - not unexpectedly - is the target. Almost a 100 SBD's hit the base and inflicted a lot of casualties. The enemy operation starts just as the last valiant defenders at Lunga succumbs to superior enemy numbers.
The defense of Tarawa is provided by:
1 AF Construction unit
3 Base Force Units (of the smaller type)
3 SNL Garrison units
All in all ca 10000 men - there are 2 forts (53% building) and 202 mines have been placed.
There are only 6 Jake search planes at the base and 2000 supplies.
I don't expect Tarawa to last long - it's an atoll and combat will be short and bloody. Hopefully Al still got a few lessons to learn regaring atoll invasions [;)] Wouldn't count on it though...
Several subs have been ordered to move towards Tarawa, if possible they will evacuate a few men from each of the units at the base so that they can be rebuilt.
Tarawa is outside the range of Kwajaleins Zeros - so it is not possible to strike back with since I'm not going to send my naval bombers in unescorted. The mine layers that were enroute to the base have been ordered to Kwajalein instead.
As already stated in earlier posts: there isn't much more I can do to protect Tarawa. The fleet will not sail without air cover.
The only reaction I have undertaken is to order the CVE Taiyo and CVL Zuiho + escorts to move from Shanghai to Tokyo.
Here they will reform the Mini KB. I want this force to be ready at Truk by the time Al moves on.
The question is: Were will he strike next? It's either the Marshalls or the Solomons!
It will be much easier to attack Shortland, Gili Gili and Buna and perhaps even Rabaul - since the enemy now got a size 4 af at Lunga to support them. Not to mention Port Moresby!
More than 100 Betties and Nells at Truk have been ordered to night bomb PM's airfields - the place is choked with enemy ac! With a little luck, I can slow Al's preparations down a bit.
Situation Map: Operation Nighthawk
