Scenario 19, Allies strike Truk

[toraq]

(two turns played)
My opponent has started to LCAP Irau. (from Lunga), so some air battles took place. My Cvs are retreating. I´ve spotted one enemy sub and soon his CVs will be around...I don´t want to risk them. In 17 days my CVE will come and we will see if the odds are favourable.
On the other hand Nauru island has been invaded. Nauru is that island close to the right corner of the map. Why?[&:]. It could be to provide a base for bombardment parties...

Irau battles
15 air to air losses. My enemy only lost 6 but another 5 due to op. losses. All are raids to attack ground forces there.

From Carriers (now retreating)
Air attack on 144th Regiment, at 42,43

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 20
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 11

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 9
SBD Dauntless x 46
TBF Avenger x 42

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat x 1 destroyed
SBD Dauntless x 1 damaged
TBF Avenger x 3 destroyed x 1 damaged

PO1 T.Fujiwara of EII-1 Daitai is credited with kill number 4

From Wunpuko

Air attack on 144th Regiment, at 42,43

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 6

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 27
P-38G Lightning x 14
B-25D Mitchell x 19
B-26B Marauder x 19

Allied aircraft losses
P-38G Lightning x 1 destroyed

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 10

From Nevea

Air attack on 144th Regiment, at 42,43

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 10

Allied aircraft
SBD Dauntless x 13
TBF Avenger x 26
P-40E Warhawk x 20

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
TBF Avenger x 2 destroyed
P-40E Warhawk x 3 destroyed [:(]

PO1 B.Obayashi of EII-1 Daitai is credited with kill number 2

Zero pilots are sooo good[:(]. In 30 days or so F4U will be available and that means the end of an era!!.
Jap. player has refused to send more reinforces there, so I can still hold the place

Ground combat at Irau

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 4264 troops, 113 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 7629 troops, 0 guns, 60 vehicles

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 4)

PO1 R.Minegishi of EII-1 Daitai is credited with kill number 9
Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 45

Allied ground losses:
Men lost 88

Tomorrow I´m sending 1000 troops to Irau, using DMS and DD to avoid mines. If I can go through, Irau will be safe. Also, tomorrow I complete the airport there...More reason to think that Irau could be saved then.

DMS surprised in GG
I´ve started to clean mines there, in order to recover GG base. But my TF ran out of fuel and was slained by those betties from Rabaul. What a disaster!. DMS are sooo precious to me!

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 15
G3M Nell x 11
G4M1 Betty x 9

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell x 2 damaged
G4M1 Betty x 3 damaged

Allied Ships
DMS Southard, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
MSW Ipswich

[:@][:@] Subs unable to hit damaged transports[:@][:@]
This is becoming a routine...and I don´t understand it very much. This is only an example

Japanese Ships
AP Teizui Maru, heavy damage

Allied Ships
SS Grayling

[toraq]

One turn played

My FT to Irau unloaded its cargo, so Irau is secured for the next days. And now its airport is size 1, so I can start sending troops or supplies. But not now. I´ve stopped any offensive mission against Irau until my units got organized again.

Irau battle
At least 9 A6M3 Zero flying LCAP over Irau. They shot down a couple of P38. Total losses are 4. [:-]. Fortunately my bombers hit the other rgt at Irau.

Air attack on 124th Regiment, at 42,43 ***two strikes from Irau & Wunpuko***

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 9

Allied aircraft
SBD Dauntless x 13
TBF Avenger x 14
P-38G Lightning x 42
B-25D Mitchell x 19
B-26B Marauder x 19
Hudson x 27

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3 Zero x 1 destroyed x 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
P-38G Lightning x 2 destroyed

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 78

Ground combat at Irau

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 4135 troops, 113 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 8939 troops, 40 guns, 60 vehicles

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 4)

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 156
Guns lost 1

Allied ground losses:
Men lost 76

I need more fighters!. My F4F sqds are still understrength. The sqds leaders are poison for their men!. Their combat skills are mediocre so the sqd morale is low or very low most of the time. Moreove, their XP is also poor. Need to change this!
P38 sqds (3 so far) are good but they are limited and suffer high losses from escort missions. I´ve lost 40 (one month production)

AKs surprised over Wunpuko
These AKs were unloading supplies. Wunpuko is now the base of the heavy bombers and needs tons of supplies.

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 14
G4M1 Betty x 9 ***two op. losses***
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 26

Allied aircraft
P-39D Airacobra x 9
P-38G Lightning x 3

Allied aircraft losses
P-39D Airacobra x 1 destroyed x 2 damaged
P-38G Lightning x 1 destroyed x 1 damaged

PO2 H.Kubota of F1/253rd Daitai is credited with kill number 4

Allied Ships
AK Grumium, Torpedo hits 1
AK Betelgeuse

A strange surface combat
This took place during daylight near GG. Here I have a AO and some MSW that are trying to clean the mines around the base. I guess he was trying to surprise me and he did so. Unfortunately my search planes didn´t find them[:(]

Japanese Ships
DD Yayoi
DD Asanagi

Allied Ships
PG Moa, Shell hits 2, on fire ***this PG was escorting the AO***

Nevea defenses tested
No way!. These troops are trapped! I´m going to eat them...this time there is no retreat path!!

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 13266 troops, 158 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 13803 troops, 135 guns, 39 vehicles

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 6)

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 277
Guns lost 1

Allied ground losses:
Men lost 33
Guns lost 1

[toraq]

Mmmm I can feel the danger, I can smell it, I can eat it!

SOPAC front
Today my heavies visited Lunga from Wunpuko which soon will have its requested supplies *2. But little success is archived and 4 of them are lost [:@]

Air attack on Lunga , at 38,40

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 19
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 9

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 30
B-24D Liberator x 14

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress x 5 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 52

Airbase hits 11
Runway hits 17

LCAP over Irau
Although I´m not using the C47 to send troops or supplies to Irau, there is always a little CAP there. This time 7 Zeroes which shot down 3 aircraft without a loss. As soon as Irau is bigger, I´ll have to solve it

Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 7

Allied aircraft
SBD Dauntless x 30
TBF Avenger x 42
P-40E Warhawk x 15

no losses

Allied aircraft losses
SBD Dauntless x 1 destroyed x 1 damaged
TBF Avenger x 1 destroyed
P-40E Warhawk x 1 destroyed

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 14

Some new orders
- F4F are flying sweep missions over ground troops to see if they gain some XP. I need to increase his combat ability if I want to beat the Zeroes
- Tomorrow a big raid is ordered to hit Tulagi´s port. My recon indicates that there are a lot of troops in Tulagi, and some PCs and AGs in the port.
- More APs are moving to the SOPAC area to solve the supply problem in the area.

Allied HQ have almost planned the future plan to wipe the enemy out of New Guinea and Lunga!!!. I´ll put some maps with my intentions!

[toraq]

No signs of my opponent [:(]. Last time I wrote him, he reported "damaged by computer crashes". I hope this is the reason [&:]