July 1 -
This was another hard fought turn with both sides taking casualties but neither side getting an overall edge in the fighting. We both continue to manoeuvre to try to get local superiority in forces but the fighting is spread out over such a wide area that it is very difficult to do. This confirms to me that my early strategy of husbanding my forces is now paying off since I can meet Tophat's advances everywhere, but I am still concerned about the potential for a Japanese breakthrough if I slip up at any of the Fronts.
In the DEI Tophat sent a cruiser TF to bombard Dili this turn while he rests and re-supplies his battleship TF. The attack did cause some damage, but nothing particularly critical. A group of Bettys then flew in to bomb the Dutch troops. Then my B-17s flew out of Darwin and blew past the Zeros on LR CAP at Dili, inflicting reasonable casualties on the invading Japanese SNLF unit. The sum result of these preliminary actions was quite satisfying; the deliberate attack by the SNLF unit on Dili was a complete failure, with no casualties to the Dutch and substantial casualties to the attackers. Tophat will have to bring greater forces to bear at Dili.
There was action in Java too as one of my remaining Dutch subs torpedoed an AP carrying fresh troop to Kragen, causing serious damage and casualties. But the escorts in the Japanese TF hit the sub with a couple of depth charges, causing severe damage in return. It is a good thing that Soerabaja is so close; I will try to get the sub there and see if I can repair the flooding damage before Tophat decides to bomb the port.
In Soerabaja itself Tophat sent in one air attack against the airfields again and another air attack against the Dutch ground troops. Neither caused a lot of damage or casualties and in both cases the AA hit the attackers hard, but this new strategy is paying off for Tophat as he is starting to regularly reduce the supply level at Soerabaja by a small amount every day. Tophat also used his full attacking force to do an artillery bombardment of Soerabaja this turn instead of just using the dedicated artillery units. However, with around 42K of supplies still available and a slow but steady replacement every day the Dutch ought to be able to continue to fight at near full strength for some time yet.
In the South Pacific my B-17s out of Canton Island blew past the Zeros on CAP, shooting down one and causing a little damage to the air field without suffering too much damage themselves. So this attack was effective in giving my bomber pilots experience even if the overall result wasn't great. With any luck I will give Tophat and the defenders at Baker Island a much bigger surprise soon enough.
In China both sides continue to spar and give each other the occasional solid blow without landing any knockouts. My Wellingtons hit Kaifeng hard but suffered a fair number of casualties in exchange:
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Day Air attack on Kaifeng, at 51, 32
Japanese aircraft
A6M3 Zero x 12
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 14
Allied aircraft
Wellington III x 78
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3 Zero: 3 destroyed, 5 damaged
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 2 destroyed
Allied aircraft losses
Wellington III: 6 destroyed, 13 damaged
Airbase hits 4
Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 16
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I’m sending the Wellingtons out again this turn to hit Wuhan; I'm hoping that this will catch Tophat with his CAP down because I don't usually fly big bombing missions two days in a row. My Chinese bombers also did their regular good job of bombing the Japanese troops that are besieging Kungchang and Homan. At this point the attackers at Kungchang no longer have the capability to cause any casualties during their daily bombardment attacks.
But at the same time Tophat sent a well-escorted big bombing raid over Hengchow and caused a fair amount of damage to the airfield there. This was followed up by another big fighter sweep, so it looks as if Tophat has decided to challenge me now at Hengchow. I will need to build up a serious response force there to be able to take on the consolidated Japanese air forces. Right now I am trying to avoid feeding my better units piecemeal into a meat grinder. I've got plenty of units in India but for the most part they aren't trained well enough to send into battle with the good Japanese units that Tophat is using in Coastal China. So I am trying to bring my units in slowly and let them build experience against the Japanese ground troops in Northeastern China first before committing them to the air battles in the South.
And no, I haven't committed the AVG to China yet. I still have them sitting back, enjoying curry and beer in India. They are my trump cards that keep Tophat from attempting any "adventuring" in the Bay of Bengal. If Tophat sees the AVG pop-up in China he will know that the balance of air power has shifted in India. He will also be tempted to throw everything he can at the AVG in an attempt to wear it down. So I need to find the right combination of alternate forces to maintain an acceptable balance in China.
And this being the First of the Month, I received plenty of news; and this time quite good news. First off, there was no British withdrawal; therefore I continue to have substantial naval forces in India that can challenge anything but a total assault by the complete Combined Fleet. Next, my Yorktown-class carriers received their July upgrades which not only brought additional AA capability but also brought the larger, 36 plane fighter squadrons to all of my CVs. Add to this the appearance of Avengers in the air replacement pool and it won't be long before the US carriers are no longer "98 pound weaklings" in the Pacific.
So the July 1 statistics are in the following chart. I'm quite pleased that the victory point ratio is at a quite respectable 2.30 to 1. That's thanks to the continued survival of the Dutch forces at Soerabaja as well as to the fact that the Japanese air losses remain over 20% higher than the Allied air losses.
Dave Baranyi
