Lunacy In The Pacific Mogami Vs. Tom Hunter

[Tom Hunter]

_Did his surface TF break up because of the slower ships and is there any chance of hitting him with a follow up raid?_

Yes it broke up, 2 hudsons tried to hit a CL that was it. Mogami has had a rather large amount of luck with the cloud cover over Noumea and over his TFs. But that will go the other way eventually.

-How are your pilot xp on Noema prety stagnat because of all the losses or climbing slowly as the more advanced pilots continue to get better?_

They were stagnant but a few hotshot pilots are starting to come out of the killing of unescorted bombers. Also another F4F4 unit is now at Nandi, HMS Hermes is moving into a position to help shuttle Navy planes back and forth from Fiji to New Calidonia.


_ Also how are your replacement pools you have had a prety active air war, just currious if your pools are hurting?_

P40 and P39 are low but not zero. F4F3 is near zero but I only have one 12 plane unit flying them. F4F4 has over 250 planes, Kittyhawk is in the 50s or so, Hurricane is 30 and climbing, Hawk is 50 and the pilots are moving into the 50s as well. Mohawks are plentiful but only one group has them and thier xp is in the 50s. P36s are short because a lot of my rear area fighter groups are flying them now.

[Tom Hunter]

Manila Supply Watch
April 16: 293 heavy bombing today
April 17: 1230 two AKs carrying 5600 supply unloaded 424 each today. Supply in the units is still 0 and there are about 59,000 defenders active down from 82,000 at the strongest point. I am not sure what this supply will buy me, but I am not complaining. If Manila holds 12 more days we get to spoil the emporers birthday party.

China
Things are pretty quiet, Mogami pulled back from Hsinyang. I need to organize an offensive, but supply is not as good as it was during the period when I captured over 17,000. The Chinese army is still growing but supply runs down pretty fast when we attack.

Burma
More air training. AVG just picked up 24 new P40Bs, I am having to rotate planes in and out of Myitikyna and Akyab. 3 groups, 1 Mohawk, 1 Hawk, 1 Hurricane are in the 50s, everything else is in the low to mid 60s, in the 70s they start getting dangerous.

South Pacific
April 15 Mogami moves in on Efate. CV based LR CAP keeps my bombers away but 3 APs hit mines. On April 16th the base falls.

Efate is the last lightly defended base in the South Pacific, though I am not sure Mogami knows this. He has been taking the bases with a 12,000 (was 15,000 before the mines) man invasion force. Koumac has a NZ Brigade, everything else has twice that or more.

More planes and supplies come in, there are now 86 F4F4s and F4F3s in the area.

On the West Coast the USS Enterprise left for Hawaii where her escort group will pick up an additional 6 DDs. The Escorts for Saratoga should also be ready in a day though she will wait for the rest of the CVs groups to form up before the fleet sorties in a week or so. They will steam for the South Pacific where they will join the RN fleet carrier TF, a pair of fast surface TF built around HMS Prince of Wales and 3 slow BB TFs one from the Royal Navy and one from the US Navy. A final CV TF will be formed by HMS Hermes and the USS Long Island, though God only knows what we will do with it. (now that I have written that the two of them will probably sink the Akagi)

[Tom Hunter]

Ground combat at Manila

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 365348 troops, 2700 guns, 637 vehicles

Defending force 58546 troops, 178 guns, 150 vehicles

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 0

Japanese assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 0)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Manila base !!!


Japanese ground losses:
5950 casualties reported
Guns lost 179
Vehicles lost 36

Allied ground losses:
79997 casualties reported
Guns lost 300
Vehicles lost 100

Mogami collapses at his desk, weeping ...

[Nikademus]

Holy **** batman....where did you get all those troops?

[Tom Hunter]

That is the garrison, I actually removed 4 or 5 base forces on AKs and a bunch of guys on submarines, maybe 5000 troops in all

[Ron Saueracker]

I'm impressed how long you managed to hold Manila, despite this being a lunacy game where the myriad of gamey exploits and the pro Japanese first turn are a non issue. [&o] How many merchants did you end up sending on a one way trip to Manila by the way, Tom?

[Tom Hunter]

Well, 2 are in the Phillipines picking up guys now, so I am not sure if that trip is one way or not. I think I lost 6 or maybe 8, but 6 is the number that comes to mind.

[Tom Hunter]

No more Manila supply watch, the AKs were a day late and a dollar short. Japanese army losses went from 711 to 733, Allied army losses hit 5500. The Japanese army there will need a week of rest before it can load, and then another 2 weeks before it can arrive anywhere. Early May will be a very exicting time.

In the South Pacific Mogami has pulled his CVs back, and I am bombing the crap out of Efate and Luganville. New Caledonia is being fortified and enlarged, in 5 days La Foa will be an L2 airfield, mines are being layed etc, etc.

Similar work is going on at Port Moresby but on a somewhat smaller scale.

China is quiet, maybe it will go into a real stalemate? I am sending troops back to cities behind the lines to speed up fort construction.

In Burma I have been sending very high level bombing raids after his main airbase at Tavoy. A few planes have been shot down on both sides. Today I took a gamble and sent 12 Blenhiems in at 1,000 feet. It will be interesting to see what happens, though I suspect they will get murdered.

Over all I think we will have a pause while Mogami puts together his next move. China and India are as prepared as I can make them, the South Pacific needs the US CVs for support, they won't arrive until May. If Mogami gets there in force before the US Navy is ready he can do some damage, but taking Noumea is not a game winner.

If he comes down after the fleet arrives he end up in serious trouble. I will have 300-400 LBA to fight with plus the US CVs, it might be enough to win. Also there are a number of surface TFs in the area that I will use to try and stop him from bombarding. We have often talked about bases with plenty of planes, guarded by ships to form an integrated defense. That will be up and running by May 15th, we will see if it works.

Mogami said this game might change from a no-holds barred game into a regular game. I think he means that his plan may be too far off schedule for him to get auto victory. "may" is a key word, I am a lot stronger but not out of the woods yet.

His problem is where to go? Where can he get enough VPs to win? The South Pacific is too small. India is many times stronger than the India that PzB took from Wobbly, a country full of L9 forts with L5 (minumum) airstrips is not going to crumble.

Expect a few days (3-4 weeks game time) of quiet and then a much bigger storm than any we have seen to date.

[ADavidB]

His problem is where to go? Where can he get enough VPs to win?

Tom - keep an eye out in the north for Vancouver and "USA"...[;)]

Dave Baranyi

(20K points, just waiting for some paratroopers...[:D])

[Tom Hunter]

Japan starts mopping up in the Phillipines, bombing the daylights out of Cebu and Illio and sinking the two AKs that were a day too late delivering supply.

The end of the big campain in the Phillipines has freed up Japanese air assets which are now methodically bombing Chinese air bases. The Allies have moved a group of Hawks to China for training and these planes have done fairly well, shooting down over a dozen Japanese bombers and reaching XP levels in the high 50s. A Hurricane group with XP 61 is now in China on a similar hit and run mission.

There is no land combat in China at all, both sides are building up. The Japanese are trying to assemble an army that can beat the Chinese, the Chinese are trying to build up forts to stop the Japanese.

In Burma the British are slowly raising the pilot quality of the Hurricanes in Mandalay. The occasional heavy bomber raid on Tavoy has kept the Japanese fighter over the base on CAP missions, and the British fly large sweeps with only a few planes actually bombing. It is sort of a stand off, but the Allies are winning for two reasons; increasing XP and 500 supply a day to China.

The actual defense of Burma is also getting stronger, Mandalay is now an L7 fort, and Myitikyna is L4 going on 5.

In the SW Pacific the buildup of Port Moresby-Thursday-Cooktown/Cairns continues. Cooktown now has 60 AV, Cairns will soon be 60 as well, and Port Moresby will hit 140 in a weeks time. Mogami occasionally bombs PM, but has not had any real effect. At some point in the future the Allies will get active on this front with a nice infrastructure ready.

Out on the US West Coast 4 Air Combat TFs have formed up heading for a point East of Pago Pago. Enterprise will join them there, and the 5 will head for the Noumea area. All the ships are upgraded and only 3 out of 49 have any sys at all. Flak is strong, sadly the fighter groups have not gone to 35 but I have to live with that.

The serious action is down in the South Pacific. Mogami has gotten Luganville airbase operational and is flying LRCAP over his TFs. My bombers hit his shipping every turn, his 90 XP Zero pilots shoot up my escorts and then my bombers get through and smack his ships around. Here is some blow by blow:

April 23
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 12

Allied aircraft
SBD Dauntless x 15
A-24 Dauntless x 14
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
SBD Dauntless: 2 destroyed, 2 damaged
A-24 Dauntless: 5 destroyed, 2 damaged
Japanese Ships
DD Hayate, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage (gets bombed again and sinks eventually)
DD Kisaragi, Bomb hits 1, on fire

April 24
(I loved this combat, so I am showing it off)
Night Time Surface Combat, near Koumac at 67,111
Japanese Ships
DD Okikaze, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Kuretake
DD Sanae, Shell hits 2, on fire
Allied Ships
PT PT-44
PT PT-45

This one is important, did a lot of damage to a bombardment group that would have hurt the airstrips pretty bad.
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 12
Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 6
Wirraway x 9
Kittyhawk I x 4
Beaufort V-IX x 4
P-40E Warhawk x 9
A-20B Boston x 6
B-25C Mitchell x 9
B-26B Marauder x 24
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
Allied aircraft losses
Wirraway: 4 destroyed, 1 damaged
Kittyhawk I: 2 destroyed
Beaufort V-IX: 1 damaged
P-40E Warhawk: 2 destroyed
B-25C Mitchell: 1 destroyed, 3 damaged
B-26B Marauder: 8 damaged
Japanese Ships
BB Fuso, Torpedo hits 2, on fire (Fuso eats another fish later in the day)
BB Ise, Bomb hits 1
CA Ashigara
CA Myoko, Bomb hits 1
BB Yamashiro, Bomb hits 1


This is more typical of what happens, especially in the afternoon when the Zero pilots are tired. I am not showing all the combats, just some represenative actions.
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 20

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 6
A-24 Dauntless x 8

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 3 destroyed
A-24 Dauntless: 2 destroyed, 1 damaged
Japanese Ships
CL Tenryu, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
Aircraft Attacking:
6 x A-24 Dauntless bombing at 2000 feet

April 25


Another one where I lose a bunch of planes and he has a valuable ship torpedoed.

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 24

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 6
F4F-4 Wildcat x 3
Wirraway x 5
Kittyhawk I x 4
Beaufort V-IX x 3
P-40E Warhawk x 8
A-20B Boston x 3
B-25C Mitchell x 3
B-26B Marauder x 22

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 5 destroyed, 4 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-3 Wildcat: 3 destroyed
F4F-4 Wildcat: 2 destroyed
Wirraway: 5 destroyed
Kittyhawk I: 1 destroyed
Beaufort V-IX: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged
P-40E Warhawk: 4 destroyed
A-20B Boston: 2 destroyed
B-26B Marauder: 1 destroyed, 3 damaged

Japanese Ships
BB Yamashiro, Torpedo hits 1
CL Kuma
BB Ise
DD Inazuma, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CA Ashigara

Another Beaufort group upgraded at Noumea, soon I will have 32 of these marvelous planes flying off New Caledonia.

My favorite part of this combat was when the DD rolled over and sank Lt Jackson was killed. Serves him right for changing sides.
Day Air attack on TF at 71,107
Allied aircraft
A-20B Boston x 3
No Allied losses
Japanese Ships
DD Hayate, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
Aircraft Attacking:
3 x A-20B Boston bombing at 6000 feet

The map shows one other important development, check the SouthWest corner. There are 150 B17s resting up on Nandi, when they are ready they will come back and blast Luganville. If I think it is safe at that time I may raid.

One of us is biting off more than we can chew in these battles, but I don't think either of us knows who it is.

[Ron Saueracker]

Way to slap those Japs around.[&o][:D]

[Tom Hunter]

I am dropping reports on the Phillipines, there are still a couple of isloated divisions there, but thier fate is not important to the game.

China:
Japanese bombard Kaigan, that is the only place the two armies are in contact. They also fly a group of 40 unescorted single engine bombers at the place from time to time. China is send a base force there, after it arrives 16 Hurricanes and 16 Hawks will fly in and try thier luck.

Burma:
April 28 Scout planes report large fighter concentrations at Moulmein. Previously they were at Tavoy, maybe the Japanese are going to try another advance?

India:
10 Airforce HQ, 2 huge base forces and the engineer units have arrived. From Ledo and Akyab to Karachi there are 28 bases in India. All the big coastal cities are fortified to L7 or higher now, the total distribution of forts is below. The lower level forts are inland and isloated except for a couple of the coastal bases.
L9: 3
L8: 1
L7: 3
L6: 2
L5: 3
L4: 3
L3: 3
L2: 8
L1: 1
L0: 1

As more forts get to L9, the completion rate on the unfinished forts increases because the engineering resources available are not spread among so many forts.

In a few more days I will be able to upgrade British air units. This will be a huge improvement. There is already a Lysander group at 70 XP sitting in the rear waiting for Hurricanes. It means I can put low XP squadrons in Lysanders and other low value aircraft for training purposes, and CAP my important airbases with Hurricanes that have 70 XP or higher. India is rapidly approaching the time that it will have an airforce capable of going toe to toe with the Japanese and winning.

SW Pacific:
Mogami sends a big raid over Port Moresby on the 28th. The place will soon have an L5 fort and an L5 airbase. In North East Australia there are plenty of Kittyhawks and a large number of US Planes including a P40 group with 70 XP. If I piled them up in Port Moresby I think they could gain control of the air, but I am not sure they have the numbers and replacements to keep it. I may try soon, or I might wait until the Aussies can fly in a Spitfire group.

South Pacific:
More of the same air Vs. Sea. The Japanese seem to be gettiing tired, thier planes are shooting down fewer Allied fighters, and more bombers are getting through. On the 27th we had a strange series of battles as two Japanese cruiser groups went into the waters off Noumea. The sunk a couple of AKs but also retired from other ships without firing. In the end they did very little damage.

On the 28th a group of B26s caught the Fuso with no LRCAP and dropped another 11 500 lb bombs on the already striken ship. She rolled over and sank later that day.

PoW group and the cruiser group are now sitting 120 SW of Noumea waiting for an incoming Japanese surface TF to be sighted. If the timing is right the Japanese will be in for a suprise.

Over on Nandi 140 B17s are sitting around improving moral, in a day or two they will trade places with the B26s and it will be bombs away for Luganville airbase.

South of Fiji HMS Hermes is carrying 24 Wildcats to be flow to Noumea in a day or two. That will push the Wildcat numbers into the 80s when everything is flying.

Down at Aukland more fuel is unloading, 3 US BBs have arrived and a TF of 4 stackers lead by USS Marblehead is steaming North. The Japanese have been raiding with fast DD TFs, this group is intended to tangle with them.

The US CVs are two days out from the West Coast steaming at cruising speed. I don't really want to speed them up because I want them in better shape than the Japanese if a battle starts. Though I have to wonder what Mogami has in mind. Even if he wins this whole area it will be very hard for him to get 4 to 1.

[Tom Hunter]

Hurray the British can upgrade!

Oddly the first thing I am doing is switching some Hurricane groups to Lysanders. This gives me one hex of additional range for training missions and if they get ambushed I lose worthless planes. Groups with XP in the 50s and very low 60s get this treatment as punishment for being so bad.

Some of my other British units are upgrading as well, but I do keep obsolete types in service longer than many people. I like having the deep pools of aircraft, there are some important advantages to having one engine, and I take a perverse pleasure in seeing Vildabeests drop torpedos on Japanese ground troops.

In China nothing is happening, my efforts to put fighters in the path of his unescorted bombing raids have not scored, and he has not caught my fighters with Zeros either.

Port Moresby has been heavily bombed lately. It is about to get another 90 AV and I might start to fight for it soon.

In the South Pacific Mogami has thought better of flinging his surface ships at my airforce. Now its is subs intercepting my convoys on the way into Noumea. So I am sending more ASW groups.

A B26 group got jumped by 25 Oscars over Efate on the 1st and lost 2 planes while bombing the airfield. Not quite as good as a fw days before when they downed 3 Zeros but still not bad. I have switched both B26 groups to air attacks, in a few days they will rotate back to Nandi for R&R and 130 B17 and 16 LB30s will move to Noumea to bomb Luganville.

New Caledonia is full of fighters now, 84 Wildcats, 70-80 P40s, 72 P39s, 16 Kittyhawks, 20 Wirraways and I might even send the Sea Gladiators from Hermes. Ok, forget I said that [:D] Not so much because I am against a Sea Gladiator massacre but because I don't think Mogami knows that the Royal Navy is in the South Pacific.

La Foa is now an L2 airfield with 43 AV. Koumac is L2 going on L3 with 56 AV and Noumea is L5 with 280 AV. Forts are 0, 1, 7 and the harbor at Noumea is also 7. Tomorrow the first CD unit will start unloading at Noumea, another is close behind. This will fix one big problem with the defense, Mogami was using DDs to bombard.

At sea the RN is lurking undetected South of New Calidonia. The USS Marblehead and 5 Four Pipers are closing in on Noumea, this was intended to stop Jap raiding on New Caledonia but since that seems to have stopped already it might try going the other way to see how the Japs like it. I would love to raid with the Prince of Wales, but I am afraid to do that with such a valuable asset. If I wait long enough I will get a chance to ambush Mogami as he comes to me, I don't want to blow that opportunity by being too agressive now.

US CVs continue their slow advance across the Pacific. In Hawaii the remaining B-18 groups convert to B25s and A-20s. The B25 group will start island hopping some time next week.


This battle is increasingly a contest of Allied bombers Vs. Japanese fighters and warships. The twin engine planes are doing pretty well all things considered and have done a job on the IJN. When Koumac hits L3 things will get even worse for Japan since it is very difficult to suppress two airbases side by side.

Down in Aukland 3 US BBs have just refueled. There is also an RN TF with 3 slow BBs (or maybe 2? I forget) as backup. I am going to put together a TF and move the US BBs to Noumea and give them a lot of CAP. That will do a few things for me.
1) It will make bombarding Noumea just about impossible.
2) It sets up a good airial ambush for Mogami's carrier planes. They will go for the BBs if they see them, so if the BBs are forward and the US CVs are down South the Japanese will launch after the BBs. This gets really interesting if I move the fighter groups off the CVs and CAP Noumea with XP 75 fighters. Remember Mogami cannot tell which Wildcats are there until the air to air combat starts.
3) It gives me a much better chance of surviving and combat. Noumea is an L7 port, these guys may get crippled but they will take a lot of bombs to sink. Again the game can be kind of stupid that way, and if the Japanese CVs launch a lot of attacks on one target they have few left for the Allied CVs.

Finally Russia and India a quiet, except for the sounds of construction.

[witpqs]

Hi Tom,

I know this is a 'no holds barred' contest. Does that include moving units between (unrestricted) commands without paying political points? Just curious.

BTW, the world is holding it's breath waiting to see where Mogzilla will strike...

[Tom Hunter]

Yes we can move troops around as we like. That was one of the reasons why I tried so hard in China at the start of the war.

I am not sure where he will go. Russia is what it is, China and India are both much stronger than they were at the start of the war, Hawaii is pretty strong too though I have weakend the airforce by pulling some of it to the South Pacific.

The big problem for Mog is where can he get the VP? He is pretty well, 2.5 to 1 right now, 14k to 5.7k but he needs a ton of VP to get 4 to 1, and I don't think there are that many VP in the South Pacific. After watching Manila and the recent aborted attack at Hsinyang I think India is effectively impossible, it has too many high level forts already, 3 are L9 but that will jump to 6 or even 8 by the end of May. Plus he only has one month before the Spitfires show up. They don't have the range to be decisive on the offense but they can hold the sky over key bases.

Of course we may have a huge fight over the South Pacific, but that won't win the game for Mogami. Then again maybe nothing will, it may be too late. God bless the defenders of Manila.

Here is the strategic map, green dots in the Phillipines and NEI are subs pulling out ground troops. I don't plan to start a serious sub offensive for a bit, I like to stress the whole system at once, sending the subs in while everything else is quiet invites defeat in detail.



Here is the strategic map

[Oleg Mastruko]

Tom you are truely a formidable opponent - you remind me of Jagdfluger, the guy I never wish to play again, as playing him was - to paraphrase Hitler - as if having your teeth pulled out.

Anyhow...

Don't forget that Numea brings YOU - I would guess - around 1900 points right now. Every one of those VPs means 4x as many to him.

If he takes Numea, and nothing else, he'll have 14,5k to your ~3,8k, pretty close to 4:1. One lucky CV day and that's it. You'd have to struggle REAL hard to bring him back below 4:1.

I never thought AV is as hard as Mog made it to be in his prelude to lunacy series. Actually I think it is achievable if IJN takes Noumea, wins one solid CV battle, and plays everything else reasonably well.

O.

[Tom Hunter]

Oleg,

You make an interesting point, but there are several things you may not have considered that make 4 to 1 a bit more difficult for Mogami to achieve. I am not going to argue the bad CV day, clearly if I lose 5 CVs to none then I am in big trouble. Same is true for my esteemed opponent though.

I'm also skipping a discussion of the fight for Noumea, for the sake of argument lets say it falls.

Things that offset this some:

Improvements to bases in India, Russia and also (if the Japanese go South they can't really go West) China. This will push my point total up some, will it be enough? who knows.

The Allied positions in Port Moresby-Thursday-Cooktown/Cairns. This position is not as strong as Noumea but it is not weak either. Noumea will take time Australia can go over to the offensive in the air to take pressure off Noumea and rack up VP against Japan.

Fiji is also building up rapidly, it helping a lot with the Noumea defense and could also be a jumping off point for early counter offensives if need be.

Finally overland from India. The British are very strong in this game. Right now that strength is focused on holding India. But it will not stay that way if India is left alone. Mandalay is already an L7 fort with 880 AP inside and 100 AV. Akyab is also growing but I am enlarging everything there, port, fort and airbase so none of the numbers are as high as Mandalay. If Mogami does not come to them they will be the jump off points for a big offensive in the later part of the year.

Most of the transport aircraft in the Allied arsenal are also either in India now or weeks away aboard ship. By June I will be able to fly in complete 270 AV support units in 4 days. By July - August the Chinese SEAC units ought to be near full strength and the Commonwealth units from Malaya are nearing full strength now. By August the British can go on the offensive with 8 Chinese divisions, 3 big British Divisions, the armored brigades, and the army from Malaya and leave behind the entire starting army of India to defend against any tricks by Japan. I am not sure its enough to stop 4:1 but it will grind up the Japanese to some degree and you don't have to score a lot of points to mess up some ones 4:1 auto victory.

I am not claiming for even a second that I have this game won. I am just pointing out that Mogami's decision to go South (if he does go South) creates options for me that might spoil his chances of 4 to 1. Of course if he goes to India, Russia or China I get options too.

Fact is I can counter attack out of either the South Pacific and Australia or India.

The South Pacific has maybe 6,000 VP, 8,000 if you allow for the VP I lose. Mogami can go for South Pacific but the margin there is fine because the total number of points is not that great. So if India hits hard it robs Mogami of the 4 to 1.

Conversly India is full of VP. Tens of thousands for bases alone, the army has got to be worth another 7,000 at least and plenty of planes and ships. But India is also full of supply, huge fortresses and mutually supporting airbases with absurd amounts of AV. If Mogami goes there he might not win at all, and if he does it will still be difficult to get 4 to 1.

Either way it will be epic [8D]

[Tom Hunter]

This is the aircraft losses screen for May 2 1942.

The Hurricanes were lost over Pagan, so were the Oscars, a mixed group of 40 Oscars and 20+ Zeros met a buch of Hurricanes on Sweep. The Zeros did not get hit at all, and the Hurricanes took heavy casualties but inflicted serious losses on the Oscars.

B17s and LB30s are under orders to hit the Japanese base at Moulmein in retaliation, and the AVG has flown in to provide CAP while the British recover. Though this is something of a defeat the last time the RAF fought a battle like this they lost 70 planes and the Japanese lost 6 so this is a big improvement. There are two squadrons of XP 70 Hurricanes in the rear that I will bring up too.

From now on training will be with Lysanders and Wirraways, recovery should be faster now, and the next fight will move closer to 1 to 1 losses.


The second big fight was over Noumea where 50 Zeros showed up and a whole bunch never came home. I screwed up some, a Wildcat group was on training and another on CAP 30 so if Mogami comes back he will hurt even more. But I doubt he will look for another round like this. I don't think these planes and pilots can beat the fighters from KB, but they can attritt them some and make them vunerable to attack by the Allied CVs.

Again counter strikes have been ordered, 120 B26s are pointed at Luganville airfield.

Both Burma and South Pac are in Heavy Percipitation right now, so it is possible that nothing will fly.

US CVs are passing Pearl Harbor, Enterpises' group just sortied to join them. 5 Groups of 15 ships each, 1 CV, 4 CA-CL and 10 DD all with upgraded AA. Not as strong as they will be in July, but strong enough to exploit a mistake by the Japanese.

B-17s at Nandi are still resting, when the weather gets better they will fly to Noumea and try to flatten Luganville.

[WhoCares]

Well, seeing as you had some successes in China, maybe he will send parts of his forces to southern China (via Nanning or Hanoi), e.g. to push against Kweiyang or just to attack the railway from the west.

Has anybody ever considered to attack eastern Australia (down to Brisbane)? Is it actually worth it VP-wise? How strong is this part usually defended?

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: WhoCares

Well, seeing as you had some successes in China, maybe he will send parts of his forces to southern China (via Nanning or Hanoi), e.g. to push against Kweiyang or just to attack the railway from the west.

Has anybody ever considered to attack eastern Australia (down to Brisbane)? Is it actually worth it VP-wise? How strong is this part usually defended?

I've never seen in AAR where someone made a concerted effort against Eastern Australia. There have been several accounts where people tried to use the KB against it - and lost the KB due to overwhelming air attacks.