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April 22, 1943

Sensing the garrison's weakness, Andy went for back to back attacks on Calcutta. Forts are now very low, but the garrison is still resisting and surprisingly enough still inflicting decent amounts of damage in return.

Subject to fog of war of course, the Calcutta garrison has destroyed 588 infantry squads thus far. The garrison has also destroyed a sizable share of other squads and equipment, particularly combat engineers. Maybe I am looking at this with rose colored glasses, but if we add in the amount of allied aircraft lost to flak, the amount of time the garrison has tied down nearly 20 enemy divisions plus other units (and air squadrons), and the opportunity provided for air ambushes and engagements, I believe the garrison has more than fulfilled its purpose. Not bad for a force mostly composed of naval guard and garrison regiments (the notable exception being the 17th Infantry Division).

April 26, 1943

After a few days pause and daily massed air attacks that kept Japanese disruption high, Andy threw his forces against Calcutta once more. With forts down to 2, the city will fall in the next attack.

Five Frank factories are now actively researching. I think I am now on track to get the aircraft by June. Given how my pilots are still holding their own quite well with the Tojo and with the arrival of the George in large numbers, I have decided to allow only one of the twelve research factories to produce the Frank A, while all eleven of the remaining will immediately go for the Frank R. It's a bit of a risk but I think its worth it to get the Frank R as early as possible.

April 27, 1943

The Empire vows revenge - Calcutta falls!

Now that the last Japanese strongpoint in India has been taken, the question is what Andy will do next. Ceylon is an obvious one, and he is already building up mega airbases within close range. He may also drive down into Burma after he rests his army, although I haven't seen much indication of movement in that regard yet. My suspicions are also that he will go for an operation in the Aleutians pretty soon, and perhaps an operation in the South Pacific as well.

The Empire

April 28, 1943

Soviet tank units attempted to flank my main defensive positions by going through a dirt track in Mongolia to the west of Ulan Bator. That was a bad idea, as not only is such a thrust hard to supply but it is also devoid of air cover (no airbases around). With the aid of concentrated Japanese bomber attacks Japanese tank regiments counterattacked and threw the Soviets back. The Japanese will now pursue.

Does he have the carrier forces to actually sustain an offensive away from LBA?

ORIGINAL: DanielAClark

Does he have the carrier forces to actually sustain an offensive away from LBA?

He doesn't have the carrier forces to go up against the KB, at least not yet, but especially with the Essex coming online soon he should have enough to go up against weak Japanese LBA in the margins in a month or so if not sooner. I think it depends how good his intelligence picture his and how risk averse or not he is.

May 1, 1943

An unfortunate day in the air and it is all my fault.

I knew he was looking to go after Ceylon. With all his preparations, airbase expansions, and squadron movements it was pretty obvious. So I sent in a few very good IJN squadrons newly equipped with the George to contest his coming aerial offensive. Unfortunately, I realized too late that I had neglected to send radar equipped units to the island! I was in the process of remedying this critical oversight but the day before the radar would have arrived Andy launched an overwhelming aerial offensive against Colombo with his best squadrons and roughly handled my radar-less fighters. 14 pilots are KIA and 21 are WIA, representing the worst day thus far for my elite pilots.

Edit: Some good news - I double checked my pilot losses and only 3 of the KIA are aces, one of whom has 11 kills. The bulk of the KIA number is made up with relatively fresh (but still good) pilots that were brought into the squadrons. The WIA list is a different matter, with a large number of high scorers. Hopefully they come back!

In better news, Japanese tank regiments chased down the retreating Soviet armored units and finished them off.

May 3, 1943

Andy continues to pound the air bases in Ceylon, but today he paid a price when his heavy bombers encountered fierce resistance over Koggala. Some 25-30 4E bombers were destroyed. When weakly escorted, even these beasts are quite vulnerable, especially to a well armed aircraft like the George.

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

April 19, 1943

I sent in a couple of my destroyers to knock out the small craft around Geraldton and the mission was a success. Two task forces composed of a total of 24 PT boats and 3 MGBs were completely destroyed. Illustrated below is the first task force. I wonder how many PT boats the USN gets in total?

In AE, the USN gets 398 in total (part of the research for the PT boat art mod)

Elco 77ft PT (US) - 46
Higgins 78ft PT (US) - 115
Huckins 78ft PT (US) - 10
Elco 80ft PT (US) - 227

The Indian Navy adds 24 Vospers in late '43, and there were some dribs and drabs on map in 1941 for the Dutch (12) and Brits (8). The three Philippine "Q-boats" are Elco 77 class (in-game, not in real life), and counted as such.

Thanks Kull, that's some really nice artwork!

More than a third of the way into 1943, here are where things stand. I lost quite a few points with the loss of Calcutta and the destruction of its garrison, although I gained quite a bit there too with damage inflicted on the opposing forces.

Economy

Miraculously, I have yet to crash the economy. Fuel is at 6 million and supply is at 5.5 million and both are slowly climbing. I am a bit worried about my heavy industry points however, as their rate of accumulation has dropped dramatically with the loss of the heavy industry in India. I thought about turning off some of the merchant shipping but I remain desperate for more tankers (even though I only lost a single tiny one for the entire war) so that's the focus there. Now I am considering turning off some of the armament points when I get to 300K. Too risky?

Engines 1

Here are my currently producing engine factories. I've placed a lot of emphasis on the Ha-45 of which I currently have a stockpile of 3,327 engines. I figure since I will need that engine for the rest of the war I might as well produce large numbers from the start.

Edit: Not shown in the image (got cropped out) is the single Ha-60 factory of size 80.

Engines 2

In terms of developing or researching engines a lot of emphasis is going into the Ha-43. Once I am able to start making those engines some of the research factories will probably go for the jet engine. I also just started making the Ha-44 for the Ki-94 that I now have five airframe factories trying to research.

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Engines 2

In terms of developing or researching engines a lot of emphasis is going into the Ha-43. Once I am able to start making those engines some of the research factories will probably go for the jet engine. I also just started making the Ha-44 for the Ki-94 that I now have five airframe factories trying to research.

I'd recommend using two factories researching jet engines if you want to have Karyus in early 45. Should be easily affordable to use two factories which will give you 60% R&D per month. If you won't get there you won't have lost a lot and considering how well your overall situation is I can't see you capitulating in early 45.