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January 20th, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
Free base in the Bay today - Little Andaman is occupied.

Our bombardment at Moulmein indicates we can probably capture this base, once our troops rest a bit.

DEI
On Sumatra, Tandjoengtalai is occupied by the Allies, although the 2nd Division is expected to arrive their tomorrow so it will be back in our hands soon.

Dutch planes return to Kalidjati, although in smaller numbers now. Our planes still bring a few more down and damage inflicted to the airbase is nearly non-existent.

At Soerabaja our bombardment recon attack shows a bright picture, so we will attack tomorrow. Forts will likely prevent an immediate capture, but we have a nearly 3:1 advantage in manpower so hopefully it won't take long to bring down the base.

Pacific
Yamashiro, Mutsu and Kirishima toss some incendiary greeting cards at Port Moresby. Damage is relatively light, but it is damage. The ACM in port is hit by a medium caliber shell. Nells and Bettys from Rabaul also hit PM and do moderate damage to the airfield, keeping it closed as near as we can tell. Most of the fleet will be back in Rabaul in a day or two to reload, take on new aircraft etc, and then the carriers will get back out there while the battleships and more infantry continue to move in.

[center]
Keeping PM under the gun[/center]

Our damage xAK from PM sinks today about halfway home to Rabaul.

China
A second attack on Pucheng gets 1:1 and takes forts to zero. Again, though, casualties are still not in our favor. We also try another assault on Chengchow having received a new Brigade there. We only get 1:2 odds, but bring forts down to 2. We will probably wait a few days as 3 or 4 brigades are en route to the enemy base.

Submarines
All quiet.

I just read through your AAR and a very interesting strategy for war in the pacific... ignore the greater pacific, which seemed to lull him into aggressively using his carriers. And I did not know Singapore could fall that fast. Now I only wish there was another five pages left to read.

Hi Lcp - I do apologize for the slow pace of posting. Both my opponent and I have been pretty busy this past year, especially so this summer. Now that the kids are back to school and life is a bit more 'routine' I expect I'll do a better job of posting turns. I'm about 3 or 4 days behind at the moment.

Thanks for taking the time to read the saga thus far! I'm not actually going to ignore the Pacific entirely, I just want to make sure the 'backfield' of Burma and N.Oz is well under control before I send everything including the kitchen sink over to slow down the USN juggernaut.

January 21st, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
The Brits bomb our troops at Moulmein but damage is light.

DEI
The first real attack on Soerabaja go well and indicates the capture of that base is imminent. We get 3 to 1 odds and drop forts from level 2 down to level 1. Our heavy cruisers will soon sortie from Makassar to see what they can pick off in the exodus out of Soerabaja.

[center]
Initial attack on the big port of Soerabaja[/center]

Djokjakarta is recaptured by us today. Our unit will stay there to ensure a rail route back up to Batavia so we can attack there after Soerabaja falls.

Some Dutch remnants tried an attack at Sambas on the island of Borneo, but only managed 1:8 odds against our JNAF AF unit.

Philippines
Our pair of PBs that are cruising around find AVP Heron but aren't able to hit the ship before it gets away in the dark.

Bombardments at Clark continue to go well. Hopefully they will get even better when the next four units of artillery arrive. Results from today:

Japanese ground losses:
35 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 3 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled


Allied ground losses:
165 casualties reported
Squads: 7 destroyed, 21 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Guns lost 8 (1 destroyed, 7 disabled)
Vehicles lost 1 (1 destroyed, 0 disabled)

Pacific
Free base is near Rabaul today - Feni Islands is occupied.

Some Allied ships are spotted east of the Solomons by I-15. BB Oklahoma, CA Pensacola, CA Indianapolis, CL Detroit and half a dozen destroyers seem to be cruising around. They are either trying to lure my tired carriers out to sea to fight against the US carriers, or they are hoping to catch troops being sent to Lunga and other Solomon islands. My carriers are not sticking their neck out at the moment, so his big ships can happily cruise around for now.

Also, BB's Tennessee, California, Pennsylvania and Arizona pay a visit to Tabiteuea, but damage is pretty light. There is in airfield for them to damage as of yet, but the port damage will slow my fort building.

China
Nothing here, but attacks on Wenchow and Pucheng will be coming up.

Submarines
Ha-10 takes a shot at AVD McFarland at Suva and misses. McFarland manages some glancing blows with deptch charges, but out midget should make it back to its carrier tomorrow.

January 22nd, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
An enemy ship, the xAKL Halvdan, strikes one of the sub laid mines we dropped at Diamond harbor today.

At Moulmein we go ahead and attack and capture the base even though we are outnumbered two to one. Three British units are forced to retreat. Our tank regiment will cross the river and try to keep the rout going.

DEI
On Java, Semarang flips back over to the Allies. We'll send a small unit from Kalidajati down to recapture the base. Today's attack at Soerabaja gets 2:1 odds, but takes forts down again - this time to zero. Hopefully it will fall tomorrow.

Not much happens at night but come daytime our cruiser force near Java (CA Myoko & Haguro and 6 DDs) find three small minesweepers. The combat is fast and efficient with hardly any ammo expended and all three AMc's obliterated with 20cm shell hits.

[center]
Catching some refugees from Soerabaja[/center]

We fly a small (13 zeros) sweep over Batavia today to see what is in the air. Demons and Hawks meet our planes and we drop a Hawk. The goal here is to thin out the remaining Dutch fighters for two reasons - in case we want to bomb Batavia, and so that our light CAP can fight off Dutch bombers easier if they have less escorts.

Philippines
BA at Clark continues.

Pacific
After landing a small unit at Madang yesterday, it is occupied before the land combat phase today. A JNAF unit is on the way from Rabaul so we can put some recon here. Weather often scrubs our recon from Rabaul, so this will at least give us a greater chance of getting eyes over Port Moresby each day.

Some SBD-2 Dauntless attack Tarawa today from a carrier in the Gilberts. Damage is negligible.

A small SNLF Coy captures Manokwari.

China
An attack on the road form Nanyang to Sian still isn't successful, getting only 1:2 odds. Casaulties are even at least.

At Wenchow, our attack goes better getting 1:1 odds and keeping forts down to zero. We will continue to attack here as we have good supply and casualties are even so far.

Submarines
Quiet.

January 23rd, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
Blenheims attack Tavoy at night and manage to hit an Oscar on the ground.

The 112th Inf Regiment reaches a British pocket in the middle of the Peninsula today and gets 3:1 odds. They will have to destroy these enemy units the hard way. Another land unit is en route to Kuantan, but once we capture that base I expect the British there to surrender.

DEI
Our cruisers find six small motor launches today and make quick work of them. The cruisers will move in a bit closer to Soerabaja to make sure nothing slips away tomorrow.

[center]
More stragglers sunk [/center]

Soerabaja is captured! About 6,500 Dutch are captured or killed, four units surrender and six units flee to the south of Java. We will wait a couple days to send our minesweepers into the port in case any armed ships are hanging around. The Dutch sub KXVII was scuttled during capture - glad to see a Dutch sub gone! The 38th Div will immediately loadup and head to Batavia. The 144ths Bge (S.Seas Detachment) will head down from Singapore as well, and together those units will start the siege of Batavia.

Another sweep at Batavia brings down another 3 or 4 Dutch fighters.

In a bit of scare, an enemy Dutch unit from Batavia attacks our JNAF AF unit at Kalidjati. Our planes had left yesterday to be safe, but thankfully the embedded Japanese Marines were enough to hold the field at 1:1 odds. A brigade will arrive tonight so the only risk was today's attack.

Philippines
A small island, Tablas, is occupied today (our freebie).

Clark bombardment claims 224 enemy casualties today.

Pacific
The 22nd Special Base Force lands on Munda and should secure the base tomorrow.

China
A Chinese unit appears to be scouting the route from Changsha to Wuchang, so we sent out the 40th Division to send it packing. Today's attack was only 1:1, but tomorrow should succeed.

Our attack at Wenchow again was 1:1 - not enough to capture, but Allied casualties are now in our favor so hopefully the writing is on the wall. This battle is most significant because once Wenchow falls the 21st Division will be free to leave immediately - most likely it will head to Port Moresby.

Submarines
I-18 loaded up its midget yesterday from Suva and was headed home. Today it spotted an enemy PC and took a shot, but missed. Thankfully it dodges the counterattack and should continue home tomorrow.

January 24th, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
Our 14th Tank Regiment crosses the river north of Moulmein and causes the British on the other side to retreat again (well, 2 of the 3 units). It will attack again tomorrow and should push back or destroy the remaining unit.

DEI
Our cruisers find some easy targets tonight. Two floating drydocks escorted by three minesweepers are found and attacked. The AMc's go down easy, but the drydocks take a beating before they sink. The one drydock is 4500 tons and that goes down after three torps and some shells, but the other was a 18,000 ton monster and it took 7 torpedoes before it went down. Thankfully the ARD's are very slow so they were sitting ducks for our torpedoes.

[center]
Our cruisers find some nice targets[/center]

It appears that there are a couple transports sitting farther north at Semerang so our cruisers will head up that way and see what they can find.

On Java, the enemy again attacks Kalidjati, but with the arrival of our 21st Mix Bge, the enemy only gets 1:11 odds. Tomorrow we will counterattack and force the enemy unit back to Batavia.

The damaged DD Shigure, heading back to Saigon for repair, dodges a couple torpedoes from the SS Salmon.

Continued sweeps at Batavia bring down a couple Hawks.

On Celebes, our 15th Nav Gd again attacks the Makassar Garrison, this time at Pare Pare, and captures the base causing the Dutch unit to retreat farther inland. We will continue to follow since there are bases we need to mop up here anyway.

Philippines
Having noticed that the airfield at Clark looked function, we decided to resume bombing missions there. First though, we needed to check the airspace for enemy fighters. 36 of our Oscar-c's fly in and find 5 P-35A's on CAP. Three of the enemy planes are brought down and the rest chased away. Our Sallys come in afterward and start the job of shutting down the airfield again.

South of Formosa the SS Permit is reported hit twice by our ASW Ann's.

Pacific
Munda is occupied before the land combat phase. Our Base Force will stay here to build up the airfield.

Nells and Bettys at Rabaul manage to get a mission off and do some significant damage to the Port Moresby airfield, keeping the base closed.

The enemy sub SS Tuna has a bad day. It finds an unescorted transport of ours and unloads torpedo after torpedo and they all miss or dud. Finally the sub surfaces and hits with a couple shots, but then decides to submerge after it takes a hit from our transport ship. Thank goodness for bad torpedoes.

Our SNLF COy unloads at Finschafen and will capture the base tomorrow.

China
Today, along with Wenchow we attack Pucheng. At Pucheng we manage to get 1:1 odds also and keep forts at zero. We won't be able to attack tomorrow because this base takes a day or two to replenish supply. The enemy troops are receiving supply modifiers so it would seem they have some problems with supply also.

At Wenchow our attack again gets 1:1 odds. Casualities look good again though. We have another third of the 22nd Division on the way, so even if the base doesn't fall in the next couple days, I think the reinforcements will tip the scale.

Near Wuchang, the 40th Division gets 7:1 odds against the nosy 58th Chinese Corp, and it is sent packing for Changsha less 1400 troops.

January 25th, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
Nighttime attack by three Blenheim I's scores no hits on Tavoy. Blenheims and Hudsons hit Moulmein, but do no damage other than destroying one tank. The 14th Tank Regiment still manages to continue the rout of the 11th Burma Rifles Bn and will now sit still northwest of Moulmein.

The pocket west of Kuantan gets smaller as today one of the enemy units is destroyed.

DEI
Our cruisers again catch enemy shipping at Java. This time it is at Semarang, and the AK Si Kiang is put under easily. They also find a couple AMc's as well and dispatch those ships. Finally low on ammo, our cruisers will head to Singapore to rearm and freshen up the slight system damage points they have accumulated sailing around Java.

On the island itself, the 21st Mix Bge chases off a couple Dutch units from our base.

Zero's sweep Batavia and knock down one 75A-7 Hawk.

Farther south, our Bettys find a couple xAKLs north of Australian. Zeros escorting the Bettys keep the P-40E's on CAP over the ships busy, while the Bettys manage to sink one of the xAKLs.

The 8th Indpt SNLF, traveling by barge, captures Dobo today and destroys a Do-24K-1 plane in the process.


Philippines
Our sweeping Oscars shoot down a P-35A over Clark. Sallys hit the airbase as well for moderate damage. Starting to see more enemy squads destroyed by our artillery bombardments instead of just disabled so that has to be a good thing.

Pacific
Prior to the land combat phase, Finchafen is captured by our freshly landed SNLF Coy. The unit will move on to its next target south of Lae. Hopefully that base is unoccupied as well.

Six battleships, eight heavy cruisers and assorted other ships bombard Port Moresby. About 300 enemy casualties are reported, along with moderate airbase damaged and a few supply hits also. Bettys and Nells hit the runway as well knock out a couple more enemy squads. A deliberate attack on the base again comes up short at 1:2. We'll wait until the next reinforcements arrive before trying again.

China
We again attack northwest of Nanyang, and again only get 1:2 odds. It has only bee a couple weeks but it feel like it is taking an eternity to get the front moving here.

Farther south, the 39th Division captures Kanhsien unopposed and will now move on to Kukong.

Another attack on Wenchow gets 1:1 odds, and about 2:3 casualties. Just few points short of 2 to 1, so I think this base is getting close to falling.

January 26th, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
Assorted Allied bombers continue hitting our 41st Guard Battalion at Moulmein. Casualties are thankfully light.

The assault on the pocket west of Kuantan finishes off one of the enemy units there. The rest will go soon.

DEI
Today Dutch bombers try hitting Kalidjati at night, but miss their target.

The 1st Raiding Regiment paradrops onto Sibolga but only get 1:2 odds. Tomorrow an airborne SNLF groups will drop on the enemy base as well.

Pacific
Abenama, just south of Tarawa, is occupied by the rowboat marines. Around the same time, four US Battleships and 5 cruisers bombard Tabiteuea doing some port damage (no AF yet) and causing 188 casualties - a pair of squads are destroyed, but the rest will recover.

The 10th Special Base Force unloads at Buna and once they secure they base they will begin working on the facilities immediately.

China
A bombardment at Kweilin shows that we do not have enough troops present yet to take the base. Our 9000 troops are facing about 40,000.

Our attack at Pucheng does well, although only gets 1:2 odds. The casualty count is clearly to our benefit as overall it is 1:1.5, but more importantly, the destroyed squad ratio was 3:41.

At long last Wenchow is captured! The enemy troops head northwest as we have planned for them to do. The 21st Division will begin loading for Port Moresby tomorrow and it will connect with another brigade from Port Arthur and they will hit the beaches at Port Moresby together in hopefully just a couple weeks.

[center]
Wenchow is captured.[/center]

January 27th, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
The pocket outside Kuantan is eliminated today as we capture about 1,500 British troops. Now on to Kuantan and the peninsula will be clear.

DEI
Our minesweepers arrive at Soerbaja and start clearing mines quickly. over 220 mines are cleared today.

Today we intercept a daylight attack on Kalidjati from the Dutch airforce. Our Zeros and Oscars shoot down all the escorting fighters, but most of the 139WH-3 bombers get through and do a bit of damage to the 21st Ind Mixed Brigade that is there. The 144th (South Seas Detachment) will be unloading soon to assist with the capture of Batavia.

Farther south on Java, our 65th Brigade and 2nd Tank regiment attack Malang today. The base barely survives with 2:1 odds (fort 1) but one of the enemy units is destroyed. The fort is wiped out and the base should fall easily tomorrow.

The 1st Yokosuka SNLF airdrops in support of the 1st Raiding regiment at Sibolga. The base is not quite captured but we expect it to fall tomorrow.

Small marine units unload at Sampit, Babo an Sorong.

Pacific
Buna is occupied just before our Base Force would have attacked.

Our small SNLF Coy lands are Salamaua and unexpectedly finds enemy troops there. It doesn't seem to be many, but we will wait until a Naval Guard detachment joins us there before attacking.

Nells and Bettys hit ground targets at Port Moresby. We'll probably switch them back to airfield attack just to ensure the base stays closed.

China
We try at Paotow today and although we only get 1 to 1, the enemy force is definitely getting smaller. Not much longer now before they are kicked back to the desert.

Submarines
It is almost too easy sometimes. After a Mavis spotted a ship at Horn Island, I-171 is sent to investigate. AVP Bellatrix is sitting at the base and I-171 puts a torpedo into the enemy ship, sinking it.

[center]
Easiest planned kill of the war so far[/center]

Just west of Darwin, RO-34 spots a small xAKL and manages to hit it with a torpedo. The small ship should sink, but it hasn't been confirmed yet.

January 28th, 1942

DEI
61 more mines cleared at Soerabaja and the waters are declared clear. We will certainly put this port to good use.

At Sibolga, we send some Sallys to assist our paratroops. The Sallys help out just enough and the airborne troops manage to capture the base with 2:1 odds. Farther north the 4th Tank Regiment continues to chase some Dutch remnants down the trail.

The 144th, now unloaded at Kalidjati comes under attack from the 139WH-3's at Batavia. Our fighters against manage to take down the escorts but barely interrupt the bombers. A few casualties are had, but no squads are destroyed.

Part of our 143rd Bn attempts to recapture Semarang from the old Tjilitap garrison forces, but only gets 1:1. We will try again tomorrow.

At Malang, we manage to capture the base and surprisingly find a stockpile of aircraft. 28 139WH-3 and 12 L-212 are found at the airbase and captured. I would have thought these units would have been moved to Batavia by now, but apparently not.

Sampit, Sorong and Babo are all captured today. We also manage to get a hit on a presumably Dutch submarine. Always good to see that.

[center][/center]


Pacific
Oro Bay is occupied by our forces, presumably by some infiltrators from Buna.

China
With the last of our reinforcements in place at Chengchow, we attack and finally show some progress. The attack gets 2:1 against level 2 forts, but the forts do come down to level 1, we take more casualties, but the destroyed ratio is much more in our favor (about 3:1 to our benefit). The enemy units are getting penalties for supply, and we did destroy one of the units, so hopefully not many days remain before we crush this pocket the Chinese.

At Paotow we again get 1:1 odds. but we will keep plugging away.

January 29th, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
The TF hauling the 56th Division near Phukey is attacked by O23 which scores a hit, sinking a transport and taking a few squads with it. We'll park this TF at Sabang for now.

DEI
Another attack at Semarang on Java only gets 1:1. We have another element of the 143rd that we will bring in to finish this place off.

On Sumatra, our tank regiment continues to chase a couple Dutch garrision units south.

On Celebes, the 15th Naval pushes the Makassar Garrision into Madjene.

And near Darwin, our barge troops capture Taberfane.

Philippines
Bombs and artillery shells falling on Clark...

Pacific
Nadzab is occupied.

Near PM, the SS Sturgeon attacks our sub I-169, but thankfully duds.

Bettys and Nells from Rabaul hit the enemy troops at PM, but do little damage. I will switched them back to airfield bombing for now.

China
On the road to Sian, from Nanchang, we get 3 to 1 odds and push the Chinese stack up the road. We will of course follow and try to keep that stack retreating.

At Pucheng, we again get 1 to 1, but adjusted number are 690 to 371, so very close now. We are close at Paotow as well, with adjusted numbers of 117 to 64, which is still 1 to 1, but almost there.

Other
Most of our ships are in place to start sailing north for Ceylon. All the divisions are loaded and will rendezvous at Georgetown before heading towards Port Blair. There are still some search aircraft flying from Palembang, so we will move towards Burma so it looks like we are just heading up to unload at Moulmein, and then we will cut west to try and find a bit of a blind spot, before we get close to any search flights out of Ceylon or the India southeast coast.

January 30th, 1942
Pretty quiet today, but some success on the ground.

Malaya/Indochina
Our first attack on Kuantan gets 1:1, but drops forts to 1.

We get a hit on an enemy sub here from a Sally.

DEI
On Java, the 2nd Tank Regiment captures Probolinggo (just east of Madang). At Kalidjati, the 144th easily bounces a Dutch battalion away from the base. Another 1:1 attack at Semarang while we wait for reinforcements.

On Borneo, some Dutch refugee units try a shock attack against one of our JNAF AF units at Sambas. They fail with 1:31 odds. 4 to 1 manpower doesn't get you much if you don't have bullets for the guns.

Pacific
Continuing the streak in the SWPac, Dobadura is occupied.

On the north end of PNG, we capture Noemfoor.

China
The 39th Division reaches Kukong and give the Chinese Corp there the boot, sending it up the road north. We will follow all the way to the river.

The siege at Paotow is finally lifted! Our units send two chinese corps and an HQ packing into the desert. We will pursue for a bit to ensure the enemy units are weakened.

Submarines
I-22, while sitting away from Luganville in case it's midget needs picked up, manages to sink the PC Hermes.
[center]

Lucky hit[/center]

January 31st, 1942

Malaya/Indochina
Our attack at Kuantan gets worse with only 1:2 odds today.

DEI
Close call as Spearfish duds on a large tanker south of Mindanao. Our escorting PB has no luck finding the enemy sub.

Near Wyndham, six Bettys from Koepang sink two enemy xAKL.

[center]
Small cargo ships sunk[/center]

SNLF Coys unload at Morotai and Boela.

On Sumatra, outside of Tandjoengbalai, our 6th Tank Reg keeps some Dutch running south.

Pacific
Hansa Bay is our freebie today - this base is on the northeast coast of New Guinea.

We unload the III/84th Nav Gd at Salamaua today.

Five B-17's hit our troops at PM, our Bettys and Nells hit the enemy airbases there.

China
The attack at Pucheng only gets 1:1, but it is close - Adjuste values are 578 and 293.

Our troops from Wenchow keep the enemy stack running. They push this stack into Chusien. Our troops will stop pursuing for now. We want to keep Chusien open so the stack from Pucheng can retreat here and we can then take the full stack out all at once.

Things continue to go well for the Empire. We continue to maintain a good pace of base captures as we seized 85 more bases in the month of January. The sinking of Saratoga and damaging of Enterprise certainly enables us to continue to be aggressive for the foreseeable future.

The Malayan peninsula is slowly being built up, with lots of naval support at Georgetown and forts and airbases being constructed up and down the peninsula.

The bulk of our forces are en route to Ceylon, before we head back and focus on Burma.

Java is nearly ours, with Batavia as the last bastion of Dutch strength there. we slowly work our way south on Sumatra as we build up naval support in Singapore that will located to Palembang once it is captured. We'll need lots of naval support to pull all the fuel, resources and supply out of that base.

In China, the bulk of our forces are on the fast march towards Kienko having captured many Chinese troops at Chengchow. In the south, we will likely bag another 60,000 troops in February at Chusien.

The Philippines is an exercise in artillery warfare for now, but casualties are on our side.

Mostly quiet in the Pacific as we wait for our next wave to hit Port Moresby.

Goals for February include the capture of Ceylon, Port Moresby, Batavia and Palembang. Secondary goals include fanning out to grab Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, the islands west of Sumatra, and finishing up the securing of the small bases throughout the DEI and Papua New Guinea.

Beyond February, the plan is to hit Luganville and/or Noumea with the forces at Port Moreby, Burma with the troops headed to Ceylon, and northern Australia with the forces currently on Sumatra and Java. PP's will continue to be spent to pull infantry divisions out of Manchuria a component at a time and used to augment these main thrusts.

Some numbers for January -
Bases captured: 85
VP Ratio Jan 1: 1.633:1 (Allies)
VP Ratio Feb 1: 1.433:1 (Japan)
Air losses: 125 Japan, 150 Allies
Ships lost - Allies: 91 Ships, 797 Points
Ships lost - Japan: 21 Ships, 164 Points

Capital Ships lost (entire war):
Allies
CV Saratoga
BB Prince of Wales
BC Repulse
CA San Francisco
CA Australia
CA Canberra
CL Boise
CL Mauritius
CL Leander
CL Marblehead
CL Perth
CL Java
CL DeRuyter
CL Dragon
CL Durban
CL Adelaide

Japan
None

[center][/center]

Nice.  Good start of the war. 

Thanks, Pax! Hopefully we can keep it up for a while yet.

Well, compared to historical, this has been a pretty bloodless war naval-wise on both sides.  1xCV, 2xBB, and 3xCA are losses which really don't count for the allies.  The good news for you is that you haven't lost any of yours.  Your opponent looks to be playing pretty conservative.  That means to me when he shows up, it will be with the big hammer.  Somehow you will have to smoke his target out and have LBA waiting because in '43 the KB cannot match up against the allied Armada.  Zeros can't handle Hellcats/Corsairs/TBolts ... you've got to get George/Tojo/Frank involved.  And all the the Jill/Judy/Helen/Frances you can find. [;)]

Here's to a smoking '43!!!

Hi Pax -

I agree with your assessment - and I'm sure because of the big hammer to come, 1943 will indeed be a smoking year!

February 1st, 1942
The new month starts with a busy day - mostly good news across the board, but the big news is in China today.

Malaya/Indochina
Most of the fleet is now underway for Ceylon. The 56th Division is parked at Sabang until the rest of the fleet sails past from Singapore.

Some Blenheim IV's attack Bangkok. Our Oscar take some shots, but fail to bring any down. Casualties are light.

DEI
Near Sabang, a Sally scores a hit on an Allied sub.

We Capture an unoccupied Morotai and Boela as the DEI cleanup continues.

Pacific
Kokoda, between Buna and Port Moresby, is occupied today. Certainly a nice freebie to get as we try to secure the island of PNG.

Five B-17's again visit our troops at Port Moresby, but cause not casualties.

At Salamaua, the 4th SNLF Coy, assisted by the III/84th NG, chase the C coy/NG Rifles out of the base. The enemy troops retreat to Lae. We will load up via ship and take the fight to them at Lae next.

Farther north, our SNLF Coy unloads at Biak.

China
Plenty of battles here today. Northwest of Nanyang, we continue moving up the road and send two Chinese Corps retreating again, destroying 2200 enemy troops in the process.

More significant is the battle at Pucheng. We manage to finally capture the base with 3 to 1 odds forcing a significant stack of enemy troops (23,000) to retreat towards Chusien. We've got Chusien surround but left one hexside open so we can bounce these enemy troops into the base and then force a big surrender. We don't want any guerrilla units roaming around the back field if it can be avoided. This retreat bags 6,800 enemy casualties.

And if that wasn't good enough - we manage to capture Chengchow and bring in major haul of enemy troops. 55,000 Chinese troops surrender - that's 21 units. The details of both battles can be seen below. This win frees up 90,000 of our troops that will move towards Kienko ASAP.

Also visible in the map is the location of the 110th Division, which is racing behind the lines to try and capture Kungchang and mess up the enemy retreat from Sian and capturing Lanchow early on.

[center]
China overview[/center]

Submarines
I-159 fires at and misses an xAP near Darwin.