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March 7th, 1942

Lots of troops ashore here in India. Rough guess is 3k AV. 3 IJA Tank Units rushed ahead to catch the general retreat.

Will probably stage large retreat to Bombay and Karachi and an attempt at preventing a quick conquest of India by paratroop, which are present.

About a division worth of troops land here...it seems there is a fairly strong escort.

Oz...probably not in danger now.[;)] Although I expect Japan to keep snarfing up any victory point base it can for the next month.

Western Oz

A xak is 5 days away from entering the map with supplies for Diego Garcia, I guess will try to remember her, and might be able to sneak one in, otherwise the Indian troops there will be eating their shoes. Speaking of which, they only have a 38 experience level...and are expecting aerial attacks.

Japan's offensive is stopped cold for now, but supplies will dwindle with the upcoming loss of Ledo…

ORIGINAL: Encircled

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

So, I am thinking of not watching the replay, and rather piece the turn together from other reports. It will change the AAR for sure, as I really like giving multiple posts as the turn progresses.

Think its still worth watching, as the major errors are still very rare

I dunno if you are getting a copy of his generated combat report, but if you are that tends to be more accurate (not always though)

Nope, not getting a copy of Japan's combat report.

The daily combat report is written event by event thru watching the replay, and that is what Combat Reporter accesses, so it is potentially flawed too.

I always played the AI with only combat reporter, and turned off animations even...it was enjoyable. Not watching the replay and basing a lot of the AAR off will probably reduce my time in game...so there is a bright side. Faster turnover.

It will take a major effort by Japan to take these islands...

Line Islands SW of Pearl are also building up nicely...

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

What does this Indian foray tell you about Oz? Are there any signs of Oz withdrawal? Has he milked about as many strategic bombing points as he can?

Cheers,
CB

I suspect Oz is at it limit of Japanese success right now, and in fact I suspect he might pull some troops back from Perth. We are still a long way from launching offensive operations here....but the dreaded invasion bonus is coming to an end.

Worried now about Socotra and the other bases off northern India. Diego Garcia though might be a major wrench in Japan's timetable.

As mentioned previously he has gotten 1000 vp from OZ...nothing easy left for him. Japan has been bombing Brisbane, but the AA keeps it ineffectual.

March 8, 1942

The IJA Tank Spearhead tries again on the road to Tuyun, but the combined anti tank guns (37mm in Chinese Corps, 2 pounders in the 56th British AT, and artillery present Indian Mountain Guns, 105mm Howitzer in the 20th Artillery, and the 75mm in the Chinese Corps) manages once again to blunt the attack in very favorable terms.

However the 85th AT suffers about 50% disablements and this is a worrisome trend as the 56th Chinese AT unit has already been forced to retreat due to high disablements along with the Stuarts in the 43rd Cavalry. Both those units are resting now at Tuyun...but plentiful supplies are simply not going to happen unless they retreat all the way to Kunming.

On a positive side, the IJA has more troops moving away.

I lost a few Banshees bombing IJA tanks in Australia, managed to get a few vehicles for the loss of planes.

British Hurricanes and P40s swept the advancing Japanese tanks north of Chittagong and cleared the air...

B17s bombed Rangoon and Magwe at night securing hits...

Oscars and Sallies bombed Newcastle in Australia, but Wildcats managed to prevent any VP from being scored. Kalgoorlie continues to be bombed for VP however.

Fuel at Urumchi (the age old problem!), but no trucks or infrastructure to send it south seemingly. I would feel lot better if that 17K fuel was at Chungking![:)] No supplies to build the bases up, although I did build the dot base at Tienshui up to level 1, so there is at least a level one runway connecting Urumchi with the rest of China.

I think I will play with setting fuel stockpiles on and see if that can draw some fuel in...starting with Kunming. I am not hopeful. I bet setting Kunming fuel stockpile on Dec 8th would have been a good tactic.

Also hit some oil at Magwe this turn...

March 9, 1942

Never really fought this India fight here before aggressively as Japan. I did make a fighting retreat in a pickup game versus Jocke here...where I retreated all the way to Shwebo and Magwe, held in the open terrain thanks to massed AA, and outmaneuvered the Allies which helped lead to him throwing the towel...

A lot of the Japanese troops seem strange to me...I probably did have them in the game versus Jocke. Flanking invasions are the great scare, along with paratroop drops to cut the rail lines.

I still have two Chinese units that need air lifting out of China, one small one at Kunming and another larger one at Lashio. Not sure I can get them all out![:(]

Right now Allied bombers are resting and training, while the fighters are attacking in the air over Chittagong and area.

Our Beasts are hitting Magwee, Rangoon and this turn 16 hit Canton (but those guys failed to get any hits).

I have six B26 squadrons in India, but rng is preventing additions to the pools, and I am loathe to use them.

Four Engine beasts are being held off and used against industry...

Blenheims are too weak and fragile...

Other than that our US Army AF pools look good to me.

I put Chengtu on stockpile fuel last turn, and lo and behold no fuel went to Kunming or Chungking. The fuel might not move every day to those distance bases (distant from Lanchow our source of fuel). But Chengtu has twice the level that it needs, and being so much closer should be able to keep Chungking fed at least, I think.

For now I will put Kunming on stockpile fuel, which probably is meaningless given no source of fuel from Lashio...and take Chengtu off stockpile.

Urumchi just adds 180 fuel every day...perhaps when it gets to spoilage levels it will ship some south to Lanchow, but I doubt it.

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

I have six B26 squadrons in India, but rng is preventing additions to the pools, and I am loathe to use them.

Four Engine beasts are being held off and used against industry...

Blenheims are too weak and fragile...

Other than that our US Army AF pools look good to me.

That list is sorted by pool size so arrivals are not in order, but you should be getting some B-26B soon or may already have some. That aircraft has better durability or defensive firepower or both, but may sacrifice a hex of range IIRC. The problem I had is that the Stateside squadrons took up all the good stuff before I could get the right conditions at the front to upgrade from B-26 to B-26B.

PDU off game, B26b arrives in May with a replacement rate of 15. Only one squadron in India upgrades to them...


I do have a squadron of Dutch pilots with B25c though.

Just going to have to be careful with my bombers...

March 11, 1942

Having hidden the whole war, maybe one or two intercept runs that failed to connect, task force Pillsbury comes thru this last night catching juicy IJN shipping at Samarinda....there is a heavy IJN SAG (with battleships and cruisers) nearbye, but they retired after taking Balikpapen, leaving the IJN shipping unprotected.

First encounter pictured below, several followups:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Samarinda at 65,96, Range 7,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
E Shimushu
E Saga, Shell hits 6, on fire, heavy damage
xAK Ayato Maru
xAK Chihaya Maru, Shell hits 1
xAK Enju Maru
xAK Hokuriku Maru
xAK Kiyozumi Maru
xAK Kuroshio Maru
xAKL Tatibana Maru
xAKL Tatebu Maru
xAKL Nittatsu Maru, Shell hits 2

Allied Ships
DD Bulmer, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Paul Jones
DD Pillsbury
DD Pope, on fire

No ammo:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Samarinda at 65,96, Range 12,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
E Shimushu
xAK Ayato Maru
xAK Chihaya Maru
xAK Enju Maru
xAK Hokuriku Maru
xAK Kiyozumi Maru
xAK Kuroshio Maru
xAKL Tatibana Maru
xAKL Tatebu Maru
xAKL Nittatsu Maru

Allied Ships
DD Bulmer, on fire
DD Paul Jones
DD Pillsbury
DD Pope, on fire

Still no ammo....but perhaps the encounter caused Kashi to maneuver aggressively and hopefully she founders later in the day.

Night Time Surface Combat, near Samarinda at 65,96, Range 12,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
CL Kashii, on fire, heavy damage
xAK Hokko Maru, on fire

Allied Ships
DD Bulmer, on fire
DD Paul Jones
DD Pillsbury
DD Pope, on fire

Then, Task Force Pillsbury with the arrival of dawn, decides to expend every last bit of ammuntion:

Day Time Surface Combat, near Balikpapan at 65,97, Range 16,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
E Shimushu, Shell hits 4, on fire
xAK Ayato Maru, Shell hits 1
xAK Chihaya Maru
xAK Enju Maru
xAK Hokuriku Maru, Shell hits 2, on fire
xAK Kiyozumi Maru, Shell hits 1
xAK Kuroshio Maru, Shell hits 2, heavy fires
xAKL Tatibana Maru
xAKL Tatebu Maru, Shell hits 1
xAKL Nittatsu Maru, Shell hits 1

Allied Ships
DD Bulmer, on fire
DD Paul Jones
DD Pillsbury, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Pope

I have been having computer problems lately, hopefully have them beat now...