January 4th 1942
Still mostly the calm before whatever storm that may be coming. I haven't seen the KB since several days after the Pearl Harbor attack, so I'm on the alert everywhere... even the west coast. I've also been scanning the intelligence reports religiously for clues.
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Under the waves
SS Dragon puts 29 3" shells into a Japanese AKL and causes heavy fires. Look at her go!
Southwest of Hawaii one of my big AKs gets a fish in her, she might be able to make it back to PH though.
..Oh, never mind. She just took 2 more torpedoes, so
AK Michael Goulandris has gone under.
DEI/Malaya
Tone does a sweep with 30 Oscars over Singapore. I've weakened the CAP here to prevent losses to night raids so I only got 15 planes in the air and lost two buffaloes and 1 P-40.
I've picked up a lot of heavy radio traffic from Babeldaob, the island about 1,000 miles east of Manado. Sure enough my naval patrols have spotted several task forces around the island and nearly 50 ships in the port of Babeldaob. This is likely a buildup for invading Ambon, Kendari, etc. My patrols also spotted one CV in the port of Babeldaob, but no idea how accurate the report is. I'm going to do a proper recon of Babeldaob this turn to see what they can find.
The 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, another veteran of the war in North Africa, leaves Aden today and makes it's way to Java.
China
While making my local offensives on other fronts in China, I ran into larger resistance than expected when crossing the river west of Taiyuan.
Ground combat at 90,40
Allied Shock attack
Attacking force 38850 troops, 229 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 1413
Defending force 63025 troops, 544 guns, 347 vehicles, Assault Value = 2206
Allied adjusted assault: 82
Japanese adjusted defense: 7072
Allied assault odds: 1 to 86
Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+)
Attacker: shock(+), disruption(-), supply(-)
Japanese ground losses:
859 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 36 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 61 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Vehicles lost 4 (0 destroyed, 4 disabled)
Allied ground losses:
17782 casualties reported
Squads: 449 destroyed, 296 disabled
Non Combat: 413 destroyed, 188 disabled
Engineers: 12 destroyed, 17 disabled
My troops have been knocked down to 800 AV. I'm surprised at the build up he has here, he may have been planning to start an offensive onto Sian. However I have 2,500 more AV marching down the road from the west which will arrive in a few days. Once they arrive I should be able to pin his troops in this mountain hex.
Meanwhile slightly further south I have crossed the river at Chenchow unmolested and have besieged Kaifeng, Anyang, and Kaoping. Anyang should fall tomorrow. My objective is to take these three towns/cities and then push southeast to Suchow to threaten his north-south railroad between North China and Central China. The main idea is to attract as many of his troops as possible away from the surrounded Japanese in Central China.
In Central China the troops at Sinyang are moving out. Units are being sent to reinforce my encirclement troops while 2750 AV moves to reinforce the siege at Hankow. I have another 2,500 AV coming from Changsa that will also reinforce the siege at Wuchow. If I wait a few weeks for his supplies to dwindle these two cities should eventually fall if he doesn't send a substantial relief army-- which will be hard for him due to my other offensives stretching him out.
