Excel Empire - F Krieg vs Great Went - DBB-C 28

[ny59giants]

I've played both sides which is something I think everybody should do.

SoPac (Suva & Pago Pago) - I would destroy his troops and then place a bought out brigade from China to go in each base with maybe an Air HQ, a few BFs, and some construction that can go from island group to island group. This is too far away from vital industry to spend much on. Just destroy Allied troops.

Port Moresby - This is one of those bases that it is more important to deny usefulness to the Allies rather than capture. With Japan taking Horn Island, Milne Bay, and Buna you can almost starve his troops. He cannot afford to spend precious shipping and air assets there yet. Talk to me once early '43 arrives or if he develops Cooktown and Portland Roads.

Northern Australia - I would go from Horn Island over to Exmouth and maybe down to Tennant Creek. He has 1st through 5th Australian Divisions to use, but an Allied player always has to worry about getting them that far north and Japan landing in west and/or east that makes them useless. One and maybe a second division from SoPac should be enough.

Burma/India - He has the 1st Burma Division if he has recombined all the elements and possibly a Chinese Corp or two if he has spent PP to buy out from western China. They are are relatively weak. I tend to send the one brigade at Rangoon, at Karachi, and one at sea to form the 17th Indian at Chittagong during the first month. He may have about 6 Indian divisions, but they are still relatively weak until early '43 when their Rifle Squads got to '43 version (major increase in Anti-Armor) and gets the 18 lb guns up to 25 lb guns. If you threaten to cut off his forces in Burma from China by heading for Ledo, then you don't need much in Burma but a division and maybe some smaller LCUs. If he lost two Heavy AA Rgt and the BIG AA brigade at Colombo, your Helen/Sally should do well at 11k with Oscars for escorts everywhere.

Where's Waldo?? - The question that you need to answer is where are the few American divisions?? Has any been sent to India?? To Australia?? To SoPac or NZ?? It would be a good guess that he sent the rest of 2nd Marine to Pago Pago as a regiment starts here. The Americal Division needs PP for 2/3 of it. There is the 40th, 41st, and 27th Divisions that need PP to get out of USA and Cape Town.

I say the greater Calcutta area is a good option as it will force the Allies into a difficult position at this time with his losses and you can gain some short to medium term increase in supply generation and HI stockpiling.

[FeurerKrieg]

Thanks for all this input!

I'm with you on SoPac. It is far away, so I am only taking it to destroy troops and keep the 4E's at distance a little longer. Recon says Suva is lightly held, and I haven't got solid recon on Pago Pago yet, but the Glens haven't seen much there yet.

When I captured Port Moresby, along with some Art, RAF BF and Papua infantry there were the following:
1st Aug Bde
7th Aus Bde
9th Aus Bde
11th Aus Bde
49th Aus Bde
34th Inf Reg (not sure what nationality this one is)

Are any of these brigades part of the Aussie Divisions you mentioned that might be used to defend northern Australia (1st through 5th)? These brigades are still stuck at Terapo in the jungle, so those units are not being rebuilt yet. I am hoping those units cost some PPs to get out - PP's that can't be spent on the American units. I have Horn Island already and I do plan to take everything over to Exmouth, so we are on the same page there.

When I took Luganville, there was the 2nd Marine Reg and the 8th Marine Reg. Those are the only American units's I've seen. Oh, there was the 2nd USMC Para Bn at Tabitaeu as well. Nothing was at Noumea, but I would be surprised if they are all at Suva because even DL of 10 only shows about 10,000 troops there. Maybe Pago Pago but that doesn't seem likely either. Where do they start? West Coast US? Perhaps he had been planning to hit the Gilberts and Marshalls when my carriers are away for refit or something and didn't move the US Units to the SoPac.

So for the Calcutta area, given the units lost at Colombo, how much do you think I would need to take it? 1st Arm Division is still a month out, and then it needs shipped over. Can 3 Divisions make it to Ledo and back out again?

[ny59giants]

It takes three of those Aussie Brigades to make a division. So almost two divisions are stranded far, far away from home. [X(]

So, he has almost three division in Australia, a couple of Armor Cav Brigades, and the still weak 6x Arm Rgt (need to get Grants over the summer to be worth anything via monthly CS Convoys to Cape Town). He left this place bare. If you were playing Scenario 2 or DBB 30, I would almost be tempted to go for ALL of Australia and skip India. He is very weak here unless he has American divisions here. [:-]

One of the Marine Rgt starts at Pago Pago and the other at San Diego. Both don't need PP to move.

Depending at what he has at Chittagong and the forts there, you should be able to get it with 3 or 4 divisions. Once that happens, you can push east until Dimapur. From there over to Ledo should be just one division while the rest head north to be on flank of Calcutta. Calcutta is a heavy urban, so it will take some serious number of troops, but you may be able to take the surrounding bases. Your air power should make it hard for him to defend in clear terrain.

[FeurerKrieg]

Alright, I'll definitely think about this. Thanks again for the insight!

[castor troy]

I wouldn't buy out units from China. Why doing so and lessen the strenght there when you can buy out units from Japan or Manchuko?

[FeurerKrieg]

Yea, I had just assumed he meant Manchukuo.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 20th, 1942
Haven't had a day with this many base captures in one day for a while. Seven bases captured today!

India/Burma
Just a few Blenheims at Trincomalee this night. No damage is sustained.

In Burma everything goes even better than expected. At Pegu the 21st Ind Mixed Bde crosses the river while the 14th tank regiment charges in from the northeast. The 2nd Burma Bde and 107th RAF Base Force are sent running back to Rangoon with a 107:1 (215:2) result! They lose about 60% of their men in the retreat.

At the same time, transport aircraft are flying all over Burma where there is not a single enemy fighter to be found. Long range Tinas drop elements of the Yokosuka 1st SNLF far to the north in the jungles at Katha, and the base is captured. Sally transports drop the Yokosuka 3rd SNLF at Magwe and the 2nd Raiders at Prome. Both bases are also unoccupied and the Paratroopers seize both bases.

The surprise for me, was at Bassein. I knew the base was occupied and had hoped to get enough of the 1st Raiders on target that they would not be pulverized during the shock attack. Surprisingly, their drop goes well and the 100th RAF Base Force is actually overwhelmed (11:1) and surrenders to our paratroopers!

One element of the 56th Division will start heading to Chittagong tomorrow just in case I decide to go for Calcutta. More recon needs to be done to see if Calcutta is doable. Failing that, we may also consider making the run to Ledo and then just parking at Dacca.

The map below shows the situation at Burma. It will be interesting to see what movement arrows, if any, show up for the Allies in the area tomorrow.

[center]
Burma offensive begins in earnest [/center]

Pacific
Near Noumea, the small island of Lifou is occupied. Near Nandi, our troops seize Duff Island. Is this Homer Simpson's dream vacation spot?

Horn Island goes to size 2 airfield and I think that is plenty. Enough for 1E bombers to cover the transit around that corner of Australia.

9 B-17E's come to Terapo today and although we don't shoot any down, 7 bombers are damaged.

Our carriers again detect the small Allied group of DM's or APDs at 7 hexes out but don't attack. Likely weather was a factor as the enemy TF had a cloud over it. We won't pursue as we need to cover our loaded divisions.

China
Sian airfield goes to size 2.

Our single division launches a DA at Shaoyang, but the new enemy unit from Hengyang is decent, and to help it out the 5th Chinese Cav enters the hex from the west. However, the Chinese get negative modifiers for op mode, disruption, preparation and experience, so we manage to get 141:96 adjust Av. Not that far from 2:1. Casualties are 450 Chinese to 185 Japanese. We will attack again tomorrow hoping that Chinese disruption increased from this battle and that with air power we might be able to just get a 2:1 result.

Meanwhile, our stronger division moves back into Siangtan, where recon says there are 3 units. We'll do a BA tomorrow to assess the enemy strength, and decide what to do after that.

Other
Carrier Hiyo enters service today at Kobe. Some destroyers from Tokyo that just came out of refit will meet the carrier and escort her to the South Pacific. With the accelerated Hiyo off the slips, we are able to resume production on two light cruisers, two destroyers and five Glen subs.

Yamato will be done soon and that will free up a lot of ship yard points as well.

[center]
Junyo Class carrier - CV Hiyo[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

April 21st, 1942

India/Burma
A few Blenheim's attack Trincomalee at night, scoring one runway hit.

We keep up the pressure with lots of air attacks on Rangoon. Flak is heavy though and we lose about 4 planes to flak. Still, if the enemy troops are trying to move I think we'll keep them out of move mode. We have an armor unit in Rangoon and our brigade is at 23 miles in, so fingers crossed it gets there tomorrow. The 65th Bge didn't quite fully unload so we need to wait another day before it starts marching to Rangoon as well.

We transfer the rest of the 1st Raiders, and most of the 2nd raiders. Should have the 2nd done by tomorrow and with luck the 1st Yokosuka as well. Tina's only on the 3rd Yoko at Katha, so that one will take a bit longer.

DEI
We unload another SNLF unit at Mataram and will try another attack tomorrow.

Philippines
Manila expands the port to size 7 today. I'll stop it there as I don't think I need a bigger port in the PI than size 7.

We attack at Tacloban and get a 28:1 result, easily forcing the 93rd PA Infantry Regiment to surrender. These two units will load up and head over to one of the other islands as our cleanup continues.

Several Naval Guard units load up on Tokyo to head to Mindanao and start working on that island as well.

Pacific
7 B-17's attack Horn Island and we have 20 A6M2's on CAP there, although they are lower experience. They only damage a couple B-17's but they all get nice experience gains out of the fighting.

China
At Ankang we capture the base and force 4 Chinese units into the woods. They lose about 3600 troops in the retreat. The 22nd Division will cut through the forest to the secondary road that leads into the Chungking valley, while some armor head to Kienko and a couple units stay behind in case the Chinese units that retreat return to Ankang.

Our bombardment at Siangtan (instead of a DA) is well founded as 50,000 Chinese have entered the hex. We have several units that will enter Changsha tomorrow and will so many troops here at Siangtan, I think we will be able to resist any counterattack out of Changsha. Enemy troops are moving to Siangtan from Hangyang too, so our units south of the river will start marching north. At Siangtan, the Chinese do launch a DA and we hold okay, although we take a fair amount of casualties. Hopefully lack of supply will prevent another attack here tomorrow.

At Shaoyang, our attack gets 111:82, so not quite enough. I think if our airpower had flown we would have got it, but bad weather kept us grounded. We will try again tomorrow. We haven't picked up much disruption, while the enemy troops have so I don't want to give them a chance to recover.

In the north of China we finally capture Sining, giving us some local supply production up here. The enemy troops retreat northeast, and we will follow them for a bit to ensure they don't cause any trouble. Also, farther north at Kiuchuan, our tanks get a 2:1 result and drop forts to zero. They may actually capture this base on their own.

Other
Ki-49-IIa Helen moves up a month to August 1942. It is gainin 2% per day, so it should advance to July by mid June.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 22nd, 1942

India/Burma
The rest of the 2nd Raiders Para group is dropped into Prome, and the Yokosuka 3rd SNLF is complete at Magwe as well. The Yokosuka 1st will still need a couple days probably.

At Rangoon, the enemy bombards only, which is good for us as our reinforcements end up a mile short of entering the hex. Seeing what is there, I'm not 100% sure that even the brigade could hold up, so the armor will run out of there. I think it can cover the whole hex in one day. The 65th Brigade will be at Pegu in 2-3 days, so I think everything is well in hand here.

[center]
Enemy troops at Rangoon[/center]

DEI
We attack some Dutch refugees outside of Palembang but only get 1:1 (43:29) so we'll need to rest a couple days and try again.

However, at Mataram we finally win the battle there with a 36:1 result and capture about 1500 enemy troops. The small units will load up and grab the last 3 unoccupied islands in the Flores chain, while on of the large SNLF units will head up to grab the islands off the west side of Sumatra.

Pacific
11x B-17E's hit Terapo and our Zeros manage to bring one down.

6 more B-17E hit Horn Island and although we damage 3, we don't down any. Our pilots continue to get some good experience increases from attacking the bombers.

China
We hammer the enemy units at Shaoyang pretty hard from the air - one of the airstrikes does almost 600 casualties. After the pounding from the air, our division does pretty well on the deliberate attack and gets 5:1, forcing the two Chinese units to retreat the Hengyang with pretty heavy casualties.

Next door, at Siangtan, it is the opposite situation as our outnumbered 6th Division is beaten with a 7:1 result, but is able to retreat to the now clear Shaoyang. This is good since we have light industry and a good amount of supply there. Now with forts on the rise, the two units should be able to hold against a decent size force. And they control a main supply road from the Chinese interior to Hengyang, Siangtang, and Changsha.

Farther north, at Kiuchan, our long tank unit that nearly captured the base yesterday falls on its face with a 1:11 result. The Chinese counterattack and force us to retreat with a 2:1 result. Thankfully we only lose 11 tanks on the retreat.

Tomorrow we have a few units that will enter Changsha. Hopefully enough to hold with the defensive bonus there.

Submarines
At Pago Pago, midget sub Ha-8 takes a hit from a PC. The midget will try to return to its carrier tomorrow.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 23rd, 1942

India/Burma
I almost forgot that Ramree Island was on the map, but today we get a free occupation at the base. Our armor successfully escapes Rangoon before the Allies can counterattack.

Pacific
PB's notice some mines at Luganville, so the enemy subs have apparently paid us a visit. Some AMc's will come down from Rabaul and stay on station here. Our troop transports and battleship escorts shipped out today as well and are now four hexes south of Luganville while we load up the last elements of our troops at Noumea.

B-17E's are at Horn Island again, but none go down.

China
Three Chinese Corps attack our Brigade southwest of Kienko and get 4:1 results, forcing us back into the rough terrain to the southeast of Kienko. I'll sit there for now while I decide what is the best use of that unit.

2 divisions, 1 brigade and a mortar battalion are in Changsha now, outnumber by about 3 to 1. My hope is the terrain will keep us from being dislodged. All air attacks will be focused on Changsha until two more reinforcing divisions arrive.

Submarines
The DAMAGED midget sub Ha-8, manages to put a torpedo into xAK Dumosa at Pago Pago, likely sinking the ship (I heard sinking noises). Pretty impressive given the ship has 20 sys damage and a few float points as well. It does reach its carrier and will now go back to Rabaul for repairs and rearmament. Ha-5, also at Pago Pago, takes a shot at another xAK and misses. It will be picked up and taken back to rearm as well.
[center]

A real performer - attacking while damaged[/center]

[obvert]

Nice works with the minis! I fid those hits really satisfying, especially when you can save the boat.

[FeurerKrieg]

I agree - it is something of a 'mini' game itself (pun intended).

While the strategic impact is minimal, mini subs getting hits is a very cheap weapon almost always taking something out that is worth more than itself. If the mini sub survives, that is a bonus!

[PaxMondo]

mini's can be effective ... just really take time to use them. And you need to use them early game B4 the allied ASW gets so good that your carrier subs can't survive.

I use them randomly all over the board to force the allies to guard everything. Keeps a lot of planes off the front lines .... I think you get 6? carrier subs ... priceless until about mid-43.

[ny59giants]

Regardless of what side I play, the American warships become a lot more effective in multiple roles once the big 10/42 refits are done.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 24th, 1942

India/Burma
Four of our DMS arrive at Colombo today and begin clearing the mines there. They clear 98 today. Most of our transports have arrived as well and they are parked one hex out while the mines are cleared.

Pacific
We occupy Vanikoro as our troops are unloaded there today. It is a dot base near Ndeni.

China
At Changsha, the defensive bonus wasn't enough and we get tossed out of the hex with a 6:1 loss. We lose a fair amount of troops on the retreat, but we still have enough to thwart any attempted pushes by the Chinese. I doubt they have the supply to go very far, especially with Shaoyang under Japanese control. One plus is that 80,000 Chinese on the attack probably use up a fair amount of their limited stocks of supply. If we don't keep the pressure on, then they won't run out of supply so we'll have to keep it up.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 25th, 1942

India/Burma
We clear another 60 mines at Colombo today and the base looks clear so our transports will sail in tomorrow. We should be able to load up the transports in short order given that Colombo is a size 9 port.

We dodge a couple enemy sub attacks in that area today. There are plenty of enemy subs around Ceylon, and our Vals get a hit on one today. I have three well trained ASW army air units at Formosa. Two of them will head to Ceylon and another will go to the South Pacific around Luganville/Noumea. We'll be converting these to the Helens with their Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) devices. It might not help, but it can't hurt either.

One enemy unit moves out of Rangoon to the northeast. This is on the road to Prome. Our 2nd Raiders are already marching in from that direction. The enemy unit looks small, so we should be able to move into the hex and hold tight there since it is jungle terrain. The big 65th Brigade will cross the river from Moulmein tomorrow and then the three units (2 Bges and 1 Tank Rgt) will march together into Rangoon to pin down the enemy troops.

Also, tomorrow, our brigade that is marching north will attack Meiktila. The only air support they will get is Anns, so hopefully the enemy is weak.

Even farther north, the 3rd Yokosuka SNLF paratroops are on the march to Myitkina. Recon says only a few hundred enemy troops are there so we'll see if we can capture that with just the paratroopers.

DEI
Komodo Island in the Flores Chain is occupied as our troops unload there today.

Also, north of Ambon our Sally ASW group gets a hit on a Dutch sub.

Pacific
Our transports, carriers and surface combat ships gather together just south of Anatom. Tomorrow they will sail towards Suva. The transports will stop at a range of seven hexes from Suva, and my carriers will be at 8 hexes. My thinking is that this should bring out the longer range SBD's, which we can hopefully shoot down, and then the next day when we have to close in we can face strikes from the TBDs and older SBDs. If we went in closer tomorrow we would probably get hit with a larger combined strike.

This is of course assuming John hasn't made sure his planes are on the same range limit of course. From seven hexes though, we'll either reach Nandi or be one he away on the next day which means we can get a lot unloaded in the next night phase after that - thus we should only face one close range airstrike on the fully loaded ships.

Enemy subs are thick here too, and we dodge a couple attacks. Our Vals on the carriers manage to get a hit on a sub here too.

China
The Chinese have started to bombard us at Kienko daily. I'm not sure if that means John has given up collecting enough supply to attack or if it means he has the supply to spend. In any case, our bombardments still do more damage and we don't have supply issues there at all now that we have two routes open (Sian and Anking).

At Siangtan we keep up the pressure from the air. The clear terrain helps and we are doing about 1,000 casaulties a day along with slowing down the movement. My hope is we can get Shaoyang up to fort level 2 before the Chinese get there.

Up north, we march a bit closer to Yenan and attack a stack that we had pushed back a week or so ago. We only get 1:2 so we'll wait a bit before attacking again. We are in the woods here, so we'll have to overcome the terrain bonus.

[center]
Keeping up the pressure from above - good fighter pilot training too![/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

April 26th, 1942

India/Burma
Several submarine attacks on our ships here today and we lose one xAK that is hit in two separate attacks by SS Trusty. We do manage to get another Val hit on a Dutch sub though.

[center]
A view of the enemy subs around Ceylon - all the clouds are over subs[/center]

We try sending some Bettys to hit the light industry at Madurai, but don't score any hits. I would try again, but some of the nav search Bettys spot enemy ships at Male which isn't far away, so we'll switch back to Nav Attack and see what we can get.

In Burma, the 41st Infantry Regiment attacks at Meiktila where the 9th Burma Rifles and 1st Burma Brigade were defending. We managed to capture the base with a 2:1 (103:38) result and force the enemy troops to retreat to Mandalay. The enemy was showing negative modifiers for Prep, fatigue and morale, so hopefully the boys at Mandalay are in the same condition. We'll move on ASAP, although there is an enemy unit at Tuang Gyi that could move up and recapture Meiktila. We have a supply path through Myitkina thanks to the paradrop, so I think we'll be fine.

DEI
Waingapoe is occupied today. One more base left in this area to take care of.

Attacked the Dutch outside Palembang and get 1:2 today, but good casualties. Just a matter of time here.

Philippines
Quiet here, but today we unload a SNLF unit and NG unit at Bacolod against some enemy troops there. We lose one AT gun during the unloading.

Also, I forgot to mention that yesterday some P-40E's from Cebu attacked one of my resource CS convoys. They missed, but since I had just filled out a Rufe unit in Formosa I flew it down to cover the transports. The P-40's attacked again today and we managed to shoot down all three that attacked.

[center]
Debut performance of the A6M2-N Rufe[/center]

Pacific
Things go to plan here today as three waves of SBD-3's attack our transports. The morning was a wave of 4 and then 12, and the afternoon saw 3 more attack. All were shot down, plus one more was downed that was on air search for a total of 20 SBD-3's removed from Suva. 20 less that we will have to face tomorrow which is a great thing. Between local CAP for our carriers and LRCAP over the fleet ships, our fighters will be stretched thin tomorrow with very few for escort. If there are any enemy targets, hopefully they are not well CAPed or our Kates will suffer. I do have them pulled back to 5 hexes so they won't attack any ships in port at Suva or Nadi.

[center]
Thinning the ranks of the Suva defenders[/center]

China
We enter the hex southwest of Changsha today, so tomorrow our air attacks will shift there to guard against a counterattack since our second unit will be arriving tomorrow and will still be in move mode.

Submarines
I've done some relocating and all RO subs are heading to Ceylon since we can cover the Cape Town to Bombay route pretty well from Ceylon with the shorter ranged boats. The I-boats are all headed to the South Pacific to prepare for future long range missions to Hawaii and the West Coast of the US. That would be after Suva and Pago Pago are secured of course. A couple will also remain in the Indian Ocean to patrol off Bombay and Karachi.

Other
Fusan goes to port size 6, so we can add some more ships to the CS convoy hauling resources out of there.

Taihoku goes to AF 4, and we'll switch to fort building there.

AMC Gokoku Maru arrives and will go to Truk and join the rest of our AMCs for some future raiding missions in the deep Pacific.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 27th, 1942

India/Burma
As hoped, our Bettys find some enemy ships still at North Male. We manage to put a torpedo into AP (no x) Leonard Wood, and also hit xAK Clan Forbes. I think Clan Forbes sunk, but the AP didn't even have heavy damage. Those military ships hold up better than the civies I guess.

[center]
Couple ships hit in the Indian Ocean[/center]

We get two small unexpected air attacks from the Allies. 7 Hudson's attack Pegu and 3 Buffalos attack Meiktila. Tomorrow, we put a Zero unit in Prome and it will LRCAP Cox's Bazar where some Blenheims have been bombing, while Oscars cover Pegu and Meiktila. Maybe we can get some easy kills if John leaves them on the same attack orders.

DEI
The 6th Tank Regiment finally arrives and recaptures Sibolga from some Dutch refugees. They surrender, so they won't be causing anymore problems here for a while.

Pacific
Near Ndeni we occupy Utupua.

SS Thresher attacks a pair of ships we have moving things around near Maloelap. It misses.

Where the action is, near Suva, we chase off SS S-47 and SS Triton misses our ships on the approach to Nadi.

As the sun comes up the air attacks on our landing forces begins. It all goes pretty well - I like think the SBD-3's we cleared out yesterday helped since today we get attacked by a few more SBD-3, as well as several SBD-2. If the ones shot down yesterday plus today's had all been together I'm sure more would have got through.

The morning consisted of three raids of SBDs, two of which were escorted by P-40Es. The second strike was the largest with 17x P-40E and 9 SBD-2. 6 of the SBD-2 got through, but they all missed. 2 PBY-5 Catalinas also came in but they were turned back. One last morning attack consists of 22 P-39D Airacobras on ground attack. We manage to shoot several down, but some still get through. They attack our battleships but don't score any hits. Throughout the day our LRCAP from about 7 hexes away was about 45-55 Zeros plus a pair of Jakes and Petes.

Total air losses for the day were -
A6M2 - 7
E13A1 Jake - 2
P-39D Airacobra - 14
SBD-3 Dauntless - 6
SBD-2 Dauntless - 4
PBY-5 Catalina - 2
PBY-4 Catalina - 2
P-40E Warhawk - 2
Vincent I - 1
DH-89 Dragon Rapide - 1

After all the air attacks, all the ground force TFs were in place. The 8th Division actually arrived with enough time to start unloading. A good 8,000 troops managed to get landed. Tomorrow we will have a full night phase to unload all three divisions so that should help minimize LCU casaulties. Interestingly, Suva just went to AF size 4 today. Hopefully that doesn't mean we will get attacked with B-17's tomorrow, but it does mean I won't have to spend any supply to get the place Betty ready.

[center]
Air attacks at Nadi[/center]


China
We switch our bombing to SE of Changsha, but the Chinese there do not attack. That should be good since I have a small stack on the way to reopen the path to Siantan and again threaten that base.

Near Yenan, the Chinese get brave and shock attack us after our failed attack yesterday. They do terrible and get a 1:77 result (14:1090). We will attack again tomorrow to take advantage of their presumably high disruption.

Our infiltration attempt at Ichang has finally come out of the woods. There is a brigade on the road northwest of Ichang which can get to Ichang in 2 days of movement. Hopefully with some aerial attacks and ground bombardments we can keep the Chinese from getting back to Ichang and we can cut off a stack.

[center]
View of Ichang and Changsha areas.[/center]

Other
CVE Hosho finishes its repairs at Rabaul. It will wait until Hiyo arrives before actually setting sail. Hiyo should get to Rabaul in less than a week. One nice thing about CVE - they sure do repair fast!

[FeurerKrieg]

April 28th, 1942

India/Burma
Our fighters catch bombers in all three spots we were attacked yesterday. The 4 Zeros over Cox's Bazar bring down all 5 Blenheim I's that attack there. Oscar B's at Meiktila only destroy 1 Buffalo, but chase the other 3 home. Finally at Pegu we take down 1 Hudson, send one home and two more get through to attack but don't hit anything.

DEI
A bit northeast of Darwin, the dot base of Selaroe is occupied.

Philippines
We attack at Bacolad with two Nav Guard units and one SNLF and manage to win with 23:1 results. The 73rd PA Regiment surrenders. We'll load up and move on to the next little island.

Pacific
We spend the night unloading lots of troops at Nadi. One division is fully unloaded and I think the other will be by the end of the unloading phases tomorrow. It appears that there is only a base force present here, so I will issue a deliberate attack with one division and put the other two on pursue so we can get into Suva ASAP.

The morning sees a single coordinated attack of 2 PBY-5 and 9 SBD-2 against our fleet. The SBD's all get through our CAP of 56 A6M2, one bomb hits an empty xAK and the ship later sinks.

In the afternoon there is another strike of 6 SBD-2 manages to get through and hit an xAP with some troops still on board costing us 84 casualties. The ship seems fine so far at least. The SBD-2 don't make it home though as our Zeros catch them in post attack phase and shoot them all down.

Air losses are posted at the end of this post.

China
Forts at Shaoyang go up to level 2 just in time since the Chinese arrived yesterday and proceed to do a bombardment today. The bombardment at Shaoyang shows 45,000 Chinese to our 19,000 troops. Hopefully the level two forts and air power will be enough to buy me another three or four days. We also shift our air attacks to Shaoyang again, but we do put the single engine planes on the stack near Ichang. To the southwest of Shaoyang, 2/3 of a division have crossed the river and one will head toward Shaoyang while the other heads west in case the Chinese move to block our progress. Getting even one third into Shaoyang could help alot. We also have the big artillery stack from the Philippines coming up the road from the south.

Up north near Yenan, our counterattack goes well and we get 3:1 results forcing 10,000 Chinese to retreat with 4,000 casualties.

Submarines
Out near Canton Island, I-17 takes a shot at an enemy DD in a TF that shows 3 DD's and CL Leander. Not sure what else might be in there, but we'll keep an eye on this area.

Other
DD Craven is reported to have been sunk near Efate on Apr 05, 1942.

We get a shiny new TM-1 Tanker today. Tankers are pretty valuable given how much fuel and oil we need to bring home and at the same time move some fuel out to places where the fleet is operating.

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Air losses for today[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

I have an R&D decision to make. Wanted to see if anyone has opinions.

I currently have 2x30 factories cranking away on the A6M5, 1x30 on the A6M3a, and I just had two A6M3 factories get repaired up to their full 30. I'm inclined to leave one of the A6M3's in place and let it roll into production so I have some land based, defense oriented A6M3's around in Burma/India until the A6M3a shows up and then I'll convert that to production and shift the A6M3a RD factory to something else.

I have 2x30 on the A6M5 since that plane is a pretty good improvement over the A6M3a.

My question is what should I do with the other A6M3 factory? I can put it on any of the following (normal arrival - date earliest arrival with 1 factory):
A6M3a (12/42)
A6M5 (4/43)
A6M5b (6/44)
A6M5c (10/44)- (3/44)
A6M8 (8/45) - (12/44)

I already have 2 on the A6M5 and from I've read, there are some declining returns after the first factory or two on any model. But I could still put it there and it might help get the A6M5 out a bit sooner.

A6M3a arrives too soon to get much benefit from another factory, so that one is out.

A6M5b is not so much better than A6M5, and it doesn't have armor anyway, so I say that one is out.

A6M5c has armor and 5 guns, so to me that seems like a noticeable jump. Maybe put it here. I estimate with the R&D it would arrive in March of 1944, maybe even late 43 with the addition of the A6M3a R&D factory later this year.

A6M8 is like A6M5c, but with +5 maneuver. Being the farthest out, I can also get the most benefit from the R&D on it. However, it would still come pretty late, in December of 1944. I can also put just the one A6M3a R&D factory on the A6M8 later this year, and it will still arrive around Feb of 45.

So I'm thinking A6M5c is the way to go, since March of 44 I may still have carriers and be fighting. Maybe that would be the case in December of 1944 too, but certainly it is less likely given how strong the Allies are in early 44.

What do you all think?