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Going to start a night strategic bombing campaign against Bangkok and Rangoon. Will run from 75% moonlight to 75% moonlight, and here is our starting position. Assigned more recon to Rangoon and will start the campaign there once we get 9/11 DL.

Having owned Bangkok as Allies I can say the HI and LI were most important to me for the supplies. Hard to ship in supplies unless you own the Malay Peninsula and control the air all along the route, so homemade supply is much appreciated. Looks like he still has Malaya and Indochina, but you will soon have bombers in range to hit his shipping too.

BBfanboy wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 3:22 pm Having owned Bangkok as Allies I can say the HI and LI were most important to me for the supplies. Hard to ship in supplies unless you own the Malay Peninsula and control the air all along the route, so homemade supply is much appreciated. Looks like he still has Malaya and Indochina, but you will soon have bombers in range to hit his shipping too.

I am coming at Bangkok, maybe, from the opposite side so eliminating production there will only benefit the Allies.


I am not sure when I am going to get to the west of Borneo...I am toying with an option for a Mersing landing, a Vietnam Landing, a Saigon landing, a Kuching landing, Formosa landing, China landing. Vietnam is my number one pick right now but to some degree I am preparing for all of them. If I get my 200 engineers unloaded at Kudat today...then I think the game is broken open barring a Deathstar Catastrophe.

Kudat & Taytay really establishes the final break in Japan's perimeter. Japan is playing around trying to catch transports, when he should have thrown everything against Kudat and Palawan, I think. But with so much in the interior of China, on the Burma front, and units bypassed...what does Japan have access to. As a JFB, I learned the hard way you need to reserve 4 Divisions and shipping for a counter punching the Allies in 1943. Japan simply can't defend all these spots....and all of them are catastrophes for Japan in mid 1943.

Soon the big flying boats will be experimenting with very long range naval search, and the British heavy bomber with great range (and small bombs) started naval searching today from Burma...from Cam Ranh Bay to Hainan. One of these days our subs will actually hit:
Sub attack near Sampit at 56,98

Japanese Ships
TK Rikko Maru
TK Gen'yo Maru
E Uruyame

Allied Ships
SS Gunnel

SS Gunnel launches 2 torpedoes at TK Rikko Maru (a very big tanker)
Gunnel bottoming out ....

Japan's real life game turnaround has increased in duration....a sure sign they are behind the curve.

Yeah, knocking out the HI & LI is what I was getting at, especially when you can also choke off his shipping in the Gulf of Siam.
I think Cam Rahn Bay is an easier amphib target than Saigon. Both have forts but CRB's is quite small. He will likely have most of his troops at Saigon too. Isolate, bomb then march in and take them out.

You get a recon B-24 variant with a max range of 32 hexes. I believe it is the USN that flies it, not the USAAF. PBY something IIRC.

BBfanboy wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:25 pm

You get a recon B-24 variant with a max range of 32 hexes. I believe it is the USN that flies it, not the USAAF. PBY something IIRC.

That model has a camera but no radar...I think I need radar for the super long range naval search.

the British bomber, pictured above, has a less accurate radar than the flying boat...so it might not work.

How strong is your DS and supporting surface fleets compared to the KB and his supporting fleets? If you cross to the Asian mainland, he might feel compelled to bring everything that he can against you while he can still contest your fleet. This would include land based air.

July 13th, 1943

First attack on Darwin takes the base...
Ground combat at Darwin (76,124)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 55875 troops, 905 guns, 984 vehicles, Assault Value = 1829

Defending force 17567 troops, 113 guns, 140 vehicles, Assault Value = 497

Allied adjusted assault: 3328

Japanese adjusted defense: 358

Allied assault odds: 9 to 1 (fort level 5)

Allied forces CAPTURE Darwin !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: forts(+), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
3648 casualties reported
Squads: 60 destroyed, 85 disabled
Non Combat: 87 destroyed, 78 disabled
Engineers: 54 destroyed, 5 disabled
Guns lost 83 (71 destroyed, 12 disabled)
Vehicles lost 108 (101 destroyed, 7 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
1664 casualties reported
Squads: 11 destroyed, 193 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 13 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 23 disabled
Guns lost 34 (1 destroyed, 33 disabled)
Vehicles lost 27 (2 destroyed, 25 disabled)

Assaulting units:
182nd Infantry Regiment
2/5th Armoured Regiment
3rd Australian Division
754th Tank Battalion
2/4th Armoured Regiment
2/6th Armoured Regiment
30th Australian Brigade
2/8th Armoured Regiment
2nd Australian Division
3rd Australian Brigade
5th Australian Division
41st Infantry Division
6th RAA Coastal Artillery Regiment
260th Field Artillery Battalion
1st Australian Army
57th Coastal Artillery Regiment
223rd Field Artillery Battalion
97th Field Artillery Battalion
203rd Coast AA Regiment
2nd Medium Regiment
2/16th Field Regiment
148th Field Artillery Battalion
147th Field Artillery Battalion
Northern Territory Corps
198th Field Artillery Battalion
III Australian
131st Field Artillery Battalion
4th Australian Lt AA Regiment
109th Anti Tank Regiment
77th Heavy AA Regiment

Defending units:
Sasebo 3rd SNLF
41st Guard Battalion
2nd Recon Regiment
8th Tank Regiment
35th Division
Yokosuka 2nd SNLF
3rd Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion
15th Ind.Art.Mortar Bn /3
5th Field Artillery Regiment
40th JAAF AF Bn /1
38th Field Const Co
31st Fld AA Gun Co
9th Field Construction Battalion
28th JAAF AF Bn /1

Sulu Sea

Jolo 4AF, Cagayan and Cotabato 5AF, Davao 4AF. Building, building building. Bombers hit Jesselton and Tarakan again.

RangerJoe wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 7:44 pm How strong is your DS and supporting surface fleets compared to the KB and his supporting fleets? If you cross to the Asian mainland, he might feel compelled to bring everything that he can against you while he can still contest your fleet. This would include land based air.

I think I am in good condition....want to time the attack for the full moon though. IJN has lost 7 or so Heavy Cruisers, 1-2 BBs, 1 Fleet Carrier, CVE and a CS.

USN has lost 1 CA and 3 CLs.

Japan finished the two super battleships meaning they are most likely slow in building CVs.

Very interesting to me how the Deathstar manages to attract every spotting plane...and hide everything else in the hex. No wonder I was always surprised as Japan...it got to the point, I treated every task force spotted as an invasion task force.

Plane losses for the day....

Looking at that list of Japanese units at Darwin, it appears that the IJA 2nd Division never was combined.

You now have a nice POW compound to use as a training bombing range as well . . .

RangerJoe wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:59 pm You now have a nice POW compound to use as a training bombing range as well . . .

I have plenty of those.

Not combining units for Japan misses out on a lot of device upgrades...at least in stock.

Lowpe wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:10 pm

RangerJoe wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 9:59 pm You now have a nice POW compound to use as a training bombing range as well . . .

I have plenty of those.

Not combining units for Japan misses out on a lot of device upgrades...at least in stock.

Some divisions also get new devices that aren't in their components as well. That is if I remember correctly.

Feel like a kid in a candy store....

Our naval search didn't fly today...guessing that they will fly sporadically during the monsoon, or just from Burma. Cats flying from the Sulu Sea cover two hexes past Cam Ranh Bay at normal ranges.

Not an auspicious start to Cleveland-class surface action. Ching Lee didn't get a good die roll what with the other fella crossing the T.

Hainan Island is a good place to take if you are worried about being outnumbered on the ground. Indochina seems to be relatively ungarrisoned, at least vs. computer IJ, so taking that may not be too difficult or risky. To me landing near Saigon or Camh Ran Bay makes more sense than say Mersing or western Borneo.

With that big stack in Chungking sucking up a lot of Japanese troops, maybe a Hong Kong or vicinity landing would work (those bases to the east of HK ought to be easy pickings) after the Vietnam lodgment is secure. Whenever I land on the South China coast, a lot of supplies flow into China, so it's a good idea to bring a lot of supplies if you can or set bases to the supply-hoarding setting.

Cheers,
CB

CaptBeefheart wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 2:44 am Not an auspicious start to Cleveland-class surface action. Ching Lee didn't get a good die roll what with the other fella crossing the T.

Hainan Island is a good place to take if you are worried about being outnumbered on the ground. Indochina seems to be relatively ungarrisoned, at least vs. computer IJ, so taking that may not be too difficult or risky. To me landing near Saigon or Camh Ran Bay makes more sense than say Mersing or western Borneo.

With that big stack in Chungking sucking up a lot of Japanese troops, maybe a Hong Kong or vicinity landing would work (those bases to the east of HK ought to be easy pickings) after the Vietnam lodgment is secure. Whenever I land on the South China coast, a lot of supplies flow into China, so it's a good idea to bring a lot of supplies if you can or set bases to the supply-hoarding setting.

Cheers,
CB

The big Allied fear is the A6M8....there is a window, where the A6M8 is better than Hellcats and a lot of IJN squadrons upgrade to it.

I do like Hainan a lot.

Supplies in China are a definite negative...but being able to advance across China and bypass the IJN also has charm.

Lowpe wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 12:44 pm The big Allied fear is the A6M8....there is a window, where the A6M8 is better than Hellcats and a lot of IJN squadrons upgrade to it.

Is the A6M8 that big an improvement over the A6M5? I don't understand?