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Ooopsie, I meant Sam....

July 14th, 1943

Good naval search results on a relatively quiet day. Very pleased.

Getting better at managing all the clicks...

by using port hubs, I merely have to click on each hub and handle the arrived ships and those that disbanded in port.

still I have too many fragmented units and not enough transport ships, even with converting 90 Liberty ships into transports and all the British ships into transports.

Two marine divisions are at sea somewhere along Dutch New Guinea coast...so the invasion of Indochina has begun...but it will be a while before we show our true colors.

8th Australian Div is at Mindanao now...

Another quiet day, relatively.

Conditions good for a surface engagement....

SSTs landed Marine Raiders at Beaufort, taking the base this morning.

Good to see the use of SSTs to take empty bases. I tried that once with Raiders which have to be in Move mode to get on the SST but when they landed (with little prep) they took considerable casualties including lost squads. What was your experience at Beaufort?

BBfanboy wrote: Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:21 pm Good to see the use of SSTs to take empty bases. I tried that once with Raiders which have to be in Move mode to get on the SST but when they landed (with little prep) they took considerable casualties including lost squads. What was your experience at Beaufort?

18 prep, 0 disablements

July 16th, 1943

IJN sends four destroyers here...either to fast transport a pickup or to hide in port for a raid on Jolo/Cotabato/Cagayan...

We leave two of the four destroyers with heavy damage, heavy fires or fires.

Our escorts brush aside the five Zeroes over the squadron.
First attack from land:

Morning Air attack on TF, near Oroquieta at 78,88

Weather in hex: Thunderstorms

Raid spotted at 14 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 5 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M3a Zero x 5

Allied aircraft
P-39D Airacobra x 45
P-40K Warhawk x 18
SBD-3 Dauntless x 32

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3a Zero: 2 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
SBD-3 Dauntless: 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
DD Oite
DD Minekaze
DD Yayoi, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Hayate

Aircraft Attacking:
18 x SBD-3 Dauntless releasing from 3000'
Naval Attack: 1 x 1000 lb SAP Bomb
14 x SBD-3 Dauntless releasing from 4000'
Naval Attack: 1 x 1000 lb SAP Bomb

CAP engaged:
Sasebo Ku S-1 with A6M3a Zero (5 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
5 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 2000 , scrambling fighters to 7000.
Raid is overhead

Heavy smoke from fires obscuring DD Yayoi

2nd attack from CV, and this is how you whittle down a KB or DS planes...set up multiple cap traps with heavy CAP over relatively low value shipping the air controller on the CVs won't send in an alpha strike:

Morning Air attack on TF, near Oroquieta at 78,88

Weather in hex: Thunderstorms

Raid spotted at 10 NM, estimated altitude 19,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 4 minutes

Allied aircraft
F6F-3 Hellcat x 26
TBF-1 Avenger x 16

Allied aircraft losses
TBF-1 Avenger: 2 damaged

Japanese Ships
DD Minekaze, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Oite
DD Hayate

Aircraft Attacking:
16 x TBF-1 Avenger launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 22.4in Mk 13 Torp.

Next 10 days, pretty critical....strap in for a wild ride!

Nice to get those DDs - one of your main goals. He should know by now that he can't count on sneaking past your search grids.

July 17th, 1943

A really, really good day.

I was leapfrogging two damaged subs back from northern Luzon, and left them in Taytay one day too long. IJN torpedo bombers hit the port along with three bombardment task forces damaging them further yesterday. I sent a mixed group of Fletchers and Bristols today to skirmish with approaching SAGs....and a lost a Fletcher to a torpedo strike...oh well.

One of the subs sank today fleeing to Panay in cruise mode, the other should be safe.

Nicely played Japan.

Gansevoort had an interesting war:

She entered Mangarin Bay, Mindoro, with the convey the morning of 30 December 1944. That afternoon, a kamikaze crashed Gansevoort's main deck to port. A terrific explosion cut steering and electric power, started several fires, and killed or wounded 34 of her crew. Damage control parties could not get aft as her main deck was blown upward.[1]

Destroyers Wilson and Philip helped fight her fires, then she was towed to the Mindoro PT base anchorage. Here, Gansevoort was given the unusual assignment of knocking off the stern of Porcupine with torpedoes, in an attempt to extinguish a fire before it reached the aviation gasoline stowed forward. The water was too shallow for torpedoes to be effective, and in spite of one torpedo hit, fire ignited the gasoline, spreading flames across the water to endanger Gansevoort.

Sent a small Desron chasing after a merchant convoy...

Night bombing update:

Mid July, 1943

Invasion at Tarakan goes ok....squads disabled with a 25 prep. 2nd wave storms ashore today which is probably overkill depending up on forts.

Another attack at Chungking knocks forts down to 0...

Pre-Invasion action off Tarakan (67,91)

2 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
BB South Dakota
BB North Carolina
PC Onondaga
SC PC-580
SC-739
SC-636
APA Crescent City

Japanese ground losses:
435 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 18 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 32 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

BB South Dakota firing at I./143rd Infantry Battalion
BB North Carolina firing at I./143rd Infantry Battalion

Being plagued by sync errors...really takes a lot of the enjoyment away from watching the replay since you can never trust it.

Lost a small construction unit and some ships because they were routed to close to Ponape.

Japan achieved a high ratio of VP 6-1 in favor, for LCU losses. Now with the destruction of the IJA Darwin garrison it is now down to 3-1 ratio. However, that could change if a 160,000 Chinese soldiers decide to surrender.

Catch up picture....Japan's Naval Search is pretty poor here...I suspect he is struggling with supply and frames.

I am starting to develop a tactic now for safeguarding troop and material convoys. Stage at relatively large safe base protected by PT Boats...assemble multiple task forces with 1-2 CVEs for CAP and Search, 1 SAG (say a CL and 3 DDs) for surface protection, DEs for ASW protection, and perhaps 2-3 submarines working as a picket towards likely IJN surface raiders...this way I can strip my rear area fighters doing bleeding CAP from bases.

I will lose some time...but can minimize some daily clicking and reviewing.

I was even thinking of embedding CVE into a large cargo convoy and have it dedicated to air search on the Pearl/East Coast runs...Figure 4 embedded CVEs in different merchant convoys would give pretty good air search in the deep blue ocean. Pair each of the CVEs up with at least one of the excellent 19knot DEs for protection...

Never really used CVEs this way as Japan...

July 20th, 1943

I have got two days left of deception, where it will look like a Miri invasion. Japan has already remarked, because of the Tarakan invasion, that I am after "his" oil. The game is so early, that the going after oil isn't a winning tactic. Hopefully our deception will hold for the two days....as it is the IJN is out of position, and the IJA is out of position.

It is one chaotic, messy advance where we sacrifice quite a bit for speed. Still no Frank losses yet, but surely he has them? A6M8 doable by now, and Sam probably won't come for at least a month or two???

1st attack on Tarakan tomorrow...really not much there, but forts, terrain, low prep, could make it tough.

July 21, 1943

We have fuel in the SRA now...not a lot, but it is better than nothing.

I suspect Japan thinks we are heading for Miri...but instead Thailand. Tomorrow it will be obvious. IJN surface fleets way out of position, except for the KB most likely...but we haven't spotted it yet and we have decent search up in the South China Sea.

Hollandia taken...

Possibly the Yamato group is way down south.