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The Japanese initiate combat in the Bismarck Sea.

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea

The Japanese get off to a good start, rolling 3 on their search dice. That means both the fleet and their land-based air are in.

Unfortunately for Japan, the USN spotters are on the ball, and the US rolls a 2.

That means no surprise point split. It also means an even fight, which is hardly what Japan wants.

The US land-based air gives a decent account of itself, forcing two carrier squadrons to return to their carriers before itself being dispatched back to base by light losses and fuel and ammunition shortages (aborted).

What is more, while the USS Cabot's carrier air wing flees, the land-based US naval bombers clear through to the Japanese fleet.

Neither naval force's anti-air guns are spectacular; each reduces the other's bombing factors by 1.

Some combination of poor Japanese marksmanship, good combat ship engineering, and excellent damage control teams minimise the effect of the Japanese bombing run.

The USS Cabot is damaged enough to be forced back to port, escaping destruction, and the USS Richmond takes light damage, just enough to also send it back to port.

Both ships return to the recently-secured port of Rabaul. The Cabot is then sent on to drydocks in the US [the repair pool, that is] for repair.

Whatever the USN ships had going for them, the IJN ships did not.

The Shokaku and the Takao both take significant damage.

Unwilling to risk the destruction of a damaged carrier, the IJN decides that discretion is the better part of valour.

What was supposed to be an easy raid against a manifestly inferior US force turned into a grinding battle of attrition, one that cost the Japanese far more than the US - a fleet carrier and cruiser damaged as against a light carrier.

There will be plenty of recriminations, finger-pointing, and (quite possibly literal) falling on swords in the IJN high command and among the fleet's command after this humiliating debacle.

Although tempting, the small but vulnerable Royal Navy cruiser detachment and submarines do not engage the carrier force as it limps back to port. With no mighty F4U-1 Corsairs as cover, their likely fate would be getting sent to the bottom of the ocean.

The Japanese fleet returns to Manila, from whence it came.

The Shokaku manages to dash back to Japan [sent to repair pool]. It remains to be seen whether Japan can spare the material resources and manpower to restore the carrier to operational status.

Although tempting, the Allied forces on station in the China Seas recall the fate of the US submarine flotillas that were destroyed by Japanese naval air early in May - as well, if they have heard of it, of the fate that befell the German U-boats opposing the landings in France.

Ground Strikes

Next up, ground strikes. (The Axis skipped any intervening steps.)

The Japanese attempt to blunt the Communist advance by striking Mao.

For their part, the Germans send a Stuka and artillery to bombard forward Red Army formations, in order to prevent Red Army attacks.

The Red Army anti-air gunnery teams display a practiced expertise, disrupting the Stuka's bombing runs significantly (though not completely).

The Japanese air forces do the job, pinning Mao down.

The German artillery does a decent job, although one of the units it hits is the AA gun, which was already going to disorganise due to being used on the Stuka.

The Stuka pilots, in the meantime, show why they're still the best in the business.

Despite the heavy interference from the Soviet AA guns, they disrupt two of the three units in the stack.

Rail Movement

The Germans have some rail movement to do.

Faced with a potential envelopment crisis in Finland, the Germans take advantage of Swedish acquiescence and rail a unit from Oslo to Helsinki.

(One of the game's rules allows the Germans to move units through a neutral Sweden as long as German units are present in both Norway and Finland, and no German unit ends the step in Sweden.)

Alpine corps are railed from Oslo (leaving the city unoccupied, save for a convoy point in port) and Belgrade to Lyons and La Spezia, respectively.

Land Movement & Reorganisation

After some work repairing lines and trying to salvage the situation in France and the Eastern Front, the Germans reorganise the disorganised MECH in Vichy.

(The Germans make no land attacks this impulse.)

Sadly, the ARM corps near La Rochelle is (a) out of range of the ATR, and (b) too close to Allied fighters to risk an attempt at reorganisation.

The situation in France at the end of the impulse.

The Germans have formed up the beginnings of a line behind the Seine. If they can get initiative, the scattered units in the woods in Vichy and near La Rochelle will form up along the Seine as well next turn.