Once Again into the Breach - Mike (J) vs. tc464 (A)

[Mike Solli]

21 Dec 41

Sub War

Nothing.

5 Fleet

Adak’s base force is still working on the first level of the air base. I need to send some engineers there to expedite construction.

4 Fleet

Nothing new to report.

SE Fleet

The Rabaul Invasion force is enroute.

Hong Kong

The mines were successfully swept and the shipping will arrive tomorrow to begin loading the 38 Division (Malaya) and the artillery (Philippines).

This is pretty much the last time I’ll mention Hong Kong as a theater. This operation is over. Hong Kong’s port is in the long process of building from 8(8) to 9(8). I will use this base for upgrading and repairing ships beyond the capacity of Singapore for the most part. The shipyard will eventually be built up to 100. Also, Manila will become another supporting base. It’s port will be built to level 7 (if it isn’t there already) and the shipyard will be 50.

Philippines

Bombing of Clark Field continues. The US air force has ceased to exist, whether from destruction or fleeing the area. Bombardment will continue until the massive artillery force from Hong Kong arrives, then bombardment and DAs will occur until the remnants of this force flees to Bataan. Remember, my intent here is to contain the enemy ground forces in Bataan until Mindanao is liberated and then the 16 Division will return here to help reduce the enemy. 5 Air Division will be stationed in the Philippines in its entirety within a day or two. The 23 Air Flotilla is at Truk and the 21 Air Flotilla will be heading to the SW shortly.

Mindanao

The 16 Recon (from 16 Division) took Cotabato from the 3/101 PA Bn, causing 193(12) and sustaining no casualties. Operations continue here as I push the rabble south.

Burma

The Pt. Blair operation begins tomorrow. The 1 Raiding Regiment will be paradropped with heavy support from 3 Air Division.

My most forward air support in the Burma theater is a Nate Sentai and an Ann chutai at Rahaeng. Ted sent some Buffalos and Blenheim Ifs to bomb the place. My Nates performed superbly shooting down two of the Blenheims.

Borneo

The Singkawang invasion began today. I’ll take the base tomorrow and then leave an SNLF as a garrison and move on to Tobali. I have to be careful though. My wonderful intel reported heavy radio chatter at Soerabaja. Could be the Dutch and/or Americans and/or the Repulse. I have 2 pincers (Singkawang – Tobali and Tarakan – Balikpapan) and need to support both. The northern pincer has 6 CAs and Kaga/Ryujo and the southern pincer has 4 BBs and Hosho/Zuiho. Both are powerful, but the Repulse can ambush either invasion TF and trash it. Ted is willing to sacrifice ships as we have seen repeatedly this game.

I may reorganize the surface TFs supporting the northern pincer. There are actually 2 Kongo class BBs and about 10 CAs including the ships in mini KB. I’ll look at that tonight before I send the turn back to Ted.

Malaya

My invasion forces continue to spread throughout Malaya. I count 38 units in Singapore, which seems to be about the norm unfortunately.

Lots of combat in the air, including another mistake on my part. My Vals went after another xAKL in Singapore harbor again even though I definitely ordered them not to. I should have reduced their range. Anyway, 13 flew and 6 were shot down, getting one hit on the xAKL. In the PM phase, 25 Kates and a handful of Vals flew again against the same ship, sinking her but losing another Val and two Kates. Overall, I’ve lost ~20 Vals and 7 Kates from these two air groups but only lost 10 Val and 2 Kate pilots. It could have been much worse. Mini KB is now headed to Cam Ranh Bay to refuel and replenish. They’re not needed for a bit.

Ted launched a couple of attacks against Mini KB and the net result was the loss of 9 Buffalos and 2 Blenheim IVs for no loss to us. One Blenheim did make it through the CAP and flak to make an unsuccessful bombing run on Ryujo though.

Other Stuff

I shut off the refinery at Miri. I’m concerned that I will reach the maximum for fuel and suffer spoilage. I still haven’t begun merchant convoys yet. I feel there is still undue risk to my TKs. I’ll wait until I take Tarakan and am headed to Balikpapan. I don’t need to lose any TKs. They’re precious and there aren’t enough of them right now.

[SuluSea]

Guys, as we know under the later beta patches since we have to pay 75 PPs to go from single engine to twin engines it really puts the pinch on the Japanese side. At the start of hostilities we have 6 Ki-48 units we can change to better platforms when better alternatives surface which will free them up to allow no PP cost changes to single engine airframes within the upgrade path.

My last game had me building a size 10 Ki-21-Ic factory to use up the HA-5 engines. The initial thoughts were to put less strain on the already struggling HA-32 factories and the long term plan had them being used as ASW platforms and later Kamikazee planes, the downside is they are slower than the future KI-21s and you get no upgrade. It seems the better option would be to build the KI-21-IIa factory up a little more than last game and benefit from the Ki-21-IIb upgrade.

I'm wondering what your IJA twin engine bomber plans are early?

[obvert]

Because of the PP situation I'm still using 5 groups of Anns bombing China and 1 Ann group in ASW. I still have 6 groups of Lilys, 1 bombing and 5 doing ASW, so I'm glad I kept making those for a month. Almost out now.

I kept building both the Sally 1c (17) and the Ha-5 engine (20 for a while, now changed over to Ha-33) and I'm also glad of that, as most of them have gone to replacements for the existing groups. Now, finally, my Sally IIa are getting a pool (19) and I can start upgrading other groups.

Between buying ENG and Armour units out of Manchuria and small ENG units for the islands it's been hard to find any for the airgroup upgrades.

[Mike Solli]

It's interesting to see how others solve problems. Since I chose to go the Ki-57 route, I'm building the Ki-57-I to use up the Ha-5 engines. I'm using the Ki-21-Ic to replenish the 3 sentai in Manchuoko using that plane for training. My opponent allows me to bomb Chinese troops with Manchurian (Manchuokoan?) aircraft. So far, I've lost one to op losses. They'll probably last most of the war.

[Mike Solli]

22 Dec 41

Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day. Lots of operations are beginning as noted below.

Sub War

The Ro-66, patrolling off Cooktown, spotted 2 US 4 stackers . That’s the first sighting of any US destroyers I’ve had so far. I’d venture to guess that more of the Asiatic fleet is harbored down there.

5 Fleet

Nothing new to report.

4 Fleet

The engineers have landed at Wake. Now I can begin working on the forts.

SE Fleet

The Rabaul Invasion force (Gds Bde, 144 Inf Reg and Maizuru 1 SNLF) will land, escorted by 2 BB, 2 CL and 4 DD with close cover by KB. It appears that Rabaul is empty, but the Aussies may be just cowering in their holes. A base force and the 23 Air Flotilla HQ are enroute with the 23 Air Flotilla aircraft waiting at Truk to move forward once Rabaul is liberated. The SNLF will provide the garrison to Rabaul and the Gds Bde and 144 Inf Reg (and 90 Inf Reg when it arrives) will continue to Pt. Moresby.

I will use extreme caution when moving on Pt. Moresby. I suspect an ambush. The Dutch and US fleets are unaccounted for. Given the sighting of the US DDs, I know there is something out there. US carriers wouldn’t be surprising either. KB is freshly fueled (with the fast AO fleet nearby) and has full loads of planes, pilots and torpedoes.

Mindanao

Nothing new to report.

Philippines

The tank regiment that landed at Aparri is moving to Tuguegarao to engage the isolated 3/12 PA Inf Bn.

Bombardment of Clark Field continues.

The 6 artillery regiments at Hong Kong are loading for movement to this theater.

China

Nothing new to report.

Borneo

I think Ted pulled a Sir Robin in the Northern SRA. He may have forces in Java, and I suspect there are ships that are attempting to ambush me at Ambon and Kendari vicinities (I always make that assumption). But, Miri seems to be pretty safe. Tomorrow, I will form a TF with the TKs assigned to pull fuel and oil from Miri and move them there. I’ll disband them in harbor and create the CS TFs as needed. I have allocated a total of 19x 1250 TK, 6x Kasu-D and 10x To’su PBs in 5 TFs to haul the oil and fuel from Miri/Brunei.

Elsewhere, the 21 IMB and 2x SNLFs successfully ousted the Dutch from SIngkawang. The DA resulted in 26:1 odds and caused 432(32) Dutch casualties vs. 43(0) Japanese losses. The Dutch remnants fled to the base to the east. I will place 24 AS there but can’t spare a full base force. The base forces have all been allocated. It will become a backwater soon anyway. One pleasantly surprising result of this attack was the destruction of 3x B-339D and 3x 139WH-3 Dutch aircraft on the ground.

The Tarakan invasion (21 Division) will hit tomorrow. It is escorted by the 4 BB TF and the Hosho/Zuiho. A base force is enroute as the garrison. Once Tarakan is secured, the force will move on to Balikpapan.

The Hosho/Zuiho TF stumbled upon an xAK. Both TFs fled. Later that day, the Zuiho’s Kates put her down. Unfortunately, they used torpedoes. That leaves 9 torpedoes for the 9 Kates aboard.

Burma

The 1 Raiding Regiment will perform a para drop on Pt. Blair tomorrow. I’m using every transport plane that will reach and Pt. Blair from Bangkok will be LRCAPed by the Oscar Ib sentai based at Victoria Point.

The 33 Division will begin landing at Bangkok tomorrow. Then it will begin its long trek to the Burmese frontier.

Malaya

Ted attempted to bomb the ships in Kuantan harbor today. He sent 3x Bleinheim IVs escorted by 12 Buffalos. Only 5 Buffalos returned to Singapore to tell the sad tale. I suspect he didn’t realize that I had over 50 fighters stationed there (Zeros, Tojos and Oscar Ics).

My forces continue to pour into Malaya in preparation for the assault on Singapore. In the north is the IG Division and 2x tank regiments. Georgetown is surrounded and isolated. Taiping was captured today by one of the tank regiments. The second tank regiment is in Georgetown and 2/3 of the IG Div is about 20 miles outside of Georgetown. Once these forces arrive in Georgetown, they will assault and destroy the 3 units there.

The last third of IG Div is marching to Kota Bharu to engage the Indian brigade that has been beat up there since 7 Dec.

There are a few British units in central Malaya along the rail line. The 18 Div is marching out of Kuantan (slowly) to pursue these forces, which include the remnants of the Kuantan garrison.

In the south, the 5 Division will reach Johore Bharu tomorrow and take it the next day. The Aussies and Gurkhas that were beat up at Mersing have run to Singapore so Johore Bharu is empty. The tank regiment that cut off Singapore moved north and took Malacca today. The 56 Division cannot rebuild (its third regiment is in Mindanao). It landed at Mersing and is following the tank regiment north to assist the destruction of the isolated Indian/British troops. It will then strat move to Burma. The 3x tank regiments will eventually move to Burma as well.

I have decided to land the 2 Division at Mersing. It will move to Johore Bharu with the 5 Division in preparation for the assault on Singapore. The 38 Division is loading at Hong Kong and will move to Mersing to team up with 2 & 5 Divisions for the initial assault on Singapore.

The substantial AS at Mersing is moving to set up an airfield at Johore Bharu. I will station fighters there initially to clear the skies over Singapore of British Buffalos. There are less than 30 left. Once they are gone, I will commence bombing of Singapore with most of 3 Air Division.

Sumatra/Java

I won’t land at Palembang until I’ve cleared northern Java of the Dutch bomber threat. That will occur by stationing the 22 Air Flotilla at Tobali. The 4 Division and 2x tank regiments from 14 Army will land in Java. The 21 Division, 21 IMB and 2x tank regiments from 16 Army will land in Java, most likely at Kaldjati. Hopefully, this will happen by years’ end.

Other Stuff

Today is day 15 of the war. The batch of conversions started on 7 Dec was finished. I got 29x PBs and 36x ACMs. Very nice. Now, all of my ports with mines have ACMs to cover them. It will take up to 5 days for some of the ACMs to reach their destination though….

The PBs will come in handy. There just never seem to be enough of them. Unfortunately, most of them are the Kiso and To’su PBs. Not a lot of Ansyu-C PBs, but they’re coming.

Almost all the Kiso and Ansyu-C classes have been or are being converted to something more useful. The To’sus are done. The 7 remaining Kisos will convert to ACMs and the 6 remaining Ansyu-Cs will convert to PBs. Tomorrow, I’ll look at Tohos to find another dozen to convert to the –t conversion as well.

The upgrade to the Oscar Ic is proceeding nicely. Right now I have 2x 12 plane chutai and 1 sentai (only 15 Oscars in it unfortunately) upgraded. As I get Oscars, I add them to the sentai. When I reach the 12 plane limit for the week, I’ll start a second sentai. Then I’ll add to whichever sentai can accept them.

After an exciting start, I’m finally on a roll. Ted broke the back of the RN (except for the Repulse) causing some merchant shipping losses to me, but only one old Momi DD and an Otori TB were sunk. My biggest loss was the 3x slow AOs sunk in Saigon harbor (as well as time lost from his DDs sailing all over the place). I still have 7 left, which equates to a 56k slow AO fleet. They’re still scattered around but will form up later when they are needed. When not needed, they’ll most likely transport fuel to Truk.

Looking at supply, I’m down 500k from the start of the war. If you add in what’s sitting in cargo ships, I’m really down about half that. Not bad, but I need to start to think about building it back up.

I still have all of the daily stats from our previous game. It’s very interesting to see the differences between the games. Overall, I’m more aggressive this game (partly in response to Ted’s increased aggressiveness). A few details:

Supply: -650k – I was actually up 150k last game. I did a lot of industry upgrades initially this game that I didn’t do early last game as well as many that I didn’t do at all last game. Increasing naval shipyards by 117 this game comes to mind.

Fuel: I have about 100k more fuel this game. Not sure why.

Manpower: While unimportant, this shows how much I speeded up my invasions this game. Initial manpower is 797, last game I was at 800 and this game I’m at 817. Wow.

HI: Last game I hadn’t taken anything with HI yet. I’ve taken Hong Kong early this game. I think using the 104 Div and the infantry brigade along with the 38 Div was the difference.

Nav Shipyard: I increased this from 1384 to 1501 (I can’t count) this game. That’s an additional 117K supply consumed. That’s significant. My pool is about the same in both games so that means I’m accelerating more ships. I hope it’s worth the cost….

Repair Shipyard: Last game I hadn’t increased any of them at this point in the game. This game, I’m where I was by 4 Apr 42 of the last game. Now there’s a big difference. I guess I’m spending up front this game. After subtracting out the yards I captured at Hong Kong and Manila, I’ve still spent over 100k so far. Fortunately, most of the repair yards are complete, or almost complete.

Vehicles: Here’s another place where I spent up front. In my other game, I hadn’t started increasing the vehicle factories. I had the starting 72 vs. 138 so far in this game. That’s 66k supply here. I do have about 730 more vehicle points than last game. By the way, today was the first day my vehicle point level went down.

Pilot losses: I thought I was losing pilots more quickly this game but look at these numbers:

Type of loss – last game – this game

MIA – 29 – 28
WIA – 15 – 13
KIA – 76 – 74

Interesting….

[pws1225]

Thanks for the nice comprehensive update. It helps new JFB types like myself.

Question: as part of your preparation for your move on Burma, are you expanding any airfields in Thailand, or are you relying on Pt. Blair?







;

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: pws1225

Thanks for the nice comprehensive update. It helps new JFB types like myself.

Question: as part of your preparation for your move on Burma, are you expanding any airfields in Thailand, or are you relying on Pt. Blair?
;

Thanks.

That's a good question. Pt. Blair will be built up to level 4 and house most of the 22 Air Flotilla. Their job is to clear the seas of enemy shipping.

For Burma proper, I'm currently upgrading Rahaeng, probably to level 4. I'll keep Rangoon and Moulmein at level 4. The Allies will take them back eventually. There's no need to give them a large airfield. I like to try and form a complex at Shwebo, Mandala, Magwe, Meiktila and Taung Gui. By building them all up to level 3-4, I can keep a lot of fighters there to defend Burma. The bombers are usually farther to the rear. By late 42, I find that IJA bombers are nothing more than targets. I use them less and less for bombing and more for ASW. I'm training ASW pilots now. The majority of the 3 Air Division eventually ends up in Burma.

In addition, I upgrade Bangkok's airfield to level 7. That makes it nice for air unit upgrades.

[Mike Solli]

I guess there's more. Right now, all of the 3 Air Division 2E bombers are in Malaya. Burma gets the 1E bombers. That is actually nice, because they can use the smaller airfields more effectively than the 2E bombers can.

[ny59giants]

I write down the amount of supply I have at Tokyo every turn for the first few months. Any extra you have on Honshu will go here and it gives me a quick picture of my usage there. Yes, I use Tracker, but this will show me any patterns of over expansion and/or shipping out too much.

[pws1225]

Thanks Mike, I appreciate it.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: pws1225

Thanks for the nice comprehensive update. It helps new JFB types like myself.

Question: as part of your preparation for your move on Burma, are you expanding any airfields in Thailand, or are you relying on Pt. Blair?
;

Thanks.

That's a good question. Pt. Blair will be built up to level 4 and house most of the 22 Air Flotilla. Their job is to clear the seas of enemy shipping.

For Burma proper, I'm currently upgrading Rahaeng, probably to level 4. I'll keep Rangoon and Moulmein at level 4. The Allies will take them back eventually. There's no need to give them a large airfield. I like to try and form a complex at Shwebo, Mandala, Magwe, Meiktila and Taung Gui. By building them all up to level 3-4, I can keep a lot of fighters there to defend Burma. The bombers are usually farther to the rear. By late 42, I find that IJA bombers are nothing more than targets. I use them less and less for bombing and more for ASW. I'm training ASW pilots now. The majority of the 3 Air Division eventually ends up in Burma.

In addition, I upgrade Bangkok's airfield to level 7. That makes it nice for air unit upgrades.

Unless you guys have some house rule about bombing Magwe's oil production, I'd expect that to be torched ASAP. Leastwise, I would if I were the Allies. Having appreciable fighter cover at Magwe (or at least AAA) can forestall this Allied effort somewhat.

[Mike Solli]

Michael, after reading your comment about Tokyo, I checked it and found only 12k supply there. [X(] There are 6 factories expanding there. The supply production in Tokyo should take care of it, but I didn't want to risk it and upped the supply there a bit. Thanks.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: pws1225

Thanks for the nice comprehensive update. It helps new JFB types like myself.

Question: as part of your preparation for your move on Burma, are you expanding any airfields in Thailand, or are you relying on Pt. Blair?
;

Thanks.

That's a good question. Pt. Blair will be built up to level 4 and house most of the 22 Air Flotilla. Their job is to clear the seas of enemy shipping.

For Burma proper, I'm currently upgrading Rahaeng, probably to level 4. I'll keep Rangoon and Moulmein at level 4. The Allies will take them back eventually. There's no need to give them a large airfield. I like to try and form a complex at Shwebo, Mandala, Magwe, Meiktila and Taung Gui. By building them all up to level 3-4, I can keep a lot of fighters there to defend Burma. The bombers are usually farther to the rear. By late 42, I find that IJA bombers are nothing more than targets. I use them less and less for bombing and more for ASW. I'm training ASW pilots now. The majority of the 3 Air Division eventually ends up in Burma.

In addition, I upgrade Bangkok's airfield to level 7. That makes it nice for air unit upgrades.

Unless you guys have some house rule about bombing Magwe's oil production, I'd expect that to be torched ASAP. Leastwise, I would if I were the Allies. Having appreciable fighter cover at Magwe (or at least AAA) can forestall this Allied effort somewhat.

No house rules about bombing oil. Magwe's oil is a test run for Ted's bombers. That's where they get to see what an oil field looks like before and after. [8|] It usually doesn't last long but last game I noticed that he decided to go after the refinery. That was a gift from heaven.

[Mike Solli]

23 Dec 41

Sub War

Nothing to report.

5 Fleet

Nothing to report.

4 Fleet

I'm sending a Naval Guard from Jaluit to take Nauru and Ocean Islands.

SE Fleet

The Rabaul Invasion force made Rabaul, but I left the TF set on do not unload. *Smacks self* They'll land tomorrow. I did notice an enemy TF at Pt. Moresby. I'm shifting KB over a few hexes to see if they will launch an attack. I also sent a nearby sub to investigate.

China

I made two attacks against a couple of the spread out Chinese Corps. On was next to Hwainan. I ousted it taking 36(0) casualties for 1267(112) Chinese casualties. The second attack was NE of Sinyang where I caused 113(14) to 25(1) Japanese losses and pushed it out as well.

Philippines

More air and land bombing of Clark Field. The artillery from Hong Kong is enroute. Tomorrow I'm going to shift some of the bombers to Bataan. It'll be to slow down the building of forts a bit.

The tank regiment attacked Tuguegaro and forced the surrender of the PA battalion for no loss. I now own everything north of Clark Field.

Mindinao

The 16 Division (-) reached Cotabato. I'm trying an attack tomorrow to attempt to push the enemy south.

Borneo

I landed the 21 Division at Tarakan. I'll attack tomorrow. A flight of 4x 139WH-3s came after the invasion fleet and was promptly shot down. Two were shot down by a hot Claude pilot off the Zuiho!

Malaya

My forces are moving to kill the remnants of the cut off Brits and Indians and preparing for the attack on Singapore. My intel shows only 16 Buffalos left. Not sure how accurate that is, but it can't be too far off the mark. He didn't even fly against me today.

[obvert]

What do you have in the South on Luzon heading for Manilla?

I notice you're using the 21st Div at Tarakan. That should get it quick! Will you keep moving this down hoping around or send it on to Malaya or Palembang?

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: pws1225

Thanks for the nice comprehensive update. It helps new JFB types like myself.

Question: as part of your preparation for your move on Burma, are you expanding any airfields in Thailand, or are you relying on Pt. Blair?
;

Thanks.

That's a good question. Pt. Blair will be built up to level 4 and house most of the 22 Air Flotilla. Their job is to clear the seas of enemy shipping.

For Burma proper, I'm currently upgrading Rahaeng, probably to level 4. I'll keep Rangoon and Moulmein at level 4. The Allies will take them back eventually. There's no need to give them a large airfield. I like to try and form a complex at Shwebo, Mandala, Magwe, Meiktila and Taung Gui. By building them all up to level 3-4, I can keep a lot of fighters there to defend Burma. The bombers are usually farther to the rear. By late 42, I find that IJA bombers are nothing more than targets. I use them less and less for bombing and more for ASW. I'm training ASW pilots now. The majority of the 3 Air Division eventually ends up in Burma.

In addition, I upgrade Bangkok's airfield to level 7. That makes it nice for air unit upgrades.

Chang Mai seems like a good field as well since it's on the rail line, and is farther back from Allied advances off the roads. I had thought of building that up. Is there a reason I shouldn't?

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: obvert

What do you have in the South on Luzon heading for Manilla?

I notice you're using the 21st Div at Tarakan. That should get it quick! Will you keep moving this down hoping around or send it on to Malaya or Palembang?

There's nothing there right now. Ted has 2x PA Divisions and an AS unit cut off there. I need to scrounge something to clean that area up.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: pws1225

Thanks for the nice comprehensive update. It helps new JFB types like myself.

Question: as part of your preparation for your move on Burma, are you expanding any airfields in Thailand, or are you relying on Pt. Blair?
;

Thanks.

That's a good question. Pt. Blair will be built up to level 4 and house most of the 22 Air Flotilla. Their job is to clear the seas of enemy shipping.

For Burma proper, I'm currently upgrading Rahaeng, probably to level 4. I'll keep Rangoon and Moulmein at level 4. The Allies will take them back eventually. There's no need to give them a large airfield. I like to try and form a complex at Shwebo, Mandala, Magwe, Meiktila and Taung Gui. By building them all up to level 3-4, I can keep a lot of fighters there to defend Burma. The bombers are usually farther to the rear. By late 42, I find that IJA bombers are nothing more than targets. I use them less and less for bombing and more for ASW. I'm training ASW pilots now. The majority of the 3 Air Division eventually ends up in Burma.

In addition, I upgrade Bangkok's airfield to level 7. That makes it nice for air unit upgrades.

Chang Mai seems like a good field as well since it's on the rail line, and is farther back from Allied advances off the roads. I had thought of building that up. Is there a reason I shouldn't?

That's a nice possibility. It's actually nice because it gets supply from Bangkok. The only concern is that it would need fighter support because it doesn't have any other bases nearby. Every base has it's good and bad points. [:D]

[Mike Solli]

Since Ted has the turn and he's at work, I had some time to check things out. Whoever said to check the division commanders was right. The 5, 18 & 48 Div commanders are all Colonels. Gotta spend the PPs to change them. I suspect several other divisions that are broken down will need changes as well. I guess I should upgrade the beta first so it doesn't happen any more.

I also checked my outstanding factory increases. Right now there are a total of 492 points of increases still happening. Keep in mind that 154 of that is oil from Miri and Brunei. That's spread out over 28 facilities, which means 28k supply spent tomorrow. Fourteen of them will be complete in 1-8 days. Six more will be done 1-8 days after that. So, in 16 days, I'll have only 8 facilities expanding. In a month, only Miri will be left. That's still a lot of supply expended, but I'll be in plus territory in one day (7 facilities complete tomorrow). On the negative side, I need to upgrade the engines for the Helen (whichever one that is) by 150 in January. Fortunately, it's only one factory but that's 5 months of 1k supply per day. In January, I'm keeping close watch on factory expansion/repairs and will set a limit. Probably somewhere in the vicinity of 5-8 per day max.

More good news is that I have much more supply in cargo convoys (and thus not accounted for) than I had thought. I have about 350k sitting in cargo convoys waiting to go where it's needed. I guess last game where I ran out of supply in Malaya caused me to load more supply convoys than I realized. I didn't keep good track of them so I kept loading them. [:D] No more. I'll live with what's out there. That should be enough for the next couple of months.

[Cribtop]

Jeez, Mike, it would be uber embarrassing if YOU crashed the Japanese economy! [:D]