BURMA:
Japan reinforces Mandalay with 5 engineer regiments 2 days ago....fortunately they got roughed up when crossing the Irrawaddy River so hopefully they cant take out all our fortifications any time soon. Still, Japan now has nearly 150,000 troops at Mandalay...the telephone pole there has grown to 28 units.
Meanwhile, we are reinforcing Mandalay by air....2 regiments of 18th UK were sent via Dakota transports and now we are sending in the Aussie 7th AIF. Steve has gotten wise to our reinfocement program and a huge battle for air supremacy has broken out over Burma. Japan was flying LRCAP over Mandalay to interdict our transports....we were sending fighter sweeps over Mandalay to hit Japan's LRCAP. Then , Japan decides to send a 100 A6M2 fighter sweep from Hanoi to gain control of the airspace over Mandalay:
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Day Air attack on Mandalay , at 33,29
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 106
Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIb x 66
Hurricane IID/IV x 7
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 20 destroyed, 14 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
Hurricane IIb: 23 destroyed, 20 damaged
Hurricane IID/IV: 6 damaged
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Day Air attack on Mandalay , at 33,29
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 76
Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIb x 27
Hurricane IID/IV x 3
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 5 destroyed, 10 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
Hurricane IIb: 6 destroyed, 15 damaged
Hurricane IID/IV: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged
The Allies have been hitting the Jap telephone pole at Mandalay with every RAF and USAAF bomber in SEAC that will fly during the usually inclement weather. Japan sends a bomber raid from Rangoon to hit our bomber base at Akyab:
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Day Air attack on Akyab , at 30,28
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 16
Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 9
Ki-21-II Sally x 25
Allied aircraft
P-43A Lancer x 21
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21-II Sally: 11 destroyed, 3 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
P-43A Lancer: 4 destroyed, 7 damaged
When the weather allows, SEAC bombers have done an exemplary job of disrupting the 6 Japanese divisions at Mandalay....unfortunately the weather interdicts our bombers more than enemy is able to....and now Japan splits up most of her divisions at Mandalay into regiments to reduce the effects of Allied bombardments.
Japan sends their Liz bombers to interdict our ground based reinforcements to Mandalay but this turn they decide to bomb an AA unit...Lol:
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Day Air attack on 28th LAA Regiment , at 33,27
Japanese aircraft
G5N Liz x 26
Japanese aircraft losses
G5N Liz: 1 destroyed, 8 damaged
Allied ground losses:
20 casualties reported
The Allies are down to fort level 5 at Mandalay...if we can only get the Indian III Corps HQ within 1 hex of Mandalay and it could be a whole new ballgame....but its still a few days out on the jungle trails.
Altogether, Japan loses 61 AC vs 56 Allied.....in A2A its 40 Allied AC vs 30 Jap AC. 37 A6M2s are destroyed today vs 32 Hurricanes....thats a lot of Jap pilots for 1 turn.
AUSTRALIA:
The Allies have undergone a complete reorganization of their forces here since Japan began its withdrawal from Alice Springs a week ago. Initially, all the Allied PPs were used to buy US LCUs and ALL were sent to reinforce Oz. Now, with Japan showing their hand at Burma with 6 divisions, the Allied garrisons in SE OZ are free to be redeployed...as well as the corps and army HQs. A strong holding force is left at Alice Springs...several divisions and corps and army HQs are sent to reinforce the drive to retake Perth...JOB 1 in OZ for 1942.
A Jap convoy is spotted carrying reinforcements to Buna on the NE coast of New Guinea....B-25s and B-26s are staged into Thursday Island to hit the Jap transports tomorrow....weather permitting.
The CENTPAC 762nd Light Tank Battalion will be withdrawn from Australia to reinforce the USN summer offensive in the Pacific.
STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS:
The Allies will probably lose Mandalay within the next 2 weeks. In retrospect, it was absolutely essential for Japan to take Mandalay...even this late in the war. The Allies were winning the air war in SE Asia....Japan would have been devastated by Allied bombers in SE Asia in late 1942 with Mandalay in Allied hands. Rangoon, Bangkok and Hanoi were all at risk of being flattened. Even with the loss of Mandalay, the Allies will still gain aerial supremacy in this theatre....but probably not until late 1943.
July 14th, 1942 is a HUGE reinforcement day for Allied forces across the theatre....hordes of aviation units and some combat troops arrive at SF, Aden and in OZ......not to mention the 4 squadrons of P-38Fs that arrived at SF last turn. With the threat to Australia eliminated, the Allies can use their PPs for support units now...construction engineers, aviation engineers flak units and the like. The Allies should begin regaining the initiative within a few weeks. Now its just a question of where to start the long road back to Japan.
