Matrix Games Forums

Overall, good progress!
Keep wacking away.

In China - if you have not done so yet, spend some time looking at the garrison levels and shifting units around to free up those larger Rgts/Divs.

Jan 17-22, 1942

I'm sorry to report that it seems I may have grown the Air, Engine, and Air R&D factories too quickly, and am at a point where repairs are only trickling thru as Supplies in the HI are too thin to go around! Tracker shows over 400k Supply in Japan, but I consistently see repairs not happening and bases with < 10k supply.

Conversely, after wild and quite possibly reckless expenditures to expand every factory I have (an exaggeration…there are about a dozen R&D that aren’t yet at 30!), total supply in Japan HI has gone up slightly over the last 5-6 days, so that’s not horrible. Similarly Resources are going up slightly as I’ve gotten the convoys squared away. Fuel and Oil are of course still going down, but I’ve not yet started shipping things out of Sumatra, and only a bit from Borneo so far.



I have no Airframe R&D factories that are fully repaired yet, but the Helen, A6M3, and Oscar IIa are making a bit of progress. The Engines are coming along nicely, but I’m kind of spitballing on what needs will be, and have them just set to go to 30 for now…expansion will happen after they’re available. I have no concept yet of how much I can move up these engines…I’m really hoping to get these early enough to be able to build 500 to help move along the airframe research too (particularly the Turbojet for the Ki-201!)



Am I overproducing the A6M2?



I want the Ki-201!



Overall things have been relatively quiet. Jwolf consistently hits me where I don’t want him to, and I’m losing a lot more shipping than I’d like. I’m trying to adhere to a policy of not sailing around without an escort that I feel is overpowering for anything I expect to encounter.

For example, I took Horn Island, then started packing up the SNLF for use somewhere else…but had sent the KB away (chasing other things!). As soon as I did, he sent in a single DD that beat up two xAKL and two PB. Luckily they hadn’t gotten very much loaded yet, but parts of the SNLF fed the sharks.

Similarly after taking Balikpapan I had the amphib force set to Remain On Station, and forgot about them. The West Fleet covering force had sailed away to get more bullets. An ABDA CL/DD force sailed in and sank them all. The 21IMB wasn’t embarked at all, so “only” the ships were lost, but it was just sheer laziness that made that happen.

So despite only having two more months of Amphib bonus, my operational tempo is slowing down quite a bit as I am trying to maintain an ‘overwhelming force’ accompanying any vulnerable force. This is very much complicated by the KB needing to spend a week or so getting patched up after too many Full Speed days!

Burma
It seems the AVG and RAF have abandoned Rangoon, as Sweeps encounter no fighters at all. Betty and Nell from Victoria Point have started airfield bombardment to keep it that way. Two tank regiments from Malaya are heading this way to push up the road to Moulmein, while John and I bombard each other at Pegu. Not a lot of action here. After a few more days of airfield bombing I’m going to switch to Naval Attack and hope to prevent any more supply/reinforcement making it to Rangoon.
I have some Betty on Naval Search out of Port Blair, giving me some eyes in the IO. Looks like a few small groups heading towards Calcutta (or maybe Akyab), but nothing exciting.

Malaya
Nothing happening, just gathering up forces to reform Divisions to hit Singapore.

Sumatra
Still in cleanup mode here. Sabang and Padang are still to be taken, and I’m getting I/124 set to head for Bengkalis. The II/124 and III/124 will relieve the 4th Division here and chase down the remnants of the defense forces, freeing up 4th Division to clear out Java.

Java
21st Div continues to bombard Batavia, along with heavy Lily bombings. I don’t really have a good understanding of what effect these bombings are having. I’d like to think I’m consuming his supply and causing Disruption to his troops, but I don’t know if I’m doing ‘damage’ faster than it’s replaced/repaired. I don’t have a good understanding of how supply flows in to, or how production works, in occupied hexes. For the most part, what ‘makes sense’ to me seems to work in the game, so I’m assuming that me having a division in the hex and bombing the crap out of it will prevent supply production there, and prevent more from coming in…i.e. a siege. I may be wrong, but if nothing else it seems to be keeping these forces pinned here and not making a fortress somewhere else. I did just realize last turn that I didn’t set up anything to bomb the port/airfield to prevent fort building…woops.

4th Inf Regiment landed at and took Kalidjati, and is moving to Bandoeng. An HQa and lots of Av Support has moved in to Kalidjati, Netties are flying out of there to try to keep Java isolated, Oscars and Recon have moved up here as well to start poking around the eastern end of the island.

Borneo
As mentioned above, the 21IMB Amphib Fleet was left just floating around at Balikpapan while the 21IMB crosses the river on foot, and got smashed by ABDA SCTF:

Day Time Surface Combat, near Balikpapan at 64,97, Range 20,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
PB Heiei Maru #7, Shell hits 14, and is sunk
xAK Daisin Maru, Shell hits 9, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
xAK Igasa Maru, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
xAP Kokuryu Maru, Shell hits 36, and is sunk
PB Toko Maru #4, Shell hits 13, and is sunk

Allied Ships
CL Glasgow, Shell hits 1
DD Evertsen
DD Van Ghent
DD Express

Woops!

Nells attacked that force but all missed…small ships hard to Torpedo, I guess.

Home Fleet (minus the BBs that served as impromptu minesweepers) is almost back, should be off Balikpapan in two days. I’ve got some xAK-t (Aden class) coming to serve as rides for 21IMB.

Philippines
Clark Field finally fell. I’ve spent several days Resting (some Morale and Fatigue values were in the 50s!). I’ve done nothing against the bulk of his forces in Manila yet (just Bombarding), but will finish off the forces that retreated to Bataan first. 33rd Div is coming to help.

Mindinao is cleared up completely, and the five SNLF I had there will sweep through the smaller islands in between then move for the cleanup of DEI (everything west and south of Celebes).

PNG/Solomons

A DD was smashed by SBD-3s that seemed to be coming from the area of Rossel Island:

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Milne Bay at 101,135

Weather in hex: Partial cloud

Raid spotted at 11 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 4 minutes

Allied aircraft
SBD-3 Dauntless x 15

No Allied losses

Japanese Ships
DD Arare, Bomb hits 2, and is sunk

I sent KB Full Speed to the area, hoping to find a single US CV to smash, but all they found was a small CL force, and no strikes were launched. This Full Speed run pushed things a bit too far, after several other Full Speeds chasing ghosts around Christmas Island a month ago, most of the fleet has Sys in the teens. KB has retired to Truk where they will spend 8 days undergoing repairs (note that this won’t completely repair them all…some need closer to two weeks) when they’ll get underway for Operation Santa Clauss.

Of course John saw KB go flying away, and sent a DD to smash the small Amphib group I had picking up the victorious SNLF from Horn Island and smashed it. I had a CL/DD force 3 hexes away that did not react. Frustrating, but not a major loss.

South Fleet forces that had retired to Kobe for repair are underway heading back to the area. This will be enough to overpower anything short of US CV force and will allow continued operation to push down in to Solomons. KB will swing through the area as well to clear the area.

Central Pacific
Lots of little things happening. He has a lot of subs in the Marshal Islands that are being a problem, and I have few ASW assets here. I sent two DDs to Bombard Christmas…sort of a Recon mission. They encountered nothing there, bombardment hit only facilities (no ground forces were hit), but it certainly was like kicking a hornet’s nest. Multiple small groups converged on the DDs are they retired to Canton, including what looks like a US CV group. The New Mexico followed the DDs all the way to Canton where it bombarded me there, doing only light facility damage:

Naval bombardment of Canton Island at 153,143

Allied Ships
BB New Mexico

Airbase hits 2
Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 3
Port hits 2
Port fuel hits 1
Port supply hits 1

BB New Mexico firing at Canton Island

I have a number of subs heading in to the area (my sub operations have been very limited as things are still recovering from my ReOrg). I’d LOVE to put a fish or two in to that BB as well! (Remember two BBs were torpedoed in the Aleutians a few weeks back!).

I have some scattered NG pieces on multiple islands, but I’m not sending out shipping to recover them yet. East Fleet is pretty beat up from multiple small engagements and is retiring to Truk for repairs. This whole region now is pretty much just hunkering down under the Nells and waiting at Kwaj for KB to clear the seas, then we’ll move on Christmas (actually all the Line Islands, Baker, and maybe Johnston too…hopefully not An Island Too Far!)

North Pacific

I have two Battalions on Adak loading up, and another Battalion (fresh from taking Attu, Kiska, and Amchitka). These three are going to take the other little islands west of Adak and standby for a push to the east…and maybe north to Nome.

My current surface forces here are very limited, just one CL and 4 DD, but I have about 12 Subs operating in this region. The two BB he moved to the area were sent packing, both having taken two torpedoes. Currently I have a line of subs west of Umnak to see if he pushes towards Adak again. He has a couple fleets at Umnak and at least one at Dutch. One of the Umnak groups contains a CA and DD (at least).

I sent some Nells to Adak to fly some Naval Search (despite being only Size 2). I got greedy and set them to Attack, and they spent a few days dropping bombs ineffectually on that CA:

Morning Air attack on TF, near Umnak Island at 169,51

Weather in hex: Light rain

Raid spotted at 6 NM, estimated altitude 4,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 2 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G3M2 Nell x 8

No Japanese losses

Allied Ships
CA Louisville, Bomb hits 1
DD Hatfield

Probably not enough to pen the deck armor. After a few days of that, he got tired of my bombing practice and responded in a way I should have foreseen:

Morning Air attack on TF, near Umnak Island at 169,51

Weather in hex: Partial cloud

Raid spotted at 15 NM, estimated altitude 3,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 5 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G3M2 Nell x 8

Allied aircraft
P-36A Mohawk x 17

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M2 Nell: 5 destroyed

So now I have a dilemma. Of course conquering and exploiting the SRA is a primary war goal, but my primary area of operations going forward is intended to be in the North Pacific and in to Canada. What I want to prevent is him building this area up too much while he has the chance. Instead I fear my observable buildup (in this case, hitting him with LBA) is going to cause a slow escalation that will make the already tough slogging thru the cold even worse. However, if I don’t move with the limited forces I have now, I’m going to be that much farther behind when I intend to really ‘get serious’ up here in the summer. I’d hoped to take all the way up to Kodiak by spring, so I can build up at Kodiak for Alaska and then Canada. I realize that attacking North America is bordering on suicidal, but the longer I wait the worse it is!

The problem is, right now he outguns me up here. Moreover, I don’t have any surface forces I’m ready to shift up this way yet. I have in the back of my mind the Home Fleet and KB will move up here when things get serious, but for now it’s just a handful of small stuff, while he’s committing BBs and CAs. I can’t move any farther up the island chain until those are cleared out. So…

11th Air Flotilla is on the way from Takao. Somehow I didn’t get it all in one TF…seems they left all their torpedoes and some support behind, so a follow up TF had to be dispatched, holding this up by almost a week. &#61516; They’ll get me some torpedoes on the Nells, and the CR should allow me to use multiple air fields for…

I somehow managed to screw up the sizing of the Kate squadron on Shoho. Instead of resizing again, I divided it in to three groups of 4 aircraft. Two are on the CVL, the third will operate from Adak (or a surrounding Island).

In addition, a few new arrival Air Groups will head to Adak as well, one of 6 Kates, another of 6 Vals.

And, since I have a pretty large amount of Army fighter training groups (~200 pilots), I bought out one of the squadrons, switched to Oscar Ic, and they’re moving north as well.

2nd Raiding Regiment & Sentai are also embarked on ships for this region as well.

Escorting that convoy to Adak is Shoho, with some fresh from Upgrade Fubuki I DDs. Shoho has 20 Zeros and 8 Kates, I hope the Zeroes will be enough to clear those dumb P-36 out of the sky, and the Kates should supplement the LBA pretty well in beating back the surface forces he has here and allow me to continue to push along towards Kodiak.

Karafuto is a few days out from Adak. When the enemy surface forces are cleared out they will move (along with 2nd Raiding Regiment) to take Dutch Harbor, then they’ll start prepping for Kodiak. 20th Division from Korea is already prepping for Kodiak and they’ll stage to Adak as PPs are available to buy them out.

My biggest worry is that he’ll commit US CVs this way before KB is done with Christmas/Line Island action. I stand to lose Shoho and potentially a lot of troops will become mini icebergs if that happens.

Australia

No action here yet, but I’m starting to think about what I want to do here. Primary goal is ‘distraction’ from North American invasion. Secondary goal is to not allow ‘free’ bases in 4e range of DEI. My intention is to use all of 14th, 16th, and 25th Armies (plus other things bought out between now and then) for North America, leaving not much with which to guard SRA. Still, I think I’ll be committing all the ‘heavy hitters’ here, including 4th and 21st Division and two Tank Regiments to Darwin, and 4th and 21st Inf Brig/Reg to the small NW Oz towns. I’m not going to move to Perth go very deep south of Darwin, and I’ll likely leave just a small force to garrison this region (I’m thinking the 124ths Battalions will end up here). This will be planned for after Java and Celebes, and may likely happen before western PNG and the eastern DEI islands are snatched up. Roughly planning on doing this when MKB is back from Footsore.

So that’s my Wall-Of-Text ™ for the week! Thanks for reading! As always, feedback and thoughts welcome!

So I was looking over air losses, and two things jumped out at me...

First and foremost, my losses to Flak seem enormous! I tend to fly at 10k if going over a base where I expect there to be AA, 4-5k otherwise. Am I just flying too low, or just flying too many missions over flak-infested bases?

Second, Zero Op Losses seem super high. Any thoughts on what might be causing that?

Thanks all!!

ORIGINAL: Malagant

Jan 17-22, 1942

I'm sorry to report that it seems I may have grown the Air, Engine, and Air R&D factories too quickly, and am at a point where repairs are only trickling thru as Supplies in the HI are too thin to go around! Tracker shows over 400k Supply in Japan, but I consistently see repairs not happening and bases with < 10k supply.

...

So that’s my Wall-Of-Text ™ for the week! Thanks for reading! As always, feedback and thoughts welcome!

My first suggestion would be to go to the Industry screen and turn off ALL repairs. Look at what production you absolutely need in the next couple of weeks and turn off any Production over that. Like the B5N1 Kate, Ki-46 Dinah II, E14Y1 Glen and maybe the Ki-48 Lily 1b.

Get your supply levels in the cities up.

Then turn on the most important repairs first, working your way down. Pay particular attention to the supply level in the city and if you turn repair on for Airframe, don't also turn on repair for Engine in the same city in the same turn. Watch supply for a couple of turns, then decide if you can turn on another repair within the same city.

A thought on Engines:
A more experienced JFB might be able to pull it off, but I think aiming at 500 engine R&D bonus anywhere before April 1942 is a bit of wishful thinking for us less experienced.

Prioritize - it is not too late.
Get supply up.
Look at each city as a complete unit.
Decide which factory to pay its 'Repair Bill'.
Turn Repairs ON and OFF as needed.

How quickly have you upgraded air units?

I still have Nates flying combat missions in China, Philippines and Malaysia. Doesn't it eat up some supply (plus the air frames) to upgrade?

A lot of Claudes are used for training in the Home Islands and other places. You are doing much better in the military expansion than I am so I am hesitant to question your decisions.

As to flak - I am flying at 15K+ over any known flak sites. I will drop down below 10K if I am running down retreating troops or some other target of opportunity.
Are you flying LRCAP with your zeros?
What are your ratios like high cap and trying to also provide escort?

I believe I have read that flying to max range will increase OPs loss.

Reply to your PM asking about how I have gotten late 44 aircraft fully repaired:

I reread your opening page and do not see what your general settings are:
Scenario 1 or 2?
Realistic R&D ON or OFF?

In my game it is Scenario 2 and Realistic R&D OFF.
With Realistic R&D OFF you can switch active production factories over to R&D.
With Realistic R&D ON, you can not.
It is an important distinction.

/* *****************
Example:
For the A6M5c with Realistic R&D OFF
1. set up an A6M2 factory (x30)
2. let it repair
3. upgrade it to A6M2 Sen Baka
4. then Same Turn, upgrade it to A6M5b
5. then Same Turn, upgrade it to A6M5c

you don't have to wait for the A6M2 Sen Baka or the A6M5b to fully research, just take your fully repaired factories along the upgrade chain to the plane you really want.

So with Realistic R&D OFF - in about 45 days from the start of the war, you can have a fully repaired x(30) factory researching the A6M5c. Sweeet....
Same goes for the Betty.

/* *******************
With Realistic R&D OFF -- you can't do that shortcut. You have to research the A6M3 - which will take you about 6 months from start of the war, but then you can just follow the upgrade path so that by June of 42, you can have a bunch of repaired x(30) factories researching the A6M5c (armored zero).

You do not have to research each plane in the path, they will come out in their own determined time without any R&D - meanwhile, spend your research on something important.



Hopefully this explains why I have such early research on Zeros and Oscars, Lilies and Betties. Those are currently in production and I switched fully repaired production factories over to R&D.

I apologize if my earlier response seemed to be short or sharp.

Hi Dan! Thanks for all the info! I'm embarrassed to say that I just found all this in this thread today! I'm still a bit perplexed, as our factory expansion isn't terribly different, not enough to account for me having about 2 million less Supply than you in HI! No matter, 2 Million sounds like a lot, but it's less than 3 months production.

Jan 23-31, 1942

Time is against me, and all my ops seem to be taking too much time!

Supply in the HI holds pretty constant about 300k. I'm guessing supply is consumed by repairs until below the min 10k at the base, and that per base minimum is what's holding the supply. Fine by me, things are repairing and progressing. I may take Dan's advice and stop repairing some of the R&D stuff to get the production Engine factories up to snuff (I'm running out of HA-32 & 33!

It's been a long time since my last update, but there really has not been anything terribly exciting! I'll try to be brief...or at least less talky than normal!

Burma
I took Moulmein with an RTA division, and some Battalions are cleaning up the road to Tavoy. All RAF/AVG forces have vanished since I started bombing the runway at Rangoon. I'm alternating between the runway there and the troops at Pegu. Nothing exciting

Malaya
Everything that can reform in to a division has done so, given me 5 divisions that have all started their walk across the river to Singapore. I expect they'll get there on Jan 2nd. I'll follow up with a million artillery tubes and start the siege. I've kept the airfield damage up for awhile now, hoping to not find the Forts too crazy high!

Sumatra
Still marching around cleaning things up. Hoping to get the Division here out and down to Java within a week.

Java
I moved the bulk of my Oscars down to Kalidjati, then promptly ran out of supply. It took a few days to get things high enough to allow use of Drop Tanks, and I started sweeps over Soerabaja, knocking down more of the Dutch and Royal Air Forces. I'm stalemated at Batavia, and now also at Bandoeng...need more here. 4th Div and two more Tank Regiments will be coming soon. Bandoeng is defended by a regiment with solid support in good terrain with lvl 3 fort...not the quick strike to cut off Batavia I'd hoped it would be.

Borneo
Trying to push my Netties up to Balikpapan, but got my wires crossed: my Home Fleet (some CAs, CLs, and DDs) was supposed to be patrolling off Balikpapan to keep the way open for transporting in AvSupport, etc. On the way thru the straits Oi took multiple Torpedoes, and split off to Balikpapan where she'll be fine, I'll let her spend a few weeks working on Sys then move her out when the area's not so hotly contested. However, instead of having the Home Fleet patrolling where I wanted them, I seem to have got them mixed up with an ASW patrol around Jolo, and they sailed back thru the straits and are sailing off Jolo now. I didn't notice, but John sure did, and sent a solo DD in, putting down a couple PB and xAK. Not a huge deal, but irritating. I'm literally using every Transport plane I have getting supplies and Eng out to Port Blair, but I think I may pull back a few groups and use them to shuffle around the Av Support.

PNG/Solomons
I've occupied Woodlark, Tagula, and Rossel islands. Will move to occupy Guadalacanal soon, trying to get this done while I know where US CVs are...JAAF Battalions arriving in HI are being sent this way to facilitate a slow steady buildup of bases. A few Nells and Zeroes are at Rabaul now, and I'm hoping to get some Eng to Horn to get it build up enough to allow 2e to operate.

CentPac
144th IR and GMB were shuffled to Truk, unloaded so their Disruption could go away, and are now loading back up. KB was reassembled after a week-long repair...more is needed, but I want to get Operation Santa Clauss underway. Due to recent activity the southward swing thru expected convoy routes by KB is cancelled...

The US CVs have been lurking near Baker Island for a week now. They've sent a few strikes at Canton, and lots of other ships are spotted assembling at Baker. I'm guessing he's prepping to retake Canton. A supply convoy to Canton has been recalled, and sub transport of supply has commenced.

144th IR and GMB are sailing form Truk to Kwaj. KB is taking a more northerly route, hoping to get around between the US CVs and Pearl. I'll sail to max range for PBY from Johnston, then go Full Speed southeast, which should get me direcly northeast of the US CVs. I think he's down a CV in this force, as Yorktown took a torpedo from an I-boat that was just passing thru! Based on the strikes coming in to Canton, there are likely only two CVs in this group, maybe only one. Easily overpowered by the 5CVs in KB.

Once the US forces are chased away from the area, I'll move on Christmas. Recon from Glens shows what seems to be a single US Regiment there. I'll be throwing two regiments and a base force at it, along with a lot of KB attention. Good times!

North Pac

The air reinforcements are starting to arrive. Shoho is lurking a few hexes south-westish of Adak, not revealing herself yet. Once the LBA is unpacked and repaired on Adak (which is lvl 3 now!) I'll start sweeping to make way for Val and Kate bombing of the forces he has around Dutch.

IO

Operation Footsore is solidly underway, with MKB and a bunch of AO passing thru Oosthaven and heading around the northwest tip of Sumatra then turning west. They'll pause south of Ceylon, then head up the west coast looking for trouble! I'd love to find some UK CVs in port and smash them before they get underway! Well, smashing them after they're underway is just as fun Wish me luck!

Feb 1-4, 1942

My keyboard is flaking out, the number keys work only sometimes, primarily the One and Zero. Please forgive me if I miss a digit somewhere!

My Industrial situation has not changed, I'm still lingering about 300k supply in the HI and factories continue to repair. There are only 3 more days till my A6M2 factory is fully repaired, and many of the Engine factories are done or close to done repairing, so the supply use load will reduce drastically. Resources in HI are going up. Fuel is barely going down since I started runs from Miri. I haven't started collecting Oil from Sumatra or Borneo yet, things are still a little too hot in that area, but I have the shipping organized and ready to roll, just have to pull the trigger and all will get underway.

Burma
I have complete control of the skies here, he hasn't been around in a long time...AVG is in China now, though. I had a Tank Regiment cross the river in to Pegu, initiating a Shock attack that went pretty well for me. I think he's withdrawn most of the other forces out of Burma, so with this Tank Regiment here I'll try to get some DA in and see if I can get things moving.

Ground combat at Pegu (55,53)

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 7998 troops, 112 guns, 112 vehicles, Assault Value = 356

Defending force 7088 troops, 45 guns, 8 vehicles, Assault Value = 250

Japanese adjusted assault: 14

Allied adjusted defense: 79

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 5 (fort level 2)

Combat modifiers
Defender: preparation(-), morale(-), experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+)

Japanese ground losses:
30 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 5 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Allied ground losses:
210 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 41 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Guns lost 2 (1 destroyed, 1 disabled)

Assaulting units:
55th Engineer Regiment
112th Infantry Regiment
6th Tank Regiment
55th Cavalry Regiment
7th RTA Division
15th Army
55th Mountain Gun Regiment
21st Medium Field Artillery Battalion

Defending units:
2nd King Own YLI Battalion
BFF Brigade
2nd Burma Brigade
4/14th Punjab Battalion
11th Burma Rifles Battalion

Sumatra
Cleanup continues. First attack at Padang went well, should have the base in a day or two:

Ground combat at Padang (44,85)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 4393 troops, 37 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 152

Defending force 1616 troops, 6 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 46

Japanese adjusted assault: 32

Allied adjusted defense: 25

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 1 (fort level 2)

Japanese Assault reduces fortifications to 1

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), preparation(-), morale(-)
experience(-)
Attacker: leaders(-)

Japanese ground losses:
55 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
81 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 6 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Assaulting units:
4th/C Division

Defending units:
Padang Garrison Battalion
Pakanbaroe Det.
223 Group RAF
Padang Base Force

I tried to sneak a solo xAK (Aden) though Oosthaven gap and up to Port Blair to get some supplies stockpiled there to reduce the load on the Transport planes. He spotted it and had a CL force lurking somewhere that jumped out and bagged the xAK. I need to start dedicating some Recon assets to finding which little base he's disbanding them in and take them out!

Night Time Surface Combat, near Siberoet at 39,86, Range 11,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
xAK Holland Maru, Shell hits 10, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk

Allied Ships
CL Hobart
DD Electra

Malaya

As noted before, I formed up 5 Divisions, replacing their commanders with guys that don't suck, and started the crossing in to Singapore. I switched them to Combat mode the day before they'd actually cross, but somehow managed to screw up the orders and cancelled one of the Division's destination, so only 4 Divisions made the crossing, attacking on Feb 2nd....and wow was I surprised with the results:

Ground combat at Singapore (50,84)

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 50361 troops, 468 guns, 215 vehicles, Assault Value = 1776

Defending force 22891 troops, 267 guns, 144 vehicles, Assault Value = 427

Japanese adjusted assault: 3884

Allied adjusted defense: 549

Japanese assault odds: 7 to 1 (fort level 3)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Singapore !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+), disruption(-)

Japanese ground losses:
3626 casualties reported
Squads: 23 destroyed, 274 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 28 disabled
Engineers: 5 destroyed, 42 disabled

Allied ground losses:
25330 casualties reported
Squads: 443 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 2153 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 89 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 373 (373 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 175 (175 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units destroyed 22

Banzai!!



For what it's worth, prep on the Divisions was all mid-80s to low 90s, the HQc and HQ were nearby, they had very low fatigue/disruption, I'd maintained damage on the airfield of Singapore since mid-December, and had switched the last two days to lowish level (7k) ground attack, hoping to disrupt the defenders. Apparently that all worked!

However, I was expecting a bit of a siege here, so I'm not quite prepared to take advantage of the success. I have 10 DMS on the way from Takao (I'd intended to stage them closer as the siege progressed...) but they're still several days out, probably start sweeping mines on the 6th. I'm moving a bunch of xAP and xAK-t to Saigon to prep for reallocation of this considerable force: 25th Army is going to clear out Luzon; 16th Army is going to clear out Java. Most of the artillery of Southern will go to Luzon as well, as that's where I feel it will be of more value.

Java

After successful sweeps by Oscars awhile ago, there have been no Dutch planes spotted around Java. I've done a few DA in the hexes I'm stuck in (Batavia and Bandoeng) with no success. Sallys that had been pounding Singapore will get a short rest then they'll start pounding Bandoeng, two more tank regiments from Malaya are already on the move here (I'd not intended to have them fight in the siege), once Bandoeng gets moving the four tank regiments will try to clear out things and get him bottle up in Soerbaja and 16th Army will come clean them out!

Borneo-Celebes
I finally got the Home Fleet off Balikpapan to keep things clear so I can ship in some Av Support and get the "Netties" going out of here, but on the fourth they ran in to a problem...

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Balikpapan at 64,100

Weather in hex: Thunderstorms

Raid spotted at 18 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 6 minutes

Allied aircraft
F2A-3 Buffalo x 9
F4F-3 Wildcat x 4
SBD-2 Dauntless x 15
SBD-3 Dauntless x 15

Allied aircraft losses
SBD-2 Dauntless: 6 damaged
SBD-3 Dauntless: 2 damaged
SBD-3 Dauntless: 1 destroyed by flak

Japanese Ships
CL Kitakami
CA Suzuya
CL Jintsu
CA Mogami
DD Tanikaze
CA Kumano, Bomb hits 1

A follow-on afternoon attack by 15 SBD-2s had no hits. The one hit on Kumano did not penetrate the deck, no damage to her.

I at first thought this was the air wing from Yorktown (who'd taken a torpedo near Baker Island awhile back) operation from a land base here, but John let it slip that CVs were here. My illustrious Betty pilots with their awesome naval search failed to notice the flattop. Bummer.

I've shuffled some planes around, and have about 40 Zeroes and 40 Oscar 1c in Balikpapan on LRCAP over this fleet. My first reaction was to send this group Full Speed and try to bag the CVs, but I've done that a few times now and I imagine that's what he's expecting....what the Betty pilots DID see is a BB and BC in Makasar. I expect his CV force will retire and those are some UK BBs come to ruin my party.

So I'm sliding the West Fleet (Ise, Hyuga; Myoko, Haguro, Nachi, Ashigara) down that way, also with a lot of LRCAP. I think that's only one CV, my Zeroes and Oscars should tear apart Buffalos pretty well, and I'm comfortable with the risk. There were at least two CVs spotted near Baker/Canton just 5 days ago, they can't all be here yet, so I'll push slowly, see if I can rip the guts out of his airwing with LBA LRCAP, then move to engage the surface force here.

Meanwhile I'm going to send an HQa down to Rabaul along with Eng and hope to catch anything that comes thru Torres Strait with Nells and Zeroes moved down from Truk.

PI
I bombed and bombarded Bataan quite a bit, then did one DA. Things didn't go well, but one division in particular took massive Disruption hit. That Div is moving out to rest next door while I bombard and bomb them and will try to watch for signs of failing supply (flak response? -Supply mod in combat resolution? Anything else?). I Still have one Division keeping the bulk of his force in Manila pinned down, while two divisions and all the artillery and engineers focus on Bataan. When 25th Army gets here I'll dogpile Bataan first then slide over to Manila. Mental note: I need to get some bombers on the airstrip at Manila or the forts will be through the roof!!

South Pac

Nells from Rabaul spotted what looked like un-escorted enemy shipping around Cairns, so I sent Kuma with four DDs to clear them out...turns out they weren't quite un-escorted:

Day Time Surface Combat, near Cairns at 92,140, Range 14,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
CL Kuma, Shell hits 3
DD Shikinami, Shell hits 1
DD Asagiri, Shell hits 1
DD Sagiri
DD Ushio

Allied Ships
CA Indianapolis, Shell hits 4
CA Chicago, Shell hits 1
DD Whipple, Shell hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage

Looks like I got the better of this force, damage to all was very light. Kuma went on to sink two PT boats, three xAK, and AVP Bellatrix. Not a bad haul! But on the way out another SAG intercepted me:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Cairns at 93,139, Range 3,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
CL Kuma, Shell hits 3, heavy fires
DD Shikinami
DD Asagiri
DD Sagiri
DD Ushio

Allied Ships
CA Northampton
CL Achilles, Shell hits 2
DD Stewart, Shell hits 3, heavy fires
AM Tanager

Kuma has low 20s sys and engine, fires are out. she was dumped in to an Escort with one of the DDs, and has made it to PM for a quick rest before trying to sneak around to Rabaul. Should be a quick fix, and a fun little attack!

Cent Pac

The US CVs near Baker disappeared on Feb 1st. Some large ships are still spotted at Baker, so KB will go check it out. Subs are thick around Kwaj, but I've sent a lot of PB to escort. I've got some NG stranded at Funafuti and Tabiteuea. They'll be picked up after KB sweeps the area, supplies are on the way to Canton, an NG is on the way to Baker, and GMB and 114th are loaded on the way for Christmas (along with AKE, AS, Tankers, Supplies, 4 Engineer companies, and some JNAF Units). Recon from Glen shows still just one allied Inf Reg on Christmas, but some ships just arrived there on the 4th. Two RO boats will be there in three days (ahead of the rest of the force), wish I had them there already, but that's the way it worked out.

I'm sad to have missed the chance to bag some CVs, but will be satisfied if I can get Christmas and operate closer to US LOC.

North Pac Zeroes swept Umnak on the 2nd, putting down a few Mohawks. I swept again and they'd gone. DL on Shoho went up to 3, so I pulled her back a day to clear the DL, and will move her up a bit closer. Looks like he's withdrawing the ships from Umnak. Recon shows no ground forces there, so this area is about to get intense...three battalions are on the way to Nome; 2nd Raiding Regiment is going to assault Umnak, and Karafuto is going to land at Dutch...all supported by Shoho and Nells.

It's noteworthy that the US CVs near Baker disappeared the day after I swept Umnak. I'm on the clock now...need to get these forces on the ground and get things under air cover before 2-3 CVs rain on my parade!!

and lastly:

Operation Footsore

MKB was spotted two days southeast of Ceylon. I was torn between continuing west towards Diego Garcia and up to hope to find some juicy convoys loaded with troops to put down, but decided for a bit of discretion...in order to not get pinned between map edge and a strong force of UK CV/BBs (I know they come, but not sure when) I'm going east of Ceylon, towards Port Blair. I'll sneak up towards Akyab, Cox's, and Calcutta and see what I can find there. 15 Subs are arriving on station around Ceylon too, so if he sorties something I expect to get some looks as they leave and I can be prepared. If all goes well, I'll do some Sweeps at Calcutta to try to knock down some slow-to-replace planes then head home to Singapore! Not the awe-inspiring surprise sweep by the CVLs I'd hoped for, but I'd rather keep them intact for awhile!

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

Feb 5, 1942

My keyboard is worse...such a pain

An exciting and fun turn. Reviewing my supply status in the HI, it looks like I'm over the hump, at least for awhile. Supplies are steadily going up, repairs are being completed, and life is good.



And the excitement:

Burma

Since the Shock attack went so well I decided it might be time to try to push a bit more at Pegu, so did a Deliberate, and had great success:

Ground combat at Pegu (55,53)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 9906 troops, 117 guns, 112 vehicles, Assault Value = 343

Defending force 6874 troops, 44 guns, 8 vehicles, Assault Value = 217

Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 1

Japanese adjusted assault: 233

Allied adjusted defense: 68

Japanese assault odds: 3 to 1 (fort level 1)

Japanese forces CAPTURE Pegu !!!

Combat modifiers
Defender: preparation(-), morale(-), experience(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
327 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 38 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Vehicles lost 6 (1 destroyed, 5 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
3302 casualties reported
Squads: 184 destroyed, 30 disabled
Non Combat: 177 destroyed, 19 disabled
Engineers: 18 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 19 (16 destroyed, 3 disabled)
Vehicles lost 4 (4 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 7
Units destroyed 1

There's some mild fatigue and disruption, so they'll rest a day then invest Rangoon, except the fast unit that will zip up the road in to central Burma.

Sumatra, Java, PI
Nothing happened. I'm landing SNLF to take all the little PI islands, otherwise a pretty quiet day in the war!

Borneo-Celebes
The US CV(s) stuck around, I see one from Naval Search, losing a Betty to CAP. I'm not sure if it's one or two carriers there, maybe yall can look at the Combat Report and tell me what you think. Probably a moot point, as I expect they'll be heading home PDQ after this:

Morning Air attack on TF, near Balikpapan at 64,100

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid spotted at 13 NM, estimated altitude 16,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 4 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 15
Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 19

Allied aircraft
F2A-3 Buffalo x 9
F4F-3 Wildcat x 4
SB2U-3 Vindicator x 15
SBD-2 Dauntless x 9
SBD-3 Dauntless x 12

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
SB2U-3 Vindicator: 3 destroyed, 4 damaged
SBD-2 Dauntless: 3 destroyed, 1 damaged
SBD-3 Dauntless: 4 destroyed, 2 damaged

Japanese Ships
CA Suzuya
CA Kumano
CA Mikuma

Morning Air attack on TF, near Balikpapan at 64,100

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid spotted at 47 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 21 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 8
Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 4

Allied aircraft
SBD-2 Dauntless x 12

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
SBD-2 Dauntless: 6 destroyed, 1 damaged

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Balikpapan at 64,100

Weather in hex: Light cloud

Raid spotted at 18 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 6 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 13
Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 18

Allied aircraft
F2A-3 Buffalo x 5
F4F-3 Wildcat x 3
SB2U-3 Vindicator x 9
SBD-3 Dauntless x 7

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
F2A-3 Buffalo: 1 destroyed
SB2U-3 Vindicator: 5 destroyed
SBD-3 Dauntless: 3 destroyed

BANZAI!

About 50 planes put down FOR NO LOSS! Such a gratifying feeling.



I imagine with his air wing gutted he'll head back to the barn. I don't have the airpower in the Torres strait yet to threaten this force...looks like fighters took minimal losses, and I don't have an HQa for Torpedoes...but I'll have half a dozen Subs around Horn Island. I can scrape together some CL and DD to be waiting in the straits too, with some Zeroes for LRCAP from Rabaul.

South Pac

Damaged Kuma has slipped away, and is almost in Rabaul. Otherwise nothing here.

Cent Pac

KB is moving in to position to hit whatever's at Baker. Looks like the big things that had been spotted have moved away, all I see now is auxiliaries and ASW stuff. KB will sweep thru to Canton, which is desperate for supplies, then keep Christmas clear while the amphibs follow.

North Pac

My Nome invasion force was spotted. I've shifted Shoho to the north to try to intercept any pursuit, and North Fleet such as it is...Kiso and half dozen Minekaze...are trying to screen Shoho.

And that's it...but one way or another next turn will probably be even more exciting!

Feb 6, 1942

This turn was supposed to be a resounding Bang!

Instead it was a depressing fizzle!!

I've not much time to write, so will be brief...

Up north, the Nome invasion force is greeted by attacking Catalinas. No hits are scored on my force, and units are going ashore just fine. He's got the starting Company and Base Force there...I'm hitting with three Battalions. I think I'll be ok in Nome...just very cold!

That's about the only good news. The 2nd Raiding Regiment (with only one transport squadron) lands on unoccupied Umnak Island....to find it very far from unoccupied!!

Ground combat at Umnak Island (169,51)

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 327 troops, 3 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 23

Defending force 1272 troops, 4 guns, 1 vehicles, Assault Value = 69

Japanese adjusted assault: 0

Allied adjusted defense: 113

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 99 (fort level 0)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+), leaders(-)

Japanese ground losses:
145 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 21 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)

Assaulting units:
2nd Raiding Rgt /1

Defending units:
1st Marine Raider Battalion
2/151st Combat Engineer Battalion

Japanese Unit(s) Wiped Out at Umnak Island by attrition!!!

I don't have real Recon up here, but flew Nells over Umnak for a week, had DL of 3/3 at one point...I thought that would at least show me if there was SOMETHING there. Apparently the Arctic Camo Pattern the Marines are wearing this year is quite effective!

Not a horrible thing, as the rest of the Regiment is unharmed. I'll consider what forces I have available for Umnak...maybe take it after Dutch Harbor.

The KB slid over, and with hundreds of planes available sends only a dozen Vals escorted by a ton of Zeroes to get one lousy CL at Baker Island. Meh.

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Baker Island at 149,136

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 56 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 20 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 18
D3A1 Val x 15

Japanese aircraft losses
D3A1 Val: 3 damaged

Allied Ships
DD Preston
CL Trenton, Bomb hits 3, on fire

Aircraft Attacking:
3 x D3A1 Val releasing from 3000'
Naval Attack: 1 x 250 kg SAP Bomb
12 x D3A1 Val releasing from 2000'
Naval Attack: 1 x 250 kg SAP Bomb

Heavy smoke from fires obscuring CL Trenton

Three hits may potentially put her down, but only 250kg bombs, so maybe not


The US CVs and the Surface Force south of Celebes disappeared, no surprise. I'd love to have something to catch them coming through the Torres Strait, but all I've got that can get there in time is some Subs. Too bad

And I'd decided to slam straight in to Ceylon with MKB to Port Strike at Colombo, but that didn't go well either.

First I forgot to kick the range up on the Sweeping Zeroes (at least they went in first!):

Morning Air attack on Colombo , at 29,48

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Raid spotted at 15 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 4 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 20

Allied aircraft
H81-A3 x 7
Buffalo I x 12
Hurricane IIa Trop x 8
Hurricane IIb Trop x 26

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 5 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Buffalo I: 1 destroyed
Hurricane IIb Trop: 2 destroyed

Surprised to see AVG here (there's some AVG in China too), and not thrilled with losing 5 pilots (one of them an Ace!).

Then the attack went in. I have one group on MKB that's all Claudes, with mediocre pilots, so I used them as Escort, and they did their job well. Nobody else did, though:

Afternoon Air attack on Colombo , at 29,48

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid spotted at 39 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 14 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A5M4 Claude x 30
B5N2 Kate x 24
D3A1 Val x 36

Allied aircraft
H81-A3 x 2
Buffalo I x 4
Hurricane IIa Trop x 6
Hurricane IIb Trop x 13

Japanese aircraft losses
A5M4 Claude: 5 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 4 destroyed, 3 damaged
D3A1 Val: 4 destroyed, 6 damaged
D3A1 Val: 2 destroyed by flak

No Allied losses

Allied Ships
xAK Ellenga, Bomb hits 1

Lots of losses on the outbound attack. All those planes lost for one lousy hit on a measly xAK! I was really hoping to catch some CV or BB here, but no luck. MKB still has lots of teeth, but will withdraw back to Singapore to replace losses...but will do so via Calcutta/Cox's/Akyab/Rangoon to try to catch something juicy and make him worry about this force being in IO, which was the whole point of the operation anyway. Maybe with a little luck he'll send something juicy to chase me and the subs will get a bite! I can hope, right?

That's all to report, nothing else exciting at all. Thanks for reading!

PS Actually there was one other noteworthy thing. I've been sending lone AMC in to the IO to try to catch something undefended coming down from Aden or out of South Africa. One of them was spotted west of Diego Garcia by a "Level Bomber". I take this to mean he's wisely placed some troops on DG with some Air Search to keep me honest. I may try to feed his fears of my attacking something in IO by sending MKB to bomb DG flat. Other than that, next big job for MKB will be supporting invasion of Christmas IO, Cocos, and the little islands on the south/west side of Sumatra.

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I've written anything. I'm terrible!

Things have been pretty exciting too, but I've done such a poor job of keeping the AAR up to date that I'm sure to miss some of the exciting things that happened, and surely will get things out of order! I really apologize for not keeping up with things!


I'm going to make a relatively quick post to go over some of the exciting events we've had, then will do my best to be more regular with posts and get more detail, particularly in the logistic/industrial side of things as there is where I'm hoping for more input and support!


My extreme supply consumption in the Home Islands has been completed for now, and I'm happy to say that in less than a month the supplies there have gone from a low of 344k up to 470k and steadily rising. The only Fuel shipments I've been doing are from Brunei/Miri, however, and I've yet to start any dedicated Oil shipping. I'll explain why later, but what it boils down to is there's still too much potential for a strong raid in the SRA and I've lost enough shipping as it is!


I had two operations ongoing last I posted...one was the MKB raiding the IO and bombing Ceylon. The other was a second attempt to take Christmas and the other Line Islands...

Burma

I've got an Inf Regiment and some Artillery bombarding Rangoon. An Armor Regiment worked their way up to the plains, but he seemed to be trying to cut them off with small units, so they'll turn around and work to kill off the little forces he's got bouncing around.

DEI

MKB's raid was not a tactical success. It will hopefully cause him to deploy forces in and around Ceylon that he may want to use elsewhere, as he may be wary of another attack, or a more serious one. However, this raid was a profound failure on my part as it allowed him to pull off a very daring hit & run attack...

Back on Feb 5 I was hit by what I think was two Carriers south of Celebes.

Thinking the area would be secure from CVs for awhile, I'd attempted to move to invade Celebes on Feb 12th with the 21st IMB being escorted by a large force (my Home Fleet: Mogami, Mikuma, Suzuya, Kumano, Mizuho, Kitikama, Jintsu, and ~10 DD). I did not wait for MKB (which was putting in to Singapore to fill up the Air Groups), but had some LRCAP from Balikpapan. The landing was to be straight to Makassar, with the large SCTF a hex to the SE (along the axis I'd expect reaction to come from).

Unfortunately my assumption that the US Carriers would retire was a bad one. The US forces dominated my tiny LRCAP and had great success. The next night CA Cornwall led some CL and DDs to finish off stragglers.

In total I lost Mizuho, Kumano, Kitikama, and Urakaze. Mogami took a few hits and will need some yard time. Air losses were light, he only lost about a half dozen SBD and one TBD.

Here's the really bad part...I had the Amphib group set to Do Not Unload, so they sat there at Makassar doing nothing. I was able to withdraw them without loss, but I didn't even get the forces landed...lots of loss for nothing.

However, I tried to make some Lemonade out of those Lemons! MKB did a quick turnaround and got underway. The US CVs withdrew when he saw MKB sailing past Batavia. I gave chase, guessing he'd head towards Darwin, and if really threatened he'd try to get through Torres Strait.

I have Jakes and Mavis flying out of Horn Island, and Nells out of Port Moresby watching for him...and sure enough multiple task forces were spotted heading towards the strait from the Darwin area, including one large force that I think was his CVs. Zeroes were staged to Port Moresby, and they covered my fresh-from-the-yards Southern Fleet (Fuso, Yamashiro, Aoba, Furutaka, Kako, 8 DD) which had been disbanded in PM to avoid detection. I watched for two days, and when I thought the timing was right I set the Southern Fleet at Full Speed to the strait to intercept him.

Unfortunately I pulled the trigger too early, and the trap was wasted on a small leading SCTF consisting of CL Caledon and DD Mahan. They were sunk easily, but the US CVs looked to be still about 5 hexes away (near little dot base at 83, 126). I pushed MKB to Full, trying to get from the vicinity of Damar to just north of Darwin to close the door on the fleeing US force, but sadly they slipped by in the night.

MKB pounded Darwin for a few days, hoping to find he'd disbanded the CVs there...many Aces were created shooting down Warhawks, but the only ship we caught was CL Tromp and DD Express. MKB retired from Australian waters, and moved to the vicinity of Makassar, meeting some AOs and bombing Makassar, killing some Banshees on the ground.

While the US CVs were being chased away by MKB, the 21st IMB was landed on Celebes at Madjene and is walking towards Makassar.

25th Army has moved to Java. Batavia and Bandoeng will fall within days, then push down to Soerbaja and get this mess behind me!

I sent an AMC to try to raid supply convoys coming in to Perth. Instead it ran in to US CVs west of Carnevon and was blasted to smithereens. MKB is out of Torpedoes, so I chose to not give chase...they'll rearm and refuel and prepare to cover attacks on the islands on the IO side of Sumatra. I have a few SS sliding to where the US CVs were seen, but expectations of him still being there are low.

Philippines

Bataan fell finally on Feb 23rd. 33rd Division is pretty beat up, so will take some rest time. 16th Army is moving here from Singapore. I should have 5 Divisions plus significant Artillery to dig out his remaining forces in Manila.

That will leave just Panay that has any Allied LCU in Philippines!

25th and 16th Armies will then don their parkas and head north to prepare for the invasion of Canada! Ha!

PNG/Solomons

Pretty quiet here, only movement by me is sucking up the dot bases and moving in some Eng & Av Support to build up network of air bases here. I'm thin on ground troops in this area, plan on sending some Naval Guard here as they arrive.

One small battle happened on Feb 20th at Tulagi, where CL Nagara and two DD fought off CA Northampton and sank DD Maury.

Central Pacific

I put together a large push out of Kwaj that included full KB, Fast AO support, Guards Mixed Brigade, 144th Inf Regiment, and three Naval Guard units that have taken Baker, Christmas, and Palmyra islands. Other Line Islands will be taken this week. 24th HQa is on the ground at Christmas, the Airfield is expanding, and I have a new group of Nells that had arrived at the HI ready to fly out here. Some Jakes and a dozen Mavis are here as well. Guards Mixed Brigade is defending here, and I'll have some Zeroes, Vals, and Kates coming here soon.

Plan is to base KB here and patrol the West Coast causing trouble, then when needed she can sail up with the AOs to support Alaskan/Canadian operations.

Alaska

I've taken Dutch Harbor and Umnak with the Karafuto Mixed Brigade. John countered by sending in BB Idaho with CL support, but my subs are still rampaging in this theatre and Idaho took three torpedoes! CVL Shoho chased away the CLs for now. He's got some ships to-ing and fro-ing at Cold Bay. I hit heavy CAP there one day that included P-36s, P-38s, and P-40Es. Zeroes have swept there a few times but nobody's been home.

I've got almost the entire 20th Division on the way up there, but want to pace my advance and not tip my hand that this will be the major area of operations going forward. I really need to push in to the rest of the Aleutians....Cold Bay needs to be taken within a week or so. Airfields will then continue to be build up as I stage 20th Division, Karafuto, and some artillery and armor from Manchuko (I haven't released the artillery or armor yet...must get to that quickly!) to take Kodiak. KB will be used to support that attack as I will be out of range of LBA.

Once Kodiak is taken I began the planning for Alaska and Canada, and the real fun begins!


So overall strategic situation:

Only Manila in Luzon and Panay are left in PI. Singapore and Sumatra are mine (except for minor cleanup in Sumatra that's ongoing). Burma is pretty static (one Division of 15th Army is in Luzon, and 144th Reg is still packing up to leave Line Islands). I've got 5 Divisions and 4 Armor Regiments plus a ton of Artillery on Java, which I expect will make quick work of what's there. Makassar will be taken from the land side in 4-5 days. I have all of western New Guinnea and the Solomons down to Tulagi & Guadalacanal. I have all Marshals down to Funafuti; Baker, Canton, and Line Islands. I have Aleutians up to Dutch Harbor.

I think he has two 2-CV groups, one currently in the area of Western Australia; the other at Pearl (last seen around Baker about 3 weeks ago). MKB is in Java Sea bombing Makassar and dodging subs. KB is NNE of Palmyra covering ops in Line Island.

Air Losses to date:

342 P-40E Warhawk Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 139 97 0 5 37
603 A6M2 Zero Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 135 58 19 2 56
747 Ki-21-IIa Sally Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 120 16 68 0 36
670 G3M2 Nell Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 113 58 17 6 32
68 Buffalo I Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 101 59 1 12 29
788 Ki-48-Ib Lily Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 87 22 38 0 27
466 PBY-5 Catalina Patrol 0 0 0 0 0 80 8 0 28 44
752 Ki-27b Nate Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 78 28 16 0 34
797 Ki-51 Sonia Level Bomber 3 3 0 0 0 65 41 16 0 8
754 Ki-30 Ann Level Bomber 6 6 0 0 0 61 31 18 0 12
644 D3A1 Val Dive Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 54 24 10 0 20
142 139WH-3 Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 51 36 2 0 13
660 E13A1 Jake Float Plane 0 0 0 0 0 51 19 1 14 17
761 Ki-43-Ic Oscar Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 49 26 0 0 23
673 G4M1 Betty Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 47 17 10 2 18
12 H81-A3 Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 46 33 0 0 13
627 B5N1 Kate Torpedo Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 45 33 5 0 7
341 P-40B Warhawk Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 44 18 0 15 11
628 B5N2 Kate Torpedo Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 43 15 9 0 19
487 SBD-3 Dauntless Dive Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 42 40 1 0 1
143 B-339D Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 40 28 0 0 12
187 Hudson I Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 37 14 4 7 12
328 P-36A Mohawk Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 37 20 0 6 11
129 Vildebeest III Torpedo Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 36 23 2 5 6
65 Blenheim IV Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 35 10 0 9 16
601 A5M4 Claude Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 29 23 0 0 6
485 SBD-2 Dauntless Dive Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 28 23 4 0 1
668 F1M2 Pete Float Plane 0 0 0 0 0 26 4 0 4 18
284 B-17D Fortress Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 25 0 0 6 19
491 SOC-1 Seagull Float Plane 0 0 0 0 0 25 0 0 18 7
11 I-15-III Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 23 20 0 0 3
323 O-47A Recon 0 0 0 0 0 22 0 0 2 20
146 CW-22 Falcon Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 21 17 3 0 1
327 P-35A Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 21 18 0 1 2
744 Ki-15-II Babs Recon 1 0 0 0 1 20 0 5 0 15
759 Ki-43-Ia Oscar Fighter 0 0 0 0 0 18 2 12 0 4
282 B-18A Bolo Level Bomber 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 15 2
447 OS2U-3 Kingfisher Float Plane 0 0 0 0 0 17 0 0 14 3
465 PBY-4 Catalina Patrol 0 0 0 0 0 17 2 0 0 15


And Sunk Ships by my report, sorted by VP:

CV Yorktown US Navy 1/29/42 154,136 near Baker Island 53cm Type 95 Torp 349 19875
BB Prince of Wales British 12/27/41 50,92 near Toboali 36cm/45 41YT Gun 202 35490
BC Repulse British 12/7/41 52,82 near Mersing 18in Type 91 Torpedo 202 35385
BB Warspite British 1/27/42 218,70 near San Francisco 53cm Type 95 Torp 188 32910
BB Maryland US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 250 kg GP Bomb 185 32600
BB West Virginia US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 18in Type 91 Torpedo 185 32600
BB Tennessee US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 18in Type 91 Torpedo 184 32300
BB Arizona US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 18in Type 91 Torpedo 179 31400
BB Pennsylvania US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 250 kg GP Bomb 179 31400
BB Idaho US Navy 2/25/42 181,42 near Kodiak 53cm Type 89 Torp Scuttled 171 33420
BB Nevada US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 18in Type 91 Torpedo 157 27500
BB Oklahoma US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 18in Type 91 Torpedo 157 27500
CVL Hermes British 12/28/41 48,112 near Christmas Island IO 250 kg GP Bomb 121 17345
CS Mizuho IJ Navy 2/12/42 65,106 near Makassar 1000 lb SAP Bomb 58 10929
CA Kumano IJ Navy 2/12/42 65,106 near Makassar 21in Mk VIIc Torpedo 52 13668
CA Kinugasa IJ Navy 12/26/41 104,119 near Mussau Island 8in/50 BL Mk VIII 41 10822
CA San Francisco US Navy 12/7/41 Pearl Harbor 18in Type 91 Torpedo 40 9950
CL Nashville US Navy 2/22/42 174,48 near Cold Bay 53cm Type 95 Torp 40 9700
CL Boise US Navy 12/25/41 106,125 near Rabaul 36cm/45 41YT Gun 40 9700
CA Australia Australian 12/26/41 104,128 near Gasmata 53cm Type 95 Torp 38 9870
CA Canberra Australian 12/25/41 106,125 near Rabaul 36cm/45 41YT Gun 38 9870
CA Houston US Navy 1/2/42 Balikpapan 20cm/50 3YT-II Gun 35 9050
CA Pensacola US Navy 1/6/42 149,136 near Baker Island 20cm/50 3YT-II Gun 35 9100
AS Otus US Navy 12/18/41 76,81 near Busuanga 12cm/45 3YT Gun 33 8600
TK H. M. Storey US Navy 12/15/41 207,78 near Eureka 53cm Type 95 Torp 31 10950
CL Tama IJ Navy 1/15/42 162,52 near Adak Island 16in/45 Mk 5 Gun 28 7000
CL Kiso IJ Navy 2/9/42 171,50 near Dutch Harbor 8in/55 Mk 9 Gun 28 7000
CL Kitakami IJ Navy 2/11/42 65,107 near Makassar 500 lb SAP Bomb 28 7041
CL Perth Australian 2/18/42 79,122 near Bathurst Island 53cm Type 89 Torp 28 6830
CL Hobart Australian 2/20/42 28,48 near Colombo 18in Type 91 Torpedo 28 6830
CL Raleigh US Navy 12/26/41 107,127 near Feni Islands Scuttled 28 7050
CL Detroit US Navy 2/16/42 169,51 near Umnak Island 18in Type 91 Torpedo 28 7050
AMC Aikoku Maru IJ Navy 12/22/41 169,140 near Jarvis Island 1000 lb SAP Bomb 27 7410
AMC Hokoku Maru IJ Navy 12/23/41 166,139 near Jarvis Island 1000 lb SAP Bomb 27 7410
AP Tasker H. Bliss US Navy 12/25/41 158,91 near Midway Island 53cm Type 95 Torp 27 10040
AP Henry T. Allen US Navy 12/26/41 158,91 near Midway Island 53cm Type 95 Torp 27 10040
AMC Akagi Maru IJ Navy 2/5/42 47,97 near Oosthaven 21in Mk 14 Torpedo 25 6825
AP U.S. Grant US Navy 12/22/41 171,50 near Dutch Harbor 53cm Type 92 Torp 25 8470
CL Katori IJ Navy 12/15/41 129,131 near Ocean Island 8in/55 Mk 9 Gun 24 6180
AP President Monroe US Navy 1/5/42 171,51 near Dutch Harbor 14cm/50 3YT 25deg 24 8240
AP President Polk US Navy 1/5/42 171,51 near Dutch Harbor 53cm Type 92 Torp 24 8240
AMC Kiyosumi Maru IJ Navy 2/22/42 44,128 near Exmouth 1000 lb SAP Bomb 23 5936
AMC Kongo Maru IJ Navy 2/17/42 46,58 near Port Blair 21in Mk VIII Torpedo 23 5936
CL Durban British 2/12/42 65,106 near Makassar 18in Type 91 Torpedo 23 6000
CL Caledon British 2/17/42 89,127 near Horn Island 36cm/45 41YT Gun 22 5468
CL Adelaide Australian 12/22/41 106,125 near Rabaul 53cm Type 95 Torp 21 5000
AO Patoka US Navy 12/15/41 208,78 near Eureka 53cm Type 95 Torp 20 6580

(Note I don't believe Yorktown is down, she only took one sub-launched torpedo; nor do I think Hermes went down. She was hit by a number of bombs that probably penetrated deck, but I didn't think the damage looked that great.)

The most boring February '42 has come to a close!

John is on a vacation the last week, so nothing much has happened since my last post, but I am very actively planning for the next big jumps!

There were only two significant events that have happened since my last update:

-Batavia and Bandoeng both fell. Allied losses were heavy. I have 5 divisions plus 4 Tank Regiments pushing east thru Java now. Based on recon and since I've had Bettys flying here for quite a while keeping the island isolated I do not expect to have any significant resistance. Then on to the next phase!

-I sent another AMC out to scout for convoy routes, this time out of Truk heading south-east towards Marquesas. My AMC raiders all seem to be cursed, as this one ran smack in to Saratoga battle group:

Day Time Surface Combat, near Eiao at 190,161, Range 19,000 Yards

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
E13A1 Jake: 1 destroyed

Japanese Ships
AMC Nosiro Maru, Shell hits 8, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk

Allied Ships
CV Saratoga
BB New Mexico
CA Minneapolis
CL Raleigh
CL Concord
CL St. Louis
DD Conyngham
DD Worden
DD Dale
DD Talbot

This brings up lots of questions...was the group heading home to CA, or heading out towards Oz to join the other CVs he has (last spotted west of Carnevon)? I'd been taking the Solomons with a few divised Naval Guard units, with only a single CA with a few DDs escorting them...all of those now have to run away under air cover (as I don't have Eng in that area yet to build up the fields). In response, KB is sliding down in to raid along Samoa-Fiji-Noumea to see what we can find there.

I've got 20th Division, Karafuto, and 2nd Raiding Regiment prepping for Kodiak, but first I have to clean up the rest of the Aleutians. Part of my Home Fleet (two CA and four DD) are heading north, along with some freshly upgraded DDs. Akutan and Cold Bay are a bit outside Fighter Range, and Cold Bay in particular seems to have a fair number of Fighters based there (including P-38s). I intend to use this small SCTF to clear the way for landings at those two islands while Zeroes from Shoho cover them (though I don't expect there to be TOO much danger from his LBA vs. ships). All my Northern Fleet ships are in port repairing the SYS damage they've taken from constant action in the icy north.

My OOB for invading Canada is forming up. 20th Division has been assigned to 16th Army. That should give that Army 3 divisions (one of them is still not collected up in one place to reform...need to work on that). Together with 25th Army, those two armies will be the main force. 15th Army will continue to operate in Burma; 14th Army will occupy Phillipines and support Southern Army occupation of DEI. I should have 6 Tank Regiments ready to join also...they will be important as I'll need their speed to get out in to the Canadian 'plains' before the passes can be too heavily fortified.

But that's getting ahead of myself....the Operations should go like this:

March- Take Akutan and Cold Bay; get the air bases built up so Nells can give eyes out towards Kodiak; KB (based in Christmas) to make some passes along California coast (this is to get him used to seeing KB here, to set up next step);

Apr - I'm hoping to time it so that my third "sweep" along CA Coast with KB will be timed so that it can continue going all the way north and KB will support attack on Kodiak and prevent any reinforcements heading that way. I hope to then immediately jump to Alaska, tentatively planning on landing at Seward (20th Div) and Whittie (Karafuto). 16th Army (currently helping finish off Manila) will likely be available to support, though I have no idea how much force I'll really need here.

25th Army and 'independent' Southern Army forces should be down with DEI at this point. I have to decide (soon) if I want to make a 'spoiling & distracting' attack in northern Oz or not. I'm leaning towards yes. I think attacking Darwin would at same time as Alaska will be hard to pull off, but I think the Darwin attack is one that he will be more likely to attempt to counter-attack, which is what I want. I can hit Darwin with 4 supported Divisions, while 21st and 4th Division hit the cities northwest of the desert. I would not intend to keep Darwin, but push him out, chase him down the road towards Katherine, then pull back and leave a week garrison here. My assumption is that Darwin is pretty hard for him to get supply to by land, so once I've taken what's in the city he'll struggle to push enough supplies in to generate a 'big' assault...but I hope he tries.

This attack and withdrawal will hopefully be quick, so that I can move 25th Army to Kodiak for a late-May early-June attack by 16th and 25th Armies at Prince Rupert!

Other than the planning for this doomed but damned entertaining series, my turns lately have consisted of buying out Eng units and getting them moving, along with fresh Naval Garrison units, to form up my initial perimeter (Line Islands, Funafuti, Solomons, Horn Island, Java, Sumatra, Andamans, Akyab).

Good grief, almost two months since my last post! I'm the worst!

We're pushing in to mid-April in our game, and things are of course not going according to plan!

There are three (well, four counting China, which I'm horrible with!) major areas of operation currently, I'll give a little summary of the action that's happened at each, and what nefarious plans I have there going forward...which you'll likely read about two months from now at the rate I'm going!


SE Pacific
The KB sweep mentioned above went quite well. No enemy shipping was spotted and the ports I recon'ed had been emptied. They swept from Noumea to the Marquesas without seeing a single naval vessel. While they didn't get to blow anything up, I believe he had to go through some machinations to run like hell to get out of the way. If that sweep makes him be more circumspect with convoys to eastern Oz, that's fine by me.

KB then continued going east to about a dozen hexes off the board edge, met up with the Fast AO fleet (bad luck, one of the Fast AOs took a torpedo from a US boat in the middle of nowhere and was lost). KB continued heading north and lurked off the SW California coast. A Glen boat spotted a juicy troop convoy, and the KB swept in. I put down a half dozen ships, several thousand allied soldiers, and a few escort vessels. I didn't get the whole convoy, but it was enough.

I moved KB up the coast to off San Fran. I made a mistake with one of the Kate squadrons, had intended to set them all to attack range 7 and sit 8 hexes off the coast to see if something would come out. Unfortunately I left one of them on range 9, and they dutifully flew in to attack some Minelayers and were slaughtered by P-40s. Lost over a dozen planes and irreplaceable pilots.

While KB was off CA, he sent a CV raid against Christmas. I have a healthy amount of air power on Christmas already (about 2 dozen Val, two dozen Kates, 36 Betty, and 36 Zeroes). In addition, KB is sailing with one CV shacked up at Christmas repairing some Sys damage, so her Airwing was at Christmas also.

His strike hit an xAKL bringing in some supplies and eng, and did Ground Attack on Christmas itself. Unfortunately the CAP there didn't fly (may have been another operator error...) but the damage was minimal to the ground troops. I was in a panic when the attack started...if he'd hit the Port instead of Ground attack I likely would have lost a CV!

My strike, however, was incredibly disjointed and uncoordinated. Dozens of attack planes were lost flying in to the teeth of his F4F CAP. Only one strike brought along Escorts, and that group was able to fight through and put one bomb hit each on his CVs, a CA, and a CLAA. Another Val squadron went in after that (the CAP was clear!) and missed with everything...then the last strike of all, the full 24 Kates from the CV Airwing flew...and attacked two AMs I think he was trying to sneak in to lay some mines. Those AMs were obliterated, but the opportunity to do some severe damage to some CVs was lost.

He withdrew immediately (commenting that I had more the double the firepower there he'd expected), right in to the waiting sights of an I-boat I'd detailed to cover his withdrawal...4 torpedoes were launched at a CV, and all missed. Arg!

KB slowly is withdrawing towards Christmas...I dangled it in PBY range from Pearl to make him sweat a little...they'll refuel and rearm at Christmas, cycle CVs (and a few other ships that need some time to repair SYS) and head back to patrol the west coast again!

Solomons and PNG have been pretty quiet. I'm slowly getting some Eng and JNAF forces in to build up Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Currently I have some Bettys patroling out of Tulagi now, and all seems quiet in their range. Before they started flying we had a near-miss. I had a small CL/DD force patroling around Tulagi. Their Jake spotted an allied force with multiple CAs. I was able to sprint a large CA force in to the area, but we missed each other...and there were no reactions (I was set to React 6, but the Admiral wasn't aggressive enough!). John thought he was going to pick on a small surface force, and when he spotted the larger-than-his CA force he ran for the hills!

I've also got some Mavis flying out of Funafuti that get eyes over Samoa and Fiji. The coverage is spotty, but I saw some TK at Fiji...I may raid in there with a small DD force to see what I can shake up!

Alaska

I've still not been able to move in to Cold Bay. His CAP has been able to fend off my meager attacks (my one Oscar squadron is not up the job, apparently), and it's clear he has at least one BB patrolling there. My subs continue to make life difficult for him, but it's kind of a deadlock here at the moment. His ships can't leave CAP range, and I can't get in his ships' range.

I've had mixed success with Sweeps...bottom line is we're pretty evenly matched here at the moment, and I'm trying to be conservative and not waste pilots/aircraft.

He almost daily bombs the snot out of Dutch Harbor and or Akutan with B17s, but the small forces I have there (JNAF to build up the airfield to at least a 1!) takes the hits for little loss. I have tried sending large LRCAP over the bases, but those damned B-17s shoot my planes down like crazy and I do almost nothing back. Oscars need bigger guns!

Since the Philippines is done, I've got all of 5th Air Force on the way up here. The Oscars will help out with the Sweeps/Escorts I hope. Once I have his CAP beat down I can get rid of the ships there and move in to take Cold Bay.

Kodiak remains the next goal. I have Home Fleet moving this way, along with another big squadron of Zeroes and another of Betty. CVL Shoho is the only carrier deck I have up here at the moment. I'm hoping I can get to Kodiak with the surface forces, LBA, and Shoho, while KB will stretch her legs and at least try to isolate from reinforcements. Then the big show will commence...more details on that later!

I have Junyo and Hiyo finishing on 14 and 19 Apr resp., and Unyo in early may. Depending on how things to following Cold Bay, I may use them to form another Carrier fleet...Shoho and Unyo would go to MKB to replace Kaga who would team up with Junyo and Hiyo along with elements of Home Fleet to form the BN-KB (Blue Nose Kido Butai!). Three of them should give me something in the area of 200 planes, which should be plenty to support operations against Kodiak, and will already be in the region when The Big Show begins.

Adak has a nice stockpile of ~100k supplies and 50k Fuel, with shipments continuing to bring more in. Umnak is up to lvl 4 Airfield (almost 5), but her Port is still at 1. She has over 20k supplies. 11th AF is moving to Umnak to support 'Nettie' operation from there, which should give me eyes and reach to Kodiak...much needed! Recon planes and more JAAF BN are also on the way, should be able to reach Kodiak from Cold Bay, but will risk coming under heavy B-17 attack.

DEI
I foot-slogged my way across Java with 25th Army to finally take Soerbaja...it was very lightly defended, and apparently the constant daily bombardments from about a hundred Sally and Lily took their toll...with 4 Divisions, 3 Engineer Regiments, and a handful of Field Artillery, I took the base with one DA. Facilities are only lightly damaged, and over 100k Fuel in stock.

A few weeks ago I was shipping around some SNLF to support Paratrooper operations around Celebes. They were escorted by a CL and two DD in the Amphib force. They were surprised by a small Surface group (UK CLs/DDs) that caught me right after having fired off their guns at to support the landing. With little ammo to fire back with, and tied to the Amphib group, I was roughly handled. A few small hits on his CL (probably virtually no damage), and I lost CL Jintsu. Very sad about that one. Betty patrols didn't see them coming. I would like to have seen the fight when I was fully armed up, I think with my superior experience I might have taken a few things down with me! The DDs survived at least, and the SNLF was fine.

Christmas IO was taken with little loss or excitement. A follow up move to Cocos Island, with MKB and West Fleet support was foiled for the opposite reason...I did not have any real fighting ships in the Amphib group, and a single lone UK DD (the Express, I believe) put down multiple PB and xAK, completely destroying the Amphib group. Frustratingly the Home Fleet BB force (2 old BB with 2 CL and 6 DD) were in the same hex and did nothing...but they did manage to pick up some survivors from the SNLF that was going in...

...the MKB then put down the DD, and bombed the snot out of Cocos to find that a full Australian Brigade had fortified the island and that SNLF would have been screwed anyway!

I returned to Singapore, pulled together the Division that had been on Sumatra, loaded them up while MKB and Home Fleet took on supplies and fuel. I put some CA and DD in the Amphib group, and the BB Force and MKB snuck thru the straits near Merak, hugging the coast and avoiding being detected by his approximately 200 subs patrolling the straits there. MKB then did a speed run to the north of Cocos and hit paydirt. Some shipping was put down (including what looked like either reinforcements or withdrawals from Cocos), another DD, and best of all a force of multiple UK BBs was hit. Resolution shows up as sunk (though that's questionable), and Ramillies was finished off by combination of second day strikes and my BB force reacting towards her. MKB did another speed run to pursue towards the map edge, but the remaining BBs got away...though all were hit and will be in the yards for awhile I expect.

Cocos was then bombed and bombarded and taken by the 21st Division in one day. An AV is coming up now, a Naval Guard unit will plant itself there and this should be invaluable Mavis/Emily base for eyes in IO!

25th Army is going to spend a week or so resting up, then will load up for Aleutians, along with parts of 3rd Air Force. Southern Army forces (4th and 21st Divisions, 4th and 21st Independent Reg) will do northern Australia...Darwin, Wyndam, Broome, Derby. This is primarily a 'pinning' attack to hope to keep his strong forces down near Australia, but is also an attempt to just prevent his use of those bases for attacks against DEI.

Overview & General Stuff

Of course my big goal is taking Canada and then driving in to California, and of course that is a challenging proposition anyway, but I'm trying to do things to give myself the illusion of planning a successful operation. I have MANY units preparing for Perth, Ceylon bases, and Diego Garcia. I have a few prepping for Kodiak, but I'm hoping that will get lost in the noise of dozens of units prepping for 'southwest' bases will convince him that I'm heading that way. The attack on Darwin I hope to look like a precursor to that.

I know he has at least two CVs at Pearl (slightly damaged). The others have not been seen in several months, when they were off Exmouth. They did not participate in the defense of Christmas AO or Cocos Islands. I had a sub attacked by SBD near Perth a month ago. My instinct is that he's other forming a 'death star' near Perth, or has moved this fleet around to Sydney with intent to drive in to Solomons. I have about 70 Netties and two big squadrons of Zeroes in the PNG/Solomons area, along with a few small Val units. If I had them concentrated at the right place at the right time they might put a dent in him, otherwise that area is very weak. My instinct is very strong that this will be the target of his first counter-offensive, and I'm woefully ill-prepared for it. I have a number of Naval Garrison units (some broken down to companies) scattered around, and a few pockets of high Engineer activity, but otherwise everything south of Rabaul is very lightly held. My plan here is to 'circle the wagons' at Rabaul and let him give the Solomons what he's got. I sure don't want to give them up without a fight, but I don't have the forces there to contend with 3-4 CVs. If he gives me time, I've got plenty of things on the way to shore up this defense, but it will be weeks/months before I'd feel comfortable.

Industrial-wise I made a change to airframe production. I let all the Helen R&D factories (4x 30) flip to production. Based on what I've read, my LBA's primary role will very quickly evolve in to ASW primarily, and that MAD is calling me. I've read that it only adds a few % to the chances of detection...but my thought is that it's a multiplicative function where that small increase over multiple search attempts will result in a noticeable difference. The first Helen has shorter legs then the Sally, but gets to an Armored version with longer legs...I think I'll let one or two of the factories update to that version when it comes around so I can make some 'bombing' squadrons while the 'ASW' squadrons maintain the Helen I.

I've also had a problem with 1e bombers. I had no production of any 1e bomber...I'd intended to upgrade them all to 2e, but the PP cost is too much to support. I've had to rearrange Engine production and changed the old Lily and Sally factories to 2x 30 making Ann.

And that's my bi-monthly wall of text! If you made it this for, thanks for reading! Any feedback or ideas much appreciated!

As an addendum, I've upgraded to a new laptop that can both run Tracker, Excel, and WITP all at the same time, with a screen big enough that I can function in WITP and click to excel easily. Hopefully this will help me take better notes and actually give you more details other than "I'm going to invade some places with some stuff!"

Have a great day!

Thanks for the update - don't sweat the timing.
Hard enough to learn to play the game and keep some semblance of a life going.

My game is now in the May 27, 1942 order phase. You are doing much better than I, so please keep the updates coming when you can.

I think the below statement is true:
If your game is Realistic R&D ON, then if you let your R&D factories go over to production, they can never go back to R&D.

Good luck in taking Canada.

Wow, two updates in the same month! What’s come over me?!

We’re up 25 April now. Things have been relatively quiet…neither of us have any major happenings actively going on, but I have a lot of plans brewing in the background. There have been some interesting engagements but just as part of general action at areas where we’re up close and personal…

China

First, some words on China! I’ve not talked about China much as it’s a giant black hole to me with seemingly countless bases with names I can't pronounce and can’t remember, I don’t know what strategic value most of them have (in other words, there’s not much oil here!), and I have not been able to get my head around the forces I have in the theater.

During the initial weeks of the war I tried to encircle Chengchow and Loyang. This was disastrous. An entire ID was lost, and several others…along with several tank regiments…were shattered. I had basically moved way too aggressively and did not understand the hex side ownership mechanic so was not able to extract myself from a horrible position.

In the south I moved to Changsha, made one Deliberate Attack and decided that was a bad idea so fell back. I besieged Kukong (he eventually broke that siege and I fell back towards Canton) and Wenchow (where I still am unable to break him).

Until February or so I had not pulled much out of Manchuko. I finally dug through and found a large number of heavy artillery pieces, along with countless medium artillery. When I moved them in I was able to Destroy large numbers of his infantry in the open terrain around Chengchow and Loyang, eventually forcing a mass retreat in to those cities. I was finally able to surround and eliminate several of the Corps he had in those cities.

I’m now starting to push up the road towards Sian, while simultaneously attacking Nanyang.

I’ve not really had much of a cohesive plan in China, other than to try to not lose too much, but now I think I have some broadstroke idea of what I want to do (6 months after the war starts…I suck!):

The Sinyang, Nanyang, Chengchow area will be cleared. Two ID and two Ind Reg will move to Taiyuan and push west through those mountains towards Sian, while 4 more ID and roughly ½ of my artillery in China will push northwest from Nanyang and Loyang also towards Sian. Sian and maybe Ankang will be taken.

The other half the big artillery and 3 more ID will move by rail to Hangchow where they will take Chuhsien and Wenchow. This frees up another two Divisions that are already down here, and this force will combine to move to Kahnsien and Kukong.

As Sian and Kukong are taken, forces will then converge on the Changsha area and then west to clear the railroad in to Laos…and that’s pretty much the extent of my plan. If this goes well I’ll have opportunity to then consider pushing in to the Chungking area, but that’s pretty far away and I don’t want to think about that yet.

The Air War in China has been interesting. He’s been very adept at sneaking the AVG back and forth from Burma to China and taking out handfuls of bombers at a time. I finally got some good results by bombing someplace for a day then Sweeping it the day after. Having read other AARs I tried putting Ki-43 at lower altitudes, not worrying so much about ‘The Dive’ but on staying in their best Maneuver rating, and the results were incredible. Since switching to 10-15k alt my Sweeps have gone from about 1-1 losses to causing about 5-1 losses! The AVG (all flying P-40E) and Chinese Airforce (flying the AVGs old planes) have been pretty badly beat up. Combined with events elsewhere I may be causing more P-40E losses then he can make up for at this point in the war!

Burma
Burma has been a very quiet part of the war for me. I stole several of the pieces of 15th Army for other operations (Java and Luzon), and they’ve just recently all gotten back together.

After hard fighting the 33rd Division took a few weeks off to repair damaged devices, but I think due to short supply repairs were minimal. Regardless they pushed in to Rangoon to join elements of the 55th Div already there and took the city (finally!) with one Deliberate Attack.

Currently the only forces I have in Burma are the 33rd and 55th Divisions, along with a few support pieces from 15th Army. I hope to be able to take the rest of the country that’s connected to Rangoon, but am not interested in pushing in to Akyab or anywhere else thru the jungle yet.

I also have several parts of 3rd Air here (operating from built-up bases in Northern Thailand). A big Sentai of Ki-43 has done a lot of work keeping the skies clear. All the 1e Bombers from 3rd Air are here, but since I wasn’t building any until last month they are pretty worn down. Ann production (paced by Engine production!) is starting to kick in, so hopefully my bombers will be able to do some work.

Malaya & SRA

Port Blair has a Betty and Nell Sentai and a Sentai of Zeroes, along with some Jakes for for ASW work. I’ve seen some small fleets around Cox’s Bazaar and Akyab, but otherwise very little action up here.

I am embarrassed to say that I ran Singapore out of supplies. I think the primary culprit was expansion of the Repair Shipyard here, but currently I’m at 8k supplies in Singapore. I’m even more embarrassed to say that while the frontline major hub has been run out of supply, I’ve found over 100k supplies in Formosa sitting there doing nothing. It’s great that I have supply to send to Singapore, but sure was bad that I wasn’t doing something constructive with it!

Sumatra still has some weak allied forces playing guerilla games that I’ve yet to nail down. 6 Naval Garrison units are on the way to Sumatra to sit in the seaward bases, along with some Eng forces to build up some Forts there. I don’t intend to build up air bases here, only in Palembang will I have a large airfield presence.

I have Jakes flying out of the seaward islands to spot any trouble coming, along with a dozen Mavis (which I have a hard time keeping in the air!) flying from Cocos.

Christmas IO also has some Jakes.

Java is still a mess. I’ve got all the Southern Army ‘heavy hitters’ (21st & 4th ID, 21st and 4th Independents) along with 25th Army sitting in Soerbaja resting and repairing damaged devices. 25th Army will be sent up north soon, while Southern Army is getting ready to work on the eastern DEI. Denapasa and Koepang are next two targets, as they’re the only airfields I see. Koepang is in Sally range of Darwin, and that’s where Southern is going next!

Operation ‘Crazy Cora’ will be the invasion of northern Australia. Its primary purpose is to reinforce the idea that Australia is the primary Japanese target. In addition we hope to take away opportunity for the Allies to build up these northern bases for use by heavy bombers. A fair amount of deception will be required to convince the allies that a strong presence is being maintained, when in fact the ‘heavy’ forces involved will be withdrawn to defend Java and be a regional strategic reserve.

Currently all of my forces are preparing for places around Perth, along with Diego Garcia, Ceylon, Attu, and a few even for Brisbane. I am hoping that by attacking Darwin (4th and 21st Divisions, 3 Artillery, and a Tank Regiment) while the Ind. Regiments hit Derby, Broome, and Wyndham I will give him lots of motivation to shift forces to the west…protect IO and Perth.

After these attacks, Naval Garrison units and a Sentai of bombers will remain. I’m hoping to have an extra Naval Garrison to push down the road to demonstrate in front of Katherine. My hope is that supply difficulties and fear of being overwhelmed piecemeal will prevent him from a very fast strong counterattack. From my limited experience playing Allies, it’s not easy to get supplies through the desert up to Katherine!

Otherwise in SRA I have some SNLF working to take Ambon, and Horn Island forces are now strong enough to keep any small fleet from going through (12 Vals, 12 Zeroes, and Betty from PM).

Solomons / PNG

Build up here goes well, still uncontested. I decided that I was feeling too vulnerable here (losing here would expose Truk, which is my line to Christmas Island…must defend), so have deployed more forces than I'd originally intended...

Currently I’m building up PM and Tulagi. 23rd Air HQa is in Tulagi (where there are 4 other potential airfields in his Command range). Air presence here is strong, with two Sentai of Zeroes (one in Tulagi, one in PM); two Chutai of Vals (both at Tulagi, as I get sniffs of a CA force around Luganville every now and then); Two Sentai of Betty (one in Tulagi, one at PM); and a big Sentai of Oscars from 3rd Air at Rabaul (reserve to react to any attacks).

Naval surface presence is strong, with Fuso, Yamashiro, Furutaka, Kako, Aoba and 4 CL and ~ a dozen DD here.
Despite that, I felt I was vulnerable here, and my instincts tell me that this is where he’s going to throw his CV force and attempt to retake some ground. As such, I’ve taken all of 14th Army from Philippines and sent them here. A Division will go to Tulagi and another to PM. Two Regiments will be in reserve at Rabaul. Artillery and some Special Base Forces are also on the way, and even have some AA coming.

When Tulagi is built up to lvl 6 I’ll shift engineers around and build up Guadalcanal to give some alternate airstrips to make shutting me down hard. If he gives me another week here I’ll feel really good. If he gives me another month it will be a very tough nut for him to crack…I hope! Speaking from nearly zero experience, though, it’s hard to say!

I did have a bit of fun…John3rd’s love of Fast Transports is rubbing off on me. I put a Naval Garrison force on an FT group (CL and 3 DD) and ran them down to Ndeni, just for fun. I was hoping it would bring a response that I could torpedo to death with Betty, but so far he’s determined to stay out of torpedo range. I’m sending an AV and some Jakes here to set up temporary base to get better eyes down near Luganville to see what he’s building up. If nothing there then I think I’ll FT that one too, just to keep him off balance.

SoPac
KB took a few days off in Christmas, and got underway…without some of her planes! Yeah, I suck. I’d swapped out a CV (one Pierside at a time to fix ongoing Sys damage) and forgot to put planes back on. Not a big deal, but I realized while she was next to Christmas that she’d been spotted by allied planes. At first I thought (hoped!) that he was bringing some CVs to face me, but of course he wouldn’t do that…it was damned PBYs!

I certainly don’t want him having eyeballs on my comings and goings at the Line Islands (I’ve very foolishly sent some big TK to top off the fuel at Christmas so KB can operate!), so decided to see what I could do about it. I pulled together some NG companies (I like it when they arrive divided!) and some SNLF Companies and sent them to take some of the Cook Islands, primarily Penryhn. KB stayed in the area while 5 little lonely xAK-t closed in from Kwaj. Since I was impatient and arrogant, as usual, I hadn’t waited for proper ASW escorts, those AK were on their own…and sailed in to some very unfriendly waters. KB’s air wing keeps the subs at bay during the day, but at night they’ve been hellish. The ship trying to unload at Penyrhn was put down, losing the whole SNLF Co. DDs from KB and East Fleet at Christmas are belatedly joining up with the xAKs, and the forces that have taken Malden, Starbuck, and Manihiki will converge on Penyrhn (which is where I’m quite sure the PBY are flying from).

The NG fragments will maintain a garrison on the western Cool Island (Penrhyn, Starbuck, Malden) and some Jakes will deploy to help me get eyes on any convoys going this way…hopefully this will serve to push him farther south!

After these bases are taken KB will top off her fuel and sorties and head back to CA, hoping to get her up towards Washington this trip!

Alaska
My surface forces here have been very inactive (all I have in the area are 2 CL and ~10 DD). He continues to operate more and more heavy surface vessels here, though I think my increase in Air activity has taken some toll…

He’d been lurking a strong SAG between Chirikof and Nagai islands, subs had a hit on a BB several weeks ago but it didn’t leave. After a day of success in Sweep vs. Cold Bay I set the Nells on Attack (I have them set to Naval Search 50, 50 rest; to attack switched them to Attack/Rest with Search at 50). Sadly the BB force was lost, so the Nells flew all the way to Kodiak to attack a weak ASW force and lost several planes to CAP there.



Not deterred, I had another good Sweep day so set the Nells back on Attack. This time they were successful in finding the BBs, and Oscars were successful in Escorting them. Many Oscars were lost but they cut their way thru the LRCAP and both Colorado and Mississippi took a torpedo!

The Allied surface force moved on in to Cold Bay, where an attack was made by escorted Kates who put a torpedo in to a CA too, though many more Oscars were lost against the CAP.

And finally, a large Sentai of Zeroes has finally come online, yesterdays Sweep put down 5 P-39 for no loss. It will be a few more days before the Oscar Sentai is back in fighting shape, and in that time a second Sentai of Nell will be operating from Umnak. Between Zero Sweeps and Oscar Escorts, I am hoping I can clear the allied surface presence from Cold Bay, which then should fall easily to the forces I have standing by at Adak (20th Div and Karafuto).

Second Raiding Regiment is loaded on a Fast TF (2 CL & 6 DD to take Bethel. I had them on the way, but turned around when that Allied surface force went in to Cold Bay. They’ll wait at sea a few days to see if we can chase off the big ships then they can go in.

Shoho has left the area (one day out of Japan; 6 days down to Singapore). She will take on a Zero Sentai (not full of planes yet) to report to Taiyo (the planes I had on her had to be withdrawn!). Kaga is 2 days from Japan, where she will meet up with CVs Junyo and Hiyo. Together they have about 150 planes and will group up with BB Nagato and 4 CA. This force will try to lurk undetected until time to move on Kodiak when they’ll be put to work!

I’m 5 days away from releasing 19th Div from Korea to send up here as well.

All of 3rd Air Division’s planes are unloading at Adak. The JAAF Battalions are lagging behind (they take a lot longer to load than the planes!). That will give me two more Sentai of Oscars to work with, along with some bombers. Cold Bay puts me in range of Kodiak for Sweeps and Sally bombing, but will in turn be in range of B-17s…

Which have been RELENTLESS pounding the troops I have on Dutch Harbor and Akutan. First order of business when the 3rd Air Oscars get up to speed after unloading is to get some HEAVY LRCAP to put a hurting on those B-17s. He has at least two dozen of them hitting me every day, and they desperately need to be thinned out!

Big Picture

‘Demonstrate’ in Australia by taking Darwin area, MKB and West Fleet, along with 22nd Air, to keep the UK at arm’s length and minimize risk to DEI;

Complete ‘entrenchment’ in Solomons/PNG;

Raid US West Coast with KB, time the raids so that KB is in area to interdict reinforcements moving to Kodiak when attack happens there;

Complete Aleutians by taking Cold Bay and Bethel, thin out B-17 attacks, pound Kodiak, and invade Kodiak;
After Kodiak moving to Seward and Anchorage to be considered while Preps for Operation Curling (invasion of Canada and drive down to California) are completed.