Rising Sun over the Rockies - F.K. vs OSO - Wake captured by US

[FeurerKrieg]

March 18th, 1943
A6M3 and Oscars fly LRCAP over CHungking looking for transports today. No Chinese fighters are killed, but 3 C-47's go down. A couple of our fighters go down as well, but the pilots are rescued.

Basic port facilities were completed on the atoll south of Tarawa called Abemama.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 19th, 1943
Enemy subs are spotted heading away from Noumea yesterday and today minesweepers were sent to look for mines. They found some and cleared the enemy fields away.

Makin Island's port facilities were expanded today. (sz 2)

[FeurerKrieg]

March 20th, 1943
Another SB-2c is dropped by AA fire at Chungking.

Several airbases are expanded or completed today. Kuala Lumpur (Malaya) and Nogo (Okinawa) are both finished (sz 4) and Naura (west of Tarawa) airfield is made operational (sz 1).

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Enemy planes faced heavy flak[/center]

Engineering units continue to retreat inwards, building up forts and airbases as they move closer and closer to the homeland. As the move away from the outer perimeter more room is available for combat troops and SNLF and Nav Gd units are used to fill in some of the weaker spots. Larger units are being slowly pulled out of China and assigned to inner perimeter bases such as the Mariannas, the Bonins and Sakhalin Island north of Japan.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 21st, 1943
Zeros and Oscars are over Chungking again. This time they bring down 1 I-153c, 1 P-43a and 3 C-47s. One A6M3 is lost in the action.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 22nd, 1943
1 SB-2c is dropped by flak at Chungking.

Jesselton airbase on Borneo is completed (sz 4).

[FeurerKrieg]

March 23rd, 1943
Overnight two of our minelaying subs lay a field in the approaches to Midway and just a few hours after they are finished they are rewarded with an explosion as AP Raranga strikes one of the type 88 mines.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 24th, 1943
Very quiet today. Most planes stay on the ground. The troops at Chungking continue to shell the Chinese, inflicting about a 100 casaulties a day.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 25th, 1943
Today the submarine war took a scary turn on both sides of the map.

In the North Pacific, even though we had six ships searching the shallow waters around Attu for enemy subs (that had been spotted by air units previous days), one of the Minesweepers was hit and sunk by SS Scorpion which then escaped unhindered by our ASW forces.

In the Bay of Bengal, a single Allied ASW group moved through three hexes, sinking two subs (I-157 and I-154) and damageing another (I-158) all in the span of just a few hours. In response to this, our submarines in that area will be pulled farther south to act as pickets in the event the Allies try to bring an amphibious assault force to Burma/Malaya from either the Calcutta area or Ceylon.

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Enemy ASW exacts a high price today[/center]

At Chungking, our Oscars perform poorly today, losing 4 planes to only 1 P-43A downed. Thankfully 2 of the pilots have survived and will hopefully fly better for the experience.

Malacca airfield was finished today. (sz 4)

[FeurerKrieg]

March 26th, 1943
48 P-40E sweep Magwe and take down 6 Tony fighters. 2 of those pilots safely bail out and return the unit.

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Enemy sweep over Magwe[/center]

At Attu, with a new leader of the ASW task force, SS Hoe is tracked but unable to be pinned down for a depth charge attack.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 27th, 1943
Betty's from Kiska attack an AK at Dutch Harbor, fight past several enemy airplanes. 4 Bettys are lost and the rest miss their target.
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Attack on enemy cargo ships[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

March 28th, 1943
Tiring of the Chinese fighters getting in the way of our attacks on the C-47s, today our trainees fly a full sweep over Chungking. They do well enough for rookies, taking down 5 P-66, 3 I-16c and 3 P-43A. We lost 4 Oscars and 1 A6M3, but only one army pilot was lost.

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Sweep over Chungking[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

March 29th, 1943
Another MSW falls victim to an enemy sub at Attu Island.

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Enemy torpedo hits home[/center]

Green Island airfield in the Solomons expands (sz 3) and the airfield at Bandoeng on Java is completed. (sz 4).

In the Pacific, SS Gato is chased away from some valuable ships en route to Tokyo for upgrades - CVLs Shoho and Zuiho.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 30th, 1943
Today we manage to hit SS Pogy with a depth charge near Attu Island, although the sub will not sink. Near Koepang, SS Stingray was hit by a Ki-32 Mary dive bomber.

In Burma, Hurricanes and Spitfires swept Mandalay and 67 P-40Es swept Myitkyina. In both case our fighters stayed home and thus we suffered no losses there.

At Port Blair though, 100 B-24Ds, 37 B-17E and 10 B-17D hit the island. 18 Nicks did some damage to the bombers, downing 4 of the B-24s. The island still took moderate damage and a total of 31 planes were lost on the ground.

In China, our Zeros and Oscars flew sweep over Chungking and shot down 6 P-43A, and 4 P-66 while losing 4 Oscars and 1 Zero.

A unit of Jacks will be moving to Port Blair in a couple days and an engineer unit is en route to fix any bombing damaged faster in the future.

[FeurerKrieg]

March 31st, 1943
We got some small revenge on the last day of March. The AVG flies sweep over Lashio where several of our fighter units are based. Our planes fight well, bringing down 13 of the P-40Es in exchange for 7 Tony and 3 Tojo. Only 3 pilots were lost.

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A rare sweep into our second line[/center]

[FeurerKrieg]

The loss of Midway further shrinks the center of the Empire, but the next gaps the US has to cross are their biggest yet (excepting a Northern Pacific push).

Japan losses more planes this month, but many pilots were rescued in friendly territory. Plus several were lower experience pilots training in China. Three subs lost this month is also unfortunate, especially given on of them was our number 2 top sub thus far, the I-153.
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[FeurerKrieg]

Here are some interesting things I put together.

I was thinking about a comment Alikchi made some posts back about not getting bombed by B-29s. Well, it is hard to sty out of range of something that goes 27 hexes, but we might have a chance against unescorted B-29s, so I made a map that shows all the bases required for the Allies to capture in order to be able to escort their B-29s.

This is based on the fact that the longest legged Allied fighters can go 12 hexes. The P-61 can go 16, but given it is a night fighter, I've left it out since we can probably put up a decent fight against those planes.

So the Allies must take a base inside the yellow line to be able to bomb Japanese factories in the Home Islands or Korea. Anywhere outside the yellow line, they would have to fly their bombers unescorted. The map certainly shows me the places I need to fight for and also the places I need to put some divisions as they come out of China.

Big map first, and then the 4 quadrants in more detail.
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[thegreatwent]

Nice map FK. That will help me design my rear echelon defenses should my CHS game go long enough.

Thanks[:)]

[FeurerKrieg]

April 1st, 1943
Zeros and Oscars sweep over Chungking and take down 6 P-66, 3 P-43a and lose 2 Oscars.

Some Liberator III's hit Cox's Bazar. Allied bombing of this base has increased, not sure if it is just training missions or a prelude to an offensive.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 2nd, 1943
Today we tried LRCAP over Chungking, and our tired pilots made more mistakes than usual, causing several ops losses. In total 5 Oscars and 4 Zeros were lost, but several pilots were okay. They did manage to bring down 4 P-43a, 1 P-66 and 1 C-47 transport. Also spotted were B-24D's flying in supplies.

[FeurerKrieg]

April 3rd, 1943
Mostly quiet today. 3 SB-2c's bombed our troops at Chungking.