Matrix Games Forums

Mar. 28-29

Oh.



Well, they were due in at Cape Town today. The other CVTFs are now between 11 and 20 days out. They apparently went critical on the 28th; I just didn't notice for whatever reason. More than a little confused - I've been running just about everything off-map at full speed so far and noone's had any problems. Perhaps the problem is with TFs that start on-map. Of course being off-map movement I can't juggle fuel or send any of the available tankers to go fuel them up, so they're stuck playing rowboat. Rather reduces my options for the next couple of weeks, but I guess that's the price of rushing around like a headless chicken all the time, eh?

A number of Japanese carriers with attendant combatants, their timing impeccable, manifest in the Java Sea 270 miles east of Batavia. Estimate is 230 aircraft, so there's at least a couple of big ones in there. One TF is reported as being just destroyers and cruisers; perhaps there are more carriers hidden behind the ones spotted. In any case, they claim to be headed for either Surabaya or Semarang, so perhaps the blustering at Singapore is just bluster. Or not. We'll see.

Nells attempt to hit shipping at Christmas Island; six of the aircraft show up over the island early in the morning, are met by Dutch P-40s, and five are left burning. Catalinas attempt to hit merchant shipping around Mindanao; 12 arrive unescorted - twice - don't meet Japanese P-40s, and leave five Japanese freighters burning. Indonesia is a land of contrasts.

The assault on Hengyang is massing; 16 units of unknown provenance, 10-12 of them probably by my earlier estimate infantry divisions, are perhaps a week away at most from attempting to force the Xiang river, their trail having been prepared by four tank regiments acting independently. Unfortunately a corps at Kukong got hit by the strategic movement bug and only managed to rail 90 miles since being ordered out. There are no good options here - the forces at Hengyang are shrinking daily between air attack and starvation, even though the place isn't surrounded - so all I can do is make the river crossing as painful as possible. Well - that or leave entirely, but the Chinese army is starving to death as it is - take Changsha out of the equation, which is the end-game here, and they're done for.

A fragment of a parachute regiment captures Tagula Island, SE of New Guinea. Pacific otherwise still quiet.

Mar. 30-31

Today (31st) sees the first big drop in Singaporean LCUs - we've gone from 65 on the 30th to 46 on the 31st. Shipping in harbour has increased further to +- 250 ships, with more at sea. Suspect this is 'it'. I have sent a couple of Catalinas to Great Nicobar after all and will fly in some supplies and support troops - they won't last long, but hopefully they'll last long enough to let me know if anything big comes up the spout. The unit is withdrawing on the 18th of April anyway, so no great loss. A fragment of a Japanese parachute regiment lands at Akyab; similar fragments (usually about 50-75 men) have taken a number of bases over the last couple of days, the same unit often spreading over several hundred miles on the same day. The usual photo recon over Chittagong, DH, Calcutta etc is joined by Trincomalee today. Intrigued.

Japanese carriers haven't been spotted since parading off Java. That's a little odd when combined with the budding amphibious corps at Singapore - I expect I'd have seen them if they'd headed back up to Singapore. Fighters in Australia are shifting over to Perth; well, the ones that weren't already at Kalgoorlie, anyway, that being my Australian fighter training base basically for this exact reason. Perth is the only exposed point with any real shipping, everything else being sequestered in out-of-the-way places. Some of the more critical ships are heading out today, the rest retaining the option to follow unless the carriers show up somewhere else quickish. I have naval search up out of Geraldton and the one further up going, so should get some warning if they come down here anyway.

Lexington, Saratoga, Hornet, Formidable set sail for the Indian Ocean, somewhat late due to the faffing around with the incoming ships. They'll deposit their air groups in India, where they can fight from land if required. USN base troops will arrive ahead of the aircraft, so they'll be able to get all their spare bits. Enterprise and Yorktown have been gaining two days for every day they're overdue, if you get what I mean, and are now scheduled into Cape Town tomorrow. They'll need a day to refuel, so we'll assess the situation the day after; may send them to Australia to do likewise.

Japanese armies continue to form up in front of Hengyang. If I had a couple of armoured car regiments I could just about cut their supplies off - that they can be supplied at all, given their current whereabouts, distance from their supply sources and the more or less complete absence of a rear guard, is nothing short of...well, we all know what the issues with China are. As it is the infantry are too slow. Anyway, since the objective seems to be a direct assault on Hengyang across the river, I should be able to put 5500-6000av up against them. Will probably put together a little test scenario with, say, 5000 against 10 prepped Japanese divs on a river crossing and then stay or go based on that. 1000av or so are moving up to Pingsiang, to see whether the single unit left there is up to much. If it's not, that'd leave them several hundred miles from the nearest Japanese base; not actually a particularly dicey proposition, but it probably should be. Supplies on the Chinese end are catastrophic as usual - to the point where bombing "airfields" at Hengyang is probably a net positive, there not being any to destroy.

Lots of LCU reinforcements today, including a handy Marine unit at Pago Pago and enough of the Indian Army that I will actually get some sleep tonight.

KFSGO,

The presence of the enemy fleet obviously is a reaction to your carrier presence and lets you into the enemy's state of mind. Your cerriers might just work for you there, as he as reacted to you. Your centpac area might not suffer signicant losses.

The use of lots of parapdrops also is a good let on his tactics. You probably should get at least one unit to all the india border bases and begin the buildup if you havent. Send about 20 SeeBee / aviation engineer units to India and use to build up the area as they come available. I also would stockpile as much of everything as you can (and Columbo). Train everything everywhere, as India troops are poor at the outset.

There also is large opportunity at present. You also should be prepared to launch an invasion of your own in CENTPAC as soon as possible, the marshalls or gilberts is a good place to start. Raid with cruisers northern Japan and force up in Aleuts (with sub base). get the enemy confused and break up his rythem.

ORIGINAL: topeverest

KFSGO,

The presence of the enemy fleet obviously is a reaction to your carrier presence and lets you into the enemy's state of mind. Your cerriers might just work for you there, as he as reacted to you. Your centpac area might not suffer signicant losses.

The use of lots of parapdrops also is a good let on his tactics. You probably should get at least one unit to all the india border bases and begin the buildup if you havent. Send about 20 SeeBee / aviation engineer units to India and use to build up the area as they come available. I also would stockpile as much of everything as you can (and Columbo). Train everything everywhere, as India troops are poor at the outset.

There also is large opportunity at present. You also should be prepared to launch an invasion of your own in CENTPAC as soon as possible, the marshalls or gilberts is a good place to start. Raid with cruisers northern Japan and force up in Aleuts (with sub base). get the enemy confused and break up his rythem.

Don't know about that - my carriers came in from Panama via Cape Town, and they never were spotted during their brief time on-map as far as I'm aware, so it's probably more an "uncertainty demands heavy cover" sort of situation. End result's the same, I suppose...I'd quite like to get a shot at them early just to limit Japanese options in the face of land-based aircraft, which the SWPAC ops (New Guinea seems so lightly garrisoned it's almost criminal not to go visit - I just don't have the aircraft at the moment; maybe June, depending on how things go elsewhere) will obviously be reliant on, and they're likely to be hanging around any Indian Ocean landings - question is, how close?

The Indian "border" has been garrisoned in reasonable strength up as far as Asansol for a while now. Not much potential for surprises there unless the Japanese get some para brigades into AV triple digits. Given the withdrawl from Burma proper, and assuming no disasters in Bengal, I may play the Arakan card once I start to get barges and PT boats in numbers - weird how that works out.

Dutch Harbor has been operating submarines for a couple of weeks now, though not many - the greater part of the fleet is either based out of Perth, Brisbane and Colombo, or at or returning to Pearl Harbor to get radars fitted. My cruisers at Pearl will also be going in for radar fit-out tomorrow, bar a couple needed to bring some merchants in and out of Hawaii.

India is fine, supply-wise - lots has come in from the US and UK direct, Aden and Abadan have been drained into it from about day 1, and the big cities have been stockpiling their own production (supplemented by shipping - f.e Diamond Harbor to Calcutta) for a while. Ceylon isn't, but that's a decision I took when this whole Singapore thing started - I've actually removed some so that there's enough supplies to keep the (faintly unimpressive) garrison fighting for as long as it'd need, but not much beyond that; the Japanese can take it if they want it badly enough, so there's no point keeping them fed while they're there. The trip from Cochin to Colombo is only a couple of days, anyway, and there's plenty of hulls in the area. I'd have reinforced it and filled it up, but the prospective reinforcements are all restricted and I don't have the political points to toss around.

Apr. 1-2

The tone of e-mails from Tokyo has changed overnight; we've gone from calm and thoughful to triumphalist chestbeating. I'm reliably informed that the Chinese army will be slaughtered, the Dutch will be put to work building railways in Burma, and Australia is apparently about to have 'a very bad week'...of the situation in the Indian Ocean not a peep. Unfortunately, actions do speak a little louder than words, although the Chinese probably are in for a rough ride.

S-34 fails to hit CL Katori and two PBs off Port Moresby heading west. Apparently this counts as...well, I'll just quote it:

All that sneaking around and I get rumbled by S-34, oh the ignominy.

Apparently Japanese counterintelligence is as bad as their radio security. Might be headed for Horn Island (current garrison: 35 Horn Islanders) or one of the far northeastern bases (current garrison: none) - Kashima and Katori seem to be full-time amphibious support ships and have shown up in a lot of these sorts of things - but Horn Island I wouldn't oppose at the moment anyway, and the Australian bases would create more problems than they solve w/r/t supplies etc, so the more the merrier in that case. The recon sub I sent out a few days ago reached Moresby and apparently there are half a dozen cruisers there - distant cover force, I guess.

Meanwhile, in the Malacca Straits...

Sub attack near Sabang at 45,71

Japanese Ships
PB Lushan Maru
AS Nagoya Maru
AD Choko Maru
AV Sanuki Maru
AGP Banshu Maru
AKE Toyu Maru
AKE Bingo Maru
AKE Kokuryu Maru
AKE Anzan Maru
AKE Malta Maru
PB Zosen Maru
PB Teiko Maru

Allied Ships
SS Seawolf

"Bingo". Herp. Guess someone's planning on using some ammunition around here. There were several others, mostly merchants. Definitely starting to get busy up here, however. An RAF PRU will overfly Port Blair tomorrow to see whether there's an accumulation of anything there. Suspect Sabang is a more likely waypoint given the courses and westward positions of TFs so far, however, and it's too far out to check.

Two battleships and two cruisers are reported a couple of hundred miles east of the Cocos Islands; they were in about the same place yesterday, so perhaps they're timing in for a bombardment. Keeps them busy, I suppose.

The Japanese 'death star' - 31 LCUs - is advancing on Hengyang. Outcome will depend on how organised their river crossing is; the force there is moving off to the northwest to make departure from the hex quicker should it be necessary.

Fortunately off-map movement estimates for 0-fuel ships seem to be inaccurate; everyone's made it into Cape Town except Hermes and Indomitable, for some reason. The large carriers are headed for India; they may get there in time or they may not, in which case I'll pull them back to CT. No sign of their opposite numbers; they'd have reached Perth by now, surely?

Where are the major empire assets now / last spotting. What are you preparing to do now?

Funny you should ask - the carriers just showed up.

Apr. 3-4

A couple dozen (seriously - 33 of them) Japanese paratroopers landed at unoccupied Portland Roads, in northeast Australia on the 3rd; 53 men from the same unit took the Deboyne Islands today, and on past performance will probably go for Woodlark Island tomorrow. Meanwhile, a naval base guard unit takes vacant Horn Island - this had a garrison, of course, but they were all killed by Betties. No great loss; as I mentioned, I'm not in much of a position to hold the place anyway, and it'll be good practice for whenever the time comes to get offensive up here. I'm content to let the Japanese play civil engineer if they want to - I don't have any construction engineers free locally anyway, so it saves me the bother later.

Ise and Hyuga intercepted a Dutch MTB squadron between Java and the Cocos - buggered if I know how they got out there (there are Japanese ships at Merak) or why they took off (homeport is and was Batavia) but their sacrifice apparently put off a Japanese bombardment of the place. Not a very stealthy one - they'd been loitering for a few days and most of the Dutch seaplanes, which are the only really valuable aircraft there, had already left for Diego Garcia anyway. I say most; two units stuck around in case it was just a "keep their heads down" sort of menacing - and look what they found:



Guess the drive past Java was just a distraction after all. If they're headed to Ceylon or into the Indian Ocean, they'll probably arrive before my carriers do (4-5 days); if they're headed to Sabang to pick up shipping, they might or might not. If they're just heading into the Bay of Bengal...well, who cares? Catalinas flying out of the Nicobars claim about 35-50 Japanese merchants between Sabang and Phuket at the moment, so we'll see which way they turn.

Pacific still quiet. Regular service to New Zealand has resumed - supplies and fuel were a little precarious for a while but a large convoy and half a dozen independent voyagers are a few days out.

What am I preparing to do...well, shipping for any grand offensive moves is busy moving stuff around in preparation for those rather than launching them, so mostly I'm thinking about the IO. Specifically...

Indian Ocean landings (I think it's fair to say we're definitely getting something at this point!) will likely be the 3-5 Divs earlier assessed as 'free' if they're to be useful. Options for the Japanese are, from west to east...

- Addu and Diego Garcia; these are the obvious first steps to a big campaign as they're damaging to shipping in and out of Ceylon...but Saros tends more towards the 'throw everything not nailed down at the main target' school of amphibious operations, so I almost think taking them first would suggest he's not serious about the IO, heh.

- Trivandrum, Mangalore, Cochin; probably the more immediately disruptive of the options available; the former two just have airfield base forces on defense, while Cochin has a Dutch Rgt. Taking these would essentially make Ceylon irrelevant AND make shipping to India a pain, but there hasn't been a single Japanese submarine further north than Colombo all game - I don't think disrupting shipping is really Saros' idea of a good time.

- Ceylon; each of the promising landing points (Trinco, Jaffna, Koggala) have an Indian Bde on defense; Koggala, which is the most exposed, also has the Dutch Marine Bn. That's not going to stop 3-5 Divs, obviously. I'd remove them - shipping to do so is at Colombo and they're unlikely to acheive much - but I don't have the PPs - reinforcing them in force enough to be useful would pose similar problems. One can leave three days from now, in theory - for the moment they're all in strat move mode, so operating theory is that if I pick up the landing site early enough they can all go contest it. If multiple landings...well, we'll see. That'd deliver more opportunities for hitting shipping, though, and I know Saros is uncomfortable with operating in the teeth of Vildebeest, so I suspect there'll be one big one. Eastern Fleet HQ, the AA units and most of the support troops - anything not needed beyond day 3 of any invasion - left for the mainland a while ago, being cheap to unrestrict and unlikely to contribute much to a land campaign, which is what Ceylon would be.

- Cocanada, Vizagapatnam; the "dive into the Indian interior" option. At this point the Indian Army is capable of having something approaching a fair fight with that sort of force on the mainland, so this'd be great news. Local garrison and D-1 response forces are about a Div and a half at Madras, a cavalry Rgt at Vizag, the Dutch Rgt (110av) at Cochin, and a 'Commonwealth mixed Div' of about 500av spread out among Hyderabad, Howrah and Asansol. Day 2 gets you three Indian Divs from Bengal (perhaps 900av at this point), Americal Div from Calcutta and something resembling an Indian Armoured Div, though one mostly not actually equipped with tanks yet. And that's without drawing anything off the Burmese border!

- Diamond Harbor, Chittagong, Cox's Bazaar; the "cut off Burma" option, at least in theory. Cox's could be done by coastal shipping from Rangoon without much fuss; doesn't justify a major effort. Chittagong currently holds 1.5 Divs and 14 6" CD guns, making a direct landing likely to be messy; DH has only 60av as a garrison but 22 6" guns, and will add one Bde in two days and three more in 8-10, and obviously can draw on reinforcements very quickly.

So, based on that thinkout...probably Vizag or Ceylon, and Ceylon probably wins the argument by actually giving the Japanese something useful. Navy in theatre is 7 CL and 11 DD, mostly Dutch; the big guns are at sea with the carriers. Airforce in theatre is:

- 57 B-17
- 26 A-20/B-25
- 47 Dauntless/Swordfish
- 120 Blenheim
- 145 P-39
- 135 P-40
- 160 Hurricane
- 25 P-38
- 12 Fulmar (heh)
- Catalinas, Hudsons etc on naval search

although by necessity dispersed somewhat.

I have 30 B-17 (plus 20 in Australia that can be made available over 3-4 days) and about 260 fighters not assigned to any unit, so although it's a glass cannon it's made out of that nice glass that has rounded edges when it breaks. Carriers will add their air wings to that number if they get there in time; existing forces can punch out their opposite numbers but have limited naval strike ability. If they do I'll contest the landings, and if they don't I'll try to break the airfields as the Japanese take them.

So, to answer the question of what I'm preparing to do - well, nothing, since all the wheels are turning already. Just gotta wait and see what happens at this point.

Apr. 5

Interesting day. Ceylon or the islands are about a cert at this point, I'd say:



We also had a torpedo boat-borne amphibious landing at Great Nicobar; someone obviously doesn't want Catalinas watching shipping movements in the area. Bit late for that, mind you.

Lots of submarine attacks in the Malacca Straits; not many hits, but SS Truant had a good breakfast:



Shame it couldn't have picked something a bit bigger, though. Like S-38 did:



This was off Batavia, with the rest of the tankers then passing the Sunda Straits; expectation is Japanese carriers loitering around the map edge off Colombo in a day or three, which is absolutely impeccable timing as our arrival's lookin' about that sort of length of time away. Landings...if Ceylon it'll probably be Koggala; the other ports are a better run from the Rangoon/Andamans area. So...that's where we're goin'.

Meanwhile, in China, Japan arrives at Hengyang:



So, 13 Divs, 4 IMBs, smaller units as seasoning. Seems the estimate back on the 4th was pretty spot-on.

Anyway, the crossing leaves about 4000av facing about 4000av. Guess opposed river crossings don't work too well, even against an army literally starving to death. For all my complaining about the supply situation in China there are 21000t of supplies at Changsha, almost to a T the amount that would be needed to get this lot functioning, but not a scrap will leave, despite Hengyang having been the only base in the country requesting any extra supply for the last week. There are also enough 'free' supplies between Chungking, Kunming, Liuchow etc to get everyone supplied...but of course they won't move either. Units at Hengyang seem to have been dumping their supplies into the river; the greater part of the army there only arrived in the hex three days ago, and all were fully supplied then. And now aren't. Buggered if I know where they've gone. I mean, beyond combat losses - they were screwed yesterday, too. Thus, resistance at Hengyang is impossible, even though it isn't, which state of affairs is far more aggravating than being outfought or outthought.

I have 3000av at Changsha that could reinforce Hengyang, assuming the outlying units were pulled in to hold Changsha adequately; of course at that point the issue is holding Hengyang, which seems less than practical at this point. The hyperaccelerated pace of combat really does the Chinese more of a disservice than anyone else, I think - imagine the chaos involved in an actual battle of this scale. It'd take weeks...and did, of course. Suppose that's what I get for assuming the supply system would behave. I'd counterattack - the Chinese are all rested and organised and the Japanese almost certainly aren't - but with no supplies I can't see it going well. No good options, so I'll sleep on it.

Time to put up or shut up. Is it worth it to fight it, or should you bolt?

Get out with everything you can, or throw everything you have at it.

What are your average Naval attack skills on your various pilots?

Blurk. Moved house and didn't have an internet connection for the better part of a month. Time to get reacquainted with the war...

Ok: a month is a long time to think about a situation in a computer game. So, here's China, with the significant Chinese troop dispositions:



There seems to be no prospect of getting Changsha to release its grip on the supplies there; they'd be enough to allow me to hold onto Hengyang, possibly without even reinforcing it, but I've been trying to drag them there for weeks and if anything stuff has been going into Changsha, not out of it. So, that's out. The alternative is to leave, obviously, and I can do that easily enough - the forces at Hengyang have made 30 miles towards the base to the NW, so between them leaving while the Japanese are recovering from being put through a shredder and small units as sacrificial lambs I expect I can disengage pretty painlessly. That exposes Changsha, which is heavily fortified but open to encirclement; the way the rivers are set up here really doesn't help. The 'best' option seems to be to leave about 2500av in Changsha, and use the forces outside it and at Ichang to keep the back door open. I expect it will fall eventually, but medium-term the objective has to be to keep the Japanese engaged with China and not spraying sushi all over the map. Obvious next step is to roll up the road to Hanoi, but there's not really anything I can do about that in the short term, so why lose sleep over it?

The north is, uh, secure. Ironically the terrain now works for the Japanese up here - if not for the mountains I could squash them flat.

Elsewhere...

- Ceylon isn't really fightable. I played this out a few times in a little mini-scenario I made and I wasn't really able to to do much damage to even a fairly limited invasion force - sinking a dozen freighters doesn't really do anyone any good, and 34th Div (the parent unit of the three brigades on Ceylon, technically) just doesn't have the firepower on land even if you could combine it. So, 100th Bde will lift today; 99th and 98th may get away if the Japanese dawdle, but more likely they're screwed. I don't have the PPs to free them up anyway, so at least I can blame London. There's always the human element missing from these testing scenarios, of course, but I think it's the least worst option. Given that, the carriers are heading back to the Cape; from there I suspect they'll be more use in the Pacific, but heaven knows I may change my mind in a week. Once the Japanese have Colombo I will bomb the industry into paste just to be contrary - doubt there'll be much AA in a first-wave invasion force.

If nothing else, Ceylon probably makes a 'proper' invasion of India less likely - the continent will be held strongly enough to repel anything, I think.

HMS Mauritius is in shipyard at CT. Again. That's gotta be the fastest offmap repairs > damage > offmap repairs cycle there's ever been.

- Pacific continues to be Transport Tycoon writ large.

Apr. 6



Don't think they had a very good day, though they served their purpose Does answer the question of where the AA guns are, though - I actually still hold Magwe, so I guess they'll be going there next. No idea why he's ignored it - the garrison's all of 20av and it's 3000 oil a day being shipped out beyond Japan's reach.

A swarm of ships pass the Andamans; some keep going, some land troops on the islands. All are headed northwest, so there's that.

Japanese carriers are off west of Sumatra - K-10 was buzzed by a Kate between Enggano and the Cocos Islands. Distant cover for the invasion, I suppose, though given the distance if my carriers had arrived on schedule they'd have been perfectly positioned to take a shot at the invasion forces and get off safely - I seem to have very poor luck with these sorts of situations in the sense of always being that little bit too late to act. Keeps me out of trouble, I guess?

Pacific is quiet. Pearl Harbor is stuffed full of ships having radar and ASW equipment fitted; also in the works are three SSTs. I am going to use these to play commando with the Marine Raider Bns, if that's possible - which I guess it should be.

Apr. 7-8

About 50 Japanese aircraft bomb Brisbane on the night of the 7th; not the first time it's happened, as it's just within range from New Caledonia. A couple of submarines receiving radar fits are damaged, but nothing that won't buff out. Japanese invasion force seems to be loitering in the Andamans; 112th Infantry Rgt is at sea off Great Nicobar, apparently. The carriers pass Sabang (ish) today, so perhaps they're waiting to be taken in. Works for me - just about everything on Ceylon not nailed down (or tied to the island by politics) has made it off; the last ships leave for Bombay today. Japanese photo-recon of Trincomalee begins; I'm sure it's a coincidence.

The IJAAF in Burma launch a raid across the border, their first big one for a while. About 50 Oscars meet perhaps twice their number of British and American fighters over Imphal; unfortunately these are the RAF A-team and the AVG, so we trade a P-40 and a P-39 (and no pilots) for 8-10 Japanese crates. Don't think that'll be happening again for a while...unfortunately our attempt at air activity - a night raid by most of the SEAC bomber force on Toungoo, where the Japanese are keeping their bombers - is scrubbed by weather. We'll try again tonight - they don't seem to have gone anywhere. Interestingly the top three spots on the pilot league table are Dutch, the Japanese bombing of Batavia having been a decent hunting ground.

I've been refraining from running night-bombing operations so far; a couple by the Dutch on Palembang and maybe one or two in Malaya. The idea someone had of running one every time the Japanese do is a good one, I think, so that's mostly the basis I'm going to be operating on.

Between P-39D, P-400 and P-40E I have 237 US fighters available for deployment to units. Brits have 45 Hurricane IIb, with two squadrons withdrawing tomorrow that'll leave theirs.

Rangoon BAF's sacrifice above was timely - the two UK tank brigades, which are still 1 hex from Shwebo having had their movement cancelled (?!) will make the jungle tomorrow. Kalemyo is up to AF5 F3, so 800 supply per tick - 10000t+ have accumulated here, meaning I can operate in Burma as necessary.

Three British infantry brigades will reach Karachi tomorrow; shame they couldn't have arrived two weeks ago.

China...the Hengyang army has disengaged in good order, and will partly or entirely depart Shaoyang to the northwest tonight. I have a unit moving into Hengyang to delay any Japanese pursuit attempt. Dislike abandoning the bases and it's nonsensical that this has to be done, but given that things have gone about as well as could be expected. Still - we gave 2.4x as good as we got, which ain't bad for unsupplied Chinese troops in open terrain! I'd leave them at Shaoyang, which is fortified, but it seems they're more likely to draw supplies if they're out in the open, so off into the hills they go.

Apr. 9-10

We're now up to day 5 of SEAC trying to launch a night raid on Toungoo. Events elsewhere mean it'll have to wait, unfortunately.

The armada is off towards Ceylon; transports should hit the beaches wherever they've picked in a day or two depending on speed. We've spotted at least two light carriers loaded exclusively with fighters ahead of the main force; I suppose they're meant to attract air attack. Well, no sense in playing that game...absent the carrier aircraft I don't have the anti-shipping firepower I need to acheive much anyway - no sense throwing 100 fighters away escorting half a dozen Vildebeest. Ceylon fighter forces will depart the island - there's nothing much left to defend - but some Hudsons will stick around for snooping. Unengaged fighters will concentrate at Bangalore, bombers at Hyderabad except the B-17s, which will be off to Madras whenever is appropriate. No sense in revealing that I have them too early, I suppose...I don't like leaving them on the coast, but unfortunately the airfield infrastructure in southern India is not up to much beyond defense; attention was focused on Assam and Bengal up to a couple of weeks ago in that respect. A US EAB and two AA regiments land Karachi today, along with the aforementioned Brit Bdes, which should help.

First priority after landing will have to be destruction of the shipyard at Colombo, which I suppose means destruction of the airfield at Colombo to enable it.

Working plan at the moment...US battlefleet (mostly repaired - 8 BBs can leave San Francisco in a week) will shift over to the IO, carriers to SWPac to make some noise. It's the only place besides the WC that has the fuel to run them, anyway. Think shutting down air ops from Ceylon should be doable if I don't fritter aircraft away, at which point the fascists either keep carriers tied to it or I reoccupy. Assault shipping is mostly at the Cape already, so can get wherever's needed easily.

The Hengyang army got off cleanly as hoped for. Force balance at Changsha is looking like 3000av outside and 2000av inside until I can shift the Ichang front over to add some extra breathing room. The fascists seem to be heading towards CS rather than attempting to pursue the HYA; could be an opportunity if they immediately attempt to besiege Changsha.

Apr. 11-13

Ceylon invasion went ahead as expected; landings at Trincomalee (2 divs) yesterday, Koggala and Jaffna today (not sure what yet). What is effectively an Indian infantry battalion held out against the Japanese at Trinco, inflicting 50av in casualties for 20 of their own. Better than nothing! Japanese carrier aircraft attempted to hit...Madurai? I think. Objective was city bombing, apparently - a little odd, and I doubt it's a mistake (maybe a "mistake") given earlier intentional use (later sworn off after the damage was done) of carrier bombers against Sydney and Auckland. Anyway, between 70 aircraft they failed to hit anything, so I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.

Elsewhere, nothing exciting. I finally have some LR recon aircraft in Australia and New Zealand, so those are beginning a survey of reachable islands, and NZ and US Marine forces are available to reoccupy any that are ungarrisoned - if I can keep'em that'd be handy, and if they prompt the introduction of even more Japanese garrison troops to the region that'd be handy too.

Apr. 14

Ceylon, D+3:



The only real surprise here is two Divs coming ashore away from a base. Your funeral in the long term, buddy...

98th "Bde" (30av) in Trinco held out against that force (now 475av) for a second day, again inflicting heavier casualties; meanwhile, 99th Bde (60av) at Koggala does very badly against a single Rgt. The only difference is morale - 98th's is great, 99th's is terrible. There's a lesson there for Burma that I otherwise doubt I'd really have absorbed.

Another US bomber squadron in India moved over to B-17s; that makes 83 available whenever necessary. Tempting to throw them at Jaffna, but it's only an L1 field; counterintuitively I'd prefer it to be larger, since I can then keep it closed (at least in theory).

The first activity in the Phillipines for several weeks; a G3M squadron firebombs Cebu City. They didn't hit anything, naturally. There are still no Japanese anywhere in the PI except Luzon; the forces here are still effective, though not for much longer. Anything for a teleporter, eh?

Elsewhere, logistics. I'm not sure the Japanese outside Changsha quite know what to do; they've been sitting there for a couple of days now. I think I should be able to hold a corridor to the city open if the forces there have a few more days to dig - here's hoping.

Apr. 15

98th Bde held. Again. There aren't even any rifle squads left - I guess it's the fortress troops doing the heavy lifting at this point. The Japanese seem to be out of supply; I suspect this operation will have been a learning experience for Saros, who I don't think has ever run anything without the Japanese amphibious bonus behind his back.

Most Japanese shipping is departing Ceylon southeastwards; the exceptions are a naval force sticking its neck out off the southern tip of India and the carriers, which are 'departing' to the northeast. We had recon flights over Hyderabad yesterday, which is the second largest airfield between Ceylon and Calcutta and was also where the RAF bomber force was massing; they've gone back to Delhi for a couple of days just in case, as I don't expect to need them for a week or so - there's no moonlight at all, so night operations are out, and Blenheims aren't really up to daytime operations. They could also be off to hit Calcutta, but that could be just as easily done from Burma, I think; I suppose both at once might get a few bombers through. The first of the advanced fields is operational at Trichinopoly; another should be ready tomorrow or the day after.

A Japanese army is approaching Lashio; 10 units, whatever that means. There's about 925 mostly Chinese AV here, with an Indian armoured car regiment (meant to be going to China) and a base force a few days away. Another Japanese force is heading west from Hengyang, apparently meaning to drive on Guilin, Liuzhou etc. This as far as I know is two armoured and one armoured recon regiments; I can meet it in good terrain with greater numbers, at least in theory, but we all know what happens when that sort of thing collides with Chinese infantry...

I 'found' a Japanese naval force, four cruisers and a bunch of destroyers, anchored off La Foa in New Caledonia; if they stick around I have 12 submarines (eight of which have torpedoes that work, even!) coming out of radar fit at Brisbane in a couple of days which can go say hello. 2nd and 3rd Raider Bns are positioning for their operations; Raoul and Norfolk islands don't appear to have garrisons. The former could be taken by a paradrop, in theory; can Catalinas be used as para transports, or do I have to use proper ones?

Apr. 16

Trincomalee finally goes. This, bear in mind, was 30av of 98th Bde - the other 100+ are in India! Anyway, that gives the Japanese their first 'big' airfield on the island; expectation is that it'll immediately have been stuffed full of fighters. Don't think I'll hit it yet; better to wait a couple of days for the carriers to wander off a bit.

Half a dozen Japanese submarines take up station off Karachi, the first time any of them have ventured past Colombo. Not a surprise - the obvious (if faintly ridiculous) thing to do, so the Karachi shipping was returned to port to await escorts several days ago (shipping up here having been completely unescorted since the beginning of the war) which are a day out. Missed one AKL, which got sunk, but that's life, eh? Anyway, the really vulnerable stuff has been and gone already, and a couple of squadrons in India have been training ASW for a while, so it's a chance for them to get some practice.

also in the works are three SSTs. I am going to use these to play commando with the Marine Raider Bns, if that's possible - which I guess it should be.

I think only "parachute infantry" can be loaded onto / make raids from / submarines. So you can use the Marine parachute battalions, but not the raider battalions.

In this instance, a bit of historical accuracy was sacrificed to eliminated a wider abuse; the trend in WitP for players to organize divison-sized submarine transport assaults.

Blackhorse: Ok, thanks. I guess they'll just have to use APDs instead - fortunately I have a few handy (they're the ones taking 2nd and 3rd Bns to Rarotonga, actually).

Apr. 17

Odd day in China. The Japanese force that took Hengyang stormed across the river into Changsha and...well, I'll just quote it:

Ground combat at Changsha (82,52)

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 31784 troops, 413 guns, 42 vehicles, Assault Value = 5711

Defending force 93549 troops, 611 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 2891

Japanese adjusted assault: 0

Allied adjusted defense: 6249

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 99 (fort level 5)

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

Japanese ground losses:
9072 casualties reported
Squads: 70 destroyed, 759 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 73 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 48 disabled
Guns lost 56 (1 destroyed, 55 disabled)


Allied ground losses:
53 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 2 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 1 disabled

I'm not entirely sure why the whole crossing force didn't attack; I have a fairly fuzzy understanding of river crossing rules. Anyway, I'll take that result - why they crossed the river directly instead of just, uh...walking around it...I neither know nor particularly want to. There is about 3500av theoretically available to reinforce Changsha, not including the goons who'd have to be left behind to make sure the Japanese don't go anywhere they aren't meant to, but I'd rather not commit them if I don't have to if only so they can keep themselves supplied. We'll see how the Changsha forces get on, anyway.

Everywhere else on the map is a Boring place except the radio room today; two Japanese tank regiments are at Lang Son, which combined with the armoured movements out of Hengyang suggests what the real priority in China is; Zuikaku is apparently headed for Miri - and as one goes the others are likely to follow - and a JAAF Bn is prepping for Lahaina, a menacing development slightly neutered by the fact that it's a Kwangtung Army unit that hasn't left its home base. Still, it's the first one not prepping for Pearl Harbour, which means Saros is either starting to put more than eight miliseconds of thought into deception or he's been reading this AAR, heh. Hawaii in general will be seeing a lot more forces over the next few weeks, anyway, so not a huge concern on the surface of it. One thing I do want to get done soon is get some garrison troops up to the Aleutians - I've had YP guardships at Attu, Amchitka and Adak for months and there hasn't even been a whisper of Japanese up here, thread titles notwithstanding, so a few of the Norpac command units may actually make it to their assigned area at some point soon.