Scenario 2 Japanese A-historical reinforced…
“We're going in with first wave. Means more bugs fer us to kill!”
Lt. Willy -Starship Troopers
Will start with a quick and short setrep
April 24th 1942.
So far the game has been exciting and harsh learning curve. From the start of the game my main goal for the first year was the stop the Japanese in Burma and hold Rangoon. I have done that so far and I don't see them breaking me at Rangoon now.
Other goals were to pause or stop them in the South and East Pacific so far that has also been accomplished. They took Canton early in Jan I took it back in March, they still hold Baker Island they can starve there for all I care is of no interest to me but Canton was bad because they put 30 Betties there and sunk a good dozen ships including two transports carrying over 50 P-39D's! That hurt. They also took Lunganville I took it back in March also with my 1st 2nd Marine Raider Bn. All they had there was some engineers, Canton Island was a tougher nut to crack, they had the 52 Naval Guard there and some insigificant engineering unit. I split the 24th ID at Pearl and loaded one of the Regiments along with 193rd Tank Bat, the amphib landing went well for the 24th ID but the 193rd was devastated on landing losing 40 or of their 59 Stuart Tanks. I learned a lesson for sure the Tanks need to come to shore for defense for the moment amphibious landings are instant destruction. Thankfully with the lack of replacements most were disabled and not destroyed.
Just to bring the game up to speed I will use some older post in the Burma thread in GenDis
Feb 1942
Can Rangoon be held? I use to abandon it period but now I wonder. I have pulled Chinese 11th army divisions to Burma Mandalay area and are resting. 1st Burma Div is in Rangoon already the 18th British Div is on the way, 6th Australian is building in Aden 2 days before last bde shows up and then shipping it. I took the Indian Brigades(44th 45th 46th) heading for doomed Singapore and put them in Rangoon and Port Blair. I intend to make Port Blair (and is almost there) a solid unsinkable Air Craft Carrier. I wasn't hard to build it up with the doomed base forces in Malay and Borneo.
Think I am wasting my time and a few precious divisions in CBI? We shall see
Feb 6th 1942
First battle of Rangoon!
Allies hold
Well I didn't let them get settled at Rangoon I put everything I could into the city, I lost Pegu but didn’t want to hold it anyway just to delay Japan so I could bomb his troops and ships, I got a good hit on a transport and took down 47 AFVs at Mouliene was nice.
Then when they came to Rangoon as soon as they touched the city outskirts I hit them with everything I had and busted them. 1600 dead and wounded infantry should take the spit out of the 33rd and the other regiments. A good start I think yeah it hurt but it hurt them more
Still not sure if I want to risk the 6th Australian Division in Burma it is the best I have right now.
Feb 21st 1942
6th Australian Division was committed to Burma on the 12th Feb.
Held easily for right now and the Brewsters, Hurricanes and AVG kept the 6th Aus Div alive to land in Rangoon they really tipped the scale I feel confident now. I currently have almost 1700 AV in Rangoon and it was hard to do with no restarts but I got them there. Feb 21st, and now I have 7th Aus Div in reserve and will be soon resting at Port Blair I may land them in Burma in the next couple of weeks for counter offensive while I let Japan blunt its teeth on Rangoon. Of course they could over run me tomorrow but will see they are still hard fighting and trying to flank Rangoon north but I think the Chinese forces there will hold unless Japan throws more divisions at Tungoo I moved most of the Chinese 11th Army to Toungoo to hold the northern advance of the IJA divsions moving north towards Mandalay. Those engineers from Malay really have been perfect choice to move out. I am being beat up by partisans north of Tiungoo since I stripped it of almost every soldier except for Mandalay. I am currently moving Indian engineers to Akyab to build up airbase for my short legged bombers to support the northern forces around Toungoo etc. They are building more forces in Pegu not sure if they will go north or if they will move on Rangoon.
The Commonwealth is no longer throwing away troops in Rangoon, even the weaker Indian Bde are now 50+ exp or close to it. Japan is no longer up against Militia and every day Commonwealth grows a bit better and the troops, hq, eng, aircraft are just flowing in nicely now. I have 4 BB's if I wanted to use them in Bengal.
Of course all my other fronts are unstable to stable, CenPac is fine, SouPac is still hurting and the betties out of Canton (which I need to neutralize soon) have cost me almost a dozen straggling ships and no less than 50 P-39's two full sqds got sent to the bottom brand new planes!
There have been some terrible fights around Lunganvillie for the Japanese anyway, building up at Port Moresby slowly finally got some good SWPac engineers and troops in there but still hurting. I changed the Marine Airwing to SWPac and will move it to PM it will help and once in place I can dump aircraft into PM. Java etc is a lost cause any movement there is instant death only a few weeks before the Dutch fall completely, Batavia is about on its last leg and the Dutch bombers have failed totally to blunt the surface ships. They are useless at the moment.
March 12th 1942
Rangoon has held well I have transferred the Malay Army there now and it is helping with support. Unless the Japanese throw everything in now they will never take Burma. I have the 7th Australian ready to land in Burma but they are my reserves.
If only the Japanese didn't leave a rear guard at Pegu I would send the 11th Chinese to cut them off and break them at Rangoon.... Be in Singapore by Christmas day... But as it stands I don't think my 11th Chinese army can break Pegu with 20,630 Japanese there while rolling the 6th RTA back to Pegu.
Is a nice thought though and come 1943 I have no doubt. I wonder how hard it would be for the 7th Australian Division to go over land from Akyab. With 7th to lead the advance on Pegu I would roll right up to the sea cut off the Japanese Burma forces break them and move on. But wishful thinking right now.
However Rangoon is going to hold, they tried a deliberate attack and got beat soundly losing over 3000 troops to my 600 or so. I can not beat them back though so regardless it is a war of attrition for now.
I will catch up on the last Month and half soon.
