Campaign 41, Comp Japanese, Even, Historical First Turn.Action before March 8th 1942 and situation then:
Japanese surprise attack against Pearl Harbour was bit luckier this time that usual (at least in my games), 4 BBs were sunk, with 2 others damaged to 70+ points and some assorted CAs heavily damaged too. My initial plan was to secure Midway, Johnston Island and supply route to Australia. On left flank my plan was to delay the capture of Singapore and Palembang and try to stop Japanese in Rangoon. On right flank I was somewhat successful, on left flank I wasn't successful at all...[:o]
Prince of Wales and Repulse were clobbered as expected, but happily both were still afloat and retreated to Colombo for repairs (60+ damage both). I formed a Surface Combat TF around Dutch Adm. Doorman's forces, reinforced by CA Houston and several destroyers pulled out from PI. I set the reaction for 7 hexes (not that it prove useful at all, but can always hope
). I lost one CL and other was heavily damaged with my "run like hell"-strategy on PI. I also transferred B-17s to Port Moresby with all fighters I managed to salvage (upgraded to P-40s). In Singapore I put all bombers on Naval Interdiction, and I had fighters and bombers on Palembang (bombers on NI too). That proved sucessful for a while....I decided to pull out some forces from Singapore. Originally I did plan to transfer Australian division (only unit worth anything) to Palembang. Turned out that I severely lacked APs to do that, so 1st Malay Brigade got the honours to do that. Also, I managed to transfer Engineer unit to Rangoon, which had been garrisoned by anything I could get my hands on.
My air units did sunk 1 CL and 3 DDs around Singapore, with few assorted APs and MCs. That didn't last long. Just when I was planning to withdraw all my air units from Singapore to DEI, Kido Butai came with 4 fleet CVs and mauled both Singapore and Palembang air units, since they tried desperately to put a bomb on IJN carriers. And promptly, reinforced Japanese division made an amphibious invasion to support land attack that was going on..straight to harbour of Singapore...so much for coastal defence. Bye bye Singapore...surrender was as quick as dishonourable...[:o]
Soo...I didn't have to wait long for further disasters. During next weeks, Japanese invaded Rangoon, brushing aside my inedperienced forces, with Eng Batt having most exp as 40..so no wonder. Thus, I had to retreat to Mandalay, which I deemed the "last stance" base, due to fact that it was bottleneck for invasion towards India. And loss of it would expose more bases than my units were able to defend. And naturally, my units were thrown back in chaos, falling back to Imphal. But, by stroke of luck, Japanese didn't follow, so during next week, I was able to counter-attack, compared with surface bombardment of Rangoon. And, to my great surprise, I was able to capture Mandalay back. So, situation was stabilized so far. And finally, reinforcements were able to march towards battle.
With my stroke of good fortune, I decided to use my only reserve division to secure Andaman Island. Well, that was fine idea...until it came obvious that Japanese were thinking exactly same. Both forces landed on same turn, with result that Japanese were able to claim the base. So, thinking that I had full division of Indian troops there, I decided to fight it out instead of immediate evacuation, especially when I was able to boost their supply with convoy of MCs. Big mistake, next turn my division promptly had to surrender...[:o]. So far, only bright things were Mandalay and the fact that I had Air Combat TF with CV and CVL to harass Japanese plus decent Surface TF too.
Meanwhile, Japanese also invaded Palembang, with heavy CV support. That was the end of air units on DEI. And my remaining troops on island were overrun as fast as Japanese were able to move. But 3 bases around Surabaya are still intact, probably due to Doorman's TF. But after Japanese get LBA stationed, that will end too. I try to fight surface action there, if I can..and then retreat to Australia.
I was able to garrison Port Moresby with 1st Australian Div. with Armoured Brigade following. Armoured Brigade was able to push forward to Lae, which I intend to hold (but my intentions have been misplaced before..
) Guadalcanal is now strongly garrisoned with 24th and 25th Div and SeaBee engineers. There is also F4F and dive bomber unit there. One F4F has been pushed to next island waiting engineers to enlarge airfields.I have interesting logistical problem. I have troops in Sydney, but I lack APs to fully deploy them. I have APs in US West Coast, but not much troops. Thus, Engineer Bn is been sent to Ellice I. (that is SoPac HQ) and AP convoy then sent to Sydney. Also, most land and air units from Pearl have been sent to defend more forward bases (Midway, Johnston I and Canton I.) . Halsey with 4 CV Air Combat TF is stationed on SoPac area to help keep the supply route open. PH and bases around have been reinforced with PBY Catalinas to help with IJN submarine menace.
Another logistical problem is sudden lack of AVs and MCs to transfer multiple fighter and bomber units from West Coast to SoPac/SoWestPac area. They are sorely missed there. Port Moresby seem to be hated by Japanese. It's runways are hit twice a turn by enemy, something that P-40s and F4Fs with exp of 60s and 50s are unable to stop. Result is grievous losses to my invaluable B-17s, set on Naval Interdiction. So far they managed to put a 500 lb bomb to Japanese baby-CV, with 3 or 4 star damage.
My future plans are to stop Japanese in Mandalay, then after I mass troops and other assets, to take back Andaman I. That will be followed by amphibious invasion to Rangoon in distant future, cutting off the Japanese forces in Mandalay.
I don't intend to offer much resistance in center, but Australian northern bases have been garrisoned with 2 brigades and multiple air units. That will probably give me time to react if Japanese AI has some grand plans there. DEI is already a lost cause.
Port Moresby is "must be held at any cost"-base. If I manage to stop enemy before it, remains to be seen. Guadalcanal ditto. In north, Japanese captured one off the Aleutian islands, which I'm unable to remedy in near future. But when 1943 arrives, I intend to start my counterattack on all fronts. In China, I did place AVG into danger, by basing then to contested base. But there is not much else to stop IJAAF bombing the heck out of 3 Chinese armies there..so I have to hope for the best. I intend to remain static in China until quite late in war. I do need those bases for B-24/29s.
I have attached savefile of situation on 3/8/42 (March 8th for us Europeans). It's zip-file renamed to savea.txt, click the "Attachment" and then right-click "savea.txt" and "Save as". Then rename it savea.zip and unzip, it's 3 files (savea, savea.cd and savea.md). Beware that it'll overwrite your save A-slot, so you may want to rename/backup/resave to diff slot before you unzip to your Pacwar folder. And I've found it easiest to rename within MS-DOS Prompt, using command: ren savea.txt savea.zip
..and vise versa. of course you can do it in Windows too, but you need to enable the "show filename extensions".
More to follow !!
Cheers,
M.S.
And I'm about 1000 pts ahead in victory points so far, and I don't intend to give free point...which would be the case with carrier battle with IJN during 1942 
