Hortlund
Posts: 2884
Joined: 10/13/2000 Status: offline
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Opening moves... December 7th-10th 1941 Day 1 Pearl Harbor was a disaster. My aircraft barely hit anything at all. This is bad because it means I have to attack Pearl again. That usually costs alot of pilots and planes. KB is ordered to move a couple of hexes towards home, but stay within strike-range. For tomorrow, all Vals are set on naval attack (they are useless against the BBs anyway) and all Kates are set on port attack. Force Z escaped. It appears ace sent the ships south instead of on their death-run towards Kota Bharu. That is really really bad since it forces me to be super-careful in the NEI region. Potentially I have to defend all my invasion fleets against a Force Z on steroids together with Boise and Houston. The Jap airforce put alot of hurt on Clark, Alor Star, Georgetown, Kuantan and Kota Bharu. Zeros were LRCAP:ing Mersing and managed to protect the fleet at least somewhat. Still, an AK took a torpedo hit. I hate to loose one of those AKs. Still, it could have been alot worse. But I wonder what will happen tomorrow when the full fury of the commonwealth airforce will be thrown against Mersing. Day 2 Nells and Bettys on port-strike attacking Manilla were greeted by no less than 63 P-40s in the skies. Ive never seen an allied player manage to get that many fighters in the air over Manilla on December 8th. Fortunately enough I had a Zero wing on sweep that arrived before the main strike. In the end we shot down P-40s and P-26s at about 2-1 ratio and no fighters broke through to the bombers. Over Pearl, the second strike were greeted by 40-something P-40Bs and we lost heavily to the allied fighters. All in all about 15 Kates and 10 Zeros were lost over Pearl on this day. We managed to get through though and several BBs were reported as having heavy fires and heavy damage. I hope some will sink, but failing that, they will at least be out of the war for a year or two. At Mersing Force Z made a surprise appearance. Fortunately my BBs drew the longer straw and managed to sink the Repulse for no damage. I doubt the Prince of Wales will return alone tomorrow, so the landing should be safe. The transport ships had already left the base. Most of them still with cargo aboard, but the troops were ashore and I dont want to linger around too long that close to Singapore. In the skies above Mersing, allied bombers threw themselves on the small Zero CAP. No Buffalos were to be seen, and I shot down something like 10-15 bombers. I wonder where the Buffalos were...probably capping Force Z. I had stood down all my Nells and Bettys at Saigon since I dont want to see them throw themselves against some Buffalo-trap just offshore of Singapore. Seems it was the right call. All in all, I think we had an excellent day. We shot down around 60-70 allied aircraft for the loss of 40 (20 of which were Zeros) Day 3 Mopping up action around Manilla. We managed to catch alot of transports, others got away. No sign of Prince of Wales, no sign of Boise and Houston. I wonder where those last two are. My bet is that they are around Balikpapan right now and that he will use them to defend Kendari/Ambon. Troops went ashore at Menado, Miri and Davao. Some more small invasions here and there. Malayan penninsula is cut by my tanks, Singapore is now isolated, and alot of commonwealth forces were caught north of Johore Bharu. Tanks and infantry ordered to take Malacca, that will be the defensive line until Singapore falls.
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The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences..
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