kfsgo
Posts: 446
Joined: 9/16/2010 Status: offline
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blargh - wrote all this eight hours ago but clicked 'refresh' by mistake. Jan. 29-30 Attacks on CX.1 persisted up to about 200 miles off New Zealand; broadly, the liners made it in and the freighters didn't. Lots of truck-based reefs in the area in years to come, I suspect, but the outlines of the force (including the majority of the actual combat troops) made it ashore, and the US has enough 'stuff' that the artillery, AA guns etc can be made up at least the once. While very damaging, this whole display has demonstrated a few things: - Japanese carriers will operate 'independently'; they split into two groups of three, each with minimal escort (a solitary destroyer tossed some torpedoes at I think Shokaku today - missed, sadly, but got away with it) for these attacks, and operated several hundred miles apart at all times. Very unfortunate that the Pacific Fleet went for CX.2 instead - chances are one of the groups could have been picked off if they hadn't. - Safety of shipping across the South Pacific can't be guaranteed. I'm not running things as a numbers game in this area - if the ships can't be protected they won't be sent, so shipping and troop movements will use the Cape and Indian Ocean route for the time being. Happily I do have the shipping spare to pull this off - between ships waiting for escorts so they can sail from the West Coast and those waiting at Panama or Cape Town for incoming stuff upwards of a hundred are 'available', including numerous fast liners. Those independent sailings from Panama that have already left for New Zealand will continue, and more will probably take place here and there (probably just using the ships currently running them for the same trips), but nothing large-scale. - Caveat to the above - Cape Town to [Perth/Albany/Adelaide] is not all that much less exposed than Tahiti to Christchurch, so the Pacific Fleet carriers are headed for Panama and then CT. They need fixing up anyway - most of the ships have been at sea since December 7th barring a few days here and there - and they'll be due fancy electronic gizmos and new aircraft soon anyway. - I've been falling into the trap of assuming that since I wouldn't do something (like sending KB to Antarctica in January 1942, say - I do find it fairly risible, but, well, tough crap, eh?) it won't happen - CX.1 was heavily escorted out of ultimately fairly nebulous worries about AMCs or maybe a destroyer or two, not aircraft carriers. A little more forethought never hurt anyone, after all... Elsewhere... Resistance at Clark Field is on its last legs; combat strength has gone from 1400 to 1050 in days, with eight Japanese divisions and change attacking ceaselessly and upwards of a hundred aircraft bombing "airfields" (which is to say, inhibiting fortification - I'm sure the results work ok, but it don't half look weird) daily. Movement into Bataan has been ordered - there's no downside, as far as I can tell - but I doubt they'll make it. Still, the force has put up an extremely creditable defence considering what's been arrayed against them, so I have no complaints. Resistance at Singapore is still "ok"; we'd be good but for 9th Div's buggy movement, but casualties are still ~3-1 in our favour, which works out ok given a 2-1 Japanese numbers advantage. Not a comfortable situation, though! Burma: Imperial Guards, a few tanks and three Thai divs forced the Salween; the Thais were a surprise, given that I was explicitly told a couple of days ago that they wouldn't be involved! Burcorps (1st Burma Div + BFF Bde) did a fantastic job on defence, inflicting 130av+95s in casualties to 14av+14s of their own; force balance here is 420av friendly to 1010 (well, 880 now) opposing; if it weren't for the Thais I'd be fairly comfortable, but as it is things could go either way. 1st Burma Div has been digging in for weeks, however, so in theory it should take some shifting - all the casualties bar one squad (!) today were in BFF. 17th Indian Div should form up in 3-4 days, at which point we'll have to see how the balance sits down there. 7th Armoured Bde, 18th Div and "45th" Div (44/45/46 Bdes) are crossing over from Imphal, with 6th Aus due to launch in about a week. With prospects for low-risk offensive moves in the South Pacific being fairly poor (or rather, I suppose, not hugely dependent on overwhelming troop numbers vice naval control) Burma will receive the next US Div (44th, in about a month) to arrive, in addition to the Americal already shipping out. I would like to try and hold Shwebo so as to avoid having to slog through the jungle when it comes time to get moving forwards; the caveat is that I have to do it quietly, since if the Japanese realise what's being thrown at Burma they can drown me out. Ten Japanese cruisers, +- nine (given accuracy of spotting reports so far) loiter 45 miles from Timor; no transports spotted, but past experience suggests about three times as many Japanese as the garrison they'll face will land tomorrow. USAAF groups at Alice Springs are about competent, so they may head up to Darwin for a little while. Catforce continues to form up at Townsville; the first aviation troops are flying out to Island A today. I may launch before everyone's here - Japanese backfilling has begun, though focus so far has been entirely south of Rabaul. So, that's today. The overall 'plan' (insofar as you can call it a plan): - Hold in Burma through the monsoon, as far as Shwebo if possible. Aim for Rangoon no later than March 1943; if that can be done, operations in the direction of Singapore to take place with a view to getting shipping right down the Straits and into the East Indies. If it can't, repeat the exercise with twice the force next season. - South Pacific doesn't actually give Japan anything useful if I don't use the South Pacific in the first place - just a long, thin supply line. Aim will be cutting this particular dive off right at the neck - New Caledonia (if garrison is light enough, to clear searches up) and New Guinea (playing Medusa) to be the targets in that order. Contingent on shipping from CT-Perth-Townsville being practical, I suppose. I have a lot of handy Dutch mini-merchants, so will see about pairing them up with gobs of naval support to allow the fast assault shipping to go elsewhere. - If the Japanese put their carriers out anywhere they can be zapped, I'll go for it, having seen what I've seen over the past few days - none of this "hide until 1944" business. Obviously a lot will depend on how that works out - if I can pull off a Midway, I may just go at Malaya directly - no faffing around in Thailand. Anyway, that's for another year.
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