Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000 From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku Status: offline
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7 Jan 42 Sub War Not much happening today. The I-9 was playing cat and mouse with the AM TF it encountered a couple of days ago. She launched a couple of torpedoes at one which resulted in a dud and took a couple of near misses for 8 sys damage in return. She’ll stay on station. 5 Fleet Adak is nearing a level 1 airfield (finally). I may have to buy out some engineers to assist. This is taking far too long. 4 Fleet Construction is happening in a few places. Many more engineers are needed here as well. There are none on the reinforcement schedule for a long time. They’ll have to come out of Manchuoko. PPs….. SE Fleet The Lae Invasion force is loading at Rabaul. They will have lots of ASW supporting them as well as air cover. They should leave in a day or two. Wakaba is as repaired as she can be at 0-67(67)-17(17)-0. I’ll probably send her off to Truk tomorrow. Mindanao Transports are headed to pick up the 16 Division. Their first target is Cebu, which holds a PA Division. The 146 Regiment (56 Division – Burma) helped with the conquest of Manado and has reloaded and is enroute to Bangkok, where it will then entrain for Burma. Philippines The ground bombardment of Bataan has begun! Well, it will tomorrow….. I attacked Batangas in a DA with the 2 tank regiments from 14 Army. I really didn’t expect much but got 4:1 odds and pushed the 41 PA Division and the PAF Aviation south to Lucena. Lucena is now the only base (other than Bataan) that the Allies control on Luzon. I’m sending the two tank regiments there to take it. Lucena has three Allied units defending it (including the 2 units from Batangas). The DA resulted in no Japanese casualties to 547(112) Allied casualties. After this pocket is eliminated, the 2 tank regiments will prepare to embark on the Palembang campaign along with 4 Division (currently at Cam Ranh Bay). China The AVG hit my Nates again shooting down another one. Fortunately, I haven’t lost any pilots. All 3 are WIA, so hopefully, they’ll return. I upgraded that Nate unit to the Oscar Ic. Only 8 Oscars were available though. We’ll see if that makes any difference. I wish I had some Zeros available. That would be a nice surprise for Ted. Burma The invasion force crawls forward. Malaya The first wave of the Singapore Invasion force has begun movement, consisting of 4x divisions. The second wave will follow once IG division arrives. Air bombardment continues. One Betty was destroyed by flak. I have reduced the range on my Bettys and Nells to prevent this waste of great pilots (even though the Nell pilots can’t hit the water when going after ships. Other Stuff Oil and fuel is being transported from Miri/Brunei to Cam Ranh Bay. Balikpapan will receive 4x 12.8k TKs in a couple days to suck out its oil and then fuel. Those TKs will eventually be used to haul oil/fuel to the Home Islands from Singapore when the SRA liberation is complete and my convoys are all in place. Balikpapan will eventually have 2x TFs each with 4x 7950 TKs and 4x Ansyu-C PBs to haul fuel to Truk most of the time. I also plan on having at least 2x ASW TFs at each port along with air ASW. Tarakan and Balikpapan currently have 1 chutai each of ASW with some naval ASW enroute. Tarakan’s repairs will be complete in 17 days. The required supply is in place. I keep getting radio transmissions at Kendari. I’ll bet Ted has an ambush TF there. It’s going to get a visit from 4x IJN BBs with MKB air cover in a bit. Heh, heh… I bought out the Hiryu fighter daitai. It’ll arrive on 22 May, 135 days from now. I see that Ryuho can hold 48 planes. I’m debating whether to buy Hiryu’s DBs or TBs. The TBs are nice, but after Ryuho’s air component arrives, I can use the DB daitai for additional training. I need to do a better analysis of DB and TB/LB needs for the future. I have a lot of Jeans training and a daitai of Nells as well, but they train pilots in both NavT and NavB so it’s really only half the number. Something else to check tonight. Most of my PB conversions are finished. I have PBs all over the place! Granted, their experience levels suck but they’re better than nothing. I’m attempting to make sense of where they are and move them somewhere where they are needed. I may be able to have Ansyu-C ASW TFs follow my CS convoys. I have over 200 PBs! That’s not counting SCs, TBs, Es, etc….. I figure I’ll have at least 25 ASW TFs (just from those PBs) at various strategic ports just hanging out. I’m glad I converted a bunch of AGs. They’re heading out to those same strategic ports destined to fix all those garbage scows that will ply the waters around those bases in search of enemy subs. I just did a rough analysis of the frontline/carrier based aircraft vs. the training unit capacity. Here are rough numbers: Frontline/Carrier F: 411 DB: 151 TB: 438 Trainers F: 80 (27 per month) DB: 100 (33 per month) TB: 128 (21 per month – remember, these guys train in both NavT and NavB) I need TBs. I’m buying out the Hiryu’s TB daitai. I decided on holding off on buying out the remainder of the 20 Div and will buy 1x Independent Engineer Regiment and 1x Construction Company for 5 Fleet. Then I’ll continue on the 20 Div. The engineers will move to Adak giving that base an additional 64 engineers. I’ve been very cautious with my use of mines this game. As a matter of fact, the only mines I’ve laid have been by the 4x mine laying subs that started the game loaded and 150 at Rabaul just a day or two ago. I plan on laying mines defensively in places where I expect Ted to come after me. I have all of the starting minefields covered by ACMs with spare ACMs for the future minefields. I will use the mine laying subs to harass Ted by laying mines in his ports. Those initial sub laid mines may have caused the demise of a DD and either damaged or sank a CL as well, along with a merchant or two. I’ll take it.
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