aoffen
Posts: 494
Joined: 6/7/2002 From: Brisvegas, Australia Status: offline
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21 - 29 Jan 1943 Pacific The Battle of Gisborne ended up as a qualified success. We bagged 2 of the smaller IJN fleet CV's (Hiyo & Junyo) together with a CL and 4 or 5 DD's. During the second day of action as we cleaned up the surface combatants a CAP of 60 A6M3's suddenly appeared over his surviving DD's meaning KB was on the way. We turned hitched our skirts and ran. Fortunately (and it was a close run thing) the CV's got away but the BB Nth Carolina which had been badly winged in the previous day CV fight was caught and despatched by a 6 CV KB. The CA San Francisco and 3 old DD's were also caught too far north and all sunk by the hot pursuit. So in the end it was 2 CV's 1 CL, 5 DD's lost for the IJN vs 1 BB, 1 CA 3 DD's for me. A good win but not without some pain. My CV's ran around the south side of NZ and are now on the way back to Sydney to refit and recover all the damage incurred with their sprints and the air losses from the KB CAP. Over at PH we have formed the mother of all convoys stuffed full of goodies. It contains 200k of troops, 15 squadrons, 200k of fuel and 200k of supplies packed into 170 ships and escorts including 3 new BB's and 6 CVE's. These will take the long route to Australia and provide the basis of offensive action out of Oz for the rest of this half year. I will send the 2 CV's from Sydney to meet them and escort them in. Need to make sure we don't get sighted here so caution in the watchword. Australia I am having problems here. I tried an assault on Darwin with 7th Aust Div plus numerous armour and inf brigades.. Total AV was 1100 and I got well and truly spanked at 1-26. The IJA then counterattacked and threw me back with very heavy losses. See below Ground combat at Darwin (76,124) Allied Deliberate attack Attacking force 26091 troops, 368 guns, 1151 vehicles, Assault Value = 1100 Defending force 20591 troops, 228 guns, 468 vehicles, Assault Value = 667 Allied adjusted assault: 127 Japanese adjusted defense: 3381 Allied assault odds: 1 to 26 (fort level 5) Combat modifiers Defender: forts(+), leaders(+), preparation(-) Attacker: disruption(-), supply(-) Japanese ground losses: 208 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 12 disabled Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 18 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 19 disabled Guns lost 7 (1 destroyed, 6 disabled) Vehicles lost 67 (6 destroyed, 61 disabled) Allied ground losses: 2300 casualties reported Squads: 25 destroyed, 274 disabled Non Combat: 24 destroyed, 32 disabled Engineers: 2 destroyed, 26 disabled Guns lost 32 (5 destroyed, 27 disabled) Vehicles lost 104 (12 destroyed, 92 disabled) Assaulting units: 7th Australian Division Gull Battalion 2/7th Armoured Regiment 4th Armoured Brigade 2/6th Armoured Regiment 2/9th Armoured Regiment 3rd Motor Brigade 2/10th Armoured Regiment 6th Aus Cav Brigade 3rd Army Tank Brigade 1st Australian Army Defending units: 8th Tank Regiment Sasebo 6th SNLF 1st Ind. Engr Rgt /2 1st Engineer Co 38th Division 4th Tank Regiment 2nd Tank Regiment 19th Ind. Engineer Regiment 146th Infantry Rgt /2 106th JAAF AF Bn 26th Air Defense AA Regiment 1st Naval Construction Battalion 107th JAAF AF Bn 16th Army 30th JNAF AF Unit /1 46th JAAF AF Bn /1 then the counter attack Ground combat at Darwin (76,124) Japanese Shock attack Attacking force 15257 troops, 156 guns, 385 vehicles, Assault Value = 638 Defending force 24047 troops, 361 guns, 825 vehicles, Assault Value = 627 Japanese adjusted assault: 874 Allied adjusted defense: 126 Japanese assault odds: 6 to 1 Combat modifiers Defender: disruption(-), preparation(-) Attacker: shock(+) Japanese ground losses: 1143 casualties reported Squads: 4 destroyed, 41 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 22 disabled Engineers: 8 destroyed, 50 disabled Guns lost 9 (1 destroyed, 8 disabled) Vehicles lost 33 (1 destroyed, 32 disabled) Allied ground losses: 4819 casualties reported Squads: 223 destroyed, 20 disabled Non Combat: 410 destroyed, 52 disabled Engineers: 15 destroyed, 6 disabled Guns lost 70 (49 destroyed, 21 disabled) Vehicles lost 206 (157 destroyed, 49 disabled) Units retreated 7 My force is badly roughed up now with AV reduced to 600. My main issue is supplies. I took forever building Tenant Creek up to AF level 7 and have brought 2 army HQ's into the theatre to help attract supplies. Even still I just can't get enough through the system. Daly Waters and Katherine won't repair build mainly thru lack of supply and I can't figure out how to support a force up here. I need at least 2 full divisions plus armour and support to retake Darwin and it looks to be impossible. Anyone with any good ideas? Burma China to follow in the next post
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