Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000 From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku Status: offline
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4 Dec 42 Sub War Well, I caught that AO/TK fleet and, yes, it was carrying fuel. The I-175 found them first and sank the TK California Standard (Federal Type-E, 9340 capacity, 14 kt) and later in the day missed the AO Guadalupe. The I-171 missed an xAK. Only 1 for 3. Not so hot. The convoy is headed up the east coast of Australia where I have a string of subs. Hopefully, I’ll get some more shots (and hits) on it. 5 Fleet I set up my ambush of the Allied bombers. KB2 is sending all of their fighters on LRCAP of Adak: Soryu (27 A6M3a), Shokaku (36 A6M3a) and Zuikaku (36 A6M3a). KB1, a few hexes to the west of KB2, is sending 66 A6M3a to LRCAP KB2 and keeping 36 A6M3a for its own CAP. Here is what attacked Adak today: First attack: 3x B-24D 14x A29 13x SBD Second attack: 4x B-24D 13x B-26 I hope to cut them down a bit. 4 Fleet Nothing to report. SE Fleet I had 15 Helen sorties against Merauke for no result. None of my bombers flew against Pt. Moresby. Ted had a little more success, but not much. He sent 2E & 4E sorties against Milne Bay and Lae for no result. He did something he hadn’t tried for a while. He sent 48 4E bombers against Shortland Island. I have a 45 plane Betty daitai and a 24 plane Tojo sentai stationed there. Only 8 Tojos intercepted before the bombing run and 20 after. They shot down 3 B-17Fs, with an additional 3 op losses for 4 Tojo op losses (1 pilot KIA) and 3 Betties destroyed on the ground. Moderate damage was done to the airfield. I left the Tojo sentai there and pulled the Betties out. That’s the first time in quite a while that I can remember destroying a significant number of 4E bombers in flight – 12%. SRA Nothing to report. Burma Ted still has a few fighters stationed at Chittagong, but none flew today. My Helens were spread out over 5 different raids, totaling 51 sorties, but did little airfield damage. They did manage to destroy 3 Hurricane IIcs on the ground though. I’m spreading 5x Helen sentai over Akyab, Cox’s Bazaar and Chittagong to keep all the airfields & Akyab’s port destroyed. The bombing of my division near Cox’s Bazaar is growing. Today there were 2 raids. Here’s their composition: First attack: 23x P-40K 29x P-40E 44x Blenheim IV 3x Hudson IIIa 20x Wellington Ic 12x Beaufort V Second attack: 23x P-40K 29x P-40E 16x Liberator II 14x Wellington Ic 22x B-24D 27x B-25C They did little to no troop damage. I forgot to set up the LRCAP of the hex. I’ll do it tomorrow. That convoy of xAKLs came off my radar today. I think it’s too far north (along the Indian coast) to be spotted. China Well, I goofed here. The Oscar IIc has a normal range of 6 hexes, 8 hexes with drop tanks. My airfield is 7 hexes away. The question I have is: if the Oscar IIc has a strafe mission with drop tanks, will it carry 2x 250kg or 2x 30kg bombs (or no bombs)? If it is the smaller bombs, I will need to get an airfield closer to the target. At any rate, I didn’t execute my strafing attack of the Chinese air force. Too bad. Other Stuff My goal was to have 700k HI in the pool by the end of 42. Today, I have 875k and am increasing it by ~5200 a day. I expect to be over 1kk by the end of 42! That’s good news. My total supply on hand has exceeded my starting supply for the first time this month. That’s great news. Fuel, on the other hand, will never reach its pre-war levels. There was ~4.5kk fuel at the start and now is currently at 3.1kk. Since I repaired the last of the oil fields, about 3 months ago, I’ve lost ~180k fuel, or 60k per month. At that rate, I won’t have a problem, but I know it will get worse with time. With a steady loss of 60k per month, that’ll be ~2kk reduction by Aug 45, leaving little more than 1kk left. Scary! I need to reduce consumption. I can look on the bright side. At some point I’ll lose my fleet. Then my fuel consumption will drop dramatically. I’m not really looking forward to that either. Oil is looking good. It’s been steady at 2.6-2.7kk for the past 9 months. It’ll go down when US sub torpedoes get better, but I’ve got pretty nice convoy escorts set up to move stuff from Singapore to the Home Islands. I’m also plastering the area between Palembang and Singapore with naval search, and air and surface ASW to keep the convoys safe. We’ll see how that works out. I have decided to convert the Mizuho and Nisshin (along with Chitose & Chiyoda already converting) from CS to CVL. Whoever mentioned using Kates/Vals for ASW vs. float planes is a genius. Thanks! It never dawned on me. Right now CVE Chuyo, with 27 Vals, is on its way to Singapore for ASW support.
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