Spidery
Posts: 1821
Joined: 10/6/2012 From: Hampshire, UK Status: offline
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June 5th 1943 Air Losses: 2 Japanese, 0 Allied, 0 Pilots Japanese occupy: Allies occupy: Japanese land at: Allies land at: Subs An unlucky day for the Japanese subs. I-10 takes a shot at TK Elsa but misses. I-10 puts a torpedo into TK War Sirdar but no fires or special damage and she looks afloat but detached. I-19 finds a big tanker, H.M. Storey, in her sights, hits, but it is a dud. This all on the same convoy heading from Pearl to the West Coast. The subs are conserving torpedoes and only sending 2 torpedoes at each target. He seems to be sending tanker TF between West Coast and Pearl with limited, light, escorts. I may see if I can slip a couple of AMC through to target a convoy. Solomons Betties strike at Lunga at night from altitude, no hits. Burma Strikes at Kalemyo at night mostly fail but a few Helens make it and score no hits. Engineering Myitkyina airfield to 4. Balikpapan forts to 4. Production Quiet Reinforcements Quiet Other PB Fukui Maru is at Jolo, all system and minor damage has been fixed and she has 79 major float damage. Able to make 3 knots, it is 560 nautical miles to the nearest shipyard that can fix her, will she make it? A PB is at Truk with 61 major float and no other damage. It is going to wait there until the ARD becomes available, at the moment it is occupied with fixing DD. Allied Plans Still no indications where, or when, the Allies will strike. The Essex should have arrived last month. If his carriers are in the Pacific then it should have joined, or nearly joined, the rest of the carriers. If the carriers are in the Indian Ocean then it may still be en-route. He has had 2 months of Hellcat production so that should have replaced the Wildcats on the main carriers, but probably not on the CVE yet. In short, he should be ready to go. Sigint has occasionally suggested that he is sending troops to Perth so an attack from that quarter is a possibility. I think that his most likely option is an attack, without carrier support, either against Horn Island/Port Moresby/Milne Bay or Buna/Kavieng and if I commit my carriers there then a carrier supported attack against Sumatra, Java, Marianas or Kuriles. The longer this quiet spell lasts the bigger the hammer will fall.
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