Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000 From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku Status: offline
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21 Jul 43 Sub War 5 Fleet Nothing to report. 4 Fleet Well, we had a rain out today. The US CVs reappeared today, and they ended up 5 hexes from KB2! His carriers were under clear skies, but mine were hidden in thunderstorms. No play time at all! That was fortunate for me, because he outnumbered me. I’m confident he has 3 CVs (Saratoga, Yorktown & Hornet) and 1 CVL (Independence) because of the number of fighters and bombers my intel said he had in the TF. My estimate is 120 Hellcats vs. 99 Zeros and 180 bombers (108 Dauntlesses and 72 Avengers) vs. 108 bombers (54 Judies and 54 Kates). KB1 and MKB2 will both reach Ponape tomorrow. KB2 is doing a full speed run north to be within a couple hexes of Ponape. Then they will come down together. If Ted sticks around, I’m definitely going after him. Combined, the 3 TFs have 309 fighters, 125 DBs and 159 TBs. I’ll have 180 fighters on CAP and another 120 available as escorts. All three TFs have full loads of torpedoes and the replenishment fleet is there too. I’m ready! Ted’s cruiser TF bombarded Ocean Island today. It turned out that there are 2 CAs (Indianapolis and Portland) and 3 CLs (Helena, Achilles and Leander). They caused 12 port damage. Ocean Island has no engineers, but that’s not really an issue. SE Fleet Things are looking up here too. There were 136 wasted bomber sorties on Kavieng’s airfield, an already destroyed airfield. Here’s the damage report: Manas: 100-100-14, runway down 11 Kavieng: 82-100-98, no change Rabaul: 44-47-0, service down 36! Talasea: 0-100-85, runway down 6 I moved some more Tojos to Rabaul. Ted is avoiding Rabaul, which is great. Damaged planes are repairing now too. Very nice! The US CVE fleet is still in the area, but not visible right now. I estimate there are 6 CVEs totaling 126 fighters and 54 torpedo bombers. It’s a nice little potent force, but still vulnerable. I have a 45 plane Betty daitai sitting at Truk that’s available to fly to Rabaul should the opportunity arise. If I see it within range of Rabaul, I may try a sweep or two to whittle down the fighters somewhat. SRA Burma China Nothing to report. Other Stuff The N1K2-J George R&D advanced to 2/44 (will become operational 9/43). Current factories are 6x30, 25(5), 21(9), 18(12), Another Ki-84a Frank factory completed repairs. There are now 1x55, 4x30 plus 25(5), 17(13), 7(23), 1(29). The new estimate for the “a” model to become operational is 8/43 and 1/44 or 2/44 for the “r” model. A couple AMs were confirmed sunk, one at Gasmata on 5/8/43 by CD guns and one at Dutch Harbor on 6/1/43 by a 250kg bomb. Looks like I dodged a bullet today. I hope the US carriers stick around for another couple of days. Then I can crush them.
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