Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000 From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku Status: offline
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7 Dec 41 Sub War My first change was to send the 5 midget carrying subs to other targets. Thought I'd mix thing up a bit. Two of them were able to reach their new targets, Lahaina and Hilo. Both ran aground. But, something good did come from it. The I-16, at Lahaina, shelled and torpedoed the AG Antares, sinking her. In the past, I would keep just about all of the sub starting around Hawaii in that area to catch whatever I could. It usually amounted to damage to my subs for little enemy damage. I left maybe half a dozen in the area and the rest went to other venues. My RO class subs will head to SE Fleet area, per normal. I'm sending half a dozen to 5 Fleet, close to a dozen fleet/Glen subs to SE Fleet. Only a handful will patrol off the US West coast, primarily to get Mike to escort his convoys. A few will wander around the SE Pacific area and a handful each to find the convoy routes to Perth and the Indian Ocean AO. 5 Fleet Nothing....yet. 4 Fleet Pretty much the only thing here was in the Hawaiian Islands. I detached Kaga and sent her to the SRA to give the carriers there a little extra punch. The 5 remaining carriers of KB hit Pearl. The Vals went after the airfield. (I hate wasting 250kg bombs against the BBs.) Of the Kates, only 4 daitai launched in the morning with one carrying torpedoes and the other 4 carrying bombs. Here was the result: Morning Air attack on Pearl Harbor , at 180,107 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 30 minutes Japanese aircraft A6M2 Zero x 20 B5N2 Kate x 90 D3A1 Val x 101 Allied aircraft no flights Japanese aircraft losses B5N2 Kate: 2 damaged B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed by flak D3A1 Val: 8 damaged Allied aircraft losses P-40B Warhawk: 1 destroyed, 61 damaged P-40B Warhawk: 4 destroyed on ground B-17D Fortress: 27 damaged B-17D Fortress: 1 destroyed on ground PBY-5 Catalina: 105 damaged PBY-5 Catalina: 3 destroyed on ground O-47A: 8 damaged O-47A: 2 destroyed on ground F4F-3 Wildcat: 3 damaged F4F-3 Wildcat: 1 destroyed on ground R3D-2: 2 damaged SBD-1 Dauntless: 19 damaged SBD-1 Dauntless: 2 destroyed on ground B-18A Bolo: 25 damaged B-18A Bolo: 3 destroyed on ground P-36A Mohawk: 20 damaged P-36A Mohawk: 5 destroyed on ground B-17E Fortress: 18 damaged B-17E Fortress: 1 destroyed on ground A-20A Havoc: 14 damaged A-20A Havoc: 1 destroyed on ground C-33: 2 damaged C-33: 1 destroyed on ground Allied Ships BB California, Bomb hits 3, Torpedo hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage BB Arizona, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage BB West Virginia, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage BB Nevada, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage CA New Orleans, Torpedo hits 1, on fire BB Pennsylvania, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, on fire BB Maryland, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage BB Oklahoma, Bomb hits 3, Torpedo hits 2, on fire DMS Perry, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk BB Tennessee, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 1, on fire DD Chew, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk CA San Francisco, Bomb hits 1 Allied ground losses: 10 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Airbase hits 24 Runway hits 53 Port hits 11 Only a DMS and DD were sunk. Amazingly, only one Kate was lost to flak! In the afternoon, the remaining Kate daitai launched, carrying bombs: Afternoon Air attack on Pearl Harbor , at 180,107 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid detected at 92 NM, estimated altitude 11,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 39 minutes Japanese aircraft A6M2 Zero x 20 B5N2 Kate x 27 Japanese aircraft losses B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed by flak Allied Ships BB Tennessee, Bomb hits 1 BB Oklahoma, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage DD Cassin, Bomb hits 1, on fire BB West Virginia, Bomb hits 1, heavy damage BB Pennsylvania, Bomb hits 1, on fire DD Jarvis, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage Port hits 2 Nothing else reported to have sunk, but 1 or maybe 2 additional DDs may go down. They don't seem to like 800 kg bombs. KB will head to Wake and should get in range in 3 days. The invasion fleet from Truk (a NG and SNLF) should arrive about the same time. KB will support the Wake invasion then move to the SE Fleet AO. The nice thing about this attack is that there still are ~4.5 carriers worth of torpedoes available for future missions. SE Fleet Nothing happened here yet, but I'm not messing around. I've never been able to take Pt. Moresby in any game I've played. I've got 144 IR moving toward Rabaul and 4 ID prepping to load to invade Pt. Moresby. Surface forces headed to support them will be KB, 2 BBs and the 4 Aobas. I do have small invasion forces of small infantry forces and AS heading to Manas, Kavieng and Shortlands Island for starters. SRA I was more aggressive in this game than ever before. Today I invaded the following and will take them all on 8 Dec: Puerto Princessa: Will prevent short range planes in the Philippines from using this base to island hop out. Lingayen: Main landing in the Philippines. 65 Bde, some arty, engineers and 14 Army HQ. Vigan: Small invasion to take the airfield so short range fighters and 1E bombers can be based there. Cabanatuan: Paradrop. I took it in a shock attack today. This cut off the northern half of Luzon, along with a few units that I'll clean up later. Jolo: A couple small infantry units along with some AS and engineers. I'll base Zeros, Betties/Nells & recon here and build it up to a level 4 airfield as soon as possible. Davao: A couple small infantry units along with some AS and engineers. I was concerned with what Mike would do with Boise and Houston, and Marblehead and her attending DDs to a lesser extent. I sent a cover force of CAs Maya and Ashigara, CL Natori along with 4 DDs, just in case. On their way there, the cover force ran into the Scout, Thanet and Thracian high tailing it out of Hong Kong 4 hexes NW of Vigan. They sank two of the DDs and heavily damaged Thanet in the engagement. In return, DD Nagatsuki took a couple of shell hits heavily damaging her at 30-39(21)-56(32)-0. She's limping back to Takao and will make it in 3 days baring any unforeseen events. The cover force and invasion force made it to Jolo and disgorged its troops and a little supply. It turned out Boise ended up 1 hex SW of Jolo, Houston is 2 hexes W of Jolo and the Marblehead TF is about 6 hexes to the west. I'll take Jolo tomorrow, but they don't have much supply. I'm leaving an xAKL to offload supply, but the rest of the cargo ships are running north toward Puerto Princessa until the area can be secured. If I were Mike, I'd send all 3 TFs to Jolo. We'll see what happens. Later in the day, Vals from Kaga sank the Thanet. At first I was upset that Kaga tipped her hand, but that may work to my advantage. Mike probably knows there's at least 1 fleet carrier in the SRA. (No CVL or CVE has Vals right now.) Maybe he'll just run. We'll see. Kaga (and Ryujo, who's trying to catch up) will be in range of Jolo, so sticking around can be hazardous tomorrow. Malaya: I've never been able to successfully invade Mersing, so I went all in for Mersing today. 5 and 18 ID, 2 tank regiments and whatever else I could scrape up went for it and they all landed today. I was REALLY worried about PoW/Repulse going there, so I sent the 2 Kongos, along with 4-5 CAs, 2 CLs and about a dozen DDs as a cover force. I must have tested various configurations a couple dozen times and decided to go with whatever I could get there. I had them all meet the BBs and merge with them. It turned out the Brits all fled south. I'll take Mersing tomorrow and am having the 2 tank regiments, 5 & 18 recon regiments & an infantry regiment in reserve with orders to pursue. I'm not sure the infantry will actually pursue them but the armor will. They'll then attack on the 9th. My troops are about 99% landed, so the landing is a success. Finally, I invaded Singkawang. The troops landed, along with a little supply, but Force Z is in range of them. I'm having the invasion forces flee, leaving an xAKL behind to drop off some supply and be a sacrificial lamb in case Force Z get's frisky. If they do go to Singkawang, I have some Betties just in range of Singkawang to be able to torpedo them. Not likely, but possible. I have other invasion forces headed out, but it'll take awhile for them to reach their destinations. More on that later. Burma Nothing yet. Troops are headed in that direction though. China Troops are headed all over. The only attack was at Pengpu, where a weak Chinese Corps and a Japanese IMB start. The Chinese were easily pushed out with heavy losses. Other Stuff Not much right now. Overall, I'm happy with the results, but things will get more dangerous tomorrow. Mike has a few places where he can disrupt things now that he knows where I'm going. While I didn't sink any US BBs, 6 of the 8 are heavily damaged and the other two took some damage. They're out of the war for awhile. Possibly 3 US DDs have sunk, which is a nice loss of escorts for awhile. KB lost only 2 Kates! That's amazing! Anyway, I want to get this out. I'll talk more about other things later. Edit: I forgot to mention that Mike used his long range Chinese bombers (5x DB3Ms) to hit the oil at Formosa, destroying 6 of 8 fields. Ah well. Such is life. I stationed a chutai of Zeros there in case he tries it again tomorrow.
< Message edited by Mike Solli -- 9/17/2021 1:47:39 AM >
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