Attack Condor
Posts: 425
Joined: 12/27/2002
From: Chicago
Status: offline
|
December 20, 1942
Weather: Overcast
Quark starts his ground offensive at TV today. His engineers reduce the fort level to 8, mine get busy rebuilding it. The 18th SeaBees are loading in RH to FT into TV to add their know-how and bulldozers to the cause.
Sub attacks not bearing fruit, yet. They will.
No night attacks out of RH – don’t know what’s up there, and don’t care. They’ve been reset to fly in the daytime, targeting the ports at Cairns. Meanwhile, at Cairns, Quark has FT’d 2 more ENG units to the base, no doubt trying as best he can to get some of his aircraft out of there. Cairns information at last report: 60 Airfield damage, 52 Port damage, 107 fighters, 101 auxiliary aircraft, 3 ENG units, 1 INF unit.
The TV attack against Cairns flew yesterday, but not the CT missions. I suspect they couldn’t get off the ground with all the C-47 traffic bringing in the 163rd BF. Only one C-47 squadron from Brisbane is still scheduled into CT, bringing in the 30 remaining engineers, as the other 6 recover from the 50+ fatigue they amassed from the one mission. With the C-47s out of the way then, the bombers should again fly. They did recover during the day, and almost all of the CT bombers are 70+ in morale, with fatigue in the teens. CT base damage down to 10.
At TV, 2 FB squadrons assigned to close air support against Quark’s invaders, with one P-40E [I]Warhawk[/I] squadron flying escort at 1000, and one P-38 [I]Lightning[/I] flying escort at 20000. I’ve also dispatched the second P-38 to escort the bombers into Cairns (all bombers back down to 6000 feet) in case Quark gets froggy and decides to LRCAP Cairns.
In the Solomons, Kourouratopo has now accepted a Marine F4F-4 squadron for air cover, releasing the P-39 and P-38 that had been flying LRCAP over the cargo ships. Almost the entire 41st division is on the ground, amazingly, without incident.
More B-17s transfer from EPV to RH (15 IIRC) to help with the destruction of Quark’s forces on Cairns. Two Navy SBD squadrons are now en route to RH as well, via my stopover CVEs. Two Navy fighter squadrons now at Noumea, waiting their turn to fly west to Oz.
The decision to suspend Naval Attacks has helped clear almost 20 damaged aircraft from TV, either by repairing or transferring to bases east. With the arrival of the 2 SBDs at RH, I project in about 3 days, I’ll have 3 SBD squadrons at TV, 2 TBF squadrons, and rested fighters for escort. I’m also going to fly the third P-38 to TV from LV. Then we’ll see about his ships.
[I]North Carolina[/I] and her group (1 CA, 2 CL, 4 DD) has fueled at RH and heads for a position inside the Reef allowing them to threaten Quark’s forces at TV. Quark has more BBs north of TV, ([I]Yamato[/I] among them, I suspect), but I want my battleship ready to escort the DD FT TF with the SeaBees into TV (and maybe cause some mayhem along the way).
Next up on the agenda is the movement of the 6th Aussie from Brissy to CT. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather.
Yesterday’s report:
[I] AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 12/19/42
Weather: Thunderstorms
Sub attack at 10,61
Allied Ships
SS Greenling
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Townsville at 10,62
Japanese Ships
CL Jintsu
DD Harusame
DD Hatsuharu
Allied Ships
SS S-38
[B] Hatsuharu actually got a d/c attack off that was too close for comfort. Quark’s ASW is improving.[/B]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sub attack near Gili Gili at 17,42
Japanese Ships
DD Arashi
Allied Ships
SS Grayback
[B]Time for Grayback to leave. She heads for deep water in the shipping lane 60 miles SW of GG – hopefully to intercept Quark’s ships returning for fuel and ammunition.[/B]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Cairns , at 7,56
Allied aircraft
A-20B Boston x 16
B-26B Marauder x 42
B-17E Fortress x 12
no losses
Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 5
Port hits 6
Port fuel hits 1
Port supply hits 1
Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x A-20B Boston at 20000 feet
6 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 20000 feet
3 x A-20B Boston at 20000 feet
6 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
5 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 20000 feet
3 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 20000 feet
3 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
3 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
9 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
3 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
1 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
3 x B-26B Marauder at 20000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 20000 feet
4 x A-20B Boston at 20000 feet
6 x A-20B Boston at 20000 feet
[B]These bombers will rest next turn, while the bombers from CT keep the pressure on Cairns.[/B]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at Townsville
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 78910 troops, 892 guns, 96 vehicles
Defending force 44690 troops, 231 guns, 220 vehicles
Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 8
Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 8)
Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 460
Guns lost 2
Allied ground losses:
Men lost 249
[B]Quark can’t like the odds here, about 10000 short for his 2-1; and he starts off with losing twice as many troops on the first attack. He’ll need to try and get more troops in.[/B]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at Townsville
Allied Bombardment attack
Attacking force 26541 troops, 215 guns, 144 vehicles
Defending force 85500 troops, 916 guns, 96 vehicles
Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 11
[B]Every little bit helps, although the guns will concentrate on defense now.[/B]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/I]
More to come…
_____________________________
"Shouldn't we be leading the shark into shore...instead him leading us out to sea?"
|
Printable Version
- 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread