Gen.Hoepner
Posts: 3645
Joined: 9/4/2001 From: italy Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: String P-38's arrive in October or November. You also have to assume atleast a month to gather airframes for the first 72 squadron upgrade and enough time to repair it though he could go with the smaller 24 squadrons but it wouldn't be worht it. Common sense also dictates a nice reserve and atleast 100 P-38's operational before any offensive missions to achieve an instant success. This gives the operational date of december 1942 at best. Thanks String: this info is very valuable and usefull. For December 42 i should already have filled my front line fighters with Tonies and Tojos and some Zero Daitais should have been trained back to 70/75 exp levels. For the moment i haven't seen any p-39 or p-400 in the Burma/India area, so i assume that he will have to bring those planes there by ships through the Indian Ocean if he wants to use p-38s in the Burma/China plane-grinder. My Glen-equipped subs and my Mavis/Emiles keep on patrolling the western ocean, so that to spot any TF that sails from Oz to India and vice versa. Now that the allied Daily adventure has been neutralized i bet he will concentrate on PM and NG. He will probably start to build Cooktown to level 5> AF, so to use his 4Es to bomb PM and Mylne bay ( gili gili ) back to stoneage. Then I assume he will go for Thursday Island in order to provide a close base for any future jump in NG from Oz. He will surely use a big fast transport to move troops first to Mylne bay and conquer it ( it's lightly defended and not built up at all-still a beach) and he will probably limit himself( for the moment) to neutralize PM and concentrate on Gili gili. If these assumptions are corretc my plan will be the following: Let him bomb PM and save fragments of each important unit( CD,AA,Base force and SNLFs) using Subs or Mavis-L transport float planes and keep an intact air fleet at Rabaul and Bouganville( i consider 4 experienced zero daitais, 2 highly experienced Tony Sentais and 5 Nells/Betties sentais along with 3 Emilies Chutais enough to mantain a costant threat on his transport fleet). When the PM bombing campaign will start i'll move towards Rabaul my combined fleet ( probably for that date 5 BBs 6 CVs and 3 CVL/CVEs) and i'll start to move the 17th Army ( 2 divs+2 Bdes) towards Rabaul, in order to be ready to counterland at Gili Gili in a very short time. The other very probable scenario( and surely closer speaking of timing) will be his landing at Port Blair. As i said before, he's committing some MSWs, in fast transport role, to sweep my mines there at night, moving from Diamond Harbour. Considering that the 2nd UK division and most of the forces he used for the former Burma invasion of last month are now back at Akyab and Imphal i can assume he's gonna use some of these forces to land and estabilish at Port Blair, in order to theaten Malaya and Sumatra. My plan to oppose to this scenario is the following: The 15th and 25th Army ( 4 divisions,1 Mix Rgt, 1 Bde, 2 tank rgts,2 arty units) will be redeploying in the following order: -1 Division+1 Rgt + 1 arty +1 tankat Rangoon -1 Bde at Mouleim -1 Division+1 arty+1 tank at Mandalay - 1 division divided in 3 regiments will stay at Magwe and on the crossroads from Rangoon to Mandalay -1 Division at Bankok While the rest of the units will remain in Burma, the division garrisoning Bankok will be ready to be loaded on transports. At the same time my 2nd army is ready at Sosarbaja( 2 divisions,2 Naval Guard units, 2 Tank rgts and one Bde). 120 transports are already present at Sosarbaja and if and when his minesweeping activities will grow and his bombings from Akyab will start( quite sure of that), the 2nd Army will be loaded on transports and will be moving towards the western coast of Sumatra. At the same time 3 CVs+2 BBs+1 CVE+ several more CAs/DDs will move from Manila towards Singapore to join the Singapore fleet ( 2nd fleet HQ i guess) composed by 1 CV,2CVLs,2CVEs, 2 BBs,4 CAs, 5 CLs and something like 60 DDs. 2 CV TFs will be formed and will move south, passing between Java and Sumatra in order to get on the Indian Ocean. A strong Surface/Bombarment TF will be based at GeorgeTown. The key is to be ready to counterland with 3 divisions exactly the first day after his first landing, before he can build up any forts or expand the AF Bankok,Georgetown,Sebang and Tavoy and Victoria Point( all level 4 AF) will provide zero/betties land based support. I do not know if he will dare to engengage the RN. Without the american carriers the birtish CV aren't probably enough to face 300 japanese carrier trained planes(....uhm....well...maybe yes...so i'll give order to the Shokaku which is still repairing at Tokyo after her upgrades to join the Singapore Fleet). His 4Es from Akyab will be a problem, but i hope and guess that 150 zeros on CAP will be enough to stop them. However...base forces are comming from Tokyo in order to have enough support at each single base ( named before) to support at least 2 Zero daitais and 1 Betty daitai each. The key is to act fast and hit strong, catching him by surprise. BTW i've sent some MSWs to Port Blair, in order to clear his sub mines and start back the mining ops ( 1600 mines already present) What d'u think?
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