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FatR -> RE: Ocean of Blood. FatR (J) vs. yubari (A) - no yubari, please. (2/6/2011 7:24:59 PM)
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September 2-8, 1942
The Failure of Air Campaign Against Andamans: Long story short, I don't have nearly enough bombers to inflict significant damage on both main Allied airfields in one day (heavy flak presence that forces my bombers to 25k complicates things), Allied plane losses on ground are dropped to miniscule proportions now, possibly due to removal of group overstacking, and even against weak returning CAP my losses skyrocket every time I try to send bombers - mainly losses among escorting airgroups. Night bombing is nothing more than nuisance, even though large formations of Sallies and Helens - on relatively rare days when any night attackers sortie - can pretty much ignore older Allied fighters that fly night CAP there.
Considering that from September on Allied airforce will become progressively stronger, there is not much point in continuing. I'll only bleed myself. This also means that my attritional approach entirely failed, and I should have just parked carriers between Andamans and Ceilon to prevent any resupply from the beginning.
In better news, I forgot one more division prepared for Port Blair. Overall I have 12th, 21th, 33rd, 55th, 56th, 40th Brigade, a couple of engineer and arty units. Well, this seems more promising. Allies seem to have much less troops at Port Blair than at Little Andaman, and Indian troops or 1st Burma Division should inferior to US forces. Not enough AKs to lift them all at once, though. All Japanese battleships but Fuso and Hyuga are present at the theatre, so I can but a bunch of heavy hitters in the invasion force itself. All CVs from the Big Six, except Zuikaku, plus Zuiho are available for cover. I'm mainly waiting for repairs on Hiryu to finish, preparation is near 100% for all of the core units.
Hopefully, this will force some reaction out of my opponent. The wisest thing for him will be to turtle and to trust in terrain and fortifications, but while Yubari almost certainly would take such course of action, I doubt that bigred will be similarly prudent.
On The Other Side of the Pacific: The invasion force has sailed for Umnak Island. Three divisions might be an overkill, but I've learned to dread the defensive power of US forces in good terrain during the Hawaian campaign. Unfortunately, I committed another oversight, not properly reconning bases past Umnak. I could have parceled some forces for them. Now, if they gave strong garrizons, I might be forced to invade with underprepared troops, to take them before the start of winter in November. I'm moving a Dinah unit to Adak, to rectify this mistake.
Alternatively, I might pull away from the region just before winter and be satisfied with destruction of the modest amount of Allied troops, ships and planes, in return for a couple of Japanese xAKs and auxilaries sunk in the campaign. This will mean leaving Allies built-up Adak. But it's not like this will be meaningful, considering their construction capabilities by the time the invasion through Aleutians will be a possibility. On the negative side, this will significantly increase Allied sub threat, this is the main argument against for me. On the positive side, less extended and more logistically sound perimeter. In fact, it's logistical difficulties, primarily fuel expenditure, that made me rather disenchanted about the idea of extending the perimeter to Aleutians and Hawaii. If not for the hope of taking Pearl, that Allies won't be able to relieve for many more months now, in early 1943, after the defenders are out of supply, and destroying a ton of units there, I would have pulled the forces to the "standard" perimeter by now.
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