kfsgo -> RE: Champ de March (5/28/2011 9:46:25 PM)
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Have been thinking about the stuff above - maybe a little too much, heh. I have only vague, mostly Scen. 2 based ideas of what Japan can commit to stuff from here on out, and I still don't have a good read on what's on Java. So...a clockwise think around theatre: Central and northern Pacific have been quiet as graveyards since the opening stages of the war; a lot of the stuff theoretically headed for NorPac went to India, where it by and large hasn't arrived yet. Hawaii has its 800av garrison; Pearl Harbour has been a sigint target since day one (as has Colombo) but exclusively for units sitting on their arses in Manchuria; 12th Div is reported as prepping for it today, 3rd Manchukuo Cav Bde the day before yesterday, Korea Army HQ the day before that...Colombo similar. Lots of white noise. If I start getting prep reports for Lihue and Lahaina, or Koggalla and Jaffna, I'll worry, but for the moment...nothing. At least Russia won't be getting invaded, I guess? Well...I'd love that. The line of communication between Pearl Harbor and Tahiti basically have garrisons enough that they can stand against the sort of three-men-in-a-boat stuff that Saros has been doing in the Pacific. The air ferry route for fighters between Xmas and Tahiti should be open in a couple of weeks or so, once the Penrhyn Island airfield opens. From there on the missing links are Eiao off Tonga and Raoul Island off NZ; after that I can fly just about anything in to theatre. Tahiti is the main hub and is hosting a lot of Marines; it should stand against just about anything (having been about the only place in the Pacific to receive reinforcements until not long ago) though the garrison skews very heavily towards support troops. Lots of fuel and supply, though not so much of the former that I feel able to let the USN run about off leash. I wouldn't do Noumea without carriers local; the monsoon breaking in Burma isn't until the autumn! It may be more sensible to bypass the place and go for Port Moresby and then overland, anyway; the first 'proper' USAAF recon squadron will be arriving in theatre in a few days, so I will be able to define things down here better after they've had a couple of weeks to ferret around. All depends on fighters along the coast, really; the RAAF is still picking itself up to a certain extent. Don't know what the IJA have down here; 2nd Div of course was on Fiji, shedloads of naval base guard units, the couple of solid Rgts involved in Norfolk Island...there's probably about 1200av or so split between New Cal and Fiji, though I'm not sure how. Probably completing the air route across the Pacific will be the first serious op down here, but again until the recon aircraft have had a poke I can't say what that'll take. Australia is...I dunno. The NE coast is takeable, in theory; I made a big show of garrisoning Townsville and Cairns heavily from the beginning, and except the occasional Mavis over TV there's been no obvious interest in the place. I still own Horn Island, though the garrison was essentially wiped out by aircraft flying from Rabaul. What I don't have here is shipping - there are several dozen AKLs dispersed along the south coast, but no escorts for them and there are dozens of Japanese submarines in the area, so they're just running supplies from Adelaide to southern NZ at the moment. That's a situation that can change depending on where the carriers go from their DEI visit, but it's the current one. Not too concerned about Port Hedland, Exmouth etc as they can be retaken overland if absolutely necessary. DEI; 1050av at Batavia, 100 in the Cocos Islands and that's really about it at this point. Tjilatjap will likely fall in a few days, Bandung in a few after that, and then there's just Bv and Merak. Troops on Sumatra are beyond resistance at this point; I'll try to get any of them that reach the coast out to the Cocos, but that may not amount to much. India; Trinco, Koggala and Colombo are held reasonably strongly, with about 600av in total; most of the Dutch troops from nothern Sumatra were lifted out here so they make up a fair proportion of the defenders, notably with some decent CD guns for Koggala. Jaffna is not held heavily and is the risk point for any invasion; no suggestions the Japanese are aware of that, and it's getting a little close to April for them to be doing stuff on a whim, but still...Ceylon is only really useful insofar as I have naval parity in the Indian Ocean; it's a bit exposed otherwise and in that situation I'd rather keep the fleet at Bombay, Aden or Mombasa. Mainland India hosts about 2750-3750av depending on whether you count Aus Corps, currently at Kalemyo on the Burmese border; Americal div will hit Bombay in a couple of days, bringing that up somewhat. Of course, the catch here is that they're not all mobile - lots of tied-down garrisons and base forces. Will be much better in a month, with three Brit Bdes and another fullish-strength Indian Div. There is an American Div and full spectrum of support units at Cape Town but I don't have the politicks to release them, so they're not going anywhere for a while. Burma holds 1700av on the western axis and 800 on the Chinese border. Think I've covered this bit enough! China is a trainwreck, which is natural enough. The big offensive towards Xi'an petered out for whatever reason, so the risk is likely in the south; I still haven't seen any of the troops removed from theatre for Luzon back here, but if and when they do I'm sure they'll make an engaging impression on the locals. I feel as though I'm now overconcentrated in the north; about half the Japanese forces up here seem to have departed, and of course they can be wherever they're going in a few days rather than the months it takes me to get anyone out of the place. I'm reasonably sure Changsha is the ultimate target, but the details are still resolving themselves. ####### The next few weeks and maybe even months are going to be pretty slow; I have 5-6 weeks of field mapping to do out in the middle of nowhere and may be doing further work up in the area, so I'll be away from home a lot. That said... Mar. 17 RO-33 sinks the trawler at Chittagong. I should probably stop mentioning individual ships; they seem to get blown up whenever I do. Yet another day of submarine mining here, in any case. Another good day for the ML-KNIL; five more Sallies go down to two Hurricanes over Batavia, while an offensive raid - still using 24 of the old Martins - on Palembang makes it through unbothered and plants 12 bombs on oil wells. I took a gamble on this one - the airfield here has been wrecked for months and I didn't think the Japanese would be able to get it functional by today; that seems to have been correct, as it's still showing 60 runway damage. I don't think Saros is aware of that particular restriction as he's apparently a little bitter about the laziness of the Oscar group based there. Damage inflicted wasn't all that heavy, but it's not nothing. One fighter group in the Cocos has switched over to P-40s; there may be a non-Dutch unit that uses the airframes, which would probably be a better use of them, but I can't find it if there is. There are now 10 reported units at Toungoo, up from 1 yesterday; troop count has exploded, while Rangoon's has also increased. Something's about to happen, in any case, and it seems a couple of weeks won't be enough; Aus Corps wouldn't be there for at least (if I'm doing my math right) 16 days, and the Japanese can probably have the place surrounded in 10; I know there are a few tank regiments committed, and Saros has already demonstrated being a big fan of using tanks to take a forward position and railing in everyone else a day later. Dither, dither...I think I will bollocks the Shwebo idea and move everyone up to Katha; this was always the engineering centre for Burma so I can probably support the stuff here with just it and Myitkyina, and it's not hugely harder to get to than Shwebo. Giving away a supply centre hurts, but the airfield construction does mean that I can keep the places closed for longer. Not much of an upside, but... No air raids in China today, except that the IJAAF in Burma chose to attack troops at Lashio rather than anywhere defended (in the air, that is). They didn't make much of an impression, and three Oscars seem to have gone missing in the process. There's more, but I'm kinda tired after writing all that. Too much to do...
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