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kfsgo -> RE: Idas of May (9/24/2011 1:40:27 PM)
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May. 26
It's interesting - yesterday Saros was wittering on about how silly it is to fight over his bases (meaning Norfolk Island) since his pilots tend to survive it; today he decided to put a wave of fighters up over Madurai, which provides rather the reverse in terms of results but at about 20 times the scale. The IJ Army and Navy don't seem to get on; 23 Zeros showed up first and got completely demolished, while about 50 Oscars appeared later and must have caught a lot of aircraft coming up on their second mission, as they got a lot of diving in, though they seemed to shoot down about the same number of aircraft each. We managed about 1.25:1 in the air, which is ok - the AVG and a couple of Brit Sqns left just a couple of days ago to spend some time around the China-Burma area, so the squadrons involved today were not exactly the cream of the USAAF or RAF.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/9KU3U.png[/img]
We also had a night raid over Chungking by about 60 Japanese aircraft, which got a couple of Chinese fighters on the ground; continuing our 'tit for tat' policy on that sort of thing, the B-17 force in India will visit Colombo tonight. I have mostly been avoiding flying the heavies at night - seems a bit silly, really - but I'm sure they can manage doing it occasionally.
Fundamentally what I need here is mass - at the moment fighters are split about 50-50 between Madurai and Trichinopoly and by necessity don't have too much to do with each others' fights; Madurai should reach AF9 in about a week, however, at which point we can concentrate there.
The other interesting entry on that list are the Tinas; the number of troops on Norfolk Island - we hit the airfield hard today, all the groups condescending to fly - has dropped sharply and the airgroups also appear to have left, so I presume they're being flown out. Unfortunately it's just one hex too far for P-38 LRcap, so I can't interfere. I have to say I didn't think it'd get abandoned that readily - still, saves me the effort of bombing it, I suppose. If it seems to be totally empty I'll pop a squad on a submarine and go raise someone's flag...not much value in building the place up at the moment, but it'd be nice to know Japanese aircraft won't be staging out of it.
A battleship force is approaching the Cocos; bombardment, presumably. A large radio contact is following behind it; I expect this is the Unyo and escorts. A bit unnecessary - Cocos is only an AF1, so it's not like I can do anything other than sit and take whatever comes.
May. 27
Ok, so - two lessons from today. The first is that the Japanese have obviously been thinking about the Cocos as much as I have; the bombardment force was more of a naval sweep, with BBs Kongo and Haruna clearing the seas of the five torpedo-less PT boats that have spent the last week rowing from Batavia. The second is that, although they have been thinking about them, they didn't quite think hard enough:
(or, an alternative title - "How not to do atoll invasions")
quote:
Amphibious Assault at Cocos Islands (33,101)
TF 128 troops unloading over beach at Cocos Islands, 33,101
Japanese ground losses:
357 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 35 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 20 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 3 (0 destroyed, 3 disabled)
10 Support troops lost overboard during unload of Yokosuka 4th SNLF /5
17 troops of a IJA Infantry Squad accidentally lost during unload of 4th Ind.Mixed Rgt
10 Support troops lost in surf during unload of 65th Bde /6
#
Ground combat at Cocos Islands (33,101)
Allied Bombardment attack
Attacking force 2327 troops, 24 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 174
Defending force 4435 troops, 44 guns, 2 vehicles, Assault Value = 182
Japanese ground losses:
1573 casualties reported
Squads: 74 destroyed, 25 disabled
Non Combat: 5 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 19 (14 destroyed, 5 disabled)
Units destroyed 1
#
Ground combat at Cocos Islands (33,101)
Japanese Shock attack
Attacking force 3225 troops, 31 guns, 2 vehicles, Assault Value = 108
Defending force 5626 troops, 36 guns, 21 vehicles, Assault Value = 174
Japanese adjusted assault: 0
Allied adjusted defense: 78
Japanese assault odds: 1 to 99 (fort level 3)
Combat modifiers
Defender: forts(+), preparation(-), experience(-)
Attacker: shock(+), disruption(-), fatigue(-), supply(-)
Japanese ground losses:
2421 casualties reported
Squads: 99 destroyed, 13 disabled
Non Combat: 18 destroyed, 31 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 29 (24 destroyed, 5 disabled)
Vehicles lost 2 (2 destroyed, 0 disabled)
No recon, no bombardment, no bombing, nothing; just park freighters offshore in the evening and dive straight into an assault. I suppose this must be what the Midway invasion would've looked like?
I'm not sure what happens next; presumably the battleships bombard while the merchants scuttle back to Java. I suppose they could try the assault all over again in the morning, but I wonder at the sense of it...guess we'll find out soon enough.
Elsewhere: CL Nashville departs Pearl Harbor for Midway; it'll refuel there, then go do some snooping around the mid-Pacific.
The USN carriers have picked up their full load of new aircraft; Enterprise and Hornet still have TBDs, but otherwise everyone's on F4F/SBD-3/TBF now. I even have some left over! Destination is Wellington, where they'll meet the rest of the Pacific Fleet and 40,000t of fuel. From there, we can go to Nouméa, or Fiji, or nowhere.
The first engineer group has reached Pago Pago; about half a dozen ships will bring in their heavy equipment and some extra supplies over the next few days. The Japanese battleships are still sitting at Fiji; I guess New Caledonia must just have gotten a bit samey.
No raid on Colombo - I think the catch must be that bombers on night missions can't fly them the day they fly into a new airfield, because that never seems to work. No bombers reported on Ceylon, though, so we'll try for tonight.
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