kfsgo -> RE: Jumping July (1/14/2012 9:16:12 AM)
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July. 14 [img]http://i.imgur.com/lHe8P.gif[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/xIllw.png[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/lHe8P.gif[/img] First Mk. 14 that's worked for weeks...a 'Tokyo Express' style force is approaching the Tongas. Unsure whether it's picking up or dropping off...we've been giving Vava'u a bit of a pounding recently. TBFs from Niue may attack them if they're still around tomorrow. RAF raid Meiktila again, except tonight instead of bombing a Japanese airfield they blow up a herd of water buffalo. Flak claims six Dinahs today, in addition to two Babs...es. What the hell are they doing, buzzing Fort William? HMS Indomitable is four days out from Cape Town, from where it'll return to the Mediterranean. Formidable, Illustrious and Hermes leave Port Stanley today; the first will go to Cape Town and then on to the Med, the other two to the Indian Ocean. Yorktown (or Hornet?) is out of shipyard and all fixed; the other one should be done by the time everyone's upgrades are finished. Enterprise will go in for upgrades once it gets back from the Line Islands. There is apparently a degree of skepticism in Tokyo about my ability to supply a force up the road from Alice Springs towards Darwin; I guess Aus Armd Div has been noticed moving northwards somehow. I've gone over this elsewhere, but supplying it per se isn't actually a problem at all - LCUs and indeed bases will draw supply that far. The trouble is that it doesn't happen often - LCU supply draw happens once per week, base draw twice. So, a force as small as I'm sending isn't really capable of bulling its way right up to the top end - it'd get pushed away after making an attack. The purpose of it is to draw a Japanese commitment forwards - or at the least to keep the forces currently in place where they are. Those aren't huge - an IJN naval base guard unit and a ton of engineers at Katherine, 4th Div and some unknown bits at Darwin, and probably some worthless dregs at Daly Waters, Fenton etc. The Katherine lot were bombed today by aircraft from Tennant Creek and lost 200 men; that's with most aircraft hitting airfields. Loss rate will increase in a couple of weeks once the infrastructure at Normanton is workable, at which point the Japanese have to either take some decisive action, accept the gradual reduction and eventual destruction of the force there, or leave, none of which are really good options. The danger remains commitment of aircraft carriers to reopen Darwin...but then that's basically a victory in itself, heh. Tennant Creek, out of curiousity, is currently going through about 3500t of supply per week and drawing about 3200t per week forwards, between land movement and air supply. So, it's right on the cusp of being able to sustain the sort of effort I'm putting in at the moment permanently - and that's with more transport aircraft on the way and base construction still ongoing, meaning supply numbers are only going to increase. I hope to be able to get as far as Daly Waters with the force currently committed - the Japanese have been nice enough to build up the infrastructure for us - which taking will make the shutdown of Darwin essentially permanent short of commitment of full-scale carrier forces. China quiet, but we do add two new fairly large infantry corps today. With the Japanese quiet (or, rather, moving), the supply situation isn't absolutely terrible at the moment; we have enough to keep everyone doing what they need to be doing. Chungking will have a radar in a few days, at which point the US China Air Taskforce can gradually start to be a presence. On thinking about it it's clearly a much more profitable job for them than sitting around India doing nothing useful until November...just have to keep supply flow up.
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