RE: August Alert (Full Version)

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derp -> RE: August Alert (2/19/2012 8:12:35 AM)

August. 7

Well, not much of a day - Tennant Creek bombers were rained off yet again, and the Daly lot were all completely uncoordinated, so they trickled into Darwin and hit nothing useful. C'est la vie...we will have enough aviation support in place by tomorrow to keep everything at Daly running. Yet more Manchurian AA units are at sea, now headed for Darwin - there are as far as I'm aware no real combat troops there, just a naval infantry batallion or two and 18,000 cooks and engineers.

Am going to stage SEAC bomber squadrons into Changsha - whose airfield has just expanded sufficiently to hold them - for a day to hit shipping at Shanghai. We're up to 50 ships (merchants, tankers etc) in port with no fighters reported...there probably will be a few trickling in, but there seems to be essentially no AA etc. Ici the danger of stripping the back field bare should present itself. Can't keep them at CS as supply situation won't permit it, but they'll be ok for a day. Is a bit of a risk - half the force is Hudsons and the Wellingtons will be flying in daylight for the first time in the campaign - but would be criminal not to take a shot.



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/22/2012 7:52:04 AM)

August. 8

USS Sturgeon misses a torpedo on Akagi Maru off the New Hebrides. I guess the one two days ago didn't do much...

Darwin nearly rained off; as it is, thunderstorms mean we hit essentially nothing. Shanghai raid rained off completely. Very disappointing; forecast yesterday was good. We do get two freighters off Darwin; Tyuwa Maru is bombed by a B-17, Kasuga Maru a torpedo from HNLMS K-12.



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/22/2012 11:26:30 AM)

August. 9

Quiet day. A few Japanese navy bombers show over Daly Waters overnight; the airfield's very crowded, but that can't be helped - losses are only a couple of Hudsons, anyway. Fortunately there's essentially no moonlight at the moment. We now have the airportable component of three construction regiments here, along with most of two aviation base forces; the heavy equipment - AA guns, artillery etc - is 15-30 days away. Can't supply much more than is here already, in any case - it's a minor miracle that I've been able to do as much as I have. Note to any budding users of the overland track - stockpile supplies at airfields so units get their own; supply's impossible if you don't, but it does just about work if you do.

The only real activity on the ground was a Japanese landing at...Batan Island. Funny how that goes just a few days after I mention it, after being completely ignored for nine months. I do suspect tomorrow may be busy - the bomber force in China is up to 180 aircraft at Wuhan.

One thing that I didn't mention yesterday was that a submarine off Borneo picked up a large Japanese shipping movement - over two dozen 18kt large army transports, heading ENE from Singapore. If I were a suspicious sort of person I might wonder whether they've got cold weather gear on board...



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/23/2012 9:09:25 AM)

August. 10

Nowt much. Darwin wet, everywhere else dull. The first group of USN transports departs Cape Town for Australia; I'm unsure at this point which of the potential options for Australian operations I will be going forward with (Port Hedland & Broome, Moresby & Milne) except that in principle whatever happens should happen around the beginning of October. Reasoning...

Hornet (or Yorktown? whichever the more damaged one was) is still in dock at Pearl Harbour - a bunch of ships took upgrades without me noticing and completely messed up the repair schedule. It'll be out in a couple more days; at this point we might as well wait for Washington and South Dakota which are due shortly. Added to that there may be a need or opportunity for a force up in the Aleutians; I'm hopeful that situation will resolve itself one way or another in the next 3-4 weeks.

Port Hedland is barely garrisoned and can probably be taken by the armoured car regiment tasked with tootling around the desert. Broome is a minor Japanese base at present but I haven't gotten around to actually sending a recon plane over for a while - need to remember to do that at some point. Sufficient force is available for this side of Australia but not bought out; running it would delay Burma by a couple of weeks.

As far as the other side, Japanese are making efforts to build up Buna, NE New Guinea, New Britain etc but have left Milne, Moresby, Horn Island, Merauke alone. Reasoning obvious. Fundamentally I don't give a tiny little mouse turd about New Guinea per se - I have no intention of going up the Pacific route to Japan so they're more than welcome to waste time and energy building - but I will need a shipping pathway to Darwin at some point and could use a troop commitment away from Singapore (which seems to be 'Japanese HQ') to ease things along in Burma. So, I unfortunately need to put myself into an intentionally precarious situation here. Recon aircraft in Australia have their hands full keeping tabs on Darwin; another recon squadron is a week out from Melbourne, at which point I can start actually looking at NG etc. Don't think there should be much difficulty in taking Horn Island given it's an isolated atoll and can be cleared by air if necessary; New Guinea bases are more questionable, so the decision will have to wait until I can get recon going properly. Most of all, though, I can't do much until October as it's only then that Wildcats get droptanks fitted to allow me to fly them between Niue and New Zealand, heh. Incidentally, the Japanese at Vava'u are now up to 15,000 troops - given that Niue is just a transit stop for aircraft I couldn't be happier.

As things stand, I'm looking at opening things in Burma around late October; I would like to get straight to Rangoon but whether or not that is viable will depend on the Japanese response. If it's the same as in Australia - ie "hide behind the engineers and scuttle away like a frightened mouse" we may be able to do that, but I'm not holding my breath. Should be able to get as far as Mandalay, though, and that's nearly as good...ultimately this is all meant to keep China on the boil, without which there would be real problems.



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/24/2012 2:09:48 AM)

August. 11

I may have been a little bit bored today:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/jcysg.png[/img]

God, imagine the chaos...

No major actions. Darwin bombed; Australian corvettes damage a Japanese submarine off Brisbane. USS Seadragon sinks a minesweeper escorting another fast convoy in the South China Sea - again military transports and large passenger ships. No direction details given - seems like the sort of thing that a submarine shooting torpedoes at a ship would notice...

First of the major fuel convoys makes port in Australia; at the moment I have about 300kt of fuel in the area, between mainland Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, with the same again at sea headed that way and 400kt at Cape Town awaiting shipping. Should be enough to keep things moving for a while...



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/24/2012 11:20:29 AM)

August. 12

I think someone's annoyed about Darwin. Today sees 98 Japanese fighters over the place; 32 Zero and 32 Rufe from carriers north of Melville Island, and 29 Oscar and 5 Zero from Timor or Babar. Naturally none of ours condescend to get involved. Given the lack of a radar at Darwin and the distance they're flying the Japanese are not as effective as they might be - we lose something like a dozen bombers - mostly B-25 - for 8-10 fighters. For some reason none of the USMC Buffalos at Daly Waters will escort them - they've been meant to every day since we took the place but haven't flown a single mission. Very odd - they are in range. Anyway, everything from Tennant Creek will continue as normal - no sense letting up now - while 'a few' aircraft from Daly Waters, having flown in from the mainland, will take a shot at the carriers tomorrow. Assuming they haven't high-tailed it home, anyway. Will put another dent in supplies...won't be able to do it again for a week or so, I think. I did turn stockpiling at Tennant Creek off, so with the extra fort levels at Daly Waters and it being able to draw supply from TC we're actually not doing too badly up here, though it's obviously not an ideal situation.

Dull elsewhere; USS Whale sinks a subchaser off Sakhalin for the only naval action of the day.



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/25/2012 5:50:31 AM)

August. 13

Japanese aircraft raid Pago Pago; 85 long-range Nells show up in the morning without fighter cover, losing eight aircraft to a 4-plane USMC fighter flight. Damage on the ground is minimal, just two Kingfishers - there's a USMC dive-bomber squadron local but they're all out on naval search in the daytime so they ain't on the ground to get hit. Some Japanese fighters appear later, but our aircraft are pretty much tired out by then so don't get involved with them.

Aircraft operations from Daly Waters don't amount to much - a TBF squadron bombs merchant Tamashima Maru to paste, and some Catalinas and Marauders unenthusiastically try to bomb the Japanese carrier force - Hosho, Taiyo, Chuyo - but despite complete absence of fighters (seriously, not one) they don't hit anything. Not a surprise - none of the pilots involved have any idea what a ship looks like, being trained for land bombing (or torpedos, in the case of the Catalinas, but we don't have any up here yet...) - they were just flying as distractions. Unfortunately the Japanese are just outside of SBD range from Daly Waters, and those were always going to be the main operators as far as shipping strikes. So, not a great success, but as our only loss for the day here was one TBF crashed on landing, it could've gone a lot worse. The force will now head back down to Normanton to resume supply flights...today's missions used 700t of supplies and there's no sense starving the locals while they're trying to improve the airfield. That job is going fairly quickly...we should have an L4 in 2-3 days and an L5 maybe by the end of the month. Given that in about a week the Australian AA units will arrive, it may be practical to move on Katherine then. We'll see...Japanese AA units continue to arrive at Darwin, which is now up to 19 LCUs and 220 AA guns. Still no combat troops.

Down in Melbourne, a large convoy is unloading - five USN construction batallions, two AA regiments, a USAAF base force and three tank batallions. Three new fighter squadrons also arrive - two RAAF and one RAF. All bring a pair of Spitfires; I've put the RAF on Hurricanes and the RAAF on Kittyhawks. Think the Australians will have to hang back and train a crop of pilots - there's only about a dozen competent ones in reserve, the fundamental problem being that you can't train fighter pilots with Wirraways - but the Brits can head up north. We won't get any more Spits until October, which makes the delivery of six a bit irritating, really. Another two USAAF squadrons are making their way from Hawaii to participate in whatever ends up ending up in Australia in the near future, and two FAA squadrons will arrive Perth in two days.

China quiet, except that the Japanese are now up to 200 bombers at Hankow. Their purpose is a mystery, since they haven't been flying...



Crackaces -> RE: August Alert (2/25/2012 2:33:05 PM)

I am following this thread with much interest. In my game, I have waited until Tennant Creek is a level 6 airbase before moving forces south. Now, I am quite enthused that you are operating out of Daly Waters. That means that eventually enough supply will get there through Tennant Creek. [8D] I have the entire I AUS Corps headed to Daly Waters which I think will produce different supply demands but still your game is showing it can be done given the right force composition.

I mention this because I think IJ players have not yet come to your testing and discovery of the supply logic in the game. I feel evidenced by your adversary not reinforcing Darwin or opposing your operations significantly. Anyway, your game has influenced my strategy tremendously, and on multiple levels. ..[;)] I lurk this thread to understand how to best leverage my opponent's foray into Northern Oz ..

Back to the war ...



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/25/2012 10:47:55 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

I am following this thread with much interest. In my game, I have waited until Tennant Creek is a level 6 airbase before moving forces north (!). Now, I am quite enthused that you are operating out of Daly Waters. That means that eventually enough supply will get there through Tennant Creek. [8D] I have the entire I AUS Corps headed to Daly Waters which I think will produce different supply demands but still your game is showing it can be done given the right force composition.



Tennant Creek is an L6 at the moment here (should hit 7 tomorrow or the day after) but also has L4 forts. So, there's that, and there's the fact that there are basically no combat troops there - just an infantry batallion and the aviation units. I've always kept the combat units behind the base with supply stockpiling on to force them to draw supplies from Alice Springs. If you don't do that...you can't operate.

On top of that, most of the RAAF and several USAAF bomber and USN patrol squadrons have been flying in supplies to Tennant; Wirraways can reach the place from Alice Springs, and several large squadrons at 1t/aircraft/day...it adds up. Even at that I'm only just able to keep things on an even keel (and forget having a surplus - bear in mind P-38s can actually reach Darwin from Tennant - except they can't, because there's never enough supply for them to use drop tanks) and have had to send several bomber squadrons south to enable me to turn stockpiling at Tennant off - which, of course, is necessary to get supply to move to Daly more than twice a week, but does have the effect of reducing the strength of operations over Darwin and so increasing their risk.

Note also that as earlier I've pulled most combat units out of Daly Waters, 1 hex to the south - I think they're actually drawing supplies from Tennant Creek at the moment. The force is entirely motor/mech units - they have a much lighter supply impact than the equivalent raw combat power in infantry units due to almost complete absence of artillery, engineers etc & smaller support base. Supply-wise I don't think it'd work with much more of a force than this. Of course, the catch is that it's actually not as potent a fighting force as it looks...but it looks bloody impressive, so conceptually that won't have to become evident until quite late. I have no confidence that they would actually be able to take Darwin, but if I can make it as far as Fenton - and I think I probably can eventually - that's basically game over for any shipping into Darwin.

Also - neither of the operations out of Daly Waters so far would have been possible if the Japanese hadn't left a fair amount of stuff there. So, uh, be wary of drawing too many conclusions as to your ability to do the same things. Still, a defensive fighter force on its own is pretty cheap on supply.

quote:

I mention this because I think IJ players have not yet come to your testing and discovery of the supply logic in the game. I feel evidenced by your adversary not reinforcing Darwin or opposing your operations significantly. Anyway, your game has influenced my strategy tremendously, and on multiple levels. ..[;)] I lurk this thread to understand how to best leverage my opponent's foray into Northern Oz ..

Back to the war ...


Saros definitely doesn't have a good handle on supply movement. Realistically it matters less for the Japanese - they'll always be operating on the right side of the railway network in these situations. Where they get the trains from is an open question, heh. This is actually most evident in China - the IJA is completely married to the road system and won't operate across country. This suits me fine, since it's allowed me to bulk up some key points safe in the knowledge that I can reinforce laterally in good time, but the Japanese could create a real crisis by attempting to.

For all that I grumble about the combat units at Darwin abandoning the engineers and AA units, it's actually a very sensible course of action (purely in game terms) - after all, there's no huge army bearing down on the place at 30 miles a day, just lots of bombing; doing this reduces the supply and so shipping load at Darwin, and if combat units are needed they can be introduced quickly at the appropriate time as long as the Japanese retain the ability to operate shipping, which they still do at the moment - Daly Waters is still a bit far to actually catch ships before they unload anyway, and there's always the carriers to cover stuff. They'll lose a few empties, but...

Finally, a single bombing raid on Tennant Creek on a bad weather day would have created enormous problems for me - my aircraft losses over Darwin have been exceptionally light, considering the situation they've been operating in (long range, opposed, no escorts), but the airfield at TC is massively overstacked due to heavy bombers and the absence of an air HQ. An escorted raid could easily have been launched from Daly Waters while the Japanese held it - I never bombed the airfield there as I wanted use of it as soon as I arrived, and there were obviously supplies to hand. So, I've had a lot of advantages that I never expected. Even at that this is all really kind of a distraction - something to keep the Japs occupied with.



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/28/2012 9:16:57 AM)

August. 14

Darwin rained off. Expecting resistance, tomorrow I'm going to conduct An Experiment - heavy bombers will fly at 25,000ft just to see exactly how the hit-rates compare versus flying lower. Japanese conduct nine separate parachute drops today; three each with three units, one of which also conducted four on Celebes yesterday. All were a single 19-man squad:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/dISRw.png[/img]

I am quietly looking forward to the likely reaction to me dropping a single squad on every base on Java in a year or so.

Up off Sakhalin, an unusual success for the US submarine service; USS Trigger and USS Whale sink small freighters Yuki Maru and Takegawa Maru with gunfire. A supply convoy is unloading another 25,000t of miscellaneous biomatter at Adak; place is liable to take some taking.




derp -> RE: August Alert (2/28/2012 1:30:34 PM)

August. 15

Well, two questions answered today; the 'what do bombers hit at 25,000ft' answer is 'not much', and the 'what are 200 Japanese bombers doing at Wuhan' answer is 'bombing Xi'an'. I guess neither of those are things I didn't already know. The latter lot seem to me rather a waste of 200 bombers - losses on the ground were about 100t of supplies and one Lysander. Which, y'know, as a proportion of useful stuff the Chinese have is more of an impact than you'd think, but still. Mustn't complain...

A caveat to the utility of Daly Waters is that for some reason fighters don't seem to pick up bombers from Tennant as valid for escort - not once have I managed to get fighters up to cover these guys, and I've been trying every day since I took the place. Buggered if I know why...

Convoy at Adak unloaded; we now have 140,000t of supplies here, which should be enough to last out the apocalypse. Or, uh, feed the Japanese for six months if they bring more stuff than I'm expecting, heh.

Reinforcements? What's that? Haul for the day is...

2* merchant ships
3* submarines
5* minesweepers
1* destroyer tender
1* repair ship
11* subchasers - off to Australia
1* escort carrier - squadrons will go ashore to train pilots/be available for emergencies, ship will be an aircraft transport for the time being

Being a little weirded out by an American submarine actually sinking something yesterday, I thought I'd have a look at torpedo sinkings so far:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/ab55Y.png[/img]

I think there's 3-4 gunfire sinkings on top of that and obviously a few will have been damaged, but apart from the carrier it ain't much to write home about. Of course, I haven't been trying too hard, really...we should start getting a few more over the next few weeks as the Indian Ocean lot will be relieved of the need to operate defensively around Bengal by the arrival of two new CD units, while a few* new ones arrive to take station between Darwin and Timor.

*16

Also, as far as I can tell the largest ship to have been sunk by battleship guns so far is a 1000t Filipino freighter, heh.



derp -> RE: August Alert (2/28/2012 5:30:42 PM)

Continuing along the theme of 'stuff sunk', here's our merchant losses to date; about 90% of them took place in the first eight weeks - a combination of the Japanese knowing exactly where to put a single destroyer and me running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out what was going on and what all the loud noises meant. Probably half of them were avoidable, really, and wouldn't happen if the me of today got dumped into command back then. Still, no better way to learn...

[img]http://i.imgur.com/fiqbr.png[/img]




derp -> RE: August Alert (2/29/2012 7:20:22 PM)

Some people have been having successes and failures in Burma lately (you know who you are); there's been a degree of grumbling about the lack of preparation of bases in Assam, Manipur etc as regards supporting Allied operations in Burma logistically. So, for reference, here's what the border area looks like in mid-August if you really throw the kitchen sink at it from day 1 and the Japanese are loss-averse (and you have to divert all your engineers to Kerala for a month in April, but I try not to think about that...):

Supply on hand, tons:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/xggmo.png[/img]

There's about 1,000,000t elsewhere in India, along with about 1,500,000t of fuel. The stockpiles in the war zone are all growing - I didn't start building them up until relatively recently in some cases, being concerned about landings - and of course the monsoon's still on - once the weather improves and given some fiddling with supply stockpile settings I expect no real problems operating in Burma.

Airfields:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/WdJxW.png[/img]

Forts are significant everywhere but the Arakan; you can tell I started those later than the others. Infrastructure-wise I'm currently working on Imphal, Kohima and Jorhat. Once I'm done with them I will move on to Ledo and Dimapur, after which it will probably be about time to get moving into Burma; a fair few engineers will accompany that advance to ensure airfield operability. The Japanese have done a significant amount of airfield construction in Burma (the wisdom of this is questionable, but there you go) even on top of the significant amount that I did before I left, so as long as our advance doesn't stall out before we get anywhere at all we should face a very positive supply situation in-country.

Kalemyo will be a full-use airbase to cover Eastern Army as it moves towards Mandalay rather than a forward supply source. Same principle as in Australia - the troops will draw from further back. Given extreme concentration of Japanese aviation & AA assets so far I have extremely modest expectations for my ability to provide ongoing ground support without taking bomber losses out of proportion to their utility, so intention is to provide a 'passive' defence - put up enough aircraft & AA that Japanese face same dilemma, given known J dislike of large losses - while restricting ground support operations to critical points in time and space. Hope is to outmatch Japanese in terms of ground forces sufficiently that that works in my favour. All depends on Japanese being induced to venture elsewhere...current Burma force, mostly but not exclusively in combined training at Delhi is:

- 12 UK/US/IND Divs
- 5 Chinese Divs
- 3 Armd Bde
- 3 separate Inf Bde
- 4 Armd/Cav Rgt
- 2 Chinese Corps (in China, but available if necessary)

We will add to that force between now and October:

- 1 IND Div
- 2 Motor Bde
- 2 LRP Bde

of which I can probably use the LRP Bdes and one Motor Bde; the others are restricted and I don't even think I will have all the existing forces released by then - there may be a sort of a 'go as far as the border and just hang around for a week while I save up for you' thing involved there, heh. That will leave as India Command...

- 5 IND Div
- 14 separate Inf Bde
- 2 Armd Bde
- 1 Motor Bde
- 4 Armd/Cav Rgt

with ~ another 2 Div to arrive between jumping off and the Japanese being able to do anything significant, which seems sufficient if the Japanese are also throwing the kitchen sink at Burma. And, of course, if they're not throwing the kitchen sink at Burma they will have Problems fairly rapidly

Tossing this in the direction of Rangoon has had consequences elsewhere, of course...operations out of Australia will not be particularly impressive as far as land forces are concerned and operations in the wider Pacific will basically not be happening at all - this at a point where most people are dumping half a million troops on Guadalcanal etc. As to the wisdom of it in the long run I of course couldn't possibly comment.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/1/2012 6:18:21 AM)

Anyway, today.

August. 16

Darwin rained off. Then again, it'd be strange if it wasn't, wouldn't it? Japanese carrier force is off Darwin again; around a dozen submarines will pass by its current location tomorrow, so its ability to operate safely will depend on where it ends up.

Another report of 61st Inf Group preparing for Adak; there are also some AA units heading for Paramushiro, apparently. Seems a strange place to put AA units - even from Attu or Shemya I barely have aircraft that can reach the place until 1944. I wonder when they'll be making the leap to the Aleutians...I have a search group off a tender at Attu, but I have them stopping just a little short of Paramushiro at the moment - don't want to give away that I know what I know, so to speak, but we should pick up any outward movement.

Usual ventures by 200 bombers in China. Another 170 in Burma dare to show their faces for once, bombing Cox's Bazaar and doing very little damage.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/1/2012 11:03:27 PM)

August. 17

Darwin...not rained off? Japanese aerial opposition was lighter than expected, given proximity of carriers, but still managed to down a few bombers. Between aircraft available and under maintenance at Daly Waters there are about 70 fighters that are supposed to be escorting these bombing missions; in 11 days, none of them have ever done so - the only escorting has been of naval strike missions. I really don't understand it - I mean, it's not even that they're all escorting a single 3-aircraft flight or haring off on their own or whatever - they just won't fly escort at all. Anything else, fine - just not escort.

Only submarine attack was on a frigate escorting the seaplane carriers; there are eight submarines within 45 miles of the main carrier force, but we all know how that ends.

The first AA units are three days out from Daly Waters; not a moment too soon, too, as increasing moonlight is about to make night bombing raids potentially damaging rather than an amusing outback fireworks show. A night-fighter unit departed Tahiti for Melbourne a few days ago and will no doubt come in useful as well once it arrives. 880 and 831 Sqns FAA are also ashore and on the rails headed for Alice Springs. With the unloading of most of the large fuel convoys we now have 450,000t of fuel in Australia; another 100,000 will arrive within the next week.

Up in India, a Japanese battleship force bombards Cox's Bazaar; 160 aircraft bomb Akyab. I am a little mystified by the sudden interest in the Arakan; we reoccupied after the Japanese left a couple of months ago, and Cox's has been built up a little, but I've mostly just built forts - control of the coast is kind of irrelevant while Ceylon is still under J control so there are no engineers, AF units etc. Can't complain too much; the battleships tend to get torpedoes thrown at them - USS Tarpon missed today, and it's only a matter of time until one connects. I have had signals on the 11th and 12th of August from a couple of artillery units as preparing for Cox's - which suggests naval landings, as they'd want to secure Akyab first on land - both Burma Army units last pegged at Lashio & Prome. Will have to take a look at the latter base, I think...any land assault would jump off from there. As far as landings, I have a big CD unit on the way to perch there, which should make Karachi in about a week.

I have put one of the Australian squadrons in Bengal on Spitfires; with just six aircraft it's hardly a significant improvement in combat terms over 16 Kittyhawk, but should provide an amusing e-mail reaction if their base is ever attacked. I still haven't seen any Tojos...maybe they got delayed.

China mostly quiet, except that at least one LCU appears to be about to start up the road to Urumqi. Significance will depend on what it is - a Hudson detachment from Lanzhou will attempt to determine. Ultimately we do have airfields on the way and the Japanese don't, so unless it's something that can put up with a month's bombing before fighting past whatever Uighur peasants make up the local garrison it's not sensible to attempt the distance. The idea that the Japanese could in any way make use of the Xinjiang oil production is completely nonsensical, so if we get to that point I will just bomb it flat from India.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/3/2012 7:32:35 AM)

August. 18

Quiet, but the codebreakers have been busy...

USS Gudgeon sinks a small freighter off Japan with gunfire. Darwin wet but bombed. Still no escorts.

In addition to a new engineer unit planning for Adak, we have an SNLF looking at Umnak; this is the first 'other' Aleutian base where landing planning is known to be taking place (I think...might have forgotten another?), and is a significant liability in that it's the only other large airfield besides Adak - I built the thing then about two days later realised it would be a problem, so it's not grown in a month or so. Will grab out a CD unit from Anchorage and a Canadian Bn to augment the current garrison of a USN naval base force; if necessary some troops can be flown in from Anchorage as it's a West Coast Command base.

Over in Burma, 1st Tank Div and 14th Army HQ are reported preparing for landings at Cox's Bazaar. Bit more meaningful than a couple AT units, that; I assume it's not the total extent of any landing force. I am not really sure how to proceed with this; I have plenty of force available to counter them - conceptually - but they have been keeping away from prying eyes up around Delhi rather than being identifiable by the Japanese and of course are meant to be going into Burma. I can destroy a corps-scale landing, and turn an army-scale landing into an Anzio, but that then puts the force out of position and makes it obvious that Burma is going to be a Thing (not that the base buildup in Manipur hasn't done that already...). It does tend to motivate against major Japanese actions against Australia etc in the near future. Will have to have a think...probably not a bad idea to sent about a Corps to Benares just in case they need to be called on quickly. I have sent a 5-aircraft fighter flight to Akyab just to show the flag, and bombers will visit Rangoon tomorrow if the weather's good.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/3/2012 12:51:15 PM)

August. 19

****ing hell. Out of 130 aircraft tasked to bomb Rangoon, only 9 fly. Weather excellent on both ends, airfield infrastructure on our end as good as it can get. The place is completely undefended - we meet no aerial opposition. Those 9 do a good job, catching the entire IJAAF bomber force on the ground and destroying six aircraft, but...frustrating. I think the Japanese have fled to Port Blair, though I'm not certain of it. There appears to be a land force moving northwest out of Prome; don't have detail today but there's definitely something. This would presumably be the land component of any Arakan offensive; we should know more tomorrow. III Indian Corps has been ordered to Benares and hopefully won't be needed, but...

Darwin has clear weather for once and is bombed effectively. Still not a single escort. The inability of the player to execute commanders begins to seem like a glaring omission.

Japanese light merchant detected by a Catalina out of Attu, the first time any Japanese shipping has been picked up east of the Kuriles apart from the submarine flotilla that arrived to conduct a survey of the Aleutians a few weeks ago. Presume it's being used as a suicide scout to see how far out the invasion convoy/s will be detected. The answer is '650 miles', apparently. USS Whale is within a day's sprint, returning to Adak with some cosmetic damage, so will investigate, as will a patrol trawler from Attu. USS Raleigh is in the Bering Sea north of the Alaska peninsula and will amble westwards a bit.

I have no idea what the timescale is for the Japanese in the Aleutians, beyond 'before winter'. Bearing in mind when I first picked up the units planning they've probably had long enough that it could be at any point from now, really. I'm recalling a couple of outlying air groups and ships that were bimbling about away from Hawaii, so Pacific Fleet will be in a position to sail from Pearl in two days if necessary. I would prefer to wait; the carrier fleet only has North Carolina and eight cruisers as heavy escort at the moment, with two battleships and four cruisers due Hawaii over the next 2-3 weeks. 11th Air Force in Alaska has 140 aircraft deployed forward on the islands, 130 at Anchorage and another 100 or so in the US but available at a few days' notice. I have seen neither hide nor hair of Japanese main force since Christmas Island business, long enough for them to move to the Aleutians if necessary. Taking the invasion of Ceylon as a blueprint for Japanese operations, carrier forces are likely to operate as distant cover a few hundred miles behind the invasion forces, with light carriers loaded to the gills with fighters exclusively accompanying the transports. Of course, the Japanese light forces are off Timor...so probably their prolonged absence will be suggestive. Anyway, we may be able to work with that sort of deployment...time will tell.

Another merchant, presumably with a similar mission, is detected off Canton Island; I have no naval forces here, but there is a Catalina squadron at the island which can attempt to whack the thing. Canton has a USMC garrison; not huge, but enough to make some effort necessary in taking it.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/4/2012 7:45:33 AM)

August. 20

Not a very busy day, to be honest. Merchant off the Kuriles is heading back to Japan, its job having been done. Darwin bombed but rainy, nothing really interesting anywhere else.

The unit moving up from Prome is 124th Infantry Rgt, the one we bombed into insensibility a couple of months ago. Nothing to worry about in itself.

86th Obs Sqn arrives at Daly Waters. Very handy - will allow me to untie 9th PRS from Darwin and have a look at other Japanese bases. We'll go over Timor tomorrow and start on New Guinea in a couple of days...the shortage of decent recon aircraft is one of the less visible problems involved in getting anything done at the moment.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/4/2012 11:03:37 AM)

August. 21

AA units make Daly Waters; flak damages three Betties from tonight's raid. There are two more US AA units on the longer road up from Normanton, due in about two weeks, and a USN base force will arrive with a few more (and a radar set) tomorrow. Anywhere from 15-30 aircraft bomb Daly Waters every night, at the moment, so it's nice to see. They're still more a faint nuisance rather than anything else; we are coming up to full moons so I expect they will do a little more damage than previously over the next week or so. Still, keeps'em busy, and the flipside to increasing moonlight is that the nightfighters have more of a chance of actually spotting them, I guess.

Darwin bombed, and [img]http://i.imgur.com/XBgDd.gif[/img]THE RAID IS ESCORTED by four Buffalos[img]http://i.imgur.com/XBgDd.gif[/img]. Yeesh. Flak seemed lighter than usual; I wonder a little at their supply situation. Such are the perils of throwing 250 AA guns at a problem, I guess.

Recon aircraft from Daly look over Timor; weather's bad over Kupang but Lautem reveals 40 fighters, 30 bombers and the carrier force. No surprises there, but it's nice to have confirmation - Lautem had an enormous lump of engineers dumped on it the moment the Japanese arrived, so was always going to be the obvious base. We get 48 new B-24 tomorrow; in theory from Daly we can hit Timor etc. Would be worth presenting the possibility, if nothing else...

Japanese battleship force in Bay of Bengal; given range detected at I presume it's aimed at Akyab. In theory aircraft from Comilla could intercept if they dawdle or have an encounter with one of the eight submarines between their location and Akyab, though realistically it's unlikely - if it were real life one could organise a night-time takeoff to meet them at dawn, but...

Nothing much else at sea. More interesting signals, though; a Japanese parachute unit is prepping for Cox's, having been dropping single squads over the Phillipines a few days ago. 27th Elec Engr Rgt is at Tokyo; this is the first engineer unit I picked up as earmarked for Adak, so that seems to put an outside timescale on movement up here.

USS South Dakota arrives at Panama. Will sail for Hawaii immediately...I guess 10-11 days until arrival.



JocMeister -> RE: August Alert (3/4/2012 11:52:10 AM)

When did you start buildning up your forward airbases and how the hell did you get supplies going to them? Draw supplies and stockpile?
Do you think you will be able to draw suppies to Mandalay or will you rely on airlifting?



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/4/2012 1:10:43 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

When did you start buildning up your forward airbases and how the hell did you get supplies going to them? Draw supplies and stockpile?


Depends where you mean.

Bases in India saw construction from day...I dunno how many days it is for aviation base forces to reach Tezpur by rail, but however many days that is from the start of the war. So, there's been a fairly constant effort there right from the beginning which gives us a fairly broad logistical base. Note that I have been going at it from the back forwards - we haven't touched Ledo, for example - so we have large stockpiles close to the drawing bases. Also, I've kept garrisons along the frontier as small as possible - there's a light-pack Indian Div at Kalemyo and a proper one at Imphal, but that's mostly it for the really supply-pressed places.

Bases in Burma (Shwebo, Katha, Myitkyina etc) saw some construction even while I held it - I was uncertain whether I would be able or inclined to hold upper Burma and eventually decided in favour of leaving, but believed I'd be better served in the long term by these bases being built up even if I had to release them to Japanese control in the short term. Deciding against staying in Burma may have been a mistkake, but you never know - and the Japanese have helpfully continued construction in many places. If I can capture bases in Burma in the first place I expect minimal supply problems - my concern is stalling outside a base or bases

Broadly speaking, supply problems in the Burma area only eventuate in friendly-controlled bases; out in the open, or in enemy bases, there are generally so many different points for units to draw supply from that they will have no problems. I intend to take extreme advantage of this fact when moving into Burma, if the Japanese let me.

As far as Australia, again the Tennant Creek effort started early - as soon as engineers arrived in Australia, which was...I can't remember when. January? I know I pulled some out of the Phillipines to get things started. I had a very definite conception that I would need it to be up and running from the start - if you look at f.e Charters Towers in NW Queensland, that's only in the last few weeks received any real engineering attention; the far northern bases - Cooktown, Coen and whatever the other one is - have had none; my only units north of Cairns are a base force and a tank batallion at Cooktown. Daly Waters and Katherine were built up by the Japanese, which I always thought was very nice of them and very consciously made an effort not to interfere with.

The limiting factor at TC was supply for a long time, because the infrastructure is actually much worse in practice - long, poor-quality road from Alice Springs and all. Australian ops are a lot more dependent on air supply, with a lot of bombers being used to support the air forces I have operating in the NW - Daly Waters is still very fragile supply-wise and isn't suitable as a bomber base except on rare occasions due to supply issues. Tennant Creek is still a major bomber base for operations against Darwin, but a number of aircraft have moved over to Normanton which has no supply issues (but is further away, reducing their effectiveness. Swings and roundabouts...). I think at the moment I have about 150 bombers flying supplies for 70 or so bombers at TC. A significant Japanese air effort directed against Daly would be extremely damaging - a bad day of bombing would probably wipe out supply stockpiles - but the thing is that with Darwin suppressed it's out of IJAAF bomber range and the IJNAF completely refuse to fly in daylight if they expect any opposition at all. I am managing to grow the airfield, albeit slowly.

Once I take Katherine - I think I may do this in about two weeks if it feels like a good idea - the dynamic will change, because Kat is within range of IJAAF bombers from Babar, just. At that point I am unsure what the continued suppression of Darwin accomplishes, so we may be able to go over to a more normal means of operation.

Basically, the thing with Australia is that I more or less did not throw away any aircraft that could lift supplies for any reason in the first six months of the war - which has allowed me to move a lot of air supply in this campaign - and the Japanese decision to move onto Fiji & New Caledonia, whatever else it may have done, did remove the need to commit significant engineering assets to build them up.

I mean, there are four places on the map where I have major engineering commitments - Adak, northern Australia, the Burmese frontier and to a certain extent Niue. No building up every little island in the Solomons here...also as a consequence of the use of bombers this way, the RAAF is terribly short of bomber-trained pilots - they've all been flying supplies - and my naval search coverage over the Pacific has been spotty as hell - with nearly all the amphibious Catalinas having been used as transports at some point or another. I am just now starting to correct the RAAF's problems, but it's going to be a couple of months. Of course, that's when they start to get some decent aircraft...

Use of supply stockpiling is absolutely critical to both these buildups - probably more so to Australia, but still critical in Burma - and you would capital-N Not be able to do what I've done without use of that feature. What it meant was that there was for example no troop supply load on Tennant Creek - troops were all drawing their own supplies independently from Alice Springs (and still are even up by Daly Waters) - so everything gets put into construction, which then means you can draw more supplies, which then...etc. Bear in mind the opening of the campaign against Darwin was the first time aircraft had ever based out of Tennant Creek - no putting carts before horses here.

Uh, what else...Alice Springs was enormously overstacked and underdefended in the lead-up to the opening of things in Australia, and one bad Japanese bomber raid would have made all this impossible. Of course, there's never been a recon aircraft over the place, so IJHQ never knew that.

quote:

Do you think you will be able to draw suppies to Mandalay or will you rely on airlifting?


I am confident troop supply in Burma will be acceptable; I would prefer not to take aircraft off China runs unless absolutely necessary. We're just about hanging on in China, since the Japanese have given up on bombing Changsha. My ability to supply aircraft forwards may be more limited until we're past Shwebo; the really major problem, and it's one that may be quite crippling if the Japanese decide to make a big stand, will be keeping units in supply while they're actually in Shwebo in advance of river crossings, because at that point we'll be in a friendly base and subject to units' inability to draw from extra-base sources there. We'll see...it's going to be at least 10 weeks before we get anything started here, anyway, as I just spent 500pp to buy out an infantry regiment for Umnak...wish I'd never built the airfield there.

So, uh, yeah. Start early and use bombers as transports. I'm not exactly a master strategist, so I have to make up for it by being a pen-pusher, I guess...



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/5/2012 7:25:40 AM)

August. 22

Darwin rained off. Probably not a bad thing - airfields are completely flattened after yesterday and Japanese carriers are here for another shift.

No sign of the battleships off Bengal. Thought better of it after being spotted, I guess?

USS Trigger torpedoes light merchant Tonegawa Maru off Sakhalin. That's the third this week - Japanese convoys up here are much more lightly escorted than further south, it seems.

Not really much going on other than that...



JocMeister -> RE: August Alert (3/5/2012 4:24:18 PM)

Thank you for the detailed report. I am taking notes! [:D]

I have the same feeling on Burma as you do, that I gave it up to easily. I was afraid I wouldnīt be able to supply troops once Rangoon fell. Looks like I was wrong on that account.

So far I donīt have any Japs in Oz. They will probably come within a month or two (we are still in early May). I havnīt made any investments in constuction in Oz at all. Hopefully my opponent will do as yours and build it up for me :)

Btw, In china how the heck do you manage to get 20k supply somewhere so you can replenish your airgroups. If I would try and do that all my units would starve! :)



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/5/2012 4:56:49 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Thank you for the detailed report. I am taking notes! [:D]

I have the same feeling on Burma as you do, that I gave it up to easily. I was afraid I wouldnīt be able to supply troops once Rangoon fell. Looks like I was wrong on that account.

So far I donīt have any Japs in Oz. They will probably come within a month or two (we are still in early May). I havnīt made any investments in constuction in Oz at all. Hopefully my opponent will do as yours and build it up for me :)



Shame you've not done any building - if you still hold Darwin in May you might have held onto it short of a really major effort - bear in mind that the Darwin base itself will draw more supplies up from Alice Springs than all the other ones put together, since you've got port construction etc to work with, so it's worth doing even if you think you'll lose it in six months - everything will be far more effective in the intermediate period. With the naval fort having those 9.2in guns it's a slightly dodgier proposition as far as naval bombardments go, and it's a long way from Timor for any aircraft...

quote:


Btw, In china how the heck do you manage to get 20k supply somewhere so you can replenish your airgroups. If I would try and do that all my units would starve! :)


That's easy - I don't. They can draw replacements occasionally (I think about once a week, on average?), but mostly I kept replacements off and cycled the units back to Chungking (which has an air HQ and a not-huge-but-not-nothing supply stockpile) and India when necessary. This, incidentally, is where the P-40's non-combat qualities shine a bit - they can fly direct from India to Changsha (though not back, since we don't have drop tanks in China outside Chungking).

I was nervous about deploying the fighter force into China, considering the supply situation, but actually they have at least not made things worse - before they arrived the Japanese were bombing airfields etc all over the place, and since they've shown up they've mostly confined myself to either hitting isolated units in the middle of nowhere, which is basically irrelevant since they're isolated units in the middle of nowhere, or actually attacking the fighters, which is great for me. So, on balance, I think it's worth doing if the Japanese pull the usual 'base 200 bombers at Wuhan and go nuts' crap. Ultimately, my 80 aircraft at Changsha are tying up 200 or so Japanese fighters, in addition to the bombers, and the Hudson squadron is lighting up every ship between Shanghai and Hong Kong, and also keeping another 50 fighters in the Pescadores to ensure those don't get attacked. I don't really have the submarines in the area to take advantage of that yet, but in a few months...and, of course, if we still hold Changsha once we open up Rangoon we will be able to do Things. The airfield's already big enough for B-24, after all - the USN may be interested in basing a few out of the place once theirs start to arrive.

I am considering hitting the Pescadores and also Taiwanese airfields at some point in the near future; that's a real stretch as far as supply but all the Japanese engineering capability seems to be at the front, so any damage would likely take a while to fix, and while the fields are down I suspect the Japanese would be scared off of shipping past Taiwan. I don't have recon aircraft suitable yet, though - a USAAF PR squadron will make Karachi in a couple of days to do exactly that job. Will depend on what they see, and how active the Japanese are over the next couple of weeks...



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/7/2012 1:27:09 PM)

August. 23

Erk.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/gkuAp.png[/img]

15 aircraft turned back; among those that did not, there were no survivors.

Half a dozen submarine attacks scattered over the map; no detonations, of course. Destroyers Hull and MacDonough sink a Japanese merchant out in the middle of the Tasman Sea between Tasmania and New Zealand, whose presence I wasn't even aware of. The shipping routes through the area see pretty regular patrols - between Australia and New Zealand there are about a dozen cruisers and 25 or so destroyers - so putting merchants out here as a sort of cargo cult early warning system is basically just throwing them to the wolves. Similarly, the one off Attu is back; USS S-31 is a day's sail away, and USS Frazier, a new destroyer just up from San Francisco, will move to blow it up if the submarine can't.

USS Silversides in the Makassar Strait makes no attacks, but does identify a Japanese surface group as taking at least "two" escort carriers with it southwestwards. I guess it's probably the Unyo; presumably the Japanese can fix one torpedo's worth of damage at Manila between a month ago and now, which would fit. A three-aircraft B-17 flight makes an attack run on Shoho off Darwin - again unbothered by CAP - but no hits eventuate. The Japanese here are always exceptionally careful to stay juuuust out of SBD range from Daly Waters, notwithstanding that there are no SBDs there at the moment - moving on Katherine right now is terribly tempting, but we will have a much better support situation if done in about two weeks.

Darwin rained off. We got a bad forecast this time, though, so I sent the aircraft to bother Nookanbah instead. Survey of Timor is done; there appear to be around 6000 Japanese on the whole island. Whether that's accurate or not, there are 250 vehicles at Lautem, along with 110 at Kupang; the presumption is that these are engineer units whose airportable component has been sent to fester at Darwin. Lautem is substantially underdefended, with just two dozen fighters, and there are 14 ships reported at anchor; at least three tankers and, I would assume, a bunch of auxiliaries to support the aircraft carriers. I have enough supplies at Daly Waters to run one medium-sized bomber strike. The choice would seem to be between bombing Darwin as per normal - which will have the usual carrier aircraft etc - and hitting Lautem, which will probably have somewhat less, but will also hit some ships, which are rather harder to replace than fighters. Bit of a no-brainer, then...just hope the weather's good.

Broome is also minimally garrisoned, so the medium bombers will hop over to Meekatharra for a day and visit, since they're not really up to hitting Darwin alone and don't have the range - or supplies - to join in on Timor.

Searcher SBDs claim to have bombed two APDs off the Tongas; there are around a dozen involved in keeping Vava'u...supplied? Garrisoned? Hell, I don't know. Whatever, they're there and we keep claiming to have bombed them.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/8/2012 10:29:29 AM)

August. 24

Lautem rained off, naturally. Bombers will have to go back to Tennant; they've used their supply quota even without flying a mission. Maybe next week...

Bombers hit Broome fairly effectively; they're operating at the edge of their - and their escorts' - range, so aircraft numbers actually flying are low and bombloads are not huge. We leave behind a P-38, but get a large flying boat on the ground and do a reasonable amount of damage to the airfield. Can't complain - Broome will be very easy to shut down if necessary now that the engineers have all been dumped at Darwin.

Elsewhere...not much happens. RAF will bomb Magwe tonight assuming good weather; it's long been the archetypal "every AA gun the Japanese possess" sort of base, and I'm curious how dangerous flying against that at night actually is; the USAAF isn't really a good point of comparison since they fly in the middle of the day. We can afford to lose a few Wellingtons, having avoided throwing them away in daylight raids like people tend to.



JocMeister -> RE: August Alert (3/8/2012 2:09:57 PM)

Ouch, I guess your opponent isnīt to happy with his raid on Calcutta! A bad case of escorts didnīt fly? [:D]



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/8/2012 5:43:45 PM)

More a case of escorts not assigned, I think - allegedly they were ASW aircraft. Of course, that then raises the point - over 60 of them, flying out of Magwe? If true, I detect a certain degree of unhappiness about the bombardment groups having torpedoes shot at them all the time...



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/10/2012 6:03:50 PM)

August. 25

Japanese out of Burma turn their attention to Comilla; this large airfield has a US fighter group and the 6 Spitfires currently in existence east of Cairo as its air wing; small enough to be a tempting target, or at least that was the idea when I left them there a few days ago - they were tasked with bomber escort, though their bombers didn't bother, so I just didn't move'em back to the big smoke. So it proved; 160 Oscars attack today, losing around 40 aircraft against our losses of 25 P-39 and two Spitfire. Exactly what this is supposed to accomplish is entirely beyond me; I retain a fairly good aircraft reserve, and Kittyhawk III production starts in a week. I am hoping the reaction will be 'Spitfires already? Christ...' or something similar, although we now only have four to last us into October. No flights out of the RAF bombers...forecast's not good for tomorrow, either.

USAAF 8th PRS and a mixed Australian-American Tank Bde make Karachi; the former will fly their first missions over Burma tomorrow, allowing me to send the RAF PRU with LR Mitchells to Changsha. Those aircraft can reach Manila, Kyushu, Korea from there...we'll try for Nagasaki tomorrow and see what we can see. Not like AA's likely to amount to much...

Darwin rained off yet again. Japanese air raids on Daly Waters totally ineffective despite full moonlight; I guess the AA gunners can see better too. Carriers still bimbling about in the Timor Sea, with yet more AA units - this time two from Japan proper - signalled as being at sea headed in. With the arrival of a large number of B-24 fresh from the States we are now in about the same condition as we were when we started this campaign however many weeks ago, bomber-wise; in that sense it's been very cheaply bought, since half the bomber replacements in that period have gone to India. Fighter numbers in Australia, including P-38, have almost doubled between then and now. That said, I am beginning to think it's time to give it a rest; actual bombing effect per aircraft is much lesser with 250 AA guns as compared to 25, and it's no longer necessary to keep the airfield closed down for want of fighter protection for friendly troops - we have plenty at Daly Waters, and enough can be provided to protect any move on Katherine as and when required.

Basically, I'm always a little concerned about long-term suppression efforts like this turning into something done because they've been ongoing for a long time, as opposed to being done to acheive a particular objective. Since we've already acheived ours - at least, as far as I'm aware - I think I'll pop the aircraft back down to Australia and watch how the Japanese develop a quiescence. The intention to move on Katherine within a couple of weeks remains; once there I may or may not proceed to Fenton in 6-8 weeks, depending on the engineering situation; in any case from Katherine aircraft can reach the same strategic bombing targets of significance in the area as they can from Fenton, namely the oilfields at Babo and Boela - neither of which bases have airfields.

I also have a sneaking suspicion Australia going quiet may be exactly the trigger the Japanese are looking for with regards to getting on with their planned misadventure in the Aleutians...we'll see where the carriers disappear off to.

Eastern Fleet heavy units make Adelaide; Hermes and Illustrious will have to spend a few days sorting out their air groups as they brought an extra deckload of FAA aircraft with them from Cape Town and those will be working out of Western Australia for the immediate future. Conceptually I think they're due some rest, too...poor bastards have barely seen port since last December. Once that's done and the ships have all their minor problems worked out they will take off for Perth, to watch over the shipping lanes towards Cape Town. Those are pretty busy these days...in addition to the 300kt of fuel delivered over the past couple of weeks, we still have another 250kt at sea yet to arrive and 150kt at the Cape awaiting shipping, with 210kt not yet having made South Africa. We'll need it...within two weeks there will be no less than 12 battleships pierside around Melbourne, not to mention all the smaller stuff. There are about 150 merchants on the map between Melbourne and the western edge...some coming, some going, some transiting. About the same number will arrive over the next two weeks, a mixture of large escorted convoys, small unescorted convoys and independent sailings.

East of New Zealand things are mostly farcical; a Japanese submarine torpedoes a destroyer escort huting it ("sez who" - Jap sub) off Christmas Island, and S-31 contacts the merchant off Attu...briefly, then takes a 4.7in shell to the conning tower without managing to get a shot off in return. There's gonna be some explaining to do when those guys make it back to Prince Rupert...damage is too bad to fix at Adak.



derp -> RE: August Alert (3/11/2012 8:13:59 PM)

August. 26

Weather over Magwe wasn't so bad after all. The two squadrons put up 25 aircraft; night patrol is half a dozen Nicks, which shoot down one Wellington but can't prevent the remainder from blowing up 11 Japanese fighters on the ground. AA fire was completely ineffective. Goodness, but Burma's going to be a nasty place to be once the RAF Liberators arrive...it's not so much that blowing up aircraft on the ground matters particularly, but that the morale of the squadrons getting bombed overnight generally ends up in the toilet after a few successful raids - fine if all they're doing is sitting around as sentinels, but if you're confronted with a situation where you have to prevent an enormous opposing army from charging down the Irrawaddy...

A contrasting experience can be found in IJNAF night attacks on Daly Waters; these feature 35 bombers tonight, losing four to Beaufighters, four to AA guns and hitting absolutely nothing. Heavier armament and rice-paper bombers...well, there you go. I suspect they aren't exactly trained for ground bombing, either. One would think they'd be ok at it...things on the ground don't move like ships do, after all. The USAAF night-fighter squadron will arrive in a couple of days; they've even got on-board radar. Very fancy.

Mostly quiet elsewhere. HMAS Stuart tickles a Japanese submarine off Rarotonga, but don't think it amounted to much damage.

Air component of USN 8th Const Bn is installed at Portland Roads and work has begun on a small port. 5th will follow over the next couple of days, with their heavy equipment going by sea once the port's done. A motorised infantry regiment and a tank batallion are making final preparations to head out for Port Hedland; rather than messing around in boats they'll just drive, which takes about a month and works out ok supply-wise - Australian 11th Armd Car Bn has been poking around the hills to the southwest of PH for about a month now and is happy, well-fed etc. I will probably hold them back from the base for a little while rather than just charging in; I would ideally prefer to go after Port Hedland and Broome simultaneously, which will be dependent on availability of carriers. Can grab PH alone without them easily enough, but then that doesn't get us as far...



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