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USSAmerica -> RE: THREAD War: Mike & Mike - Mike Solli (J) vs. USS America (A) (6/18/2019 4:30:13 AM)
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Dec 16 – 19, 1941
I intended to get the turn summary of the 16-17th turn written up this evening after sending the turn back to Mike, but I had the next turn waiting for me when I got home from work so it's a 2 for 1. [:)]
Philippines
I've managed to retreat to Manila to make my stand in pretty good order. Mostly because I've never tried it before, I chose the urban hex over Bataan. A couple of late arriving ART units have appeared at Bataan, but everyone else is at the party in the city. The forts are up to 3 and I have 1677 AV sitting behind them but that number is deceptive as much of that consists of poor exp and combat value troops. I have lots of engineers there but they are only just keeping ahead of the daily bombing damage. Because of the severe losses over the first two days of the war, my fighter strength here is almost gone and I can only offer token resistance in the air. I have just over 50k supplies here. Unless Mike brings 4 or 5 divisions and a bunch of combat engineers to the party, I may be able to hold out until the supply runs out. If I get to the point where I can't make any progress toward building forts because of damage repairs, I'll turn off the fort building to save a little supply that way. I wish I could burn the 100k of fuel sitting here but Mike will probably take possession of most of that soon.
Malaya
So I had my fun over the 14-15th turn at Johore Bahru, punching his overextended armor in the nose and retreating them to Mersing. Mike was able to pour a bunch of ground forces into the hex while I was trying to run for the fortress of Singapore. He deliberate attacked on the 16th but only got a 1-2 result. On the 18th he attacked again and managed to get a 2-1 result. He had added another 3 regiments to the 3 already there, along with lots of combat engineers and a bunch of artillery. One more day and the bulk of my guys would have reached safety. Instead it was a slaughter. 8 units retreated to Singapore and 3 were destroyed, including the entire recombined 11th Indian Div. The butcher's bill:
Allied ground losses:
11477 casualties reported
Squads: 297 destroyed, 19 disabled
Non Combat: 718 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 87 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 130 (122 destroyed, 8 disabled)
Vehicles lost 106 (106 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units retreated 8
Units destroyed 3
So, Singapore is now in a similar situation to Manila. Lvl 3 forts that are building a bit faster here due to a few less planes bombing so far and a few more engineer vehicles, 50k supply and about 21k resources. That should produce another 1500 – 2000 supply before the industry grinds to a halt. I only have 577 AV here, but they are generally better quality than at Manila. My fighter strength is down to 11 Buffaloes but only 5 of them are ready. I have around 30 bombers here along with a dozen remaining torpedo bombers. They have all done some nice damage to transports over these first two weeks of the war. I expect I will get no more than 2 or 4 more days of effective use out of them before remnants are evacuated.
Hawaii
My constant badgering of the 20 or so Japanese subs trying to blockade Pearl Harbor has finally started to pay off. The sunk ships list shows a second IJN sub sunk in this region and third total. Between all the aircraft flying ASW and all the ships on ASW I've likely managed to damage a couple more subs. Honestly, I think the biggest factor is many of Mike's subs running low on torps after constantly shooting at my DD's. He did sadly hit DD Reid with one on the 19th and she immediately went under. The end result is I'm seeing many of the subs move off to the West and several others at least pulled back a hex or two away from Pearl to decrease the effectiveness of my air groups. I should be able to get escorted shipping in and out now without too much worry.
China
Hong Kong still holds out. At any time the next attack could be the last here, but it's still be a week longer than I usually see.
Burma
No sign yet of any Jap ground forces approaching, but he did air drop onto Port Blair and take it last turn. Intel shows the 33rd Division and another Rgt on ships and heading for Bangkok, so I'm moving a few of the Dutch and Brit subs to try to pick some of them off.
I noticed something interesting about the supply levels in China. They are generally increasing by 2-4k/turn. 1K of that is via the Burma Road and the rest generated via local industry. Last turn the supply total in China jumped by 11k and it appears to have come from the supply I dumped into Rangoon. About 2k is being pulled into Mandalay each 2 day turn and 800 into Lashio, both limited by their daily supply cap. But I think the rest moved much farther into China, past Lashio. I guess it's only a 1 time/week draw, but it's way more movement than I expected. I thought I'd have to manually "walk" the supply into China one base at a time. So, I'm going to risk running another supply convoy into Rangoon from Colombo. So far Mike has not bothered any of my shipping near Rangoon with Betties from Bangkok, but that could change at any minute. I have 2 squadrons of fighters to fly CAP at Rangoon as needed. 50K of supply will load up and depart Colombo next turn and I have around 80k more loading at Aden and Abadan bound for Colombo.
DEI
I've had my fun with Force Z here. I've spotted 2 different TF's approaching the area with BB's. I don't want a fair fight or anything close to it, so my surface combatants are splitting up and heading out. PoW and Repulse, along with 6 Brit DD's are rearmed at Soerabaja and will head to Colombo. PoW will get her 19 system damage and her busted up 20mm AA gun repaired there. The Yanks and Dutch, led by Houston and Boise, are heading to Perth where they can sortie to North Oz or the IO as needed, or fairly quickly move to the Coral Sea. All the rest of the Allied shipping has skedaddled out of the region. I will probably send some smaller AK's to try to grab a little more fuel out of Java, but I'm not risking anything more valuable as Mike shows signs of moving into the area in force. He is moving a bit more cautiously after losing his CA let SC TF a few days ago.
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