FeurerKrieg
Posts: 3397
Joined: 6/15/2005 From: Denver, CO Status: offline
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February 9th, 1943 Burma comes alive today as Allied air strikes are launched against three major bases. The first is Magwe. First, 76 P-40E Warhawks of the AVG from Imphal fly sweep, encountering 18 Tojos and 16 Tonys. Our planes fight well enough, even though outnumbered. 14 Tojos go down, but only 2 TOnys are lost. 11 of the P-40E's are shot down. Following the sweep, 63 B-24D Liberators escorted by 8 P-66's fly down from Dacca and bomb the base. 14 Tonys still are on CAP and 2 P-66's are shot down and several B-24s are damaged. No Tonies are lost in the air, but several are lost on the ground. The airbase is moderately damaged. (28 service/26 runway). There are 166 Engineers that will try and get the place fixed up, but for now the Tony and Tojo units will move to Rangoon to restock airframes. Very few pilots are lost. The next attack hit Rangoon. Rather than contend with the heavy fighter defenses, the first wave from Calcutta and Dimapur - consisting of 12 B-17D and 30 B-17E, came in at 37,000 feet - out of reach of all the fighters at the base. Their drop did little damage. The second wave at Rangoon did not have it as easy. 57 Liberator III's from Rangpur came in at 32,000 feet. While the Zeros and Tonys could not each, our Nick and Tojo's could. The Nicks did very well, taking down 8 of the large planes. The Tojos did not get any immediate kills but did contribute to the total of 38 Lib III's damaged. Their drop was also relatively ineffective. By the end of the day, the airbase was only lightly damaged. (service 9/runway 8) Rangoon under attack. The final bombing attack came at Mandalay. First 31 Hurricane IIb's from Imphal and Kohima cleared the airspace, but none of our planes were there to engage. Next, 32 B-25C Mitchell bombers came in from Dacca and braved some heavy flak to drop their bombs. After that, 39 Blenheim IV's and 34 Wellington IIIs flew in from Rangpur and also hit the base. Mandalay, like Magwe was moderately damaged, but only a recon unit is based there, and there are plenty of engineers on hand for repair work. (24 serv/28 runway) Attack on Mandalay And finally, although there were not any bombing runs, 38 Hurricane IIb's flew a sweep over Myitkyina. The tally of lost planes at the end of the day was as follows: Japan: Ki-44-IIb Tojo: 14 A2A, 8 Ground Ki-61-1b Tony: 2 A2A, 5 Ground Ki-15 Babs: 5 Ground Ki-45-II Dinah: 1 A2A, 3 Ground Total: 38 Allies: P-40E Warhawk: 11 A2A Liberator III: 8 A2A Wellington III: 2 Flak, 1 Ops P-66 Vanguard: 2 A2A B-25C Mitchell: 2 Flak Hurricane IIb: 2 Ops Blenheim IV: 1 Flak Total: 29 A costly raid for the Allies for not much gain I would think - hopefully he will back off for a bit. I did learn that the Tojo's and Nick need to go to the back bases and the Tonys to the front. Other events include another attack on the pocket near Sian. Today the enemy had over 1000 casualties compared to the normal 150-200 per day.
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