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RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 6/29/2008 6:06:21 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/16/1942

Malaysia/Burma
The first 3000 supply AK arriving at Port Blair was hit by Nells out of Victoria Point and sunk.  Looks like sneakiness isnt working.  Port Blair is attracting his attentions as well, with an IJN sub sitting there.  I'm gonna keep at it regardless, it won't need much supply to be useful.
Hindering my efforts is the fact that Trimcomalee is in the red re. supply while the slightly further Colombo has hundreds of thousands of supply points, and the crappy supply distribution model doesn't see fit to bother sending some to Trim. 
Fairly quiet elsewhere though.

DEI
Fairly routine here too.  Koepang now houses Betty bombers.  MLE Prome did not make it, there is yet another Jap carrier out there, this time between Australia and Timor.  That smarts.  His boldness is infuriating!  But I guess he knows the Allies have bugger all at this stage of the war.
My submarines in the Java Sea are being nailed by concentrated IJN ASW assets despite my moving them around a bit.  Akagi and Ryujo remain welded in position, maintaining the blockade.
The Dutch airforce is a shattered husk, he can come in whenever he wants practically, and I have no doubt he will very soon.
The only plus is that I got PoW and Repulse out of there when I could!

SWPAC/Aus
Wirraways keep at it at Lae.  The Jap ninja sub near Christmas Island (I think thats what its called, NE tip of Australia) dodges all the escorts - and there are a lot - and torpedoes another AK.  the New Zealand Navy is chasing it around.
Between Noumea and Brisbane two Jap armed merchant cruisers bumped into the first Allied supply convoy for Australia - a small one.  It was ugly - for me.

Day Time Surface Combat at 61,119

Japanese Ships
PG Aikoku Maru, Shell hits 3,  on fire
PG Hokoku Maru, Shell hits 1

Allied Ships
AK Dorothy Luckenbach, Shell hits 14, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
AK Henry S Grove, Shell hits 15,  on fire,  heavy damage
AK Liberty, Shell hits 6,  on fire,  heavy damage
AK Susana, Shell hits 4,  on fire

They'll have to run for Noumea, where the usual Jap submarine awaits to say Sayonara. 
Assuming he doesnt catch them again first.  At least the four AKs made an effort to fight back.

CENTPAC
My CVTFs headed for Pago Pago, with most of their aircraft on ASW patrol, are in a sea of red submarines.  One of them goes for USS Fanning, which was escorting Saratoga, and torpedoes it.  The Allied depth charge attack is pretty pathetic, a few near misses.  Later on  that day a Dauntless is reported to have hit an IJN sub.  Fanning will make it probably, damage was light given she's only a destroyer.  The two fleet CVs duck and weave through the submarines, maybe the Dauntlesses will bomb a few others on the way.
Two new slow battleships arrived at Panama today and begin the long journey to Hawaii.  They'll likely get used as coastal defence ships, thats about all those old junkers are good for.
Lots of reinforcement aircraft arriving in the USA, but no AKs to transport them until a couple of days, and no DDs to escort the AKs, for the foreseeable future. 
Did a quick audit of just how many DDs I got in theatre here and what they are doing.  Aside from six doing ASW patrol at Johnston Island - not proving a target rich environment - I have no spares at all.  I recall the DDs at Johnston, but this critical shortage of escorts is burning me quite badly in the Central Pacific.


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Post #: 61
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 6/30/2008 2:50:10 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/17/1942

Burma/India
AA deployments for the new batteries landed in Karachi : one AA battery ordered to Ledo, one ordered to Cox's Bazaar, one ordered to Diamond Harbour.  Blenheim IVs sent to Colombo.  A Dutch evacuee base force (not sure where from, but its a 30 av support one and is very near full strength) has been unloaded at Tivandrum, on the extreme southernmost tip of India.  In good time torpedo bombers are going to be stationed here.  Extra engineers are already on their way.
Still no Jap units in Burma but he's coming.  I ordered my Mitchells and Blenheims to raid his port at Bangkok, where he has ships docked. 
Port Blair now has 8 P-40s.  Morale is good but experience is poor.  the Royal Navy continues to try and resupply with CLs and DDs doing fast transport, an AK is a couple of days out.  Weather forecast here has been thunderstorms for day after day, so its not ideal weather for the Japs at least.

Malaysia
He's back to parking ships at Mersing.  Is he baiting me?  In any case I can hardly turn him down.  There are 20 torpedo bombers at Singapore and I set them to scramble, with the entirety of the fighter force, as usual.

PI
Clark Field fell today, the defenders retreated to Bataan.  I had ordered the troops at Manila to fall back to Clark a couple of days ago, but they didn't budge an inch.  Clearly I do not understand ground combat in this game.  In any case, they are split up now, and so, fecked. 

DEI
He has a CVL or CVE group in the south Java Sea again, and Martins from Soerabaja hit him.  The Dutch airforce in the south of Java hasn't been mauled, like the guys in the north.  Air combat saw 3 Buffaloes shot down in exchange for one Zero, a ratio I deem to be improving given past dismal Buffalo performance.  No bomb hits though (of course).
Akagi prowls further north, west of Java now, and roasts the convoy that was up there.  Another 4 AKs in the Jap bag.  Its just as well the British carriers havn't reached Colombo yet, Akagi and Soryu are on their own there and it is soooo tempting.  Foolish given the Zero bonus hasn't expired yet though.  .
DD Scout has managed to break the Java blockade though and is headed out into the Indian Ocean, so its not all bad. 
Palembang and Batavia look like they'll be out of commision for weeks, so the only airbases with teeth in ABDA are Singapore and Soerabaja.  There are some shattered remnants regrouping and reinforcing in Badoeng but the Dutch pilot pool is out so they are going to be of marginal use at best.  Experience 20 pilots, they'll be lucky if they can land...



Landings at Lautem, the ABDA patrol planes there switched commands to SWPAC and fly the long trip to Cairns in Australia.

China
The ROCAF are still doing good work around Hong Kong.  Bombers raid Hong Kong every 2 or 3 days - the bombs miss but the bombers are training up nicely and the AVG is putting pressure on the defenders.  Allied submarines by Hong Kong have been forced to withdraw due to ASW being concentrated there - one damaged sub is falling back to Manila, the other two are getting moved to shadow Okinawa or Formosa.
I'm still not sure what to make of the ground situation at all.  The southeast is very barren of any aviation support and he's using the Chinese units there as target practice.  As per usual there seems to be nothing I can really do about this.

SWPAC
About half of the Aussie 30th Bde in Port Moresby has been evacuated to the mainland.  Their AV is only about 30 - not good enough.  Another Bde is on standby to be rotated in, some APs and MSWs for escort are making their way to Cairns, as its near full strength airlift isn't so feasible.
Wirraways still bomb his forces at Lae every day.  He is busy here too, capturing the islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, out of range of my search planes.  (Kavieng)



Note his armed merchant cruisers are possibly still somewhere out there in the Coral Sea.

CENTPAC
Actually had a successful day here.  Saratoga and Lexington are between Pago Pago and Canton Island, and tore into the IJN submarines.  USS Cassin, escorting the Lexington, depth charges I-169 and scores a direct hit, sinking the Jap.  Later that day Dauntlesses (and there are quite a few of them on ASW duty) attack I-3 and I-16, with a hit reported on I-16.  Using fleet carriers to hunt subs is risky - but so far seems to be working.
A slight worry is that Shokaku was spotted at Lae last week and could now be anywhere in CENTPAC, with buddies. 

NORPAC
Previously an utter backwater.  Still is really, but a few things are happening.  A Jap submarine has been sighted prowling around Adak Island.  AVDs are ready at Attu Island and Amchitka Island but no Catalinas at Attu yet, due to the lack of supply.  Base forces are on their way from the west coast - the AVD at Amchitka is a temporary measure.
A submarine tender is already set up at Dutch Harbor and has plenty of fuel and supply.  I've allocated quite a few submarines (7, at the moment - four of them S boats) to go on war patrols around the Home Islands, offensive mining and such.  I don't expect much in the way of results but spreading out his ASW assets and minesweepers can only be a good thing.


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(in reply to EUBanana)
Post #: 62
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 6/30/2008 5:14:37 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/18/1942

Massive air battles today. Numerically the battles were either about even or slightly but only slightly pro Japanese. The results were pretty stark though, 23 Allied losses for 7 Japs.

Malaysia/Burma
A big scramble of torpedo bombers went for his ships at Mersing. The heavy fighter escort paid quite a stiff price to get the bombers through - they succeeded, but then as per usual the bombers couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Day Air attack on TF, near Mersing at 23,50

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 22
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 6

Allied aircraft
Swordfish x 9
Wirraway x 7
Buffalo I x 13
Vildebeest IV x 11
P-40B Tomahawk x 4
P-40E Warhawk x 14

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed, 1 damaged
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Swordfish: 1 destroyed
Wirraway: 1 damaged
Buffalo I: 2 destroyed, 5 damaged
Vildebeest IV: 3 damaged
P-40B Tomahawk: 3 damaged
P-40E Warhawk: 3 destroyed, 5 damaged

Japanese Ships
CL Sendai
DD Fubuki
DD Ayanami
DD Oshio

Aircraft Attacking:
4 x Vildebeest IV launching torpedoes at 200 feet
3 x Vildebeest IV launching torpedoes at 200 feet
3 x Wirraway bombing at 2000 feet
4 x Swordfish launching torpedoes at 200 feet
4 x Vildebeest IV launching torpedoes at 200 feet
4 x Wirraway bombing at 2000 feet
4 x Swordfish launching torpedoes at 200 feet

...another 26 bomber sorties against ships without any hits - all dive bombers or torpedo bombers, too.

Average experience of those bombers is between 57 and 61, so while they aren't experts they aren't monkeys either, so I expect a bit better than that... Amazingly morale in the USAAF/RAF/RAAF units at Singapore remains excellent, despite the "We suck!" graffiti in the sergeant's mess...
Japanese bombardments at Singapore claimed 230 casualties.

The Allied air raids on Bangkok were a moderate success. An AK and an AP were hit by 500lb bombs while in port. However the bombers were unescorted and the CAP was heavy so a price was paid, contributing to those 27 allied losses this turn.

The AK at Port Blair has unloaded 300 supply, but was hit by a dud torpedo dropped by a Nell this turn. Two IJN submarines have been sighted there. Looks like he considers this something of a priority?

DEI
Palembang was hit hard by 100 bombers flying from Malaya. Fortunately the airbase was evacuated a few days ago. :p
A Dutch submarine that has been stalking Akagi/Soryu found the fleet oiler he's using to keep them on station for weeks at a time, but unfortunately missed. The muppetry of the Allies knows no bounds... it did at least manage to evade the depth charge attack.

Further south it looks like an invasion force is incoming, bombers from Soerabaja scrambled, meeting a CAP of Claudes from a CVL or CVE. Again the escorts suffer some casualties but the bombers get through, only to miss. The bombers down here are really becoming the monkey squad though so missing is to be expected.

China
ROCAF and the AVG attacked Hong Kong again, as they have done for a long time. He has significantly reinforced Hong Kong though, with the Nates replaced by Oscars and a good 20 odd Zeroes. The AVG managed to shoot a few down but the balance of kills was in the Japanese favour again. A Chinese bomber was shot down too. A Japanese destroyer, the Chidori, was hit by a bomb.
That was against an amazingly badass AVG squadron as well, half of the squadron has experience over 70, and about a third have 80 plus.

SWPAC
Wirraways and Dauntlesses bomb Lae, get two supply hits which is nice. Kavieng falls to the Japs.

CENTPAC
Saratoga/Lexington are at Pago Pago now. Two submarines sighted nearby. He knows the CVs are there given Devastators were sighted by his submarines. I'm going to send them to Auckland and then patrol the waters between Australia and Noumea, where his surface raiders were.
Massive and very valuable convoy filled with aircraft is leaving San Francisco. It has reasonable escort - one CA, two upgraded Clemson class DDs, and a couple of PGs.

NORPAC
A Glen was sighted so he has his carrier-subs up here. Amchitka Island is being garrisoned with a baseforce this turn, but as it has no airfield it'll be a while before it can be put to use.

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(in reply to EUBanana)
Post #: 63
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/1/2008 3:13:48 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/19/1942

Fairly quiet-ish, went well for me in the air.  4 air to air losses for the Japanese, only 2 for the Allies, so momentary good news.  The Jap fighters in action were Oscars and Zeroes as well, so not crap.  Maybe crap pilots?  ;)

Also he suffered eight op losses today.  His pilot pools must be taking quite the battering.

...not that thats hard.

Malaysia/Burma/India
Pretty quiet in Malaya itself.  Jap ground troops inflict 300 casualties on the Singapore defenders, the fortress looks like it'll take a while to reduce though.
In Burma my airforce is having a rest still, but his isn't.  A massive 100 bomber raid out of Bangkok hits Moulmein, where my medium bombers are.  Given the number of incoming planes damage is remarkably light, just a couple of aircraft hit.
At Port Blair the Nells fly, basically ignore the 3 defending P-40s who fail to engage, and blow the AK there into orbit.  Yeah.  It'll have to be fast transports only if I wanna resupply this place.  In fact today four British light cruisers did drop off another thousand supply there.  3 Japanese subs at Port Blair now!    A lot of effort for such a small place, but they've not managed to torpedo anything.  Yet.  I dispatch six picked destroyers from Colombo - all with ASW 6 minimum - to do a hit and run on Port Blair and see if they can depth charge something.  Half of them are British with very high experience ratings.  I expect results!
First 3 squadrons of Hurricanes landed at Karachi today.

China
Massive Jap airstrike on Wuchow.  My bombers are already in the air though, and are bombing Hong Kong while bombs fall on their home plate.  Jap damage is fairly light.  The Allies manage to shoot down some of the defending Oscars and plant a bomb onto a Jap AK in the port.  Nice.
Ominous signs elsewhere in China.  Jap minesweepers are clearing Wenchow harbour of mines - Wenchow is still in KMT hands, is he invading here?  Also it looks like he's working on cutting Wenchow off, as there are some fairly major (multi divisional scale) battles going on immediately inland.
Bit of an oh-smeg moment here as I see whats incoming.  Land combat in WITP is not exactly my expertise (see Bataan) and I was hoping China would be a sideshow - apparently not.
I see how exposed Wenchow is, and give orders to pull back to Changsha and Kanshien.  While checking out these units here I discover just how vulnerable they are - they are totally out of supply, so far in front of my lines.  The exception is the division holding Wenchow itself, which is ordered to stay and not let him have it without a fight.

DEI
USS Seawolf finds the battleship Fuso at Kuching (smoking due to the mine that hit her at Batavia a while back) and tries to torpedo her, but misses.  The resulting depth charge attack is pretty runty, so Seawolf stays put.
Bombers from Batoeng scramble against Akagi/Soryu which have approached near the northern Java coast.  The Jap air defence is amazingly crap, despite the mauled state of the Dutch fighters the Dutchies actually hold up pretty well against Jap naval pilots!  They must be getting tired, at least my guys have had the best part of a week off.  A couple of Martins bomb the sea around Jap ships.
But sheez, talk about tempting to try and send the Royal Navy carriers after them eh?
In the south of Java it looks quiet, theres a lot of Jap shipping in the Java Sea but its hugging the Borneo coast, and I've got my bombers set to not attack at range > 4 to keep the fatigue down.
He's invading Macassar, will take it tomorrow probably.  Ditto Lautem.

SWPAC
Usual state of affairs at Lae, another Wirraway raid.  The Wirraways are actually doing alright, regularly getting supply hits, and thats whats wanted.
He's landing at Buin now.  I've dispatched my cruisers - refuelled by an AO - from Luganville to see if they can raid.  Unlikely to be quick enough, its quite a long way but you never know.
CL Hobart has left Sidney and is going to comb the sea between Noumea and Australia with her Walrus recon aircraft, see if those Jap armed merchant cruisers are still loitering.
Catalinas are still doing troop transport from Port Moresby to the mainland, takes a while.

CENTPAC
Marcus Island will be being bombarded by a US heavy cruiser SAG today or tomorrow.
A whole lot of minesweeping going on, as he discovers all my surprises laid for him at the various atolls all over CENTPAC. 
USS Trenton is leaking most disturbingly at Canton Island, getting worse, not better.  up to 56 flotation.
My two deployed carriers switch from ASW back to the usual naval search routine on their aircraft as they continue on to refuel at Auckland.
He's building up the airbase at Tarawa...  I really need to delay that as much as possible!  Jap torpedo bombers there would be a bad thing. 
An RCT is loading at Pearl Harbour for transport to Canton Island, and then that island is basically as well protected as I can afford.  2 x CDs, 1 x full strength RCT. 
6 x DDs are at Baker ASWing, not found anything yet.
An AK + DD escort is dispatched from Pearl to Penrhyn Island to pick up the stranded Dakotas there.  The badly damaged AK that was torpedoed off Penryn Island did make it to the island at least and ditched the Dakota squadron there.  But with no base force, the Dakotas are just rusting on the beach.



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(in reply to EUBanana)
Post #: 64
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/1/2008 7:31:58 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/20/1942

An absolutely catastrophic day for the Dutch in the air today.  The balance of air to air losses stands at 42 Allied versus 2 Japanese, with the vast majority of those 42 being pretty much whats left of the Dutch air force.

Malaysia/Burma/India
More air strikes on (loaded with troops) Jap merchants right on the doorstep of Singapore.  The tally runs to about six Allied planes lost for 2 Japanese.  As per usual the sorry tale is not the air combat so much but the utter ineptitude of the Allied bombers.  That said, my Wirraways seem to be getting better and score two 250lb hits in the attack.  Wish I could say the same about the torpedo bombers who don't hit a dime, and indeed have not managed to so far in the war!
Ground fighting at Singapore kills another 300 defenders.  30 to 1 odds on a surrounded and entrapped Indian Bde in the Malayan mountains isnt enough to make them surrender, they /still/ hold out, to the worlds surprise.  They aren't even veterans!  Must be down to Sikh knives by now, they sure havn't got bullets.  Or food.
Burma is quiet, everybody is resting.  I'm going back to bombing Victoria Point though to coincide with some incoming ASW sweeps and fast transports at Port Blair.
DM Stronghold at Colombo sets out with Tjerk Hiddes, planning to mine Port Blair essentially non stop until either being sunk or the military situation changes.

China
Indecisive aerial combat over Wuchow.  Wuchow airfield got expanded to size 3 today.  Ground combat was pretty indecisive too, but there is fighting in the east.

PI
The US/Filipinos are still holding out... their position is pretty rocky though, as they've been separated and the guys at Bataan have no supply at all.  Manila only has 10k.  Compare to Singapore on 30k, I suspect the Philippines will fall first - its the least well defended anyway.

DEI
The catastrophe will be saved till last.
Dutch PT boats raid Bandjarmasin where they find the battleships Ise and Yamashiro plus escorts.  In a series of night battles the Dutch get wiped out - but they did fire torpedoes at the big boys, just none hit. 
USS Seawolf torpedoes a patrol boat off Kuching but the torpedoes fail to explode.  The retaliatory depth charges badly damage her (21 sys, 40 flot) and she hurries back to Singapore, out of the war for a while.
USS Sculpin tries to torpedo a Jap tanker at Brunei but misses.  So do the depth charges.
At Timor Lautem falls.  Makassar still holds out to my surprise.

ok, the bad bit.
In the morning fighters and bombers scramble from Soerabaja and attack Ryujo plus presumably plenty others - there is a ~40 plane CAP, half Zeroes, half Claudes.  The Dutch perform particularly badly today.  The morning sees airstrikes of  ~25 Dutch fighters escorting ~10 bombers. The fighters are absolutely cut to bits, as in almost all of them shot down.  The bombers make it through and pepper the sea around Ryujo with bombs as usual. 
Compounding this poor result though - in the afternoon the Dutch bomber squadron leaders apparently decide to try again, never mind the fact that there is no fighter cover because "everybody's dead, Dave".  They don't even bother to concentrate the airstrikes.  Instead, all after noon, lots of tiny unescorted bomber strikes - 4 Martins here, 6 there - try to attack Ryujo.  Every single one which pressed the attack was shot down by the CAP.
The only a/c left alive pretty much are the ones whose morale was shot enough to promptly turn back upon seeing Death waiting for them.

The south of Java has in total no more than 40 aircraft and fighters are very much a minority now.  The north is a bit better as they've sucked up the aircraft pool for a while, and has more like 60, but their experience is dire because the Dutch pilot pool ran out ages ago.
Looks like Java has shot its bolt pretty much.

He's started doing recon of the Australian north coast from Timor, and found that Wyndham is empty at least.  I wonder what his future plans are...

Two Dutch submarines are available at Soerabaja for rearming after previous war patrols.  A coastal boat is sent towards Ryujo, maybe it'll have better luck than the bombers... the long range one is going to Tarakan to mark the oil there.

SWPAC
The Allied happy time at Port Moresby is over.  He now has Zeroes stationed at Lae, which the Wirraways doing their usual run found out the hard way.  Casualties were remarkably light given how crap the Wirraway is, just a couple shot down, but clearly there won't be any more free bombing here.  Until the US provides decent fighters Australia is up the creek for a while it seems.
An AP at Broome is pulling out the baseforce there.  But with Timor in Japanese hands its going to Perth not Darwin, as that is a much, much safer route.


CENTPAC
USS Detroit and USS Portland bombarded Marcus Island, not that it really accomplished much beyond a "Hey, I'm here".
The first convoy to Australia somewhat ignominiously has become the first convoy to Noumea - after those armed merchant cruisers blew the crap out of them they successfully made it to Noumea and unloaded.
The first convoy to Australia is actually going to be 2 MSWs and 1 AK carrying 12 P-36s.  Pretty low degree of impressiveness there. 

NORPAC
4 S-boats mined a port in Hokkaido today and are coming back to Dutch Harbour, low on fuel (they travelled from San Fran).  Two more fleet submarines are approaching with more mines to mine the other big Hokkaido port.  I dunno if he plans on using the industry at Hokkaido, but if he does maybe that'll be a surprise.
After these subs have rearmed after minelaying they'll be on war patrols around the Home Islands.
Amchitka Island is now baseforced, supplied up and fuelled up.  Attu Island is about to be resupplied, soon as it is Catalinas are going there, which should give me ample early warning should he try something up here.


_____________________________


(in reply to EUBanana)
Post #: 65
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/2/2008 3:40:38 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/21/1942

Last week of January 1942... how time flies.

Malaysia/Burma/India
Malaya was quite quiet today.  A bombardment claimed 300 casualties, seems regular, at Singapore.  Commonwealth and Indian troops stuck in the mountains hold out despite attacks, tying up 3 Japanese Bdes.  The airforces seem to both be resting.
A Jap AP just swans by Singapore!  its like he knows its safe.    I'm considering evacuating those bombers there now as they aren't accomplishing much.  I'll leave it a little while yet.  The Sabang-Port Blair-Calcutta route will do for all but the Vildebeest. 
20 Allied medium bombers raid Victoria Point, doing some minor damage, but every little helps. 
Four obsolescent destroyers fast transported more supplies into Port Blair, its up to 3000 odd now, from 0, so I think I'm making some progress.  On the way a Japanese submarine was attacked and suffered a near miss, not bad, given those DDs are not good ASW platforms.  My uber ASW flotilla should hit it tomorrow night, hopefully that will be much better.    Also an antiaircraft unit in Singapore is being airlifted the circuitous route via Sabang to Port Blair to beef up its air defence a bit, given its location that can't be a bad thing.
An engineer unit in India is 120 miles from Trivandrum now.  I hope to get that up to a level 4 airbase before he starts making any moves on India, as its on the mainland and in Beaufort range of Colombo and Trimcomalee.  Depends how long I got, really... 

DEI
Quiet, after the slaughter yesterday, I imagine all the Dutch are in shock.
Some more Martins attack Ryujo in the Java Sea, I thought I told them to quit it!  Only one shot down though so it wasn't that bad.
Jap submarine in Tjilatjap ninjas and kills 2 TKs in one day, dodging all attempts at escort.  Akagi/Soryu seem to be going south, now he knows there is Allied shipping there, so I disband them, and transfer whats left of my fighters there to see if we can challenge a carrier raid.
HMS Truant (those British T submarines have 10 torpedo tubes on the front!  Wow) torpedoes a Jap TK at Balikpapan, if nothing else a fuel burning result means I burned up some precious fuel.
I actually move back a B-17 squadron from Darwin to Soerabaja.  I plan on bombing the oil at Balikpapan, I might get a unit or two, we shall see.
My sub strategy changed from defence of bases to mostly marking oil centres, now that he has oil centres under his control.  So far it seems to be at least yielding chances.
Macassar falls to him today.

China
More indecisive aerial combat near Wuchow.  He has the edge in kills now, but then the ROCAF isn't exactly the A-Team.
I'm more worried about the east, it looks like an offensive is definitely building up here.  Now he's had time to move a hex I can see the jaws of a trap closing.  Unfortunately I think I'm about a month too late to save those Chinese.  I'm working on rushing some reinforcements into the neck of the trap and pulling the vulnerable out into it.

SWPAC/Australia
Most of the Broome base force is now en route to Perth.  A fragment remains due to lack of carrying capacity but that suits me - I can keep Catalinas running there now and it gives him the illusion that its being held.  At the beginning of the war I allocated a couple of reinforcement units to Northern Australia, those are now past Alice Springs and will take up defensive positions at Katherine and Tennant Creek, so the defenders of Darwin have a secure line of retreat.  Cloncurry is being built up as an airbase which can hit the road to Darwin.

30th Bde is almost totally evacuated from Port Moresby, only the mortars left.  APs are ready to transport the fresh Bde, but they got no fuel - a TK is headed up the coast from Sydney to fix that.  Buin has been captured by the Japs, my cruisers from Luganville press on, in the hope of bagging him before he leaves.

CENTPAC
3 ships sighted near the mostly abandoned Wake Island.  Wake is almost out of supplies and just has Catainas and a baseforce there now - and some hastily laid mines.  Two hexes east is a convoy of AKs carrying supply - today they encountered a Japanese submarine but the upgraded USS Waters, with ASW 8, blew the crap out of it, scoring two direct hits and a kill. 
Down in the Tonga Islands my CVs are negotiating sub filled waters.  Reports look good though - a Dauntless is reporting an oil slick from one, and a hit on the other one, so hopefully both are damaged and are limping home, if not going to Davy Jones' locker outright.


_____________________________


(in reply to EUBanana)
Post #: 66
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/2/2008 5:23:31 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/22/1942

Burma/India/Malaya
Malaya is real quiet, aside from the usual round of ground bombardments. His minesweepers did a night run of Singapore and swept some mines. There was a boom and one sank. No text saying why, but I assume that was Singapore Fortress doing the talking. Indian III Corps HQ has had a cadre evacuated, its going to Calcutta.
I'm a little concerned about supply in Burma, its about 10k in total. So an AK has been "volunteered" to try and sneak another 2k in. AVG Tomahawks will LRCAP it when it gets close, to give some reassurance.

DEI
HMS Trusty torpedoed another Jap tanker at Balikpapan, not the same one as last time, got one hit. No heavy damage though. Trusty tried again in the afternoon, but no message at all - I presume this is because she's out of ammo.
He's closing in on the Java coast around the southern end. Lots of taskforces. Is this It? 2 hexes away. The Dutch don't do anything as they've been told to batten down the hatches.

PI
Bataan is under attack and its very bloody. The forts were reduced too, so its going to be going down in days. No six month heroism here...
Manila is firm for now.
Evacuation of the PI is nearly complete - that which is going to be evacced anyway. A PI regiment, two US RCTs, and several baseforces, have had cadres evacuated. One of the RCTs ended up in San Francisco, the others have mostly gone to Aus, though one RCT went to Calcutta.

China
Did some major reordering here of the Chinese airforce, results will be coming in tomorrow when they actually start flying. Wuchow was resting today.

SWPAC/Aus
Tense day, USS Lexington was torpedoed by a sub, I-5! luckily the torps missed. The destroyer escort got some near misses on the sub, in the afternoon a Dauntless reported a hit on the sub, hopefully it wasn't lying. Lex/Saratoga are still zigzagging towards Auckland.
4 DDs are dispatched from Cairns to pick up the remnants of 30th Australian Bde at Port Moresby, looks like the guns the Catalinas cannot carry (didnt think an 81mm mortar was /that/ big), for the sake of neatness I'm going to try and collect them.

CENTPAC
Hotting up again here. A lot of taskforces sighted at Wake Island. He wants it now, and he's not taking no for an answer. Wake has been evacuated, there is just the baseforce (which it looks like I'm gonna lose, too slow to pull a cadre out) and 400 mines to greet him.
The two PCs who were subhunting at Wake were ordered to leg it yesterday, but on the way out one got torpedoed by a Jap RO submarine. Then CV Zuikaku showed up and bombed the other one.
Just out of range of this CV so happened was a convoy coming in to Wake, with supply, some CD guns (I was kinda hedging as to whether to reinforce it - oops!) and DD escort. Bad weather saved them today, they are ordered to scatter and leg it. The DDs are set to high speed and run east.
Two CVs are hastily assembled at Pearl Harbour. If its just Zuikaku I'm tempted to have a go! I'll at least get them on station so I have the option.

NORPAC
Another one of his armed merchant cruisers showed up, at Attu Island, and blew away a couple of supply ships that were incoming. Still, enough supply was landed for a little while, and Catalinas are now stationed there.
HMS Warspite left Seattle and is headed for Seward - totally without escort. One Jap submarine was sighted around this part of the world so far, tiz a calculate risk.

West Coast
There seems to be some sort of seriously annoying bug. That big convoy I mentioned earlier hasn't left San Francisco yet - the reason being it apparently refuses to load any aircraft. A whole bunch of squadrons seem to be unloadable. Load troops as normal doesn't make the squadron appear on the ships, it does say "Loading troops" in the bottom right, but nothing happens, next turn they are still sitting there.
Bah.

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Post #: 67
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/2/2008 5:30:41 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 16
D3A2 Val x 19
B5N2 Kate x 25

Japanese aircraft losses
B5N2 Kate: 1 damaged

Allied Ships
PC Tiger, Bomb hits 3,  on fire,  heavy damage

Thats the Jap carrier strike that hit the PCs at Wake today.  What do you think?  1 or 2 carriers?


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Post #: 68
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/3/2008 3:18:34 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/23/1942

Invasion : Java has begun!

Malaysia/India/Burma
Pretty quiet.  1 squadron of Hurricanes sent to Trivandrum, two squadrons to Calcutta.  2 more headed for Colombo, one for Trimcomalee, even more coming behind those.  No shortage of interceptors at least.
Bombing continues around Tavoy.
Fast transports continue around Port Blair.  CA Dorsetshire is added to the "London Express".
Dakotas transferred from Rangoon back to Ledo, they resume collecting a Chinese division from China.

DEI
Java has been invaded!  Kragen was the landing site.  Defended by the lone Dutch armoured unit.
Everywhere south of Kragen is ordered to retreat to Soerabaja.
Everywhere north holds for now.
Aircraft are given the orders to fly, on the principle of "Use em or lose em".
Transport aircraft in Java are all moved to Palembang.
Not much I can do here aside from watch the carnage.

Good news elsewhere though, a Dutch sub at Balikpapan put two more torpedoes into one of the TKs that was damaged by HMS Trusty yesterday - its enough to finish it off, first Jap tanker in the bag.

SWPAC/Aus
Looks quiet here now.  Calm before the storm.
I need to save up about 100 PPs to ship my replacement Bde over to Port Moresby by AP.  Convoy is all ready.  They might even have US CV support by the time I've got those PP,I keep spending them to save units in the DEI...

CENTPAC
Big news here, the Zuikaku has finished off all that convoy I mentioned bar the AP, which was marginally faster, and the DDs which legged it at full speed.  Wake is under blockade and will likely be invaded tomorrow, I see SAGs and merchants as well as Zuikaku.
My Catalinas have transferred to Midway just in case - Wake has been mostly evacuated so I wouldnt be surprised for it to fall the day of landing.
My other two US carriers are actually advancing, heart in mouth - moving to cover that AP as it runs, if Zuikaku chases after the AP, we might have a carrier battle in January 1942.    If Zuikaku returns to Wake to cover the invasion I will retire, as I'm not sure what else is there.  Shokaku is about somewhere.

NORPAC
Quiet, things developing.


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Post #: 69
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/3/2008 5:20:39 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/24/1942

Burma/Malaysia/India
All quiet here pretty much.  Another Singapore AA unit is being evacuated, this time to Palembang.  I'm pondeirng pulling all aircraft bar Vildebeest out of Singapore in the course of the next week.
Port Blair quiet even.

DEI
USS Pike, one of the many subs prowling around off western Java trying to find him, finds his carriers, or more accurately the battleship Kirishima presumably escorting them.  Torpedoes miss.  Pike endures depth charge attacks all day, being in the same hex as multiple Jap taskforces, a couple of near misses do minor damage but Pike will be staying on station.
8 Fortresses cause 1 oil hit at Balikpapan, but "Every Little Helps".
Aircraft scramble against his carriers, Akagi gets missed a lot, the usual state of affairs prevails - escorts massacred but bombers leak through anyway only to miss. 
I've had it now.  If i had the PPs, all aircraft other than transports in Java would be being evacuated.  As it is the P-40s have been ordered up to Palembang, the first of many jumps to make it home.
Dutch transports have been moved up to Sumatra as well, in readiness for shuttling bits around from Singapore to various spots where I want them.  If I do evacuate all the aircraft thats a lot of superfluous baseforces in Singapore who could be deployed to Palembang or evacuated to India.
The Zuid Garrison Btn, 20 AVs worth, has just moved to Palembang, with the intention of giving the engineers a bit of time to demolish the place when the Japs show up.

China
Looks like a good 10 divisions have been trapped in the salient in the east of the country, I really shoulda paid more attention to this theatre in turn 1.  Two Chinese divisions versus 1 Jap division at one part of the encircling forces, the Chinese attack, AV is about equal, but the attack fails.  Casualties are fairly light.  Reinforcements are coming in to that unit along the roads near Changsha.
ROCAF fly, a couple of Oscars are shot down without loss by the AVG, the bombers miss completely (with experience 21 in some cases this isnt too surprising) but I consider that a good day given what I got to work with.

SWPAC
Shortlands is bloodlessly occupied by the Japs.  Aussie cruisers are at Lunga, pausing until he makes a move.  (and hopefully unnoticed).  The Aussies are in the hurt locker until American fighters can turn up though, as now there are Zeroes in theatre the RAAF is completely neutered.

CENTPAC
Well... he decided not to press with Zuikaku.  So the carrier battle didn't happen.  He Will Never Know How Close.  And I will never know what happened.  If it really was Zuikaku on her own, I think my two US carriers, even at this early phase in the war, would've scratched her.  If it was Shokaku and Zuikaku though, then I'd have been screwed.  And it may well have been.
Wake Island fell immediately as I expected given only half a baseforce was there.  The aircraft were relocated to Midway.
An RCT is en route to Canton Island, which means it will be at the maximum permitted defence (I'm not committing more than 2 CD + 1 RCT to atoll defence, that is what Canton Island now has).  There are quite a few CentPac reinforcements due to arrive in Pearl over the next few weeks, Pago Pago will be the next one I reinforce.  There are also some SWPAC units too just leaving San Francisco, at least some of these will go to Noumea.  If given enough time, then, we should have Noumea, Canton Island, Pago Pago and Pearl (and maybe Palmyra too, units permitting) as the main locuses of Allied defensive power which will hopefully keep the supply route to Australia open.

He'll have to get a move on though, I'm sure he won't want to run atoll assaults when the Japanese bonus expires.


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Post #: 70
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/4/2008 12:19:07 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/25/1942

The air-to-air kill tally stands at 12 Allied for 5 Japanese this turn.  Most of the Allied losses were Buffaloes and P-40s from Singapore who were up against Zeroes.  The 5 Japanese were shot down by AVG planes up against Oscars.

Burma/India
Engineers are settled at Trivandrum now and are building the airstrip.  Its happening quite quickly, a month or two and I should be sorted.  The big RAF aviation support units just debarked at Karachi today too, one is off to Ledo, the other one Trivandrum (probably overkill, as more baseforces arrive this might be redeployed).
Calcutta is becoming the squadron graveyard, its filled with decimated Buffalo squadrons now!  I hope their rate of replacement improves from the 1 per month I'm getting at the moment, these Buffaloes are one shot wonders otherwise...
Burma sees some bombing of Tavoy, the AVG shoots down a couple of Oscars for no loss.

Malaya/DEI
In Java its going to be Fortress Soerabaja and Fortress Batavia, everything is being concentrated in those two points.  Supply seems adequate despite my lack of reinforcement.  Dispersal airfields are no longer relevant because there isn't much of an airforce to disperse!  I pulled a lot of air units back to Palembang, thats a temporary hop on the way to Sabang, and then India.  I would like to send some of these to Australia not India, but his taking of the bases between Java and Aus stopped that plan cold.  He still has Java sealed up tighter than a drum with carriers off every coast, he bombarded Tjilitjap today, which is still filled with short range AKs, they won't be going anywhere.  I plan on scuttling the lot when given the chance.
MSWs sweep Singapore at night again, the guns tag one of them.  During the day torpedo bombers take off from Singapore and score 2 hits - the first hits by an Allied torpedo bomber in the whole war, and not through lack of trying.  Unfortunately both hit a single minesweeper which promptly sinks, not exactly a big catch.
He raids Sabang today with a hundred bombers, but from quite high level.  Damage is reasonable - so far.  He really knows whats up anyway, he's a perceptive chap.  Extra AA from Singapore is probably going to be airlifted over, atm they are busy with the one AA unit they got though.

China
At that salient neck its 3 Chinese versus 1 Japanese division now, and amazingly they are fully supplied.  I'm bombarding till disruption from movement goes down and then I'm gonna try and clear him out of the way.  By the time that happens it should be 5 versus 1, hopefully. I may yet achieve a breakthrough.
I have the slight advantage in that I can bring down troops with the road from Changsha, and he is apparently marching over trails, so my response, belated though it may be, can be quite swift.
In the east of the country by Wenchow, where his envelopment is, there are a good six hexes now where ground combat is raging.  My guys are just sitting tight to conserve supply.
He's raiding Wuchow heavily now but my usual defence, ie do not be on the ground when its hit but be bombing his forces instead, seems to be working quite well.  Jap bombers seem to lack the bombload to crush runways,at least not in one shot.  My own bombers achieve some success against his ground forces nearby, shooting down several Oscars without loss.  The Chinese bombers miss, but their experience is rising rapidly, nothing like combat to improve that stat.

SWPAC
F-5 Lightning recons are in position at Port Moresby, and can see deep into Jap territory.  He's got a ****load of troops at Lae.  Many divisions worth.  I wonder if he's just going to march them to PM over land?  they are up to no good obviously.
One more day and I should have the PP to reinforce Port Moresby with that fresh Bde.

CENTPAC
The  ball is in his court here, now Wake has fallen what is he gonna do next?  I'm still waiting for convoys to make it through various places here, so I am spectator.  I order minelayers to do their thing this turn and thats about it.


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Post #: 71
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/4/2008 7:36:18 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/26/1942

A fairly bad day today, but not so bad.  I guess by the standards of January 1942, that is alright then. 

Burma/India
Pretty quiet here, aside from the regular bombing of Tavoy by my Mitchells and Blenheims, with the P-40Bs of the AVG flying escort.  He has Oscar CAP over Tavoy but they can't stop me.
I commented in my last email to him, "You look pretty interested in whats going on at Port Blair...", and he replied,

"Suffice to say I don't fancy vision of unsinkable CV 'Port Blair' anchored near the coast of Malaya (and japanese Rangoon of course)..." 



DEI
Bad day in Sumatra.  A big airstrike hits Sabang again and this one hurts - though the combat report lies, actual damage being far less than was reported. 
Worse was to happen in Palembang, which got hit by a battleship bombardment again - the very day after I moved a whole bunch of planes there on the way to Sabang!   There were 13 squadrons at Palembang, currently between them they have 5 operational aircraft - 33 were destroyed on the ground and the airfield is wrecked.  The Dutch really do not have any luck.
He's started fighter sweeps over Singapore and today he caught a couple of my transport aircraft there, which together adds up to a pretty grievous day in the skies over the DEI.
On Java he has been advancing both north and south from his beachheads, to my satisfaction.  I was afraid he'd move /everything/ to Soerabaja and then crush it, nope, looks like he's splitting up.
Soerabaja now has everything it can get its mitts on, which is a measly 150 AV's worth.  Batavia wont be much better.  The Mobile Einheid has been absolutely destroyed, it has 3 AV left.  Took a beating when it contested the landing grounds.
And USS Sturgeon (rapidly becoming the Allies hero sub) torpedoes a TK at Tarakan - with dud torpedoes.

Plans : Sabang is reinforced, the AVG at Rangoon fly over to CAP it.  That means about 25 fighters, most of which are the best the Allies have (not that that means much).  The first Martin squadron flies off of Sabang, landing in Trivandrum, to be greeted by a Dutch base force!  The Swordfish and Vildebeest have been pulled out of Singapore.  The skies over Singapore are going to be contested for a bit by Wirraways and P-40s, in the hope that they can cover the airlift (fat chance).  A serious depopulation of the DEI's air units is about to begin.  Sabang is almost out of supply - 3 CLs and 4 DDs of obsolescent classes are assembled at Colombo to run in a few points to keep the aircraft going.
At Palembang they just have to sit tight and repair.  Despite the incessant bombardments the number of engineers there is still going up, up to 103 now, and a few engineer vehicles.  The concentration of engineers there should make Palembang airfield hard to close at least.

China
Wuchow gets massively bombed, theres clearly some drama going on at the small scale as the best Allied pilot in the game, a guy called Rector, is shot down over Wuchow but rescued.     The AVG got shot up bad, I'm actually pulling the Wuchow people back to Chungking rather than be beaten up any more.  Seems typical for the Allies at this phase of the war - you can be a thorn in his side somewhere for so long, but annoy Japan too much and you get plucked.
Ground combat is a little bit better, I almost got 2 to 1 on AV with a bombardment of his encircling forces, so I might be able to break through on the Changsha-Nanchang road after all.

SWPAC
Loading up the fresh Bde for Port Moresby.  There is a LOT of APs for just one little brigade so the unloading time should be very quick.  Unfortunately the only CAP they'll have is Wirraways.    like lambs to the slaughter. 

CENTPAC
Pretty quiet here.

NORPAC
A big big convoy headed for Amchitka Island ran into one of his armed merchant cruisers - I assumed he'd have legged it by now, but no.  Audacious.  ANyway, it was a dream target, a massive convoy with no escorts.  He pulverised it pretty good, I only wish my ships would do so well!  I give up on Amchitka and move that convoy to Dutch Harbour.
HMS Warspite and a US DD are headed for NORPAC at top speed.  At the moment there isn't a single warship bigger than a patrol boat in this part of the world...


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Post #: 72
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/4/2008 8:41:36 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		Oh, a few other little notes of import that I forgot as well.

A British CVTF has left Colombo.  Two British carriers + the Prince of Wales.  Its probably the most badass single CVTF the Allies can muster - its AAA rating is 6500!    This TF will stay on station 120 miles NW of Sabang.  It is possible , though perhaps unlikely given he has airbases in Malaya, that he sends Akagi and Soryu up to Sabang.  If he does, I'm gonna 'ave him. 

There are four submarines lurking and doing war patrols around the Home Islands, and several ports in the Home Islands - including Tokyo - have been mined.  What is striking here is the apparent total absence of search aircraft.  Weird.


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Post #: 73
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/5/2008 2:21:43 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/27/1942

Pretty quiet today.

Burma/India
Hurricanes have now mostly been uncrated where I want them, the exception being the three squadrons earmarked for Colombo.  A 90 av support baseforce is on its way to Trivandrum, that will be more than adequate.  My Colombo defence will hopefully be quite solid - thats the weak spot, if he does invade India.  It does look like this might be sooner rather than later though, I would estimate he could be crawling over the beaches of Ceylon in 2 to 3 months if he keeps this up.
Royal Navy ships on various missions approach the DEI/Port Blair...
Malaya was a ghost town, I'm not attacking Tavoy with unescorted bombers, the damage is too great.  I flew some Hurricanes in today, I notice they have range 4 in CHS, not the 2 they have in stock - adequate to escort bombers to Tavoy.  So in a couple of days, when morale and fatigue has recovered, we should see some Hurricane on Oscar action.

DEI/Malaya
I got a Dutch patrol unit at Sabang with 0 planes, and it looks like its stuck.  Woe. 
He hit Palembang again, the already trashed airfield is trashed again.
Another Martin squadron has made it to India, and some Buffaloes made it to Colombo as well, so the air exodus is going fairly well I suppose.
Singapore is firm on 30k supply, not bad.  Supply should last longer now too as air sorties being flown from Singapore - and reinforcement of air units - will be sharply curtailed from now on.  He has, however, been moving in even more divisions.  Here is the latest attack.

Ground combat at Singapore

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 75534 troops, 428 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 1956

Defending force 59581 troops, 449 guns, 18 vehicles, Assault Value = 807

Allied ground losses:
377 casualties reported
Guns lost 4

The loss of three Indian brigades in the mountains of Malaya has been quite critical unfortunately.   He's got his 2 to 1, and he wouldn't have, if those three were in Singers!  On the other hand those Bdes still have not surrendered despite months of attacks so they are tying him down.

China
My attack on the Chungking Nanchang road failed, 3 divisions versus 1, but not good enough.

Ground combat at 47,38

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 28014 troops, 128 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 849

Defending force 19315 troops, 104 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 461

Allied max assault: 493 - adjusted assault: 496

Japanese max defense: 458 - adjusted defense: 679

Allied assault odds: 0 to 1


Japanese ground losses:
197 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Allied ground losses:
455 casualties reported
Guns lost 12

Another 2 chinese divisions are approaching though and that, with a shock attack, will be enough to push the Japs back to Nanchang I think.
And I reached Ichang but it seems strangely empty.  whats going on here?

Ground combat at Ichang

Allied Bombardment attack

Attacking force 35599 troops, 122 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 1148

Defending force 844 troops, 6 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 25

Allied ground losses:
4 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Looks like a candidate for a deliberate attack next turn.


SWPAC
Very quiet.  My carriers are a day or two from Auckland now.

CENTPAC
Also very quiet.  A big angry red dot is on Wake Island, stuff is going on there clearly.  Midway is braced.
Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot I can do yet until more baseforces arrive in theatre, every atoll I have is stacked, indeed over stacked. 
The RCT ordered to Canton Island is now in the process of landing.
I ordered another raid on Tarawa today, one CL and a whole bunch of destroyers.  It'll be a couple of days before they show up.  Tarawa has aircraft but is only a level 2 airfield at the moment.  A Colorado class battleship is chugging down towards Canton Island as well.
Enterprise and Yorktown are headed for NORPAC.  The apparent total absence of search aircraft in the Home Islands, confirmed again today by my submarine war patrols sitting off Tokyo, is making me think a raid on Hokkaido is in order.  However, they will be sweeping NORPAC first to check for more of his raiders, probably they will find some, and then we will have to reconsider any raids, which would be suicidal if he knew I was coming.


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Post #: 74
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/5/2008 9:07:49 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/27/1942

His Zero bonus is about to go down again... 
Another quiet day.  Still lost another ten aircraft though!  for no Jap losses.  No Jap op losses even.  A quiet day but a bad day for me.

Burma/India
Lots of extra Blenheims to Moulmein, the RAF will be up to about 50 bombers now on the Burmese border, there has been some pausing due to reorganisation but thats not a bad thing, morale needed to be restored after some ill advised unescorted raids.
Theres a /lot/ of Hurricane squadrons arriving.  That'll all add up.
Port Blair quiet.

DEI/Malaya
The siege of Singapore continues, no deliberate attacks yet.
He's still failing to root out the brigades stuck in the hills!  So, stalemate.  Singapore is down to 1 x P-40Es, 1 x Wirraways and 1 x Catalinas.
Palembang is bombed by a massive airstrike yet again, runway damage is at 99, everything else is in a bad way too.  He presumably saw how fruitful his bombardment was.  Yet more planes in the bin.  I moved some to Sinkep Island to transport the engineers over. 
More escapees flee from Sabang, a couple more Martin squadrons.
He's about to take Djokarta on Java without a fight.

China
Some reorganisation.  A Chinese unit has been converted to Lancers because there were a lot in the pool and they seem a lot better than biplanes; but experience is 25.  I'm going to do some ultra high level bombing until they are trained up I think.  The AVG escapees from Wuchow are at Chungking and due to many days of not touching the P-40B pool, have had a major restock, an extra 12 planes.  Unfortunately they are down to a handful of top notch pilots and a few cruft.  Another AVG squadron badly blunted by attrition...
I'm moving some airforce units to Yenen, its quiet up in Mao-land, might get a few free training missions.
Artillery units are on the Changsha-Nunchang road to force a breakthrough.  He has closed his envelopment completely now everywhere except on that road.  But I got a lot of divisions coming down said road so I remain confident.

SWPAC
Very quiet...  Aussie Navy moves to Tulagi, which is in floatplane search range of Buin.  Shortlands is marked by an S-boat.  His Zeroes are content to stay in his airspace.  My Wirraways are /definitely/ happy to stay unmolested in theirs.

CENTPAC
Americal division is at Panama but there are no ships to move them.  There are also tanks, baseforces and EAB units for SWPAC though, and there are enough ships to move them.  So they are loaded up, destination Noumea, along with a photo-recon unit which will be Noumea's eyes when they get there.
NORPAC HQ leaves Pearl headed for Anchorage, having supply pulled over to Anchorage would be a good thing.
CVs en route to Anchorage too.  Extra shipping is being diverted to Panama to pick up reinforcements, there are quite a few coming there.
Some more units are released from Pearl, engineers though, not combat units, to distribute over atolls as needed. 
Some massive troop convoys are either at Pearl or not far away, that will provoke a new frenzy of deployments when they arrive.
Colorado class BB is almost at Canton Island now...   raiders about to hit Tarawa, so far undetected.
USS Trenton is on 47 flot at Pago Pago, it looked like Canton Island was not going to stop her sinking so I risked the extra trip.  Sys damage is low though, she won't be out of the war for long.

NORPAC
Amchitka Island has been garrisoned successfully!  a 90 av support baseforce too.  Now all I gotta do is build the airfield...  Catalinas are up and running there already, they report the coast is clear, so I guess his raiders have legged it.  Even if they havn't, Warspite has cleared Dutch Harbour now, so I welcome them back with open arms...  Lot of Norpac reinforcements in the pipeline as well, this place should be tighter than a drum fairly soon, given its lack of desirability as a battlefield.


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Post #: 75
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/5/2008 10:50:04 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		As always I forget something.

He has lone or two ship cruiser TFs NW of Java, which given my sortied carriers is a temptation.  They are headed to Sumatra at full speed, I might raid him.  Having Catalinas around so I can see him really is a major plus.

And... the submarine war is going my way now!  The tactic of marking his oil centres is paying dividends.  This turn saw...

AP Hakuyo Maru torpedoed at Bandjermasin by KXII.
AP Heizan Maru torpedoed at Bandjermasin byKXII.
TK Kyokuyo Maru missed at Brunei by O20.
DD Asagiri missed at Brunei by O20.

O20 took some light damage from depth charges, they are all staying on station though.
The only irk is the lack of heavy damage on either hit. 


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Post #: 76
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/6/2008 3:33:20 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/29/1942

Quietest day of the war so far I think...

Burma/India
First Hurricane versus Oscar clash today.  Total anticlimax - they barely engaged, one Oscar damaged.  I moved the Hurries to Moulmein rather than Rangoon, which is the main Burmese airfield.
Moving a baseforce from the very farthest back reaches of Burma to Mandalay.  The usual Chinese divisions are also headed to Mandalay and are almost on the railway lines.
First line of defence = Moulmein
Second line of defence = river behind Moulmein
Third line of defence = Mandalay
When the Japs reach a given line of defence all baseforces and such will retrea to the next bastion to make sure none get cut off.  I've been terrible with sitting there dumbly to be encircled...

DEI/Malaya
500 casualties today in Singapore from bombardment.  Going up...
Lots of air units were evacuated from Sabang today.  He isn't contesting this it seems.  And his bombers today were resting anyway, even Palembang was left alone.
Some ineffective Jap ASW was the only real action this turn.
His fleets remain in close blockade of Java.

SWPAC/Aus
Quiet here too.  Only things of concern here are my oft mentioned reinforcement of Port Moresby (convoy en route) and the shipping of B-17s to India (one squadron waiting in Perth, one already in the hold of an AK making the dangerous trip).

CENTPAC
I only just noticed Canton Island is not an atoll.    Which means that isn't all that defensible.  I'm going to ponder the feasibility of a defence at Baker instead, as that really is an atoll.  When does the Japanese invasion bonus expire?  April?
Palmyra is going to get a reinforcement, a 90 av support baseforce.  Then its going to be quite heavily topped up with aircraft, a 24 plane Mohawk squadron is already being shipped.
Seems very quiet here...  I have no doubt stuff is going on though out of reach of my Catalinas.  I've had to stop marking Kwajalein with submarines, the ASW there is too fierce, but most of the other atolls have subs lurking there.  Tarawa is regularly reconned by Catalinas from Baker.

NORPAC/Home Islands
Another day, more unloading at Amchitka.  Catalinas are definitely reporting nothing, looks like his raiders cleared out. 
Submarines still cruise off the Home Islands with impunity.  Nobody is home.  No shipping, either.


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Post #: 77
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/6/2008 3:35:56 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		China gets a screenshot this turn.



Not a pretty sight. 
I'm confident I'll be able to move him off the Changsha-Nanchang road.

I'm much less confident that I'll be able to clear the trails and open a path to to my encircled troops.


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Post #: 78
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/7/2008 4:41:41 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/30/1942

A very quiet turn in the air, though some things are happening on the ground.  2 aircraft shot down in air to air today in the whole Pacific Theatre.

Burma/India
My heart is in my mouth as DM Stronghold comes under Zero and Oscar escorted Nell attack from Victoria Point at Port Blair.  The Buffalo squadron stationed at Port Blair is totally outclassed - luckily for them they barely engage so there are still 16 to fight another day.    The Nells all miss, but given how few minelayers I have left this is too dangerous to use this precious DM on, so the Port Blair mining will be abandoned.
Some slight damage is done to Tavoy airfield, a couple of Babs recon planes destroyed on the ground.

DEI/Malaya
Evacuation of air units continue.  Looks like almost every Dutch squadron will be extricated one way or another, but they are down to 1 plane in almost all instances (makes it cheap on PP at least ).  Even the Vildebeest at Singapore (which upgrade to Wellingtons!) have made it out.  He bombed Palembang again today but with minimal gain - because everything there is already dead.    Sabang's av support is now quite high as transport aircraft have picked up the aviation unit from Singapore and partially brought it over.
The British CVTF is now west of Sumatra, and nudges forward.  He has three major fleet units in the area west of Java.
a) a lone CL. 
b) what looks like a battleship SAG wandering around
c) Akagi/Soryu CVTFs, plus replenishment TF, which wander around as a group

a and b are near the northern tip of Java, c is west of Tjilatjap.  The Brit CVs nudge closer, because that SAG looks quite valuable, and its between me and the Jap carriers...  I think Akagi and Soryu might even be given a run for their money in the NikMod, which makes 6500 AA matter even more than normal.  Its the Zero bonus and the truly dire FAA fighters that scare me there...  hopefully the tail can be tweaked and I can then full speed out of there.
Singapore is up to level 7 forts now, and 25k supply, looks quite solid still to me.

China
Ichang is occupied by 1200 AV of Chinese, which is a massive overcommitment of force given he abandoned it.  All but one Chinese corps is sent back to Changsha.
Fighting continues on the Nanchang-Changsha road, but I think I've amassed enough force to punch through, so I order a shock attack today.
On the other hand he's pushed back those fleeing Wenchow back into Wenchow itself so there might be another mass Allied surrender there soon.
In the northeast I've decided to see if I can pressure him here.  Most Jap held cities there, including Peking, seem to be held by 1 unit.  So I'm bringing some corps over from Sian to the communist held areas to see what can be done about leaning on him in that direction.  The terrain is very bad though, and without transport aircraft I doubt I can keep any offensive supplied.

SWPAC
The 130th Bde is on its way to Port Moresby.  Two squadrons of Wirraways are resting at PM ready to LRCAP it as it comes into range, thats the best "fighter" cover the Aussies can manage.  I think its a good idea though, the evacuated Aus brigade is already looking in much better health and is already drawing squads now its back on the Aus mainland, while the 130th is fresh.
US CVTFs en route from Auckland, having sucked up all the fuel there, to Noumea. 

CENTPAC
FIrst Seabees unit arrived today at Panama, its loaded up immediately and sent in (to Pago Pago). 
Two surface raider groups are hitting Wake and Tarawa probably tomorrow, both are a cruiser with a flotilla of DDs.  Last time I did this there was a big fight at Tarawa, we'll see if that can be duplicated, I'm in heavier force than I was before.  Wake Island is a complete blank, no idea what he has there.  Neither is a level 4 airfield, though, so torpedo bombers aren't a worry.  Or I wouldn't be doign this!

NORPAC/Home Islands
The battleship Warspite has arrived at Amchitka Island to give cover as the convoy unloads.  Being a tiny little island with no port facilities to speak of its taking a good while.  I really need some Seabees up here to develop it asap.
Enterprise and Yorktown are now about 1/3 the way to Dutch Harbor.
The Home Islands are as quiet as the grave, no recon flights, no nothing.  There seems to be a lot of shipping around Formosa though so the sub I had marking Okinawa is sent there instead.  If this keeps up that Hokkaido raid may well happen, there are a few juicy targets there... Mitsubishi engine factory might be a good one.  If I do approach it'll be hugging the Soviet coastline to keep the main Jap airbases as far away as possible.


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Post #: 79
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/8/2008 1:55:47 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		1/2/1942

Zero bonus goes down by another one, yay!  Winston wants a CL and 2 DDs back from the British Pacific fleet.  He'll likely get one DD, DD Scout, Hong Kong refugee and near obsolete, may as well go home.  CLs are in limited supply though.

A bad day for the Allies.  And another day of frustration... far too much hapless incompetence in the Allied force.

Burma/India
Pretty quiet here.  Chinese units are well into Burma now and are almost on the Burmese rail network.
I'm actually having some real trouble keeping Port Blair supplied.  It may be as much of a thorn in my side as it is his!  A pretty sizable chunk of RN is cobbled together to fast transport yet more supplies to the place.

DEI/Malaya
Singapore gets the usual bombardment.
He noticed that there were aircraft on Sinkep.  This is bad, as Sinkep ran out of supply so the aircraft are mostly grounded!  I'm flying in more from Singapore, but they'll probably be blown off the field first.
A 3000 supply AK is within LRCAP range of Sabang now, the AVG is covering it in.  All well and good but there is the usual Jap submarine at Sabang which will no doubt prove to be a ninja demon sub, like all the others. 
B-17s out of Darwin bomb the port at Kendari, hitting the two docked APs there with bombs.  If given a choice I always go for shipping first.
His carriers have gone back into the Java Sea.  Once again a possible Allied carrier raid is called off the turn before it happens due to the Japs going away.    The British CVs head back to the northern tip of Sumatra.

China
He massively reinforced the Nanchang road the very day I shock attacked.    So I bounced off.  Casualties were not that bad, 1000 vs 300 of his, I've seen worse.  But disruption is now very high and he will no doubt throw them back.  Even more Chinese are being committed.
My Yenan thing will take a good month or two to even begin.

SWPAC
Very quiet, but the resupply convoy to PM with the troops aboard is now within LRCAP range of the place, and it popped up with Jap recon so if he's astute - and he is - he'll know they are there.  Two squadrons of Wirraways are LRCAPping for all the good it'll do, and hopefully, due to the many APs used, they'll be in and out fast.

CENTPAC
Here is the location of the latest disaster.  1 CA, 1 CL and 3 DDs of the USN crash a Jap party at Wake Island.  And it is a big Jap party - lots of transports, escorted by a CL, 2 DDs and a bunch of patrol craft.
And the US ships get creamed.  Sometimes I feel like the Dutch, the British Commonwealth and the US are the Three Stooges in this game. 

Night Time Surface Combat, near Wake Island at 85,72

Japanese Ships
CL Katori, Shell hits 3
DD Yugure, Shell hits 31, and is sunk
DD Oite, Shell hits 5
MSW Toshi Maru #5
PG Daido Maru
PG Shinko Maru #2,  heavy damage
PC Shonon Maru #3
PC Shonon Maru #10
AP Kinryu Maru
AP Kongo Maru
AP Chifuku Maru, Shell hits 1
AP Kotobuki Maru #3
AP Shintoku Maru
AP Uji Maru
AK San Francisco Maru
AK Shinsho Maru
AK Madras Maru
AK Tatsuharu Maru
AK Shinei Maru

Allied Ships
CA Portland, Shell hits 5
CL Detroit, Shell hits 28, Torpedo hits 1,  on fire,  heavy damage
DD Sims, Shell hits 15, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD Helm
DD Flusser

Yugure was the star of this battle.  In the first round Yugure was the only ship to fire, and she promptly torpedoed Sims at 5000 yards, accounting for the torpedo hit.  She then proceeded to blow the crap out of Detroit as well for good measure, and at that close range, apparently her guns could do damage to the thing though not the belt.  SHe did deprive Detroit of most of her armament before the US even got to fire.  Then things became a big more sluggy but the Japs still had all the cards apparently.  Katori then blew Sims out of the water while just about every other Jap ship was blasting the hell out of Detroit.  Detroit barely fired, apparently caught like a rabbit in the headlights.   The US destroyers did fire a fair bit and together with Portland blew Yugure away.  Portland then landed three 8" hits on Katori with the range opening and then they broke off.

Detroit is on 60 flot and Wake is a long way from home, so is unlikely to make it.  So we swapped a CL and a DD for a DD and a slightly damaged CL.



That was a pretty hefty escort but still, it shows how dangerous the Japs are at night.

I'm a glutton for punishment though - Portland, Helm and Flusser are aiming on a daytime encounter at Wake tomorrow. 

Further south another USN SAG raided Tarawa on the same day, but nobody was home.


Still not much for me to write about, just watching convoys slowly chug chug chug across the Pacific mostly.



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Post #: 80
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/8/2008 11:03:46 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		2/2/1942

Busy turn.  Bad move sending the cruisers back to Wake, but I suspect it wouldn't have made any odds!

Burma/India
Got two resources hits on Tavoy today with medium bombers.  He has only 3 Oscars on CAP there.  Must be pretty beaten and bloodied.
The numpty Allies can at least beat up a lone Oscar squadron it seems. 
Bombing will continue daily as its a short flight and easy on fatigue.  And the bombers are even escorted!

DEI/Malaya
Malang falls so in the south Soerabaja is now on its own.  I bombard his troops at Batavia to see whats there - a division plus engineers.
The AVG at Sabang prove unable to defend the AK I sent in to resupply them, though he did pay a small price in the air at least.
Jap landings continue in the Dutch half of New Guinea.
I sent those little LCIs at Singapore with a few intrepid people to evac, he strafed them today for their troubles.  So he noticed!  and on thinking about it taking an empty Singora with six LCIs worth of squads is probably in breach of our house rules so I'll send em back anyway.
Massive naval bombardments of Batavia and Singkep, day and night.  He knows he's safe now to wander around with impunity even in daylight hours near Singapore.
The heroic Malayan FMSV brigade, which has been in the mountains without supply for almost a month, finally surrendered today.  3000 men pass into the tender care of the Jap POW system.

China
A third of a corp surrenders in the Wenchow pocket today under heavy attack.  It Begins.  All quiet on the Nanchang road, both licking our wounds I guess.
Ordered some airstrikes out of Yenan today.  Let the training begin!

SWPAC
SigInt reports a Jap division prepping for Port Morebsy - not exactly a surprise.  Kates from Lae with Zero escort hit the unloading APs, the Wirraways did manage to damage a few Zeroes and didnt suffer any losses to my surprise, though they failed to engage the Kates, not to my surprise.  One AP was torpedoed but damage was light.  Hopefully most if not all of the Bde will be landed in the night.
Fuel is a major problem in SWPAC but its about to change.  Past Pago Pago now are the first wave of TKs and AOs.

I'm about to send some SEAC B-17s from Darwin to India via Singapore.  Hopefully he wont bomb Singapore at the precise moment they come over... he's not bombed Singapore at all so far.

CENTPAC
Well, some Jap CVs turned up and smeared my cruiser force all over the wall.  All sunk.  He even had some bombs to spare for the crippled Detroit.
The USN ships did double back on Wake though and while  they didnt cover themselves with glory Portland did manage to hit several Japanese ships with 8" shells, so hopefully they'll be at least refitting for a bit.

NORPAC
Another AP convoy left Seattle today carrying valuable baseforces to Anchorage, and from there possibly to atolls in the cold north.  Depending.


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Post #: 81
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/9/2008 1:44:10 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		I must've got the dates screwed up - because /this/ is

2/2/1942

Busy day.  Which is bad, for me, of course.

India/Burma
Bombing of Tavoy continues, its milk run stuff. 1 resources hit.

DEI/Malaya
Well, it had to happen eventually.  Massive air attack on Sabang.  Fortunately there are no bombers on the deck waiting to be evacuated.  There is, however, the AVG and some P-40Es.
17 Tomahawks of varying types, with pretty much the best pilots in the Allies have, meet 100 fighters, half of them Zeroes.  And are annihilated.  2 Oscars are shot down, in exchange for every single Allied frame flying.  Absolute massacre. 
...the Zero is apparently completely unstoppable.    on the rare occasions I outnumber the foe the Allies barely engage.
All I can say is - oh man, the coming few years when the Allies are on the up are going to be sweet, sweet revenge. 

Heavy ASW activity in the Java Sea, so heavy its even putting sub transports at risk.  KXII (badly rattled), USS Shark, USS Tarpon (in the South China Sea, not Java), USS Sculpin (rattled slightly) and KXVI are all attacked.  The Dutch must be annoyed by the loss of the DEI, though, because at Tarakan O19 attacked a lone Japanese AK twice on the surface, putting a total of six fish into her and a whole bunch of 88 fire.  With enough explosive to sink a battleship, needless to say the AK sinks.

China
Heavy fighting in the Wenchow pocket still.  My bombers in the north are totally ineffective - but of course they are, they got 25 exp.  There is no opposition, thats the main thing.

SWPAC
Another aerial slaughter here.  The AM is fairly limited.  Zeroes and a few Kates from Lae raid the transports at Port Moresby, the 4 Kates prove far more accurate than the muppet Allied bombers can ever be and score multiple hits, though damage is remarkably light.  There were 2 squadrons of Wirraways covering them - they are brave lads in their flying coffins, but the flying coffin is aptly named.  Several Zeroes are damaged, but the massacre is pretty horrendous on the Aussie side.  The Kates arent even engaged.
Then 15 Nells with Zero escort raid from Rabaul.  The Wirraways fail to engage them but the Nells are far less competent pilots and dont score any hits.
The PM period is mercifully quiet, so the convoy had a more or less undisturbed day of unloading.  If that Bde is not ashore, then something has been seriously misjudged, as it should have been a very quick unloading indeed.  I only have the combat report atm though so I'm not quite sure.  Assuming it has unloaded, it is thus far an acceptable exchange I suppose, a damaged but survivable AK and ~20 odd Wirraways in exchange for a fresh Bde in position.

Hopefully that will be the worst situation in which PM will need resupply though.  Lexington and Yorktown will be in the Coral Sea soon, only fuel is the limiting factor for them and within a month even that will be a non issue.  In addition the first trickle of American fighter aircraft are coming in, and no matter how crap Airacobras and P-36s are, they cannot possibly be worse than Wirraways (though looking at the stats the P-36 looks like it could be a contender for the golden toilet award...  ).
However, speaking of that, AK Mercury, carrying some of those fighters, was torpedoed twice by a ninja sub somewhere south of Noumea.  A four DD escort proved ineffective.  Nearest beach is a good four hexes away, those are probably a gonner.


CENTPAC
The subs are back.  Suddenly the sea NE of Pearl is awash with red IJN submarines.  An AO, Platte, is torpedoed, not for heavy damage but bad enough as thats a fast, big oiler and thus useful.  This was a convoy deemed less vital than the many aircraft carrying vessels, so Platte was unescorted, travellign with a whole bunch of TKs.  Fortunately Pearl is right next door so it wont sink, just be out of the war for a bit.  A sub at Baker Island torpedoes AD Whitney there for heavy damage but is rattled by the SC escort. Near Pago Pago, USS King, escorting some of those fighter AKs, attacks and scores a hit on the IJN submarine I-8, though apparently not for heavy damage.



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Post #: 82
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/9/2008 5:21:15 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		Done the turn now rather than just read the combat report.

Only a couple of things to add - Sabang is being depopulated and there is almost no need for its existence anymore, because almost every air unit in the DEI/Malaya has been pulled out.

The 130th Bde at Port Moresby did manage to unload in its entirety with the exception of an AK, which was carrying the heavy guns.  So the convoy has been ordered back to Cairns with the exception of that AK which continues to unload in port and will no doubt have a short life.  PM is on 16k supply and I thank the gods that it was resupplied pretty much in turn 1, before it came under the Jap aerial umbrella.

ASW patrols formed up in Pearl once again to hunt the subs to the NE, I had zero luck doing this in the past, though. 

Fast transports continue to shuttle back and forth between Port Blair and Trimcomalee.  Its a Tokyo Express style op, there are a large number of ships involved!  about 20 odd.  When he turns his beady eye on the place the Buffaloes there will be evacuated and I suspect that will save a lot of supply.


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Post #: 83
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/10/2008 2:51:44 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		2/3/1942

Terrible weather all across Asia so a lot of cancelled air missions on both sides.  Generally quiet.

India/Burma
Raids on Victoria Point again to coincide with fast transports to Port Blair.  Costs me a Mitchell this time, does no damage to the airfield. 
Transports begin to amass at Ledo... we're up to 3 squadrons now.  And it will more.  A lot more!

DEI/Malaya
Very quiet here except for ground fighting on Java.  Bulk of his force is up north so it looks like Soerabaja is isolated while Batavia will fall first.  Bombardments at Singapore, place is still solid but he has 2000 AV vs my 800, so its just when he wants to go for it I guess.
B-17s make it from Singers to Calcutta having flown from San Francisco originally!  They have fatigue 65 upon arrival.  They get some R&R, richly deserved. 

PI
The siege of Manila continues.

China
2000 Allied AV vs 800 on the Nanchang road but he has 9 units in Nanchang itself so I'm not getting through there.  Surrenders are going on in the Wenchow pocket, within a week he will have mopped up most of it.  i'm not pressing him too hard anymore, as I gotta be ready for an assault when that pocket has drained.

SWPAC
The lone AK was attacked by 4 Kates out of Lae again, and once again 3 hits out of 4.    But the AK did unload apparently everything bar perhaps a gun or two so the Bde is fine.
Two Jap ships sighted between Cairns and Port Moresby - looks suspiciously like those two AMCs.  A heavy cruiser squadron which was sitting in the middle of the Coral Sea is ordered to rev over there at top speed, four DDs at Cairns, for ASW originally, also move.  My CVs are in Noumea paralysed due to lack of fuel (not totally out but this isnt an emergency) so they stay put.
I tighten up the Aussie air defences, a lot of planes on the coast were set to ASW.  A lot more naval attack/search is ordered.  Same goes for the Dauntlesses at PM who were resting.
The AK he torpedoed definitely isnt gonna make it.   A P-40B squadron is going to bite the dust.  And subs seem everywhere between Noumea and Australia, and indeed between Fiji and New Zealand.  Basically if there is a sea hex, chances are theres a Jap sub in it somewhere, and that sub will not miss. 


CENTPAC
Very quiet.  Convoy convoy.

NORPAC
Warspite retires to Dutch Harbor.  The convoy that went to Amchitka Island that she was covering is pretty much done.


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Post #: 84
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/10/2008 9:27:38 PM   
VSWG


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Joined: 5/31/2006
From: Germany
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

When does the Japanese invasion bonus expire?  April?

Yup.

Just finished reading your AAR, very nice. A couple of additional hits on your opponent's carriers would have been fair, I agree - better luck in 1943, I guess. It's good to see that you haven't lost your humour because of this, though.

I'm curious why you've split your own carrier forces, when the Japanese carriers are operating in 1/2 CV TFs all over the map. If you combine your carriers, you should be able to ambush one of these CV TFs in the near future - say, early March, when the Zero bonus is down another point.

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Post #: 85
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/10/2008 9:39:55 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		2/4/1942

Generally quiet.  in fact there have been no air-to-air casualties for several days, now. 

Burma/India
Burma is taking a rest, only stuff going on here is recon.  More Dakotas congregating slowly at Ledo.

DEI/Malaya
Usual bombardments, nothing more serious than that!  That includes battleship bombardment of the defenders of Batavia. O19 at Tarakan torpedoed yet again though, one of his armed merchant cruisers this time, Nisshu Maru, a solid target!  One torpedo hit, not for heavy damage.  B-17s from Darwin raided Koepang at 15k altitude ineffectually.

China
36k Chinese troops surrendered at Pucheng today.  So far 50k Chinese have been picked up and we're not even done yet, I think his total bag is going to be 150k in the Wenchow pocket.  Disaster.  Its lucky that its China I suppose, the only Allied nation that can potentially weather such losses!  My force on the Nanchang road outnumbers him about 1.5 to 1, but in the attack their AV is 1000 and his is 2000, a reversal from what it was when he was bombarding!  Clearly I misjudged their attacking ability massively, and it has a cost, 2500 Chinese casualties.  I'm going to have to pull them back I think to Changsha and dig in, go defensive.

SWPAC
The expected raiders showed up between Cairns and PM, but for some truly bizarre reason they found two APs rather than my convoy proper.  I dont remember ordering that taskforce to split up, but there it is.  Maybe they just happened to be in the area, its possible I suppose.  In any case one AP was torpedoed, the other slightly damaged.  The Allied warships are escorting the others back to Cairns.
Dauntlesses at PM scrambled to attack Jap shipping one hex SE of Lae, scoring two 1000lb hits on a Japanese minelayer, which is a good result.
AK Mercury with a P-40B squadron aboard sank SE of Efate. 
First US fighter squadron unloaded now at Brisbane - shame its P-36s.  Another convoy with 1 fighter squadron and 3 bomber squadrons is near Noumea and zigzagging in a vain attempt to dodge the apparent multitudes of subs.  It is 4 AKs and 4 DDs so a heavily escorted convoy.  But that didn't help AK Mercury, did it. 

CENTPAC/NORPAC
Pretty quiet.  He's doing minesweeping ops at Hokkaido now, I guess thats good?  Means the proper degree of paranoia will be involved and he'll know the need to keep ASW assets all over the Pacific.


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Post #: 86
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/10/2008 9:43:52 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: VSWG
I'm curious why you've split your own carrier forces, when the Japanese carriers are operating in 1/2 CV TFs all over the map. If you combine your carriers, you should be able to ambush one of these CV TFs in the near future - say, early March, when the Zero bonus is down another point.


Lack of escorts. I would have ideally liked to have sent all four to the South Pacific but I was only going to commit them with adequate AAA, and I just don't have any.

I only sortied the other two because he was apparently making moves at NORPAC and I wanted to make sure all my convoys got through. They have now, so they will probably return to Pearl, and as more escorts become available, make their way to SWPAC.

I anticipate a fight in the Coral Sea if he makes a move on Port Moresby, its a pretty ideal location for an Allied carrier battle, lots of Allied LBA nearby. Depends if he concentrates though and I suspect he will, in which case I'll hold off.

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Post #: 87
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/11/2008 1:25:15 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		2/5/1942

A bit busier.  A fair bit of submarine action.

Burma/India
The weather cleared in Burma, so a whole bunch of Allied medium bombers hit the resources at Tavoy again.  8 resources hits in total, not bad, its down to ~35 resources.  Any resources hit is good, anything denied Jap industry is excellent.
Oscars out of Bangkok swept Moulmein but all my Hurricanes were escorting bombers over Tavoy so - nothing for him.  Zeroes swept Port Blair as well but failed to engage the Buffalo CAP.
I'm very happy with how quickly evacuated cadres are building up.  The Allied ground replacement pools in all important areas are 0 across the board.  There is no problem in taking goodies from the pool and putting it on the map at least.  Calcutta is packed with reforming cadres.

DEI/Malaya
A big air raid hits Sabang again, six Hawks on the ground are destroyed but this is the dregs. 
Merak falls to an amphibious assault but an AP hits a mine in the process, Batavia is now completely surrounded.
USS Salmon attempts to torpedo a TK at Brunei but misses.
HMS Trusty, marking Balikpapan, is attacked by ASW but is undamaged.
In Malaya he's moved on to the next two cut off Bdes.  These actually have a few dregs of supply and are holed up in the mountains.  If past performance is anythign to go by its going to take him a good while to weed them out.

China
Heavy bombing of China, some more guerilla corps in the pocket surrendered today, it won't take long for him to mop things up.

SWPAC
This is where the action was.  All sub related.
At Lae an S-boat torpedoed a Jap MSW, and gets away with it.
At Cairns an IJN RO type submarine torpedoes an AK, which will survive, but is pounced on by the escort, which was heavy (this was my Port Moresby convoy).  Several near misses and one direct hit are scored, not for heavy damage but presumably that sub will be limping home.
Off the coast of Sydney a Jap submarine torpedoes an escorted but empty tanker 3 times, which promptly sinks it.  The escort (a single MSW) fails to engage.
A plan is afoot to evacuate Tasmania completely, PPs allowing, so the convoy at Cairns is headed that way now.  The base forces are what I really want but the Bde won't hurt either. 
A Dutch base force, the 7th, I dunno where that was from originally, has been prepping for Port Moresby for quite a while and though it was only a cadre its already built up to the point that its useful (over 20 av support).  Its headed from Sydney to Cairns and will be airlifted over, giving PM 50 av support, enough to station these American fighters which are probably just 2 or 3 weeks away from deployment now.

CENTPAC
Palmyra is getting quite a major reinforcement, a big base force is being unloaded now.  A six DD hunter-killer TF is headed for that huge convoy (178 aircraft embarked) which I mentioned left SF a while ago.  I really want that convoy to make it to Australia without loss, so all the stops are being pulled out here - intrinsic and extrinsic escort. 
Major reinforcements for Noumea are a way off but are on the way, the first, an AA unit, is approaching Pago Pago.  More significant reinforcements are clearing the Galapagos Islands now - long way to go!

NORPAC
Seems quiet.  My CVs are giving the islands a quick once over.  I'm getting cold feet on Hokkaido, seems like much to risk for little to gain other than the psychological value of a Doolittle-esque raid.  Which strikes me as not worth it.  After they've buzzed the cold north I think they are going to head back to Pearl again, NORPAC should be able to fend for itself fairly soon, with airfields being built, a few Catalinas now in position, and an Allied battleship on the prowl, so the reason for them being there has passed.


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Post #: 88
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/11/2008 5:55:32 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		2/6/1942

Burma/India
Another 3 resources hits on Tavoy.  Its a daily tally pretty much... day off tomorrow though due to forecast storms/mounting fatigue.
Major reinforcements in 6 days - an Aussie division and a lot of AA units.  Aden is packed with transports in readiness.
A Ceres class CL and two old S class destroyers are being offered up in sacrifice to Winston, I have decided.  At this stage in the war, i'd rather have the PPs then these junkers.

DEI/Malaya/Manila
USS Sculpin was sunk by Jap APDs off Pontiniak.  Decisively so, 5 direct hits!  Batavia is subjected to another day of land and naval bombardment.  Soerabaja is quiet, in fact i ordered a bombardment of him today.  Palembang hit by a nuclear bombardment, 1800 casualties.  I guess this is the weakness of a base packed with engineers... they seem kinda soft when shelled!  Another three subs will approach Singapore tomorrow to lift off cadres.  Manila subjected to a massive bomber raid again, "our arrows will blot out the sun" style.

Supply at Singapore is ~20k.  At Manila, Batavia and Soerabaja its about 8k eacj.  Looks like he plans on starving them out as the number of deliberate attacks has been very limited, he's taking is time, conserving his forces so his divisions are not all shot up.

China
Fairly quiet, my ROCAF units actually sortied today, most of the time they seem to not take off.  Even with aggressive commanders. 

SWPAC
Recon over Lae reports that he has massively increased his air power there.  50 fighters, 50 bombers, 133 auxiliaries??  what is /that/.  Is he planning on a massive paradrop?  He did mention before that his failed para assault on Tavoy was due to "too limited numbers of air transports", if thats the case, well, he's not repeating his error!  PM is only a level 3 airfield and I'm only digging fortifications there at the moment so I can't do anything too crass, like move B-17s up and kick his ass.  And a carrier raid against that sort of firepower isn't happening with just 2 carriers either.
I will be reinforcing PM with a second pretty fresh Bde (from Tasmania), another base force (the Dutch one mentioned before), and probably maybe hopefully by the end of the month, a P-40B squadron, assuming it survives running the gauntlet to Brisbane.

CENTPAC
Pretty quiet here.  USS Plunger is ostensibly hit by several depth charges at Kwajalein but damage actually looks very minor when I look at her.  He has apparently heavily reinforced Wake and Tarawa, so he has quite a bastion of force here, lots of angry red crosses.  I will have to consult with him as to whether sub suicide commando recon is allowed.

NORPAC
Quiet.  My CVs are on the way home.  The battleship Warspite is settled with USS Gilmer as escort at Dutch Harbor.  Anchorage is packed with aircraft.  Airfields are being built at Amchitka Island and the other one, "Um" something, next to Dutch Harbor, nothing to say here until those airfields are built.


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(in reply to EUBanana)
Post #: 89
RE: Banana vs Uamaga - England vs Poland - 7/12/2008 2:55:13 AM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline 		2/7/1942

Burma/India
Burma is grounded today due to bad weather. Port Blair almost up to 4000 supply now, after the last batch of fast transports has gone through I'm calling it a day there. Fast transports (led by BC Repulse, dont have many ships to spare!) are picking up the MAF Aviation unit which was partly airlifted out of Singapore to Sabang, that would be a nice addition to Colombo. British CVTF is sortied to cover Repulse via LRCAP at the critical moment.

DEI
Usual round of bombardments and depth charges. USS Stingray was hit at Palembang - direct hit. Singapore is close though so she'll probably make it to Singers, though she may well be bombed upon arrival.

China
Massive Jap air raid on Changsha does about 30% damage to the airfield but fails to destroy any aircraft as they are all in the air, bombing his ground troops on the road. On that road my arty units are being brought up, and I am winning the attritional battle in the bombardments. Allied ROCAF bombers make a few high level training sorties, they do no damage.

SWPAC
"I got a bad feeling about this"
In addition to the apparently 20,000 men at Lae in 4 units, he has 15 units at Rabaul. APs seem to be gathering as well. I'm getting a little paranoid that he will be making his move on Port Moresby sooner rather than later. So. I sortie the CVs at Noumea, as replenishment TFs are now almost in position in the Coral Sea. They will hang around somewhere south of Port Moresby, ready to act. If its a false alarm they can retire to Cairns where they will be ready for a Coral Sea clash.
P-36s were railroaded to Cairns and are being uncrated, unfortunately their range is too short to send them to PM, but they can free up more Wirraways at Cairns. I'm desperately hoping the P-40Bs that are 14 days out will make it.
If he advances down the Solomons I'm tempted to let him take whereever he wants up to Efate at least without a fight. I can LBA my way up the island chain quite happily later on, but from Australia to PNG is a bit of a bigger jump and more, IMHO, worth fighting over.

CENTPAC
USS Plunger was not undamaged, she was actually very badly damaged, I dunno what I was smoking in the above post. So damaged she is almost certainly going to sink in fact. Right now I got 3 subs on the map on the verge of death. And people moan about Allied ASW being too good?
Fiddle around with DDs a bit, dispatching some from Pearl to rush out to convoys and join them as they pass by. I peel off quite a few TKs from my big Australia bound convoys and divert them to various atolls which have been sucked dry by the USN.

Logistical (ie fuel) situation in SWPAC is very dicey still but I think I'll have enough AOs in station for short term action at least. In a couple of months, when these tankers arrive, things will improve greatly across the board and give me a much freer hand to deploy my ships than I've had so far. Supply situation is on the other hand quite good at the moment.


< Message edited by EUBanana -- 7/12/2008 2:56:18 AM >

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