Cuttlefish
Posts: 2454
Joined: 1/24/2007
From: Oregon, USA
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Movement generates surprise, and surprise gives impetus to movement.
- B.H. Liddell Hart
7/13/1942 – 7/15/1942
It seems I spoke to soon about there being no sign of aircraft at Port Hedland. There are, it turns out, a lot of aircraft there.
On the night of 13 July Fuso, Nagato, and their escorts slipped into the harbor there. All they found was a single AMc, which they sank. The task force then retreated successfully. When day came mini-KB, cruising seven hexes off the coast, detected a convoy to the southeast. Kates attacked and sank two troop-laden APs. Following this several waves of well-escorted bombers from Port Hedland attacked my carriers. But the defending Zeros were up to the job, shooting down about 26 enemy planes at a cost of 6 planes and 2 pilots. Though a number of bombers did break through to release their bombs none scored any hits.
As an interesting coda to this action, on 15 July submarine I-153, cruising not far away off Cararvon, hit BC Repulse with two torpedoes. Sadly the submarine was depth charged, forced to surface, and then sunk by gunfire.
As successful as my foray was the presence of so much air and naval strength in the area is rather daunting, not to mention the evidence that troops are being moved in (though at least some of them didn’t make it, heh heh). I have halted my invasion transports well short of their targets; Broome and Derby are within range of Port Hedland.
Burma: the RAF had fallen into something of a pattern over Mandalay; daily sweeps at 21,000 feet by two squadrons of Hurricanes and, once every two or three days, an attack by about 18 bombers and a couple dozen assorted escorts. There are enough Japanese engineers there that the airfield is kept in decent shape so on 13 July I flew in about 50 Zeros and 20 Oscars.
I set the Zeros to 22,000 feet and the Oscars to 16,000, all on 70% CAP.On 14 June in came the Hurricanes as usual and I chewed them up pretty good. I shot down 12 at a cost of 3 Oscars and a Zero and left most of the survivors damaged. What seemed to happen is that the Zeros dove on the Hurricanes, which mixed it up for a bit, then the Hurricanes would dive on the Oscars, which mixed it up for a bit, and this allowed the Zeros to dive on the Hurricanes again. It seemed to neutralize the enemy fighters pretty well.
There was no bombing attack during the turn and on 15 July I withdrew my fighters to Rangoon again.
It will be interesting to see what Q-Ball does now. He has enough air power across the border to flatten Mandalay again, and he might. But keeping the airfield suppressed will mean accepting ops and flak losses. There are three Japanese AA units at Mandalay now, which is my self-imposed limit for a given base (putting in more starts to feel gamey). But three is enough to inflict some damage and losses. If he doesn’t keep the airfields there wrecked and returns to penny-packet attacks he runs the risk of another aerial ambush.
Aces: the aerial battles over the past few days have given the Japanese their first double ace, Lt. Kaneko of Shoho. Below is the complete list of Japanese aces. The first thing I notice is how many of them come from the CVLs. The second thing is how many of them are still alive; only one Japanese ace has been lost and he was killed in a landing accident.
Other Stuff: Japanese forces have invaded Den Passar, just east of Java (like Krakatoa!) which has some defending troops (and more annoyingly, the surviving Dutch search planes) and Terapo, up the coast from Port Moresby. Terapo was undefended; the Port Moresby survivors that were there seem to be in the nearby jungle making their way towards some of the empty Japanese bases near Lae. Poor devils, I will have to arrange for some naval guard troops to be there to welcome them when they finally get there. To hand out chocolate and rice and stuff, you know.
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