CapAndGown
Posts: 3206
Joined: 3/6/2001 From: Virginia, USA Status: offline
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June 22-24, 1943 The allies continue attacking the airfields at Magwe and Meiktila. On the 22nd, they had a follow up raid on Magwe. On the 23rd, a squadron of P-40s swept Magwe by accident; they were left on sweep although witpqs had meant to stand them down. On the 24th the allies targeted Meiktila in one of their patented massive strikes. Over the course of these three days our Tojo's have been racking up the kills; our sentai's have claimed 49 kills between them during this period for very few losses. The runway at Magwe is open again but the runway at Meiktila is closed. I am moving two aviation support battalions to Mandalay in order to give myself a third runway to operation from. I am shifting fighter sentai's around to make sure they can fly from one of the open runways. A problem I face is that the damaged airframes are not repairing because of the airfield service damage. Fortunately, all the bases in Burma are connected by rail. That means I can tranfer a sentai back to Rangoon to get its damaged planes repaired as well as any reinforcement planes that I add. Once the Sentai is built back up to full strength at Rangoon, it can be sent back to the front while another sentai is pulled back for rebuilding. Since the Tojo has a service rating of 1, this process should allow for rapid turnaround. Fortunately, I am not losing many pilots; all those Senatai still have more pilots than max planes, so the rebuilding process does not require me to wait for new pilots to show up. The allies have taken very heavy losses in their fighter groups. Somewhere around one half of the P-40's and Hurricanes that were originally part of this operation have been destroyed. Their medium bombers, however, are not doing too bad, and the heavies are mostly untouched. Oh for a plane with some armament! The Tony Ic will, I believe, begin producing in August. Maybe then we can start dealing with the heavy bombers. Of course, by that time, the allies may have the P-47 available. Meanwhile, over in China, two more attacks were launched against Kweillin. The forts are now down to level one. I am in a race to see if I can capture the place before his reinforcements arrive. Even if I don't take it, however, this battle at least has the advantage of making witpqs draw down his supply, which is the whole purpose of the operation. June 23 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at Kweilin (76,54) Japanese Deliberate attack Attacking force 66712 troops, 642 guns, 655 vehicles, Assault Value = 2381 Defending force 27540 troops, 212 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 916 Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 2 Japanese adjusted assault: 1477 Allied adjusted defense: 3071 Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 2) Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), leaders(+), experience(-) Attacker: Japanese ground losses: 1476 casualties reported Squads: 1 destroyed, 136 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 122 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled Guns lost 1 (0 destroyed, 1 disabled) Vehicles lost 7 (0 destroyed, 7 disabled) Allied ground losses: 948 casualties reported Squads: 6 destroyed, 151 disabled Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 127 disabled Engineers: 2 destroyed, 10 disabled June 24 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at Kweilin (76,54) Japanese Deliberate attack Attacking force 65426 troops, 642 guns, 655 vehicles, Assault Value = 2289 Defending force 26305 troops, 212 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 812 Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 1 Japanese adjusted assault: 948 Allied adjusted defense: 2067 Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 1) Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), leaders(+), experience(-) Attacker: Japanese ground losses: 2030 casualties reported Squads: 4 destroyed, 159 disabled Non Combat: 6 destroyed, 74 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Guns lost 1 (0 destroyed, 1 disabled) Vehicles lost 15 (2 destroyed, 13 disabled) Allied ground losses: 1918 casualties reported Squads: 5 destroyed, 136 disabled Non Combat: 28 destroyed, 125 disabled Engineers: 7 destroyed, 22 disabled Guns lost 1 (0 destroyed, 1 disabled)
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