Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000
From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku
Status: offline
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30 Jan 42
Sub War
Ted’s DDs are harassing me off Hawaii. We both keep missing.
5 Fleet
Nothing new to report.
4 Fleet
Nothing new to report.
SE Fleet
Ted’s Do-24s damaged a PB and a Dutch sub sank another xAKL off Saidor today. They’re offloading supply. I’m pulling the TF out of there. It’s not worth it. No damage to any of the Dutch units.
The Soryu is still sitting in the port of Rabaul. Too many Allied subs to risk moving her.
Philippines
Nothing new to report.
China
The surrounded 11 Chinese Corps and 17 Group Army (1 hex east of Paotow) finally succumbed today. Losses were 45(0) to 3442(452). I’ll leave it to you to figure out who lost what.
Malaya
Aerial and ground bombardment of Singapore continues. The infantry divisions need more rest before they can attack again. Bomber losses are a constant drain on the IJA. Today was particularly bad, with 5 Sallys going down to flak. So far this month, 26 Sallys, 4 Lilys and 3 Bettys have been lost over the skies of Singapore, all to flak. The real issue right now is the lack of trained bomber pilots in the pool. Today I will cull the training units. My goal is 50+ experience and 70+ stat being trained. I will most likely reduce the stat to ~68 for bomber pilots this month to get more into the front line bomber units. I suspect it won’t be an issue later, but there just hasn’t been enough time to train up the rookies yet.
SRA
The Yamada det’s 18 Zeros flew a sweep mission over Batavia and one lonely B339D met them. It was damaged and became an op loss. I wonder where the other Dutch fighters are hiding? Some Bettys bombed the airfield in an attempt to destroy some Dutch bombers but had no luck.
My Bettys and Nells bombed Soerabaja port again (and ignored the TFs there again). For the loss of 1 Nell, I obliterated two more AMcs and hit the CL Sumatra again. Before the attack, the Sumatra was showing heavy damage and after the attack (4x 250 kg and 3x 60 kg hits) she showed heavy fires and heavy damage…….again.
I’m at a loss as to what to do to get a naval attack against the TFs in the hex. I have the bombers at 20% search with an arc that includes Soerabaja. I’m going to try a tiny arc that just covers Soerabaja this time. If they fly a naval attack, they can do some serious damage. They have fighter cover and Ted has no fighters in Soerabaja. The 22 Air Flotilla is at the airfield and would allow them to launch torpedoes. Edit: I did just that with the arcs. I have 68 bombers (-20% for naval search) on this mission.
The Java/Sumatra invasion forces continue to congregate. There still is a BB TF showing up sitting in Soerabaja. That’s a real concern. I’d send my 4x BBs there but there are mines there.
I took Pontianak unopposed. The infrastructure was intact (resources of 20(0) and manpower of 1(1)).
Other Stuff
Today’s reinforcements:
Kure 3 SNLF – SE Fleet – heading to Truk
12 Naval Construction Bn – SE Fleet – heading to Truk
As I said above, I’m going to cull my training units. Since only 2 months have passed, there still aren’t many pilots that meet the 50+/70+ criteria, although many are close. I’m still good with IJN pilots in the pool (primarily from losing the Hiryu) but the IJA pool is basically empty.
All 12 Mutsukis are in port awaiting the first of the month to begin their upgrades. This is nice because it’ll give me 12 more DDs that have DC racks. The Mutsukis will form a DesRon with Yubari and are scheduled to escort the 7 fast AOs (77k capacity).
In addition, 5 of 13 Minekazes and 6 of 9 Kamikazes are in port waiting to begin upgrades. The remaining members of these classes will upgrade as they become available. The 9 Kamikazes will form a DesRon along with Natori to escort the 7 remaining slow AOs (56k capacity).
The 13 Minekazes, along with Isuzu, will form a DesRon stationed at Ominato. Along with Kiso and Tama, they will form the 5 Fleet, tasked primarily with escort and ASW duties in that frigid region. That may not last long given the relative shortage of DDs. Their low endurance (2500) prevents them from taking part in many duties but they may be reassigned to escort MKB in the future.
I’m upgrading the surviving DMSs as they become available. Currently, 3 are upgrading as I type and the remaining 10 are on mission and will upgrade as they become available.
KB (Akagi, Kaga, Shokaku and Zuikaku) are disbanded in Truk harbor. The Ryujo will join them but is still with MKB. Soryu will join them when she finally is repaired.
MKB (Ryujo, Zuiho and Hosho) is at Davao. Brand spanking new Shoho is one day out from joining them, escorted by the 9 newly upgraded Fubuki Is. The Fubukis will then escort Ryujo from Davao to Truk, which is their duty station.
All functional carriers are at full strength in planes and pilots with no ship damage.
The Taiyo is awaiting tomorrow’s substantial naval air reinforcements. There are 6x small units. 4x belong to 13 AF, and 1 each to 3 Fleet and 24 AF. The last two will be increased to size 27 on Taiyo. All will be used as training units. Once the size increase is complete, there will be an additional 74 DB and 14 TB training slots. Some of the DB units will be used to train TB pilots in a bombing role. I haven’t figured out how many yet. We’ll see how many TB pilots are finished training on their torpedo mission.
There are 5x E Momis that don’t get DC racks until Jun 42. They’re absolutely worthless right now and, on top of that, their endurance is a whopping 1750, not much better than the Ch- classes. I’m going to note their crew experience put them in a surface TF and have them move between Tsingtao and Pt. Arthur. I’m going to track their experience increases (if any). Hopefully, their experience will be not quite horrible by the time they get DC racks. I’ll probably do that with the 8 surviving Otoris too.
I finally finished the turn. I ended up taking only the 70+ IJA bomber pilots. I got 9 of them, 1 recon, 3 fighter pilots and 1 IJA Naval Search pilot. Not a lot, but then I didn’t expect a lot. There are a lot of pilots that are close though, so I expect to get a nice haul next month. I don’t have any IJN transport units training (there are only 3 units overall) so I’ve placed extra pilots in those three units to train extra pilots. I really don’t see any other way to do it, but it doesn’t really matter that much. As the overall experience increases, I’ll pull some out for the reserve and replace them with rookies. If anyone else has an idea, I’m all ears.
I’m moving naval auxiliary units around to cover everything I want. For example, I’m placing 2x AKEs in each of the following ports: Balikpapan, Rabaul, Cam Ranh Bay, Truk, Singkawang and Davao. I’ll move them around as needed.
I have decided to upgrade all of the DMS as soon as I can. Most are in ports and the rest are headed there. They get the upgraded DCs, the first to do so, I believe. I need a weapon that is effective. The Allied subs just plain suck.
I am setting up a line of single ship ASW TFs along the route I want to take Soryu to get her out of Rabaul. The route will be west out of Rabaul along the coast and then north. Earlier, I sent a single ship along this route and it didn’t encounter any Allied subs. By placing these TFs in the hexes along the route, I hope to spot any subs lurking there. They’ll sit for a few days and if there are no subs, I’ll risk moving Soryu. When she does move, she’ll be escorted by 2 BBs, Kitakami and Oi and close to a dozen DDs.
Time to run the next turn…..
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RE: Once Again into the Breech - Mike (J) vs. tc464 (A) - 
Basically, I plan on maxing Java's industry in order to use all the resources around that island. I will also increase the refineries there to match the oil production so I don't have to worry about shipping oil out of there. To make it short, there will be 40k excess fuel in Java each month. I'm not sure whether to use it for fleet ops or send it to Japan. I suspect the former but hope for the latter. 
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