Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000 From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku Status: offline
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8 Mar 12 Sub War That damn S-39 sank a second APD that was searching for her south of Balikpapan. Not sure what I can effectively do about that. No real effective ASW ships there (not that there are really any effective ASW ships anywhere in the Japanese inventory). The Ro-33 had been sitting in the deep water just off Chittagong for a couple of days looking at a Brit TF and hoping it would leave harbor. Yesterday, I gave orders for her to move into that base hex to see if she could do something about that. She ended up surfacing, shelling, torpedoing and sinking an xAKL parked there! I pulled her out again, just in case there are any ASW ships disbanded in port. Small ship, but pretty gutsy for that commander. 5 Fleet Nothing new to report. The TFs are still at Dutch Harbor and Umnak Island and KB draws near. I’ll top KB off probably tomorrow and then wait for the Glen subs to get into position to snoop around for some good targets. 4 Fleet Nothing new to report. SE Fleet Minor action over and around Pt. Moresby today. A Zero sweep met only 4 Allied fighters (3 Aussie Kittyhawks and 1 P-40E) and resulted in 1 lost Zero and its pilot MIA. A small Betty raid on a TF in Pt. Moresby planted a 60 kg bomb on an xAKL. Wow, that was worth it. Finally, the Lilys flying out of Lae bombed the airfield and were followed by a handful of Bettys bombing Pt. Moresby airfield (their secondary mission after the primary Naval Attack mission). Between the two, they caused 3 airbase and 19 runway hits. It’s interesting to note that there were still some runway hits left, according to my intel. I wonder what that means?! China The only surviving surrounded Chinese units are the 10 units spread out over 3 hexes in west central China (near Sinyang). The attack continues on one of them (a pretty large one). Being in terrain without a base, it’ll take a while to kill them off. No big deal. Elsewhere, the recently victorious armies are headed to their new targets, both oil producing bases. Burma Bloody day in the air over Magwe again. Four attacks this time. In chronological order: #1 – Big Allied sweep: 14 Zero (7 De) – 3 KIA, 2 WIA 20 Oscar (3 De) – 1 KIA, 1 WIA 9 Hurricane IIa (none lost) 30 Hurricane IIb (7 De) 18 P-40E (3 De) #2 – First bombing raid: 9 Zero (none lost) 22 Oscar (none lost) 12 P-40E (6 De) 8 Hurricane IIa (4 De) 12 Blenheim I (4 De) 27 Blenheim IV (3 De) 12 Hudson I (none lost) This attack resulted in 5 oil lost. We’re down to 136 of 300 remaining. #3 – Second bombing raid – This one apparently got separated from the main event: 9 Zero (none lost) 12 Oscar (none lost) 9 Blenheim IV (All 9 De!!!) – BANZAI!!! #4 – Third bombing raid – More lost sheep: 5 Zero (none lost) 8 Oscar (none lost) 11 Hudson IIIa (3 De) This raid was ineffective. Total op losses: 1 Zero 2 Oscar 4 P-40E 4 Blenheim IV Not a bad day. For the total price of 5 oil centers, 13 aircraft and 4 pilots, they destroyed 14 fighters and 23 bombers. The 8 CA bombardment TF will halt a day out of Akyab and wait for the 4 BB bombardment TF which is a day or two behind them. The CAs will go in first and the BBs will hit Akyab the next day. Hopefully, this will destroy some of the fighters based there and beat up the airbase. It’ll work once, but then Ted will work to counter another attempt. I suspect he’ll put some of his bombers on Naval Attack. This works to my advantage because it takes bombers away from bombing Magwe’s oil. I’m going to base some Sallys at Rangoon and have them bomb Akyab’s airbase the day the BBs hit to add to the mayhem at Akyab. I won’t send the Sally’s in after the CA bombardment because Ted will most likely have scheduled for his bombers to hit Magwe. I’m hoping the CA bombardment reduces (ideally eliminates – one can hope, right?) his fighter escort for those bombers. I’m going to do a maximum effort in CAP over Magwe to try and ambush the bombers in the air. I can’t do this if I have to escort the bombers over Akyab. If this works as planned, several events will have successfully occurred: 1. Ted’s fighters in Akyab will have taken significant losses that he cannot afford at this time (especially the P-40E and Hurricane IIb Trop). 2. Akyab’s airfield will be damaged to a point where it hinders the ability of his fighters to support his bombers. 3. Ted’s bombers will take serious losses in the air over Magwe. 4. My fighter jockeys will get some nice experience shooting down defenseless bombers. 5. The Magwe oil fields will get a temporary reprieve in their current path to destruction. Then, future mission requirements, in order to prolong Ted’s agony, will be: 1. Bombing of Akyab must continue. This is the primary Hurricane base due to their short legs. As long as Akyab is out of commission, the only fighters that will be available to escort Ted’s bombers will be P-40Es and H81-A3s (if there are any left). 2. Initiation of bombing of Allied bomber base (Chittagong, I think). 3. Possible continued naval bombardment of Akyab. This will be done with 3 bombardment TFs: 4 CAs, 4 CAs and 4 BBs. I’ll be cautious with this. Ted will try to find a way to counter this. I am performing naval search out of Pt. Blair with Mavis and other recon aircraft. I will add a Dinah II chutai (or 2) with naval search trained pilots. I’m in the process of transferring those pilots. There are over 60 Netties on naval attack missions at Pt. Blair as well. That force should be able to cause significant damage to any foray by the RN. To date, there has been no sign of the RN in this region. Things that must occur for this operation to be successful: 1. Magwe, Mandalay and Tongoo airfields must reach level 2. This will allow my fighters to be able to fly offensive missions out of several airfields as opposed to just two right now (Taung Gyi and Rangoon). 2. More AS is required for this theater. In order for a successful bombing campaign to occur, I’ll need more AS in this theater. More is on the way by land but that’s a long walk. I am going to send some by sea, but a minesweeping TF needs to precede it. The minesweeping TF will head out tomorrow, with the AS TF a day or two later. Sumatra The Palembang DA went in today. Man, I was sweating the rest of the turn to find out what really happened. The defenders were easily swept aside and the base was taken. Final result……. Drum roll please…… Yup, they captured the infrastructure intact! BANZAI!!! Manpower 2(0) Resources 20(0) Oil 900(0) Refinery 1020(0) There was ~150k fuel there, more than the max allowed so I shut off the refinery temporarily. A bunch of 7950 and 1250 TKs (and xAKs too) are headed there to syphon off the fuel as quickly as possible to get it below the max. I’ll drain the fuel first and then go to work on the oil and resources while maintaining the fuel draw. The 4 Division will split into thirds with two of them going after the former garrison and the last third going after Djambi for the remaining 250 oil. The 3x independent engineer regiments will remain at Palembang to build another airfield level (currently at 4(4)) in order to eliminate the max for fuel and supply. The excess supply will be sent to Java to help in rebuilding the infrastructure at Soerabaja. The SNLF that arrived at Medan tested the defense with a DA. The 1:1 attack (fort level 1) wasn’t enough to take the base. I’m sending the 2 Division from Singapore to do the job. Java I attempted a recon in force (DA) at Kalidjati with the 40 Brigade (20 Division) and 1/3 of the 21 Division. That wasn’t enough. The 1:2 attack against fort level 3 resulted in 583(0) Japanese casualties to 135(5) Dutch casualties. The disruption really isn’t a problem. It’ll go away soon enough. The victors of Soerabaja are headed there and we’ll try it again with a proper force in a few days. Kalidjati is surrounded so the defenders will surrender when I’m victorious. Then I’ll do it all over again at Batavia and the Java campaign will conclude. SRA The first Singapore-Home Islands convoy is almost completely filled with resources and oil. (It’s a bunch of Kyushus). Many of the other small convoys are beginning to reach their starting destinations to begin their war long ritual of hauling stuff from their port to their hub. Once they are going for a month or so, it’ll be the small matter of occasionally checking to make sure they’re keeping up with production and adjusting as needed. Other Stuff Reinforcements: 22, 23, 24 & 32 Port units arrived in the Home Islands. They’ll all head to the SRA and meet up with their respective SNLFs to create special base forces. They will go to interior bases that have IJA base forces (with radar) and replace them. The IJA base forces will relocate to the fringe to maximize radar coverage along the frontier. 43 JNAF AF Unit arrived and will head to the SE Fleet area. We definitely need more AS there. My initial thought is to send it to Milne Bay so I can move some fighters (and later, bombers) there to form a semicircle of airfields around Pt. Moresby. After that, I’ll send the next AS reinforcement to Buna for the same reason. Bangkok’s airbase finally made level 7. So did Rabaul’s airbase. This is significant because I can now start to upgrade 24 Air Flotilla’s Claudes to Zeros. As a matter of fact, some are already done and will be headed back to the Kwajalein area in the next few days. I’ve been keeping an eye on P-40E losses. Ted gets 35 replacements each month. That’s in addition to the multitude of reinforcement squadrons that come with P-40Es, of course. Anyway, so far this month, he’s lost 60 of them, and it’s only 8 days into the month!!! That’s great. His Hurricane losses are mounting as well. He’s lost 26 Hurricane IIb this month with a replacement rate of 16. On the flip side, I still have ~70 Zeros in the pool and 21 pilots in reserve. The IJA is not in that good of shape with only a handful of Oscars in the pool and only a few pilots in reserve. Many of the training pilots are reaching their graduation goal of 50 exp & 70 air skill minimum. They will be culled in 7 days. That should help out both of the reserves quite a bit. When I start to see P-39Ds again, I’ll know he’s hurting. The last P-39D I saw was on 22 Feb. Ted has no air power at all in China. I suspect the Chinese air force is around, but they’re hiding. I have a couple of chutai flying the Ki-43-Ib and a 30 plane sentai flying the Ki-43-Ic. I’m going to convert the sentai back to Nates and replenish my Ic pool with those planes. There are 150+ Nates in the pool with all the IJA training units flying Nates. I’ll have Nates available for a long time, and that’s without producing a single one. I had my second Helen Ia R&D sentai finish it’s repairs and upgrade to the Helen IIa. That’s 2 of 3 done with the third one pretty close to being completely repaired. So far, no other R&D factories are completely repaired but some are getting close. I’d really like to get the Helen IIa out a few months early. The Sally IIa (40 plane factory) was not keeping up with losses, although with the conclusion of the Singapore campaign, they are not taking any losses and are making headway. Some will head to Burma shortly so losses will most likely resume. The Ha-34 factory is still increasing in size. The final size will be 270 engines per month, which will support 90 Tojos and 90 Helens. That will cost 9720 HI per month, or 324 HI per day. I still have the 34 plane Lily factory off. I am going to turn it back on to replace losses in the front line units and to create a pool for training units. (I shut it off with the pool at 40 and it’s down to a handful now.) I currently use the Sally Ic as my trainer (3 sentai in Manchuoko) and the pool is slowly being depleted from op losses. Soon, I’ll get two more training bomber sentai that fly the Sally Ia but come with only 2 planes in each. I’m going to convert them to the Lily and go from there. I didn’t want to build any more Lilys, but it appears that I’ll have to do that. I’m hoping that when the Helen come along (currently in Sep 42, but I hope 2-3 months early), the 90 planes a month will allow me to upgrade some front line Sally and Lily units in order to build up a sufficient pool of each of them. Eventually, the Lilys will be relegated to training (along with the Sally Ic) and the Helen’s will be the front line IJA bomber with the Sally IIa being the primary IJA ASW aircraft. I have a >150 B5N1s and will continue to produce them until the engines are gone. I also have 55 B2N2s and have shut off that factory due to low losses and lots of N1s in the pool. I’ve found that the different models are equally effective.
< Message edited by Mike Solli -- 5/7/2012 8:58:54 PM >
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