Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000 From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku Status: offline
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28 Oct 42 Lots of action today. Fun turn. (Gotta enjoy them while they last.) Sub War: The rotten little SCs were hanging around Adak again. One of them spotted the I-8 and damaged her with a hedgehog. Damage was slight at 4-3-0-0 but she lost her Glen (op loss) and another sub is one day sail away so I'm sending here back to Etorofu to repair that minor damage and draw another Glen. KB1 is still 4 days from being in position to do some damage. I think I am going to have one of the 36 plane Zero daitai fly LRCAP over Adak to take a chunk out of some of the bombers hitting Adak daily. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it right away or try to stay hidden for a bit to see if Ted is planning an invasion. I'd really love to hit the invasion and bombardment fleets. I still have 4 days to decide. A lot can happen in 4 days. Burma: At Chittagong, My Oscar IIas had another lackluster day. They shot down a couple of P40Es for two of their own shot down plus an op loss. I always get excited when a new model becomes operational and then this happens. I should expect too much. The only real difference between this model and the Ic is 1 more hex of range. Ah well. They did succeed in clearing the skies so the 74 2E bombers were able to increase airfield damage to 31%. I'll keep at it. Ted visited Mandalay again. I had stationed there 2 sentai of Tojos and a chutai of Oscars (Ic). One Tojo sentai was sweeping Cox's Bazaar and the Oscars were sweeping Akyab. The other Tojo sentai flew CAP. Ted apparently expected some trouble so he had 22 P40Ks escorting 27x 4E and 32x 2E bombers. My 33 Tojos did an amazing job, shooting down 13 P40s (+2 op losses) and 3 Blenheim IVs (+1 op loss) for a loss of only 1 Tojo (+1 op loss and 2 pilots). Crew experience soared for this sentai. The bombers got through and did light damage to the airfield, but not all of it was repaired, and destroyed a Tojo on the ground. I moved all the planes out except the CAP Tojos and left them to counter any bombing attempt tomorrow. Ted tried to oust my army in the hex on the road between Akyab and Cox's Bazaar, unsuccessfully. I hope he used up a bunch of supply in the process too. Anyway, the attack turned out to be 1:6 (ouch) and caused 516(12+69 vehicles) Japanese to 1822(73+20 vehicles) Allied casualties. The only unit of mine that really took damage was the 14 tank regiment. I'd been trying to pull them out of the hex (they are ~2/3 of the way out) but all but 2 of the tank losses were theirs. They're trashed, but if I get them out, they'll rebuild easily. My two tank divisions took a total of 2 tank losses. My troops (other than the 14th) are still in great shape, but their supply situation is still poor. I'll wager that Ted won't try another attack any time soon. Here's the combat result: Ground combat at 55,44 (near Cox's Bazar) Allied Deliberate attack Attacking force 46697 troops, 773 guns, 1307 vehicles, Assault Value = 1637 Defending force 66041 troops, 874 guns, 1692 vehicles, Assault Value = 2282 Allied adjusted assault: 461 Japanese adjusted defense: 3069 Allied assault odds: 1 to 6 Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), supply(-) Attacker: Japanese ground losses: 516 casualties reported Squads: 1 destroyed, 44 disabled Non Combat: 10 destroyed, 43 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled Guns lost 24 (1 destroyed, 23 disabled) Vehicles lost 86 (69 destroyed, 17 disabled) Allied ground losses: 1822 casualties reported Squads: 50 destroyed, 168 disabled Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 116 disabled Engineers: 1 destroyed, 28 disabled Guns lost 36 (14 destroyed, 22 disabled) Vehicles lost 198 (20 destroyed, 178 disabled) Assaulting units: 7th Armoured Brigade 7th Australian Division 19th Indian Division 44th Indian Brigade 45th Indian Brigade 150th RAC Regiment 2nd British Division 2/11th Field Regiment 6th Medium Regiment 2/13th Field Regiment 48th Light AA Regiment 24th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment 2/9th Field Regiment 6th Heavy AA Regiment Defending units: 14th Tank Regiment 18th Division 1st Tank Division Imperial Guards Division 55th Division 56th Division 2nd Tank Division 15th Army 3rd Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment 14th Ind.Art.Mortar Battalion 18th Medium Field Artillery Regiment 3rd Medium Field Artillery Regiment 21st Medium Field Artillery Battalion SE Fleet: Aside from the daily bombing of PNG, Ted sent a flight of 7 P38s to sweep Gasmata. 15 A6M2s countered them shooting down 1 P38 for the loss of 2 Zeros and 1 pilot each KIA and WIA. I can't wait for 1 November because the A6M5 becomes operational. My intent is to replace all the A6M2s in SE Fleet area with the A6M5 and keep the A6M3a on my carriers (because of their range). I don't have enough A6M3as for all my carriers, but I'll put some A6M5s on them for CAP purposes. Currently, I'm researching the A6M5b. It will become operational in mid-43. The model I really want is the A6M5c, which has armor. I need to calculate when to change the R&D to the M5c to bring it on as soon as possible after the M5b becomes operational. If I do it right, they'll become operational a month or less apart. China: I attacked Henyang successfully today, trashing the defenders, who were primarily the previously trashed Chengsha defenders. This was the third time I pummeled them. The 3:1 attack caused 16275(1395) Chinese casualties for only 2638(11) Japanese losses. The infrastructure was trashed: Manpower 2(0), Resources 1(109) and LI 1(39). I won't rebuild anything. There were 2 reasons for this attack: 1. It cleared the railway of Chinese troops and 2. It reduced Chinese supply production by a further 40 supply per day. I have several options for this army now: 1. I can head south along the rail line to take Kukong, further battering the army along the way. 2. I can head west to take Nanning, completing the land route from Malaya to Manchuoko. 3. I can head NW to clear the bases to Kweiyang thus further isolating Ted's bastion around Chunking. I am leaning toward option #1 because I would like to destroy that army. In addition, I would isolate 11 Chinese units in the south central region of China. By eliminating those 25 units, I would control the entire south central portion of China, shortening my front line. The danger is that Ted has ~500k troops in Chunking but I am keeping an eye on them and so far they haven't moved. I'm going to let my army rest a couple of turns so I have a bit of time to ponder what to do. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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