Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000
From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku
Status: offline
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Happy Easter all!  To be honest, I have no idea which fighter is really better than any other. We shall see.
3 Apr 43
Sub War
The I-173 had just finished fixing some minor damage and was heading south out of Truk when she found the Halibut and put 2 torpedoes into her. The Halibut showed up as sunk, but what was interesting was how she was reported as sunk. Not by torpedoes, but by a 250kg bomb! Apparently, the torpedoes didn’t do the job and a bomber flying out of Truk finished her off. No matter how her demise happened, that’s one less sub to worry about. Banzai!
About 24 hexes SW of San Francisco, the I-36 found an unescorted convoy and put down the xAK City of Agra. There are still Allied TFs out there without escort?! I’ll take it!
5 Fleet
MKB2 continues to wait to the west of Adak. I have the Kates set to use bombs to conserve torpedoes for the special ships (capital ships or an invasion fleet). No sign of either right now.
Current base damage:
Adak: 23-65-0
Amchitka: 87-44-17
4 Fleet
Nothing to report.
SE Fleet
Not surprisingly, the US 22 Marine Regiment took Rossel Island, destroying the 7 SNLF Company and 52 Construction Company. Both are being rebuilt. The SNLF company makes a nice garrison for those little islands requiring one and the Japanese player can never have too many engineers.
Ted rested most of his bombers (very good for me), but not his fighters. It appears he is trying to wear out my fighters in this area. I keep a number of them stationed at high levels (>30k ft). This fatigues the pilots a lot but I mitigate that by giving each fighter unit extra pilots and usually having the unit fly only 50% CAP.
A squadron of P-38s swept Rabaul losing 2 for no Japanese loss and an squadron of P-40Ks swept Talasea losing about 4 for 3 Japanese planes.
The only bombers sent out were a squadron of B-25Cs escorted by a squadron of Wildcats at Lunga. Lunga? Ok. That’s another useless target for him to focus his attention on. Anyway, my Zeros stationed down there shot down 3 Wildcats for 1 Zero written off. The bombers did light damage to Lunga’s airfield that was easily repaired.
Current base damage:
Gasmata: 0-0-0, Fort at 5.98, only 2 more days to level 6!
Talasea: 0-32-0
Munda: 0-40-5
SRA
Nothing to report.
Burma
I’ve been pumping a lot of supply into Burma and it shows. All of my bases there have adequate supply, and even my main army sitting on the road between Akyab and Cox’s Bazaar had supply. Because of that, I attacked. Even though it didn’t “look” good, I believe it was useful in wearing down the British army there. The 1:2 attack caused 751(53) Commonwealth (mainly Indian) casualties to 3840(12) Japanese casualties. Yeah, I took a lot of disabled squads, but they’re coming back pretty quickly. I keep track of the AV in this hex. Here’s how it looks:
Before the attack (British-Japanese): 872-2239 (Japanese:British: 2.57:1)
After the attack: 839-1889 (2.25:1)
4 April: 839-1907 (2.27:1)
5 April: 840-1938 (2.31:1)
You can see that my troops are coming back faster than Teds. He lost a fair number of squads too. I’ll hit him again when my supply is out of the red. I think I can wear him down. Then I’ll pull most of my troops out to replenish those that need it and keep the 2x tank divisions as a reserve.
I finally figured out what is in Akyab. He has an Aussie Division, 7 Tank Brigade and a HQ there. I think he would have done better to put some of the Indian troops there and kept the Aussies with the army. I would have been much more reluctant to attack them. They’re much better troops.
On to Ramree and the poor Chindits. I believe they are out of supply. If not, they’ve got to be low. I have MKB1 stationed 6 hexes to the SW, should he attempt to reinforce/resupply them.
I think I shot down the last of the Martlets that was sweeping Ramree because I came across a partial squadron of 12x P-40Ks today. At the end of the day, 4 of the Warhawks were shot down for no Japanese loss, and 62x Japanese 2E bomber sorties hit the Chindits. The 21 Division continues to move toward the attack point to take Ramree back.
I also have the 2 Division available to do a seaborne invasion. I haven’t decided whether or not to do this yet. I’m waiting for the 2x bombardment TFs to return from replenishing at Singapore. Everything will be in position in a few days and I’ll decide then. I’d rather do a land invasion, but I also may do both at the same time. We’ll see.
China
Not much happened here today other than the daily bombing of the airfields at Chengtu and Chungking. Ted can’t keep up with repairs at either base.
The 13 Army continues to move toward its jump off point for the invasion of the Chungking plateau (as I like to call it). The 3 Tank Division is heading south from Urumchi and will join the 13 Army.
Other Stuff
Reinforcements:
26 Sentai – 36 Oscar IIb, was a part of 5 Air Division in SE Fleet AO. This unit was stationed at Gasmata a few months ago when Ted was doing a sustained air bombardment of that base. I disbanded the unit because it was slowly being destroyed on the ground. I just arrived and I gave it the new Oscar model. After they repair, it’ll island hop back into the fray down there. I’m glad it finally arrived because it’ll give me another fighter unit to use to swap out frontline units for rest. That’s important to do in order to keep my pilots fresh for the constant warfare.
xAK Jinju Maru – Std-B – will convert to a TK.
The B6N2 R&D advanced to 8/43. It will become operational in June 43, and the Kate factory will convert to this model. I still have 70+ B5N2s and 100+ B5N1s in the pool. My torpedo bomber losses have been next to nothing. There’s been no carrier duel so far. I’m very cautious with committing my precious carrier pilots. They rarely (if ever) hit bases. I want to use them against enemy shipping. That’s what they were made to do. I have a sneaky suspicion that they will be used quite a bit this year. Ted is now getting his vaunted Hellcats at 4.33 per day. His 6 pre-war carriers should have them outfitted by mid-May.
I’m considering sending 1 more carrier back for upgrades. If I do, it’ll be the Ryujo. She carries 30 Zeros and 18 Kates. I currently have (along with Ryujo), the Shokaku, Zuikaku, Soryu, Junyo and Hiyo available at Truk for operations. Akagi and Kaga are at Kobe refitting. If I send a carrier back to Japan now, she would be back at Truk by mid-May. I need to make a decision soon.
Finally, Shanghai and Medan’s forts reached level 6.
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Printable Version
RE: Once Again into the Breech - Mike (J) vs. tc464 (A) - 
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(pun intended). The Tojo has a climb rate of 3800 or something like that and the OscarIV has 3000+. Not that the late Tony's are poor A/C, but do I really need to R&D the 'same' plane type again and again. They're comparable. So I wouldn't plan on using this model (of course PDU must be on).
Oops. This time I took some losses, as did the Commonwealth. On the bright side, an Indian artillery regiment was destroyed. Banzai! 
Today I remembered to shut the attack off. My supply is pretty low here, but it should build up over the next few days. The 55 Division has most of its squads disabled so I’m marching them out of the hex in combat mode. I really doubt Ted will attack here, because I’m positive he’s in worse shape than I am. 
Now the AV for each side is 1179 Brit to 1617 Japanese. Now it is a true stalemate. I’m still pulling out the 55 Division in combat mode since they have a lot of disablements that aren’t repairing very quickly. 
). It took 3 Nick Kamikaze with bombs to sink one after it hit a mine and that guy almost made it back 10 hexes to a port and safety. 
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