Mike Solli
Posts: 15792
Joined: 10/18/2000
From: the flight deck of the Zuikaku
Status: offline
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28 Apr 43
Sub War
Nothing to report.
5 Fleet
I had sent up a couple of 4 DD Fubuki divisions from Truk to wreak havoc. I squandered the first (stupid me). The second was hiding to the west of the Aleutians. I saw some ships coming and sent them on a full speed run to Adak, just in case. This time it paid off (sort of). The DDs found a follow-on invasion force and went after them. The Allied TF was composed of 5 APA, 1 AP, 3 LSI(L) escorted by 3 DD and a DE. They immediately attacked expending just about all their torpedoes (only 2 shots left) and a good number of shells. They hit absolutely nothing!  In return, two of the DDs were each hit by a single 5" shell. They must have been duds because one DD had 2 sys damage and the other had 1 sys and 1 engine damage. Fortunately, they force the enemy TF to withdraw. My TF is withdrawing to Etorofu to rearm and return.
After sunrise, 3x B-24s, 12x Bolingbrock and 3x B-25s came to attack the troops. I had 8x Oscars on LRCAP and they shot down 2x B-25s. The aircraft did no damage.
Later, 7x B-25s and 8x B-24s came in separate attacks to hit my port. They did a few points of damage to the port.
Finally, the Allied deliberate assault went in. It's what I had been waiting for. The 1:4 attack against level 6 forts was a disaster. The Allies lost 624(7) to my 81(7), and my losses were actually far less. According to the attack results, I lost an infantry squad and 6 guns destroyed. Actually, I lost only 1 squad. Of all my guns, only 1 DP gun is disabled. No guns were lost. Banzai! Unfortunately, I won't counterattack them. My troops probably aren't up to the task. I will bombard them though to kill troops and supplies and keep their disruption and fatigue up.
Overall, not a bad turn up here.
Damage:
Adak: 48-57-77
4 Fleet
Nothing to report.
SE Fleet
I think Ted meant to rest his weary air force today, but two Kittyhawks swept Gasmata and only one returned.
SRA
Nothing to report.
Burma
No planes flew on either side.
I gave the order for the 4 Parachute Regiment to perform an air assault tomorrow on Ramree with the mission of destroying the 77 Chindit Brigade. They have been prepping for this mission and are currently prepped at 88. If the 54 transports fly, it should be a mission for the record books.
China
I hit the Chinese Corps in Kunmimg beating them up and surrounding them. The remnants surrendered.
Something very interesting is happening in China. The Allies control only 5 bases in China. One doesn’t count because an army ~100k strong is sitting, surrounded, in the base with no supply. The other 4 are the bases on the “Chungking plateau”. To the south of Chungking is a base I control behind a river (can’t remember the name). Anyway, I have an army heading to the city to the NE of Chungking on the plateau. My army is only a few hexes away. As you all know, some destroyed Chinese units return at 1/3 strength at Chungking, so the army there usually grows to a huge size. A few months ago, I sent a couple divisions up from my base toward Chungking to beat up stray units. He sent an army half a million strong down and attacked them doing a number on my two divisions. That Chinese Army (131 units) ran down the road to the hex next to my base across the river. It’s been sitting there ever since. My intel tells me that there are only 5 units in Chungking! The other 3 bases have 1, 1 and 2 units in them. I’m hoping to get Chungking. I’ll have to take one, single unit base first, but then I can run for Chungking. I think I can do it. My army that is almost at the Chungking Plateau has a few divisions, a couple brigades, the 3 Tank Division and half a dozen or more artillery. This should begin in a week, maybe less. I’ll post a screen shot so it’ll make some sense.
Other Stuff
The N1K1-J George R&D advanced to 5/43. Today, I upgraded the R&D factories to the N1K2-J. On 1 May, I’ll convert 2 current operational factories from the A6M2 (they’ve been off for months) to the George, a size 30 and 60 factory. I have a couple other factories that are currently unused. I will convert another factory to a size 30 factory giving me a monthly production of 90 in a month and 120 in 2 months.
I’m going to have to do a little planning for my Ha-45 engines. This will eat up more engines per month so I’ll need to probably convert another factory to the Ha-45. I have a size 40 and 80 Ha-60 engine that is now unused so one of them will probably be converted.
Ok, I looked at my factories. I have 4x Ha-45 factories (180, 120, 120, 65) that are all upgrading and will be at those sizes in a month. In a month, I’ll produce 16 engines a day. I currently have 287 engines in the pool. Once that hits 500, then my needs will increase dramatically:
R&D
Frank: 30, 30, 28, 19, 14, 2, 0 & 53 (size 55)
George: 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 13, 13, 8
Peggy: 16
Francis: 30
Myrt (night fighter): 8, 4, 3
Grace: 21, 16, 14, 13
Eventually, I’ll need a lot for R&D but in a month I expect to need 11 a day, just for R&D. Add to that 4 per day for the operational Georges, that’s 15 per day, or 450 total factories to break even. In a month, I’ll have 485 factories or 16 a day. I am going to increase the size 65 factory to 90. I am also going to convert both Ha-60 factories and increase them to 60 & 90. If I do that, my engine production will be 660 a month or 22 a day. I will be producing that much by the end of July 1943. I’ve decided (based on reading other AARs) that I want my engine pools to be in place for late war. This will cut into my HI pool, but much of the HI pool is for airframes and engines. May as well create the engines early. They won’t rust.
Ok, here’s what my Ha-45 engine factories will look like at the end of:
April: 153, 92, 92, 28, 2, 2 = 369
May: 180, 120, 120, 59, 33, 33 = 545
June: 180, 120, 120, 89, 63, 60 = 632
July: 180, 120, 120, 90, 90, 60 = 660
It will cost a total of 300k supply or about 100k a month for the next 3 months, a third of my current excess supply produced each month. That hurts a bit, but I’ll live with it. I do it either now or later. I expect my supply production to decrease late war, so I’ll take the bite now.
HI expenditures for the engines produced by these factories (when complete) will be increased by 5400 a month or 180 a day. My current HI pool increase is about 5700 a day so that’s not bad.
This got me looking at my other engines. The one that stands out is the Ha-35. I’m just keeping my pool above 500 by shutting off Zero and Oscar production when necessary, which is most of the time. I’m considering converting a size 60 Ha-34 factory to the Ha-35. My current production is 450 or 15 a day. I need 19 to keep everything producing. The additional factory will bring my production to 17 a day. That’ll work for now. My losses are low enough that I can keep some of my operational factories off from time to time. I will need more engines later though.
Ha-33 needs are in flux and will change quite a bit over the next few months. I made a spreadsheet to figure out my needs for this engine. Here are the changes:
Ki-100-II: Current needs are 6/day R&D. It becomes operational in July & needs decrease to 4/day.
Nell: Needs are 2/day. ~100 each M2 & M3 models in the pool so production is off and will be for a while.
Mavis TR: Needs are 0.5/day but on rarely.
Dinah III: Needs are 1.3/day but not on all the time.
My Ha-33 production is 9/day with 585 in the pool and pretty steady. I’m not going to increase production for now. Once my Nell pools drop to <100 combined, then I’ll probably increase engine production by 60 factories.
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RE: Once Again into the Breech - Mike (J) vs. tc464 (A) - 
No big deal if he can't get to it he can't, I get it. Just hopin'. Hope all is well, take care Mike. 
Getting ahead of myself though. A few relatively boring turns to grind through first….
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