Alikchi2
Posts: 1785
Joined: 5/14/2004 Status: offline
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Nothing happens in Manila yet other than my forts going up rapidly (96% to level 2) - other stuff of significance is going on, though! 1/9/42 India/Burma: Yep, in three days I get multiple Hurricane units, CV Formidable, BB Royal sovereign, a slew of other ships and RAF HQs and aviation units. Excellent. A couple Hurricane squadrons will be sent to Java (as happened IRL) and the rest will boost up my fighter defence in Madras, Ceylon, and northern Burma. I also get another useless unit of Lysanders.. both groups will be upgrading to Hurricane IIs ASAP. China: Night bombing of Changsha continues to be totally ineffective. One "corps" is about 30 miles away from reinforcing Nanning.. I really wish I had more aviation support here. Malaya: He reverts to bombardments at Kuala Lumpur - yay, more time bought by yours truly. Buffalos and Vildebeests out of Singapore mount a devastating attack on 18th Division, killing or wounding upwards of 7 enemy farm animals and severely damaging a sand castle known to have been constructed in the vicinity. VCs all around! The Philippines: As I said earlier, Manila continues to improve as a defensive position - we'll hit level 2 forts tomorrow and about 600 assault points have been assembled. Bombardments continue at Clark, as always. The last few airgroups in the PI began to pull out today. B-25s from Cagayan flew to Bali, where they'll spend some time relaxing with the lovely Indonesian ladies on the beach to get their morale up and replacements in. 7 P-40Es from Clark escaped to Tarakan today - next stop is Soerabaja, where again they'll get some much needed rest, at least for while. And B-17s have begun landing at Bandoeng airfield in Java. Only damaged aircraft remain stuck in the PI. Also, I've been saving up P-39s so I can upgrade the Filipino P-26 unit - I have 18 and get about two per day. The P-26s are sitting in Soerabaja right now.. Finally, I've been staging my PT boats out of Butuan and caught a transport in Davao today - I put 5 shells and a torpedo into her, so maybe she'll sink, maybe not. Davao still hasn't improved as a port yet - remember, he lost 2 cruisers there because of that.. DEI: A bombardment force sails into Singkawang harbor and does a fair amount of damage - this is usually a precursor to invasion so I've moved all the aircraft to safer airfields. I only have a base force there.. DD Nowaki hits a mine off Singkawang during the bombardment, though, so not everything was bad. I've diverted O19 and O20 from their minelaying mission at Kuching to start laying fields off Singkawang instead. Some further decisions - after reading up on the Java campaign a little I noticed that the Americans and British tried to reinforce with ground troops as well as airgroups - a small number of British tanks and some American artillery for example. I'm bringing in 3 US artillery units from Townsville (the ones on the convoy near Canton Island on the 7th). The two smaller ones will go to Amboina, and the other will go to mainland Java. I'm also bringing in about 30 Valentine tanks from India. Why am I basically throwing units into the bag? The Allies did it historically, and because frankly the DEI needs anything it can get to slow down the Japanese. Oh, and Soerabaja port has reached 46% to level 9, yay! SOPAC: No real action - KB still hovering off Pago Pago, Upolu still uncaptured. I guess that SNLF was pretty beat up.. Oh, I get 14th NZ Brigade (South Pacific command) in 3 days. I'll be sending it to Noumea, which has nothing right now. West Coast: I'm pleased at how quickly the Pearl Harbor BBs are repairing. Oklahoma is down to 39 SYS from 42 a few days ago and the other ships are moving at about the same speed. Again, in 3 days I get a massive wave of reinforcements - AKs, APs, and oodles of tankers. I have lots of DDs, PGs, PCs and MSWs ready for escort and this time I don't plan on skimping. ====== Map time! ====== 1. India is weak but the defenses continue to grow, and will be even stronger when significant reinforcements arrive on January 12th. 2. No advance yet in southern Burma - 55th Division IJA remains encamped in Tavoy. 3. At Nanning a numerically inferior Japanese force has pinned down the defending Chinese. The Chinese Air Force is mounting significant bombing raids in an attempt to disrupt the Japanese, who have not yet made any deliberate attacks on the city or the troops defending it. 4. A large Japanese army looms outside of Changsha, but an equally large Chinese army stands ready to fight for it under the air protection of 3rd Squadron AVG. Japanese dive-bombers have resorted to attacking at night with very little success. 5. In Malaya, Japan has split the Allied force into 3 large groups - one at Kuala Lumpur, one at Kuantan and the other at Johore Bahru and Singapore. Kuala Lumpur is being reduced by 5th Division IJA while Kuantan and Johore Bahru wait for their turn. 6. Kuching has become the primary airfield and staging point for Japanese forces in the Borneo area. Today several Japanese cruisers bombarded Singkawang on the western coast in a possible preparation for invasion. 7. Air units in the Philippines have wilted away and retreated, but resistance on the ground still continues. 8. Oops. 9. Allied troops are only a day away from landing on Attu Island, which they intend to build up into a significant airbase close to Northern Japan. 10. Submarines staging primarily from Pearl Harbor have been instrumental in spotting Japanese movements in the area. However, there have been few successful attacks. 11. Japanese held Canton Island is far too close to the Allied convoy routes. 12. Pago Pago - the first Japanese landing attempt was turned back by Marine 155mm guns. Kido Butai loiters offshore. 13. The Allied convoy route in the Central Pacific, under threat from I-boats, the Kido Butai and possibly LBA staged from Canton Island in the future. 14. Pacific Fleet - including all Pearl Harbor Battleships except for Pennsylvania, Lexington, Saratoga, and Enterprise - is based at San Francisco for the time being. ====== That's enough for one day. Heesh.
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