24 April 1942
Heavy losses to enemy CAP at Suva, and major army losses at Sian
Indian Ocean
Ise and Hyuga shelled Cochin again, this time doing very little damage. Maybe the Hurricanes left? We did sink a minesweeper that was on patrol in the harbor.
SOPAC
Thinking the enemy would struggle to put up a decent CAP after the recent devastation, I had the KB strike Suva's port to deal with continued reports of ships in harbor. And we did finish off the Grayback, which somehow wasn't reduced to matchsticks from the prior two 800kg bomb hits. But the escorting Zeroes failed to keep the CAP off the bombers on the way in. We lost 4 Zeroes and 10 Kates, while shooting down 3 P-40s and 2 P-39s. A mine tender was also damaged in the strike and will likely sink.
China
The largest CAP we've seen in China in a long time was over Sian today, 8 Buffalos and 1 I-16. They did make it to my bombers, shooting down 1 Sally. Escorting Oscars downed 2 Buffalo. We also downed an SB-III at Kukong.
I had high hopes for being able to achieve a breakthrough at Sian today, with the roadblock having been fully dealt with and our main force having returned. But the enemy has reinforced Sian significantly, enough that our attack did not go well against the enemy fortifications:
Japanese ground losses:
21802 casualties reported
Squads: 403 destroyed, 1381 disabled
Non Combat: 9 destroyed, 199 disabled
Engineers: 19 destroyed, 133 disabled
Guns lost 100 (33 destroyed, 67 disabled)
Vehicles lost 156 (3 destroyed, 153 disabled)
Allied ground losses:
10984 casualties reported
Squads: 170 destroyed, 302 disabled
Non Combat: 172 destroyed, 450 disabled
Engineers: 13 destroyed, 89 disabled
Guns lost 188 (44 destroyed, 144 disabled)
I'm going to have to reduce the enemy AV substantially to turn this around. That means at a minimum giving the bombers time to wear them down, while using our artillery to contribute to that. It might also mean sending a smaller force around to cut off their main source of supplies. A frontal assault is off the table for the time being.
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