15 April 1942
Recon reveals significant fighter presence on Fiji; American subs beginning patrols in Luzon Strait?
Luzon Strait
USS Drum hit a troop-carrying cargo ship with a torpedo at night in the Luzon Strait--fortunately, a dud. I believe this is the first time I've seen an enemy sub here since my conquest of Luzon concluded, so this may indicate a strategy shift away from trying to use subs as naval combattants and more towards the traditional anti-merchant role.
I've been gradually moving ASW assets towards places where his subs have actually been appearing, so due to the lack of subs in the Luzon Strait, ASW coverage here is relatively light for the moment--pretty decent air patrols but no surface assets. I'm about to have four subchasers complete their deep-water depth charge refits in Singapore, so they'll be headed here. I have already-upgraded SCs operating off Cam Rahn Bay and in the Makassar Strait that I could pull if I need to, but so far both of those areas have had more frequent enemy sub patrols.
China
I successfully CAP-trapped the enemy bombers that tried to interdict my troops near Kahnsien yesterday (and again today), splashing 2 SB-IIIs and 1 Husdon. 2 bombers made it through to the target but missed.
The Chinese got a single I-16 fighter up over Sian, which was felled by Oscars escorting my bomber packages.
Bay of Bengal
Speaking of CAP traps, we kind of got away with one in the channel between India and Sri Lanka as we attacked a wayward minesweeper with Betties. They had 14 Hurricanes flying cover over it, while our escort was just 9 Zeroes. We ended up killing the AM while shooting down 2 Hurricanes, with the loss of just 1 Zero.
The main motivation for having these Betties on naval attack orders right now is that recon is reporting a heavy cruiser present in Colombo, and we've had little to no success with port strikes due to heavy flak. We're probably going to take Colombo in a matter of days, though, which means that cruiser is about to make a run for it, and when it does, I want my Betties to pounce.
I've added to the number of Oscars flying out of Trincomalee so that I can resume sweeps of Cochin to try to reduce those Hurricane numbers, but weather scrubbed the sweep ordered for today.
A probing attack on Colombo shows we have about 3x their strength, not enough to make this easy but enough to get started. We attack tomorrow.
CENTPAC
Recon of Fiji shows 45 fighters, 17 bombers (probably dive bombers, standard dive bomber squadron size is 18) and a CA in port. So, another force concentration like Pago.
Upgrades and reinforcements
All 4 Chidori-class torpedo boats have completed their conversion to Kaibokans at Saigon. Two will be delivering militarized merchant ships to SOPAC as we'll need these ships more with the amphibious bonus having expired. The other two are reporting to Palembang where they will relieve destroyers and DMSs from tanker escort duty.
5th Ku S-1 arrives at Takao (2/9 Rufes, unrestricted - we're producing these very slowly so it will be awhile before this gets to strength. They're eligible to upgrade to A6M5s so this is potentially a useful small Betty escort unit in the future)
38th Sentai arrives at Sapporo - (2/27 Dinah recon aircraft ,restricted - a very useful pickup because I need more recon training, although I'm a little short on aircraft to give them because I reduced Dinah production to stockpile engines.)
94th Sentai arrives at Tokyo (2/27 Sally - restricted unit, more bomber training doesn't hurt, especially if I'm going to need to purchase some of my bomber training units to use as Nick squadrons on the frontline)