War in the Pacific AAR Thread: ML (Japan) vs. Leo (Allies)

[Molon Labe]

Well, I gave you Youtube AAR thing a try. It was too time consuming. It seems doing AARs in forum was the way to go all along. So here we go again... my third WITP campaign (and hopefully the first complete one as the Japanese), picking up in February 1942.


Jochen Heiden's discord server: discord.gg/v4A9STzW7R (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=channel_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbUh2LVJPLWZhMGFEY1Q1aW5DdjRxVk h3QjZpUXxBQ3Jtc0tsR3FDcEY1X1ZRa25IR2NJNTJzSXZ6aGJ2 YUkyWm1DdTRUbDRIUFZqRmRQRmFISlZST0FNczgtdXZ1NEZhQz BzQmJGLXVDNzJUNVhaQTJHQWlDU0pWalQxSHQ4dloyd3hQWk5P MmRnOUtSaGt5c0NrVQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscord.gg%2Fv4A9STzW7R)
The thread for campaign #1 is here:
https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=249520
Campaign #2 (incomplete due to opponent ragequit): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2dB_sOo-BQ&list=PLFW6_A2C9g38dQnllMZ0MqR5pZi3uRQ0h]


And the video AARs for this campaign through 29 December 1941: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJbRKdGTJQM&list=PLFW6_A2C9g39j7DrPP7U8JsPoIp421Hrb]


Which obviously leaves a bit of a gap in January 1942. So, a quick summary of the road so far.


China
https://i.ibb.co/CM8Zdzr/TRSF-China.png
My focus has been on moving into the north central area, taking bases such as Sian and Lanchow. I think this is generally called "the Northern Strategy". Most of December 1941 was about cleaning up stray Chinese units that started behind our lines while consolidating our control over the coastline, including capturing Hong Kong. We are currently focused on defeating a 100,000-strong "stack" of troops that we recently pushed out of Nanyang. They are now camped along the forest hex on the road between Nanyang and Sian. We've outflanked them with a mostly-armored advance through the roads to the north and we expect supply shortages will start hitting them pretty hard. In the east, we're closing in on Wenchow after chasing some consolidated enemy armies west across the Xiang river. It isn't clear at this time that we have enough troops to actually take Wenchow.


Philippines
https://i.ibb.co/TBxCzZF/TRSF-Phil.png
We've had a very successful campaign in Luzon. We principally landed at Vigan and moved mostly directly towards Clark. We were briefly delayed by a pocket of enemy troops and armor that took refuge in the mountains on our east flank that proved difficult to dislodge. We also landed about a division of troops south of Manila which eventually became the primary force taking Manila, which fell 13 January. Our force in the Philippines was reinforced by a division coming from Japan that I originally wanted to sent to Burma, but it became available around the same time as Hong Kong fell, so sending these two divisions I had hoped would end the Luzon campaign quickly. It was probably the right move... Clark was a hard nut to crack (it fell 30 January) and I wouldn't have been able to do it without those two divisions. At this time, all the US still controls is the Bataan penninsula and a few other scattered garrisons throughout the central and southern islands.


Malaya
https://i.ibb.co/9H62bDf/TRSF-Malaya.png
We had a mostly successful campaign here, including pulling off the Mersing Gambit. Rapidly setting up airbases at Kota Bharu, Kuantan, and Kuching prevented any naval reinforcement of Singapore and Sumatra. We ended up fighting a major battle at Johore Bahru before moving onto Singapore. My opponent apparently neglected to build fortifications at Singapore, resulting in an anticlimactic seizing of Singapore itself in 17 January in the initial shock attack over the channel with minimal losses.

As recon showed Palembang was mostly undefended, after two days rest we immediately began an invasion of Sumatra, with Palembang invaded on 29 January and falling on 1 February. Resistance on land was token; air resistance limited to medium bombers, with a total loss of about 30 bombers with no result. There are at least 3 enemy submarines trying to stalk our forces, including light and escort carriers, but so far with no success. Landings on Java are being staged with transports currently arriving at Singapore as of 2 February and beginning to load.
https://i.ibb.co/vdctDmF/TRSF-Coral-Sea.png

A very likely hot spot for CV vs CV conflict as we are pushing southward aggressively. We've taken Luganville resulting is some pushback from the Americans, with a small force delivering support units being wiped out by American cruisers on 1 January. And on 27-28 January, there was a raid on Luganville by Force Z and a CVBG including Lexington and Enterprise.

Carrier Status
Carrier Division 2 (Hiryu, Soryu) was originally tasked to support the opening attacks on Manila, then mostly patrolled the Sulu Sea picking off enemy ships trying to evacuate the area. It then made a series of raids in the Dutch East Indies and Darwin. Currently, CARDIV2 has been recombined with the KB and is deployed in the Solomons theatre.


The main KB was deployed to Pearl for the opening attacks, and has stayed in the Solomons area ever since, including making raids on the northeastern Australian coast and Noumea. The raid on Noumea resulting in an S-boat scoring a MK10 hit on the Kaga around 8 January, causing a secondary ammunition explosion. Kaga is currently in Japan for repairs which are expected to take 3-4 months. The remaining 5 carriers of the KB are remaining in the Solomons area to support a planned invasion of New Caledonia and further raids on Australia.


Our light and escort carriers ("the mini KB") have mostly been operating in the eastern DEI, intercepting evacuating Allied shipping. They are currently deployed in support of the Palembang invasion. Shoho joined the fleet around 31 January and is currently still in Japan, resizing some training squadrons.


* * *

On 6 January, USS Saratoga was hit by two torpedoes fired by I-9 west of Hawaii. The damage didn't appear critical but I think we probably put her away for at least 2 months.


Attrition
https://i.ibb.co/vP858sC/AC-Losses.png


We're doing well as far as managing losses goes. The Allies haven't really been pushing back very hard so far, so we are mostly picking off weaker areas without paying very much for them. In the above chart, I find it remarkable that the Zero is only #4 in losses--I expect it to be #1 because unlike the Allies, my fighter losses aren't spread out over many airframe types, the Zero carries the majority of the load. The AVG in particular has been beaten down to a shadow of its former self trying to defend Rangoon from Oscar sweeps. MAJ Boyington has already been killed.


For ships, the attrition is nearly all in my favor. Based on Tracker data, here are the numbers:


Japan
CL: 1 (Jintsu)
DD: 1
PB: 6
SS: 1
SSX:5
DMS: 2
AK: 14
AKL: 4


Allies
BB: 2 (Tennessee, Arizona)
CA: 2
CL: 3
DD:12
PG: 3
PC: 3
PT/MTB: 27
ML/HDML: 24
SS: 21
CM/CMc: 3
AM: 17
AMc: 12
AS: 1
AV: 1
AVD: 2
AVP: 7
AGP: 4
AG: 3
AO: 3
YP: 1
AP: 22
AK: 35
AKL: 49

[Molon Labe]

2 February 1942

China
We fought a significant land battle on the road between Sian and Nanyang, getting the better of a stack of about 30k troops with mostly armored units of our own. I expect we'll break the enemy tomorrow. Once that happens, the amount of supply reaching the main stack outside Sinyang should plummet, and we should get our breakthrough.


DEI
We have paratroopers at Tarakan trying to take the base. We shelled the base with battleships and hit them with bombers as well in support of the para's attack this turn. We didn't take the base but didn't take a lot of casualties either.

We're also repairing a captured base at Koepang and building a base at Babar to use to attack Darwin. There may still be a significant fleet based there that's been intimitated from leaving the base between attacks by CARDIV2 and the Nells operating from captured airbases.


Sumatra
We detected a likely sub-laid minefield at Palembang and cleared with with destroyer-minesweepers. We hold contact on just one enemy sub now; the CVLBG is pulling back as most of the ships they were covering are already back in Singapore. I hope to have base forces delivered in 2 days.


Burma
The Hurricane made its combat debut today, holding off a sweep of Tojos and an attack by Oscar escorted Sallies targeting their port. We shot down just 1 Hurricane while losing a Tojo, 2 Oscars, and 4 Sallies. According to recon, there are several transports and cruisers in port at Rangoon; we have subs waiting for them outside the harbor and Betties based in Bangkok ready to torpedo them if they head out to sea, and over the past several weeks we've been working over the fighters at Rangoon to try to clear the way for port strikes. So far enemy fighter casualties have been high but we've had little success delivering bombs on target.

I'm staging to take Port Blair, an island and potential airbase outside Rangoon. Once I take that, delivery of supplies and troops to Rangoon will be nearly impossible for the Allies, accomplishing a major strategic objective.


Solomons/Coral Sea area
IJN Mutsu was torpedoed today, but fortunately took only light damage and is remaining on station protecting a troop convoy near Port Moresby. This convoy, along with another departing Truk, is intended for New Caledonia. The successful enemy sub attack was probably made possible by my decision 2 turns ago to pause loading at Port Moreseby due to a sighting of 4 unidentified ships at Horn Island, which could have been light cruisers escaping from Darwin and were a threat to the troop convoy. The Mutsu along with several other combattants were brought in to counter the threat, and the subs were waiting.

At Luganville, a few SOC-1s attacked an amphibious task force delivering construction engineers. I want a size 2 airbase on Luganville to support the New Caledonia invasion. I don't know if the Seaguls came from Efate or from American cruisers, but Efate seems more likely as I should have sufficient maritime surveillance to detect cruisers that close to Luganville. The KB and a heavy surface task force are standing by in the area, outside anticipated PBY search areas, waiting to see if the Americans attempt another raid on Luganville.

Off the coast of Brisbane, one of our subs picked off a minesweeper.
I have two midget-sub equipped subs and one floatplane-carrying sub on the way to Sydney. The floatplane will hopefully tell me when there are ships in harbor so I time the attack properly.


Reinforcements
40th Ku T-1 arrives at Chiba. Val squadron; they'll be assigned to pilot training for now.

[Molon Labe]

3 February 1942
Pretty uneventful. The one thing that did matter today was the Dutch bombed their own oil fields in Palembang with their remaining medium bombers, probably flying from Batavia. With just 5 hits they disabled 25 points worth of oil production. I'll have Oscars flying long-range CAP from Singapore tomorrow.

[Molon Labe]

4 February 1942

China
Major land battle outside Nanyang, we took significant casualties but it was mostly squad disablements, while Chinese casualties included a lot of squads destroyed. They're breaking.


Dutch East Indies
We had a long-range CAP out of Singapore trying to protect Palembang from the Dutch scorched-earth bombing raids. We only shot down 1 and the enemy managed to get another Oil hit. But better than the 5 hits we took yesterday. I'm moving in fighters to Palembang itself to protect this better; aviation support is being airlifted from Singkawang in addition to the incoming base forces (we're packing up from Kuching to rebase everything there to Palembang).

The Java invasion is planned to have two prongs, and the task force for the eastern group is nearly done loading at Singapore. We're probably something like 7-10 days from launching that operation.

We've captured Tarakan with an over-the-river shock attack. There were paratroops there trying to take the base but the conventional army caught up with them.


Coral Sea/Solomons/New Caledonia
A pair of bogeys showed up at Horn Island again, but this time I had surface assets nearby, so I rushed them. Was just 2 AKLs, both sunk.

The Port Moresby-to-New Caledonia task force finished loading and is ordered to rendezvous with another invasion force heading south from Truk. I expect them to land together at the north end of New Caledonia in 5 days.


Home Islands
The enemy has built up Adak Island to port size 2, which may be a sign of a fledgling forward sub base being built. Up to this point, there has been no US submarine activity near the home islands, but it looks like that's going to change. Hopefully I've got at least another month so that I'll have suitable deep-water depth charges on my subchasers and enough floatplanes and ASW-trained pilots to support them.

[Molon Labe]

5 February 1942

Santa Cruz Islands
https://i.ibb.co/M585Z7M/1942-2-4-Solomons.png
https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/[img]https://i.ibb.co/M585Z7M/1942-2-4-Solomons.png

4 bogeys popped up close enough to the KB that I'm surprised we didn't launch an airstrike. My best guess is that the Nagumo has better classification information than I do and doesn't think they're worth revealing the KB for. Fair enough. I'm backing the KB off slightly while moving the already-spotted heavy surface force in.


Burma
We had a fairly large air battle over Rangoon as a sweep of 21 Oscars was met by 10 Hurricanes, 4 Buffalos, and 3 P-40s. We lost 3 Oscars while shooting down 3 Hurricanes, 2 Buffalos, and 1 P-40.


Dutch East Indies
I accidentally forgot to turn off a Nell squadron's ground attack orders after we captured Tarakan, so they attacked a target of their own choosing: Surabaya. We got away with it... We had 19 escorting Zeroes to deal with their CAP of 6 Buffalos and 4 Demons. 3 of each type of enemy fighter went down with no IJN losses. The Nells did pretty good damage on the ground too.

Surprisingly, there were no raids on Palembang this turn.


China
The armored force just outside Sian attacked the Chinese army units there again. Once again, we failed to break through, but casualties were extremely disproportionate favoring us.


Reinforcements
LSD Akitsu Maru arrives at Osaka/Kyoto
12th Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Osaka/Kyoto

[Molon Labe]

6 February 1942
HMAS Australia, USS Marblehead sunk by IJN Kirishima and Hiei

Burma
Rangoon sweeps result in 1 Oscar and 2 Buffalos going down. The enemy is also bombing an armored column of mine just south of Moulmein, I'll CAP them next turn.


New Britain/Papua New Guinea
The enemy has responded to me pulling a division out of Port Moresby by ordering his former garrison back in. Due to operations on the north end of PNG taking longer than expected, my replacement garrison hasn't arrived yet and is still at least 2 days out. I've pulled a recon squadron out of PM just in case the enemy gets there first. I"ll be having Betties bomb them to try to slow them down, with Anns working their way here from Truk to free up the Betties.


Santa Cruz Islands
I was successful intercepting the bogeys overnight without needing to use the BK. The task force was the CA Australia, CL Marblehead, and a DD. Our task force included the battleships Kirishima and Hiei and we completely overpowered them, scoring BB main battery hits on all of them in the course of 2 engagements. We had 3 DD hit by their DD, resulting in fires and one damaged badly enough that I've ordered it back to Truk for repairs.


Recon flying from Luganville to Nomea reports the base has only about 5000-6000 defenders, plus 13 fighters, 17 bombers, 2 DD, 1 AP, and a sub spotted offshore. I probably don't need both divisions.

[Ostfriese]

Will of course continue reading here. I understand that the videos took too much time - was wondering about that myself. But still: the videos were great as well.

[Molon Labe]

7 February 1942

Dutch East Indies
I have a pair of DMSs working on the minefield at Tarakan. Will still need to find some base engineers to get this one online though. And supply to repair the damaged oil facilities.

5 Hudson bombers attacked Babar's port, evading 3 Oscars on patrol but scoring no hits.


SouthPAC
The O24 torpedoed and sank a pair of AKs bringing a relief garrison to Port Moresby. Fortunately, it was one ship from each of two units, so we didn't have a unit wiped out.

Zeroes swept Noumea from Luganville, shooting down 9 P-40s with no losses. This was an 8 on 12 engagement in his favor, so this outcome is quite shocking. The Zero is only slightly superior to the P-40. We may have another pilot training problem like we did in my first campaign.

B-17s attacked a cargo ship offloading supply/support at Luganville; they scored no hits and one was shot down by Zeroes.


China
The Sian-Nanyang meat grinder continues; a deliberate attack outside Sian caused 142 destroyed devices for the enemy but just 1 for me. Outside Nanyang the result was 219 destroyed for him and 27 for me. I've got a small force advancing towards the "twin cities" of Loyang and Chenchow as well.

On the coast, I did a probing bombardment attack on Wenchow, which shows I have a little less than twice his strength there. Probably not enough since he'll get a defensive bonus. I have another regiment on the way so I can wait.


Philippines
Deliberate attack on the last US bastion on Luzon. Enemy forts reportedly "reduced" to 3, so he actually had Level 4? That's impressive. But kind of wasted by holding onto Clark for so long. Anyway, we took the worst of this one with 439 devices destroyed/disabled and just 285 for him. But fret not, for his supplies will dwindle and he will not be able to reactivate disabled units, while I am swimming in captured supply from Manila, and these results will skew towards me the more the engineers bring down the forts.


Sumatra
We've captured Tandjoengbalai with an amphibious assault, and paratroopers dropped behind Palembang have marched to and taken Benkoelen. Oosthaven is really the only thing left in the south; I expect nothing more than token resistance in the north. This invasion was over before it started.


Burma
I have about a division's worth of troops staging outside Moulmein. I have no intention of making a move on Rangoon yet, but Moulmein I'd like to take just so the enemy has to make a river crossing if he decides to try to invade Thailand. The enemy showed his displeasure at my advance by sending 10 Blenheim bombers escorted with Buffalos and Hurricanes. 4 Oscars intercepted; 2 Buffalos didn't make it back and the bombing was ineffective.


Reinforcements
40th Ku T-2 arrives at Chiba (6 Kates, should be able to resize for training)
58th Infantry Brigade arrives at Shanghai - perfect, even more troops for Wenchow if I need them.

[Molon Labe]

8 February 1942

SouthPAC
It looks like the former Port Moresby garrison has given up on trying to return. One less problem for me to worry about I guess. I'd rather have the Anns I moved in here on ASW duty anyway.

B-17s raided Luganville again, targeting and missing the airbase while being harassed by Zeroes.

Efate's airbase has expanded to size 2 and is now an offensive threat to my New Caledonia operation. Of course that also means I can take it from him and make it a threat to him instead. Maybe after the initial landings when I have a ton of empty ships sitting around.


Burma
Port strike on Rangoon...air battle resulted in 1 Oscar lost, with the enemy losing a P-40 and 3 Hurricanes. In the first raid, 25 Sallies dropped 100 250kg bombs on the port--resulting in a single hit on the cruiser Colombo. A second raid of Betties hit the Colombo again, but I'm pretty sure it was just a 60kg bomb that didn't get through the armor. The third and final raid was 30 more Sallies, this time hitting the Colombo yet again and a transport twice. A transport that was not hit during the raid was seen sinking while the aircraft were present. There was a fourth raid of Betties, too, but they hit nothing.


Java and Sumatra
Betties recently rebased to Palembang attacked a minesweeper at Merak; a lone Buffalo tried to defend it and was shot down by escorting Zeroes. The Betties, equipped with bombs as their AirHQ has not yet arrived with their torpedoes, missed.

Eight medium bombers from west Java attacked my forces advancing towards Oosthaven, patrolling Oscars splashed two but the rest went on to cause some light casualties.


Dutch East Indies
9 Hudson bombers tried to attack a pair of cargo ships unloading at Babar, 3 didn't make it back thanks to Oscars on CAP. No hits on the ships.


Reinforcements
65th Naval Guard Unit arrives at Tokyo - sending the straight to Truk




9 February 1942
Well, that didn't take long...

Hawaii
I-3 took down an enemy destroyer.


Burma
3 Hurricanes tried to raid my ground forces outside Moulmein. We shot down 1, the rest retreated. 1 Blenheim was shot down in a later raid, our troops were unharmed by the bombing.

Raids on Rangoon resulted in 2 Buffalo and 1 Hurricane shot down by escorting fighters; we lost 1 Sally to flak and scored one more hit on the Colombo and just light facility damage.


SouthPAC
Luganville was targeted by several raids today, at least two of which were from the recently-upgraded Efate. First was a sweep by 5 P-40s, which was a fruitless one-way trip for them. A pair of B-26s snuck past the Zeroes next, attacking the airbase ineffectively. Next up were 6 B-17s, which scored 1 hit on the runway, but managed to draw a lot of attention from my remaining Zeroes on CAP. There was only 1 Zero left when their best strike arrived, 11 A-24 Banshees with 1 P-40 escort. The single Zero shot down the P-40 and one of the Banshees, but the remaining bombers put three thousand-pounders into a cargo ship unloading in the port, sinking it.

We're probably 2 days from landing on New Caledonia. Both amphibious task forces have been spotted. The KB hasn't technically been spotted, but he had 2 subs inside the KB's ASW search area, so if he's paying any attention he's noticed a lot of Kate sightings in his operations reports.


Java
13 Zeroes from Makassar swept Surabaya, shooting down all 5 fighters on CAP (2 Demon, 3 Buffalo) without loss.


China
We attacked outside Sian again, and this time finally routed them. We lost 1 tank (plus several device disablements) while destroying 612 devices in the rout. Sian is too well protected now, with about 150k troops hanging out there, so this force is going to head south down the road to join the battle outside Nanyang. We'll turn that into a slaughter too. Then take Sian.


Reinforcements and withdrawals
Kawai Detachment (Clades at Babeldoap) withdraws.
SC CHa-27 arrives at Toyama - sent to Nagasaki to use for shallow water patrols.

[Molon Labe]

10 February 1942
Stage set for possible carrier battle in New Caledonia


SouthPAC
A PB escorting the garrison delivery convoy spotted and swept a mine. They're leaving soon anyway and I won't have any immediate need to return, so these mines are going to get to sit here for awhile.

At Luganville, the S-34 picked off one of my DMSs. Which are some of my better ASW platforms right now.

Zeroes from Luganville swept Efate, shooting down 1 P-40.
Then B-17s tried to hit Luganville, but failed to score any hits as they were being attacked by Zeroes. A pair of B-26s snuck in and scored a single runway hit.

Finally, the Banshee dive bombers got their turn. Our Zeroes were somewhat depleted from dealing with the B-17s, so we only got 2 of them (of 9). But they also failed to score any hits.

Mavises flying long range patrols out of Ndeni spotted two task forces, including two ships reported as CVEs and with aircraft numbers implying 1-2 carriers. Based on prior activity in this area, I believe these are actually the Lexington and Enterprise, and the 2nd task force is Force Z. They are sitting in a good position to advance slightly to defend Efate or New Caledonia from an invasion attempt. Which is great news for me because the KB is here ready to tear them apart. The amphibious task forces have been spotted. The KB is officially "undetected" but its Kates generated at least 7 submarine spotting reports for me. So how many times did his subs spot my Kates?
https://i.ibb.co/mNrGtZ6/1941-2-10-New-Caledonia.png

One slight problem is that I detoured the KB slightly west to avoid some subs last turn, so I'm slightly out of position to defend the amphibious task forces this turn. I am in fact quite lucky that I was not attacked this turn. But it does limit my options this turn. I have two divisions loaded up on those task forces, so I can't/won't pull a Halsey and leave them flapping in the breeze while I go off chasing the carriers. Which means if the enemy figured out I have carriers here and chooses to avoid battle, he can. I also have to contend with the possibility that Force Z will charge the expected landing area. My transports are slow enough that he can beat me there. (Recall the January appearance of the Lex/Enterprise/Force Z; Force Z rushed Luganville while the carriers supported with raids) Which means just rushing the beach is probably not the best move for me. So I'll be standing off for a turn, with my heavy covering force ready to intercept any night rush, and my carriers repositioning to bring the amphibs under its umbrella where they belong. If the enemy tries to intervene in the landings, we should be able to launch a devastating strike during daylight.


Hawaii
The I-23 was hit a few times by a destroyer outside Pearl. The damage wasn't serious, but it was enough that I chose to send her home for repairs rather than be at greater risk of a more serious hit.




Java and Banda Sea
Zeroes from Makassar swept Madioen at extended range, splashing 1 Demon and 4 Buffalos with no losses.

Betties flew from Palembang with torpedoes this time, sinking a pair of minesweepers at Merak.

Babar was attacked by Hudsons from Darwin, we shot down 2. No damage on the ground. There Hudson attacks are also consistently targeting Saumlaki just to the east of Babar, but I'm not using that as a base so other than now I'm not mentioning it.

A Dutch sub torpedoed and sank one of my cargo ships at Babar. I believe it had just dropped off construction engineers.


Sumatra
139WH-3 bombers flying from Java attacked my troops outside Oosthaven; Oscars shot down 1 of them. The bombing was ineffective.

Using the 21st Ind. Mixed Brigade landed at Medan to work on the northern areas, we again fought the enemy we beat at Medan but they might have been reinforced as this time they got the better of us, 48 squads disabled/destroyed vs just 2. I have some idle heavies staging at Singapore, and these guys are on the coast, so I think I know how to break through here.


Burma
Blenheim raid on my advancing troops intercepted by Oscars, they turned around and ran, no losses.
Port strikes on Rangoon continued, with Betties scoring a single hit on a cargo ship.


China
We fought one of the few remaining stray Chinese units behind our lines near Chengting in the northwestern mountains. We got the worst of hit due to the terrain benefitting the defender, 28 squads disabled/destroyed to 11. But we'll be working them over with bombers and they'll be desperate for supplies. We'll get 'em.


Reinforcements
52nd Infantry Brigade arrives at Shanghai

[Molon Labe]

11 February 1942
Tactical blue balls...

CENTPAC
I-10 sank a cargo ship off the Samoa Islands in a night surface attack.


Java and Banda Sea, SRA, etc.
I spent so much time thinking about the possible carrier battle that I forgot to turn off the Sweep of Madioen. Oh well. There were 2 Demons left, we got one.

Splashed another pair of Hudsons over Babar. Seems to me these unescorted raids are a mistake.

A minesweeper of mine hit an uncharted rock near Babeldoab and sank.


Burma
Another Blenheim raid on my advancing troops near Moulmein. Splashed one, no damage on the ground.
A port strike on Rangoon hit the Colombo again. How is that ship still afloat?


SouthPAC
No major battle here today. We did not see any searchplanes following our fleets, and our searchplanes didn't find his. There are plenty of thunderstorms and heavy overcast areas though, so I honestly don't know if he ran off or if our forces are intermingled and we just don't know it yet.

Anyway, there were still skirmishes. B-26s again raided Luganville, with flak taking down one. No damage to the base. Which I'm happy for, because I just moved in about two dozen more Zeroes to help suppress Efate, and they could have been caught on the ground. The 11 remaining Banshees then attacked, but since they arrived before B-17s my Zeroes were fresh and ready for them. 3 of the newly arrived Zeroes managed to join in. They lost 6 to my Zeroes then another 3 to flak. I think we can credit prior sweeps of Efate to making these Banshee's efforts wasted, as we basically wiped out the P-40s that should have been escorting them.

One of Hiryu's Kates is claiming a hit on a submarine.

The landings at New Caledonia will now proceed. I'm also going to use a second heavy surface task force to shell Efate, using the extra Zeroes at Luganville to protect them from possible carrier attack. Hopefully this will remove some of the bomber threat in the area.


Sumatra
The Betties from Palembang flew again, this time sinking a minesweeper at Oosthaven.

Their medium bombers attempted another raid on my troops advancing on Oosthaven, this time we were only able to get 1 Oscar this far south and didn't shoot anyone down. The raid was still ineffective regardless.


China
Some enemy units were passing by Nanchang (eastern central area) in open territory, trying to get back to their own lines, so I sallied some excess garrison out to beat on them a little while working them over with light bombers. Round 1 resulted in light casualties to both sides. But by now you know to expect that the longer these skirmishes with isolated units last, the more it tips in my favor.

I also was able to find some spare units to send to Chengchow while the main event is taking place Nanyang. We found Chengchow virtually abandoned, as expected, and took it with minimal losses. But, this was a mistake. The enemy was retreating at my arrival; I could have just let him leave without attacking. During the rout, the enemy destroyed a majority of the light industry in the hex. The cost of repairing these facilities is unlikely to be repaid by their production within the expected time scale of the war, so this damage is, for practical purposes, permanent.


Reinforcements
62nd Naval Guard Unit arrives at Tokyo - another one for Truk to aid our expansion in SouthPAC.

[Molon Labe]

12 February 1942

Sumatra
IJN Kongo and Takao shelled the enemy troops north of Medan that were giving me problems a few days ago. Casualties were light, but hopefully disruption is high and they won't be much of a problem tomorrow.

The regular medium bomber raid on our troops near Oosthaven was successful this time, inflicting a single squad disablement at the cost of one bomber.


SouthPAC
I-172 sank a minesweeper off the coast of Sydney with a torpedo attack, while I-170 attacked a light cargo ship with gunfire on the surface, leaving it an inferno and very likely sinking it before it got to port.

I swept Noumea from Luganville, taking out 5 of 6 defending P-40s with no losses.

B-17s hit Luganville again, flak took down 1. No hits on the airbase. A second raid scored a single runway hit.

The KB unzipped its fly by attacking two singleton picket destroyers, one on each side of New Caledonia. The strikes all missed (save for one scoutplane claiming a hit on one of them).

Landings at the northern end of New Caledonia have begun.

Scoutplanes spotted a large enemy task force near Suva heading east, probably one of the two main TFs we spotted on the 10th. It ran over one of my subs that I put in the path of their likely retreat, but we failed to engage.


China
The enemy is creating a bit of a problem for me in the main battlefield between Nanyang and Sian. Our armored force has run into a superior concentration of enemies prior to reaching the main enemy force. So we actually can't attack or reach the main enemy force. To play it safe, I'll be retreating before he sallies troops out of Sian to envelop us. But, I think the cost of this is going to be reduced strength on the front line with my main force, which was gradually tipping in our favor anyway. So I expect to break through pretty soon.

We've also started to see enemy I-15 fighters start to intervene, and apparently with very well-trained pilots. They shot down an Oscar over Sian and and Oscar and a Lily outside Nanyang with no victories for us.

The second day of attack outside Nanchang resulted in a rout of the enemy. 288 devices destroyed to 2 of mine lost. I also attacked the enemy unit in the northern mountains again, casualties there were light but slightly worse for them, so better than last time.


Java and Banda Sea
I've moved my Zeroes and Betties from Makassar to Koepang temporarily for a strike on Darwin. Ships are still being reported in port, including a "CVE" which I've long doubted but recon is insisting on it so much that maybe the Hermes really is here. No fighters reported. But to be safe, this turn I swept Darwin with Oscars from Babar--clear skies.


Philippines
I'm noting a lack of flak on my airstrikes on Bataan. Because of this, I'm going to try reducing the bombing altitude of one of my bomber squadrons and see what happens. If there's still no flak I'll move everyone down in phases to increase bombing effectiveness. Ground attack tomorrow also, I'm well rested and if he's low on supply maybe I can end it here.


Burma
Port strike on Rangoon damages an AK and an AP, one defending Hurricane shot down. We've reached Moulmien and our forces appear superior. Ordering an attack tomorrow. One enemy Blenheim shot down trying to interdict.

We have an amphibious task force just outside Port Blair. Recon says resistance will be minimal.


CENTPAC
A curious development in the Gilberts, a few bogeys popped up at a dot base/atoll south of Tarawa. My best initial guess was these are aviation tenders looking to secretly set up a Catalina base to spy on my traffic in the Marshalls. But then I saw that Tarawa had reported being overflown by a "torpedo bomber" and a Kingfisher. So this might actually be a CVBG or cruisers. I'm ordering a recon flight of the atoll to see if I can detect any floatplanes at the atoll and/or aviation tenders disbanded. I've also dispatched a light surface combat task force from Truk to attack any aviation tenders we do spot. (I'd have sent one from the Marshalls, but they're all in Tokyo right now for refits)

[Molon Labe]

13 February 1942

Burma/Andaman Sea
Amphibious landings at Port Blair have begun. Our covering force destroyed an HDML and a minesweeper prior to the landings.

We lost a Sally and a Betty over Rangoon to flak but hit a cargo ship and the Colombo in port.

We captured Moulmein, destroying 58 squads with just one of ours disabled.


CENTPAC
The bogeys moved north, so we can rule out that they were trying to set up a scoutplane base. They're probably just testing my reaction. Still no classification, but because of the scoutplane activity we can safely say they're cruisers.


SouthPAC
Kirishima and Hiei pounded Efate to little effect.

S-172 took a serious depth charge hit from a minesweeper outside Sydney and is returning to base for repairs.

Sweeps over Noumea took down 4 P-40s, no Zeroes lost.

I screwed up my CAP coverage for the amphibs landing at New Caledonia, and several enemy bombers attempted raids on them without interference. However, the were mostly level bombers, which were as ineffective as always. There were a few Banshees, but they've suffered so much attrition that they could not attack in numbers and were also ineffective.

There are something like 6 enemy subs converging on the landing site. The S-34 was spotted approaching chased off by destroyers.



Java and Banda Sea Area
A Dutch sub picked off yet another cargo ship at Babar; this one was offloading supplies. I'm moving in extra floatplanes to Babar to try to counter the subs.

I made a port strike on Darwin with Nells flying from Koepang but the raid was ineffective due to bad weather.


Sumatra
We're still stuck at Medan with a failed attack today. 18 devices disabled for us, 8 for him. Hopefully the coastal shelling and aerial bombing will get us past him soon.

We've captured Oosthaven and Ketapang (across the strait on Borneo) with minimal resistance and no losses, and our paratroopers once again routed the former base force they're chasing up the southwestern coast.


Philippines
The reduced altitude of my bombers did not result in flak being fired at Bataan. Bringing everyone down for future raids.

I made a deliberate attack, but in spite of the supply shortage I took the worst of it, 354 devices destroyed/disabled to 311. But his losses skewed towards destroyed rather than disabled, and due to his supply shortage he won't be reactivating disabled units that much. We're getting close.


Intel
HMAS Adelaide is reported sunk at Townsville. Very credible report.

[Molon Labe]

14 February 1942

SouthPAC
I detached 2 CA and 2 DD from the New Caledonia covering force to bombard Noumea. It ran into a DM outside the base and sank it easily. The bombardment destroyed at least 5 aircraft on the ground, along with moderate facility damage to the base itself.

My enemy had the same idea: two cruisers shelled Luganville and got away before the KB could hit them with an airstrike. Fortunately they were no more effective than our battleships were yesterday.

Meanwhile the S-34 continued to try to penetrate the landing site, and ended up getting depth charged for at least moderate damage. I've moved the KB a bit closer and set an narrow ASW search arc to protect the 'phibs from the closing submarine swarm. The KB hasn't been sighted for a few turns so she should be OK without broad coverage.


Java and Banda Sea, etc.
Our second day of raiding Darwin's port resulted in a hit on a British destroyer. Clear skies this time.


Burma and Andaman Sea
Port strike on Rangoon resulted in 1 Buffalo and 1 Oscar shot down, plus a Sally lost to flak. But we finally got the hits we were looking for. Columbo was hit four times, and we also got hits on a transport and a cargo ship. All 3 confirmed sunk. Anything left in port probably isn't worth the flak losses.

Blenheims tried to interdict our marines at Port Blair, Zeroes went after them but failed to intercept. The bombers missed anyway.

My marines attempted to take the base but were thwarted by high disruption; apparently they needed another day after landing to get their **** together. 2 squads disabled on each side.


Sumatra
Dutch bombers raided Palembang. Bad move. We got 4 out of 5 them, no damage.


China
Outside Nanyang, I tried to take advantage of the enemy moving some of its forces north, away from the main group, but our attack still failed to achieve a breakthrough. Squad destruction heavily favoring me, 14 to 182, although total disabled/destroyed was a less lopsided 253 to 453. I'm starting to feel some pressure on my northern armored group now, there's a risk they could be defeated in detail if I can't break the southern group quickly.

In the mountains near Chengting we had a surprisingly bad outcome, acheiving 2 to 1 adjusted assault odds but still suffering worse attrition with 20 of our devices destroyed to 2 of his.

Loyang was vacated by the enemy, we raised our flag there today.


Philippines
I attacked the small island garrison at Bacolod, supported by Vals flying out of Mindanao; we failed to achieve a breakthough. Light casualties on both sides. This probably calls for a naval bombardment.


Reinforcements
91st I.F.Chutai arrives at Tokyo
64th Naval Guard Unit arrives at Tokyo
67th Naval Guard Unit arrives at Tokyo

[Molon Labe]

15 February 1942

Hawaii
I-2 sustained minor depth charge damage from a destroyer, she's remaining on station.


SouthPAC
Sweep of Efate took care of 3 more P-40s, no losses.


Burma
Dumb mistake on my part. I turned off all the Rangoon strikes...I thought. One squadron of Sallies still had attack orders and flew unescorted. I lost 6 to fighters and another to flak.


Philippines
Landed troops at Tacloban. I could be wrong, but I think this means I have troops on every island the US has troops on.


China
By reinforced army at Wenchow attacked again, and failed again, 286 devices destroyed/disabled to 209 of theirs. I have one more unit on the way. If that doesn't make the difference I may have to spend some political points to move something big here.

My armored stack between Nanyang and Sian suffered a rare Allied attack, but with the defensive bonus now on our side, we held them off, just 28 devices destroyed disabled vs 618 of theirs. That probably ends the threat of this stack being defeated in detail, but I'll continue to try to get the main force up here in a hurry.


Intel and Reinforcements
Previous report of sinking of CV Saratoga incorrect. Intelligence reports ship is still in service -- no ****.
42nd I.F.Chutai arrives at Sapporo

[Molon Labe]

16 February 1942

SouthPAC
The S-27 tried to penetrate the landing zone but was depth charged by a destroyer, scoring several damaging near misses.

Off the coast of Brisbane, the I-170 torpedoed and sank an Australian destroyer.

A sweep of Noumea downed 7 P-40s with no loss.

Off the coast of Efate, 4 A-24 Banshees tried to attack the Hiei. Zeroes on long-range CAP took out the single P-40 that was escorting them and shot down one of the bombers. Flak took out a second, and all the bombers that made it to the Hiei missed.

B-17s attacked Luganville, shooting down 1 Zero that intercepted. No damage on the ground.


East Java Sea and Banda Sea, etc.
Nell raid on Darwin scored hits on a British destroyer. I think the intel about bigger ships being here it complete junk.


China
We routed the enemy unit passing by Nanchang again, 49 devices destroyed. We failed to dislodge the enemy unit in the mountains of Chengting again.


Sumatra
Yet another failure to dislodge the enemy unit on the coast near Medan. But we destroyed 10 devices this time. The might be breaking.


Philippines
Tacloban captured.

[Molon Labe]

17 February 1942
Port Blair captured


SouthPAC
Kirishima and Hiei bombarded Efate again. Again, little result. No aircraft disabled, light-moderate facility damage.

There was a light cargo ship he was using as a picket/bait east of Efate. Rather than re-reveal the KB or its covering force, I engaged it with one of the subs guarding the retreat lane north of Fiji, sinking it with gunfire.

Another sweep of Noumea took care of 3 of the 4 P-40s on patrol. No losses.

5 Marauders tried to bomb our 'phibs, but the LRCAP from the KB took care of all 5 of them. 7 A-24s followed that up, the Zeroes got 2 of them, only 1 aircraft made it to the target (the rest turned and ran), and it missed. The S-27 also made multiple attempts to attack this task force but failed each time, sustaining slight depth charge damage in the process.



China
China got two I-15s to patrol above the Nanyang stack, my bombers' escorting Oscars took one down.


Burma and Andaman Sea
The enemy lost 1 Hurricane trying to bomb Moulmein. No damage on the ground.

Port Blair has been captured. Now to turn it into an airbase for us...

[Molon Labe]

18 February 1942

Philippines
I used the Fuso and Nagato to support my rather small force (2 SNLF companies) in taking Bacolod, allowing them to overcome the shellshocked garrison regiment easily.

I made an attack on Bataan. Forts down to Level 1. Casualties are favoring me with squads destroyed/disabled to 224 of mine to 434, and I already outnumber him 2-to-1 so that's twice as bad as it looks. I did take significant engineer casualties though (42 squads destroyed!), and with his forts reduced so low I don't really need them anymore, so they're pulling out. I'm thinking 2 more attacks should do it.


SouthPAC
Only 2 P-40s on patrol over Noumea today, and they managed to escape my sweep.


China
The enemy force that had blocked my advance in the southeast has retreated toward Kwelin. I'm now advancing again toward Kukong. But, I wouldn't be that surprised if the reason he's pulling back is to consolidate enough troops to make a push here, so my gains may be temporary.

In the mountains near Chenting, we finally dislodged the enemy troop concentration ,201 devices destroyed to 1.


Java and Banda Sea
I'm preparing the ground for an invasion of Java. A sweep of Surabaya took down 2 Buffalos, while 2 Demons escaped.


Burma
I tried something a little different--my frontline Oscars ordered to Naval Attack. They attacked a minesweeper and an HDML near Rangoon with no success...except for shooting down 1 Buffalo that tried to protect them.


Reinforcements
12th Base Force arrives at Saigon - Frees up a "special base force" to go to Singapore to help with port activities.

[Molon Labe]

19 February 1942

Bay of Bengal and Burma

When my bombers finished off the Columbo and two merchants in Rangoon, I decided my submarine blockade was no longer needed there and sent my subs to patrol off Ceylon and the Indian coast. They arrived today, with one sinking an unescorted cargo ship in a night surface torpedo attack.

The Oscars made their 2nd naval attack attempt, hitting the minesweeper outside Rangoon with 2 30kg bombs, starting a raging fire.

Rangoon's bombers once again tried to attack my invading forces at Moulmein, costing them a Hurricane with no gain.

A Kate from Zuiho claimed a hit on a British sub outside Port Blair.


Java
I swept Batavia from Palembang with Oscars, shooting down 4 of 8 Buffalo on patrol. This was followed by a Betty raid on Kalidjati, which appeared to have a bomber concentration. We destroyed at least 1 L-212 and 1 FK-51 on the ground, while the escorting Zeroes shot down 1 of 3 Buffalo on CAP. Damage to the airbase was moderate. I'm probably not going to follow this up as I'm going to want to take this airbase intact. Surabaya also took a Nell raid from Makassar, resulting in light facility damage, 1 Do-24K destroyed on the ground, and 1 Demon shot down (the only aircraft on CAP).


Sumatra
Yet another rout of the former Madang garrison by my paratroopers.


SouthPAC
Another sweep of Noumea, 2 of 3 P-40s on patrol go down.
B-17s attacked my advancing armies at La Foa instead of going after Luganville. I didn't anticipate this, but fortunately this was close enough to the covering force that the LRCAP was able to help out. Neither side lost aircraft, but the harrassment made the B-17s' bombing inaccurate. Also there were only 3 of them, and flying with a reduced load from too small an airbase. Regardless, La Foa is ours, and that was the last stop before Noumea. Before I ever played WITP, I recall players discussing how the capture of Noumea means the Allies are in a really bad position, so this may be a significant win if (when) I take it.


China
In the east, we routed the enemy force near Nanchang (84th Corps) once again. I'm surprised these guys haven't just surrendered yet.

[Molon Labe]

20 February 1942

Bay of Bengal
A sub off Colombo picked off another unescorted Allied cargo ship.


Java
No joy in an Oscar sweep over Batavia. Nell raid on Surabaya caused moderate facility damage with several bombers damaged on the ground. Again, no CAP. Does this mean he's running out of fighters, or is he moving them somewhere to keep safe for an attack on my transports?


SouthPAC
The B-17s went back to Luganville, just 5, meeting a wall of Zeroes, which shot down 2, then flak took care of a third. 3 of them survived long enough to drop their bombs, but did no damage. Intel says the enemy lost all five.


Philippines
An artillery bombardment of Bataan caused 23 devices to be destroyed, which is extraordinarily high for this kind of attack. The enemy has to be in dismal shape.


Reinforcements
SS I-27 arrives at Hiroshima/Kure - assigned to Indian Ocean


Industry and Strategic Outlook
I'm really disappointed in myself for not being on Java yet, I didn't realize taking Sumatra first was going to cause this great of a delay. I have two task forces ready to go, but I'm expecting enough resistance on the west side of the island that I want to gather as much as I can from Sumatra, which is probably going to take another 2 days or so. I'd say it was a mistake to make this a 2-pronged operation, I'd have been better off just approaching from Sumatra. I have to give serious thought to my next conquest after Java and be ready to do it with speed and efficiency to give myself a chance at an autovictory at the end of the year. I need 4 to 1 victory points for that. I'm at 1.75 to 1 right now.

I also noticed an error in my industry setup--I'm underproducing aircraft engines. I'd gone through the trouble of setting this all up on spreadsheets to make sure I had enough for my planned aircraft production, itself based on expected losses plus new units arriving that needed to be outfitted, plus building up a 500 engine reserve to get an R&D bonus in the 6-12 month range. It appears that while I remembered to check in frequently to make sure my aircraft production was where it needed to be, I forgot to check the engines at some point and never expanded my factories to the extent I needed to. It's probably been about 2 weeks since the expansion I did order stopped. It's possible this has been to my benefit, because the industrial expansion was causing supply shortages all over the home islands, which was preventing research and development centers from coming online. But my engine production has been high enough to support my aircraft production, just not high enough to get that 500-engine cushion for the R&D bonus--which does me no good if I have supply shortages. Anyway, I'm restarting my engine factory expansion, and since that's the only thing expanding my supply situation will hopefully stay stable.

[Molon Labe]

21 February 1942

Bay of Bengal and Burma
Our subs took out another AKL off the Columbo coast overnight.

Oscars made a low altitude attack on an HDML outside Rangoon, shooting down one Buffalo sent to intercept them and likely sinking the HDML with a bomb hit.


China
In the southeast, I'm starting to put some pressure on Liuchow just in case there is going to be a counteroffensive down here. That opened with a sweep by Oscars opposed by 4 Hawk 75M fighters. We got 2 of them, no losses. Meanwhile our army is headed northeast toward Kukong, away from the army that had been blocking us that is now retreating west towards Liuchow. A pair of I-15 fighters appeared over the Nanyang stack, but no shootdowns resulted.

We made a deliberate attack on the Nanyang stack, getting the familiar result of relatively even casualties, but with device destruction heavily skewed in our favor. The stack once had 150k troops reported; in this combat they were down to 68k, so those destroyed devices are clearly adding up. Or maybe a few units quietly retreated. In any case, it's a slog, but it's a slog we're winning.

Much further northwest, way up the roads leading away from Sian, we took Kiuchuan away from its meager garrison. There are some minor bases with some oil/resources worth capturing up here, and I'm hoping to accomplish that with a token force--2 cavalry brigades and an armored car company. We'll see how far I get.



SOPAC
Our now-regular sweep of Efate downed 2 of 5 P-40s, no losses. No joy over Noumea.

The allegedly crippled I-172, transiting near Horn Island on its way home for repairs, encountered an AKL and sank her with a torpedo attack.

An Ann light bomber claimed a hit on a Dutch sub outside Port Moresby.


Java
An Oscar sweep of Bandoeng downed a single B-339 of 2 defending. meanwhile a strike on Surabaya was unopposed and destroyed at least one more Buffalo on the ground and damaging several more aircraft.


Reinforcements
15th Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Osaka/Kyoto
41st JNAF AF Unit arrives at Tokyo

[Molon Labe]

22 February 1942
Noumea Captured

Sumatra
I tried to break through the blocking force near Medan by shelling it with a pair of heavy cruisers and attacking immediately to capitalize on the disruption, but they held us off anyways.


Java
The east prong of my invasion forces is getting close. Probably still 2 days off. West prong a day behind.

We swept and bombed Tjilatjap as it appeared that was now where the enemy air forces were concentrated. The sweep downed 5 of 8 Buffalo on CAP with no losses. The strike destroyed a pair of Vildebeests on the ground while damaging several medium bombers. Looks like I picked the right target this time.



Burma
I resumed strikes on Rangoon, this time targeting their airbase. The main goal is to try to prevent further fortification. I'm not sure it's going to be worth it.... We lost an Oscar and a Sally to the CAP, and another Sally to flak. No victories. Very slight damage to the base.

The enemy made a strike of his own, 3 unescorted Blenheims to Rahaeng, where they were intercepted by 4 Tojos that shot all 3 of them down.




SOPAC
Resistance to our sweeps was down to a single P-40 in Efate, which managed to escape.

Our pair of divisions was no match for Noumea's garrison, which had apparently not been reinforced with anything significant. Just 2 base forces and 3 artillery units in addition to the basic garrison. As a bonus, the S-34 was scuttled in port. I'm moving to exploit this as quickly as possible, I've already had a pair of destroyers trying to sanitize Luganville; a task force is headed there to move construction engineers from there to Noumea. I've also got an AirHQ rebasing from Lunga to Luganville; they'll bump to Noumea as soon as the airbase is big enough. For now, the invasion forces included enough aviation support to base Zeroes there for their own protection and to support some scoutplanes.

Fuel is a little bit of an issue, my oilers are close to empty from sustaining this. I've got some help running small tankers to Lunga, and I also had a pair of my oilers leave station to fill back up at Rabaul, they should be back in the main TF in another day. Should be enough to gas the KB back up for its next assignment.



Philippines
We captured Baybay in the central islands. As far as I know, those are the last troops outside Bataan. There are still several bases officially in American hands, but I believe they're unprotected.


Reinforcements
39th JNAF AF Unit arrives at Tokyo

[mapuc]

Going to be interesting following you, to see if you can do what Japan couldn't - win the war.

Markus

[Molon Labe]

23 February 1942
KIX sinks one of the Kido Butai's oilers, and the Lexington and Enterprise raid the Marshalls


SOPAC
Remember that pair of oilers I sent to Rabaul to top off and then rejoin the replenishment group? The KIX intercepted them on the way back, hitting the Toho Maru with a single torpedo, but that's all that's needed when the ship is a huge tub of highly flammable liquid. That's the most valuable ship he's sunk so far in the war. Operationally, I don't think it matters--the replenishment group is rather large and wasn't empty, and it now includes one ship that's 100% full. But I won't be trying to shuttle these off on their own; after I refuel the KB, the whole task force is going back to Rabaul to fill up.

As for the KB, I was sending it around Noumea to the south, but Kates spotted 3 submarines in her path. And that's just what I see, there are probably more. So I'm going to head north first... quicker to refuel that way anyway.

3 Banshees escorted by a single P-40 attempted an attack on my ships picking up construction units from Luganville. We wiped them out. A few B-17s followed that up, one of them took down a Zero, while flak got one of the bombers. The first wave of B-17s came in at 5000 feet, violating a house rule giving most 4-engine bombers a hard deck of 10k feet for naval attacks. (I should probably mention that to my opponent now that I remember.)


China
A single I-15 somehow managed to shoot down a pair of Oscars over the Sinyang stack. The way his air war is going, I hope they give that guy a medal.

A deliberate attack on Wenchow, with pretty much all available reinforcements now contributing, failed to overcome the garrison. But as we often see, the enemy had many more squads destroyed than I did even though total casualties looked even or in his favor. So I'm willing to try again after resting.

Near Nanchang, we took our last swing at the retreating 7th and 84th Corps, inflicting 129 destroyed devices at them as they fled to the other side of the Gan River.



CENTPAC
Taking advantage of knowing the KB is deployed well southwest of the Marshalls, Enterprise and Lexington reappeared, attacking an ASW patrol and the airbase at Maloelap. The naval attack sank 2 of 3 PBs in an ASW task force, while the attack on was mostly ineffective, causing moderate facility damage but completely missing the Claudes and Mavises based there.


Java
D-day -1. We bombed Tjilatjap, destroying another medium bomber on the ground. On the east side of Java, Betties found a minesweeper to attack and blow up, and another was destroyed by a sub lurking of Denpasar.

Despite the several raids targeting their airbases, the enemy managed to spot one of my trailing invasion task forces and sent 7 medium bombers after it. Because this group hadn't caught up with the main force yet, it did not have fighter cover. But, the bombers missed. The fact that both main invasion forces will be landing tomorrow but have not yet been detected speaks volumes about the current state of the Dutch Air Force.


Industry
The Devilish Mr. Lodrik stopped by my subchannel on Jochen Heiden's discord to chat about the Marshalls raid. Eventually we talked about my industry status and he pointed out an error that in hindsight seems rather obvious. It's a little in the weeds if you haven't managed Japan's economy in WITP, but the short version is that my R&D plan for Zeroes was suboptimal due to my error. It's too late to truly fix anything but I did make an adjustment to try to make it a little better. At least I know for next time.


Repairs and Reinforcements
Repair of the I-1 has completed, she's headed back to her old station near Hawaii.
Yokohama Ku T-1 Det arrives at Yokohama/Yokosuka - a pair of Emily flying boats, I sent them to Wake to spy on shipping lanes near Midway
45th I.F.Chutai arrives at Keijo - 12 Idas; training squadron

[Molon Labe]

24 February 1942
Lexington/Enterprise CVBG raids Marshalls for a second day; Java invaded; Bataan falls

Java
Landings began at both sides of Java. In the west, one of our cargo ships hit a mine causing moderate damage. In the east, we flushed out a minesweeper that was sunk by our covering force. Both groups came under air attack, and both groups had Oscars circling overhead waiting for them. In the west, the enemy lost 11 CW-22s, 5 139WH-1s, plus one more 139W and a Vildebeest to flak. In the east, our air cover was less effective, shooting down a T.IVa, while several 139WH-1s got through, one of which was shot down by flak, but another scored a hit on a cargo ship and sank it.


Marshalls
The CVBG detached CA Chester and CL Danae to shell Kwajelein, the main port of the Marshalls... but I evacuated it the previous turn, so they did little damage. For their trouble, coastal batteries pounded both ships, probably causing moderate damage.

The Lex and Enterprise sent their bombers to pound Maloelap and Wotje, and again the damage was unimpressive. The Mavises had been evacuated, but we still had 9 Claudes at Maloelap which again went unharmed--perhaps because they tried to escort a flight of Nells out of Roi, which failed to find the enemy CVBG. Both bases suffered light facility damage.


Philippines
We attacked Bataan and the holdouts surrendered. That's 17,514 to the POW camps. My forces here did not lose a lot of strength; I'll let them rest a bit at Manila while we clear out the mines and then ship them to another theatre.


Reinforcement
SS I-29 arrives at Port Arthur - assigned to Indian Ocean

[Molon Labe]

25 February 1942
Lexington and Enterprise vanish, but Yorktown now raiding Wake; the last stand of the Dutch Air Force


Java
https://i.ibb.co/nktxwM2/1942-2-25-Java.png

The destroyer-minesweepers I brought with the western invasion force got to work on the minefield they landed inside, clearing 40 mines.

The Dutch Air Force hit us with pretty much everything they could today, which wasn't much. They did manage to slip in some medium bombers in on the west force, low under our fighters, scoring a hit on a cargo ship. But we absolutely dismantled their other raids, wiping out a raid of 6 Vildebeests and a Buffalo, and shooting down another 3 139WH-1 and 3 T.IVas.
We captured both our landing areas, Banjoewangi and Kalidjati, destroying 11 FK-51s and 11 L-212s at Kalidjati, which presumably were too damaged to evacuate. Total air losses for today across all theatres were 5 to 41.


Bay of Bengal/Burma
I-123 took a serious depth charge hit from a minesweeper off Columbo.
We shot down a single Hurricane raiding Rangoon's airbase. Damage on the ground was minimal.


SOPAC
I ordered my two commerce raider AMCs to rendezvous east of the Solomons to begin a patrol to the south to try to find merchant lanes to then send my subs after. One departed Guadalcanal and was immediately torpedoed by the Gato, so it turned right back around to attend to damage control in port.

The KB and its covering force are fully refueled, and the replenishment group is now headed for Luganville to give the rest of its cargo to my amphibious shuttle operation to Noumea before heading back to Rabaul to top off.



China
In the north central region, I noticed a concentration of fighters at Yenan and became worried they might try to CAP trap my bombers. To try to preempt this, I pulled a few fighters off escort duty to sweep the base, which reduced the enemy fighter force by 3 with no losses.

Meanwhile, the Nanyang stack looks like it wants to retreat, but my armored force is blocking the road to the west, leaving them trying to off-road through the mountains as their only choice. I'm going to attack next turn, but if it fails I think I'll just let them. They'll be effectively immobilized, isolated from supply, and building up fatigue if they do this, leaving me free to make an attempt at Sian and then come back for them when they're even more worn down.


CENTPAC
We no longer hold contact on the Lex and Enterprise; I can only assume the left headed east at full speed. But now the Yorktown has shown up, raiding Wake's airbase with SBDs, causing light damage. It's a bit harder to evacuate here because I don't have much fighter/bomber coverage to retreat behind. I had 3 submarines in reserve in the Marshalls that I sent after the first CVBG, I'm going to try to have them swing north now to try to get in the Yorktown's path if she returns to Pearl.

[Molon Labe]

26 February 1942
USS Yorktown survives Nell attack from Roi

SOPAC
A destroyer-minesweeper cleared 10 mines out of Noumea, and that might be all there was.


Java
A Dutch sub tried to attack a retiring amphibous task force headed back to Singapore, but our PBs got the better of it, dealing moderate depth charge damage.

I hit Bandoeng with a Sally strike, expecting this to be the main holdout area in the west (or maybe Batavia); escorting Zeroes took out one Buffalo on CAP.

Southwest of Java, an RO-class sub destroyed a minesweeper at Christmas Island.


Burma and Bay of Bengal
The I-28 sank a cargo ship off Sri Lanka with 3 torpedo hits.


CENTPAC
Yorktown hit Wake again with a port strike with VS-5, causing light facility damage. All ships had been evacuated. But then a flight of Nells arrived from Roi-Namur in the Marshalls, 14 of them escorted by 19 Zeroes. Yorktown had 10 Wildcats on patrol. We each lost a fighter in the intercept, with each side apparently losing one more fighter to damage after the fight. The Nells all got through unmolested by the F4Fs. I was a little surprised to see old, slow battleships in company with the Yorktown, but Idaho and New Mexico were here, and the Nells divided their attention rather evenly between the 3 capital ships, hitting New Mexico twice and Idaho and Yorktown once each. There were no secondary explosions or major fires breaking out, so all 3 ships appear to be "fine", although they'll certainly require lengthy repairs.


China
I took another swing at the Nanyang stack, and the result yet again was a lack of breakthrough with disproportionately high device destruction for the enemy. The enemy is now only about 1/4 my strength here.

I also made an attack at Wenchow, and this is going to be the last for awhile. We just had the last available reinforcement for awhile join the attack, and we only managed 1-to-2 adjusted assault strength ratio, which simply isn't going to be enough to make the budge. I'll come back later if something gets freed up. For now, my forces are headed back to a base I control to try to heal up.

[Molon Labe]

27 February 1942
Lost contact on Yorktown CVBG

Burma and Bay of Bengal
I-164 sank another cargo ship off the tip of India as the feeding frenzy continues. A raid on Rangoon resulted in a Hurricane shot down, while minimal damage inflicted on the airbase.

Java and Banda Sea
An air raid on Tjilatjap shot down a defending Buffalo while doing light damage to the airbase. We've got a decent sized force now in Bandeong but probably not enough to defeat the defenders just yet. I'm bypassing the base with some armor to the east to take some relatively undefended looking airbases off the table. I'm also sending another infantry force to the west of Bandeong just to cut it off from Batavia. No need to rush.

A Jake flying out of Ambon claimed a hit on a submarine.


CENTPAC
I was hoping Yorktown's flooding would reduce her speed enough that we'd still see her today, but no such luck.

I'm redeploying the bulk of my subs around Pearl to guard the western approaches. I expect her to arrive between 5 and 10 March. If she tries to go straight home, it might not work out well for her.


Reinforcements
SS I-30 arrives at Port Arthur

[Molon Labe]

28 February 1942

SOPAC
Have I mentioned I'm going to turn the Australian coast into a sea of fire? I don't think I have. Anyways, that's the KB's current assignment, and we're getting close to our station from which to bomb Melbourne and Sydney. Slight problem: I also have a pair of midget sub carriers and an aircraft-carrying sub standing by to try to attack Sydney's port (the floatplane was supposed to tell me if Sydney's harbor had anything worth attacking, but got shot down by CAP on its first flight, so since then the SSXs are waiting on my carriers to tell them when to attack Sydney). These guys got spotted and are being harassed by at least 3 ASW vessels now, enough that I need to move them to evade. The KB is going to pass close enough to this patrol area to attack them--which I DON'T want, because the more surprise I'm able to get when I attack, the less fighters I'm likely to encounter. So I'm actually restricting my bomber's attack range to prevent an airstrike on these guys. Sorry subs, you're on your own for at least another turn.


Burma and Bay of Bengal
One of those 4 subs returning to base was damaged off Calcutta this turn. I-158 was engaged by a highly accurate depth charge attack by the PG Lawrence. I'll try to remember that little ship is a problem.

Philippines
A minesweeper arrived at Bataan and cleared 40 mines. Might be a lot more.

CENTPAC
One of my submarines shifting patrol areas to intercept Yorktown got spotted an attacked, sustaining a solid pattern hit. So she's RTB... Allied ASW skill is improving; I now have 4 subs returning to base due to depth charge damage and at least 2 currently under repair.

Java and Banda Sea
Pretty quiet as our troops advanced without resistance. A flight of 3 139WH-3 tried to bomb our eastern amphibious task forces; one was shot down and the others aborted the mission.

Another claim of a hit on a sub outside Ambon, this time by an Ann light bomber. Probably not the same one as yesterday, since the Jakes and Anns have different patrol areas.


Reinforcements, upgrades, and withdrawals
Hong Kong Det disbands
47th Naval Guard Unit arrives at Tokyo
44th JNAF AF Unit arrives at Tokyo

March upgrades will include lengthy refits for the Takao class heavy cruisers, which are getting their AA mounts and depth charges upgraded. I'll be sending 2 for upgrades right away while the 3rd waits a month for the first two to complete. The Tomozuru-class torpedo boats will be converted to kaibokans, a 45-day evolution that will double both their AA and ASW ratings. I'm sending all 4 for the full upgrades immediately. Lastly, many of my subchasers will be upgraded to carry deep-water depth charges, which will take 2 weeks. This is a critical upgrade and I think I'm sending about 2/3 of them to have it done immediately.

[Molon Labe]

1 March 1942
Straight-line ambush for Yorktown

SOPAC
AP Hugh L. Scott was spotted moving south down the Australian coast near Newcastle and hit with a torpedo by I-25, but the torpedo failed to detonate. The ship is already crippled, presumably from the raids on Cairns, and is probably limping to Brisbane for repairs. Hopefully I'll finish her off, that's a valuable transport.


CENTPAC
I-24 sank an ACM near Lihue with gunfire.


https://i.ibb.co/g7m6YpH/1942-3-2.png
Our floatplane carrying subs spotted the Yorktown approaching Pearl on what appears to be a straight-east line. So, I'm lining up 9 subs between Yorktown and Pearl on that direct course.


China
We lost an Oscar to an I-15 over the Nanyang stack. Pretty amazing these obsolete fighters are taking on Oscars in greater numbers and not just getting blasted.

A bit north of Hong Kong, we attacked Kukong, with light casualties inflicted on the enemy while sustaining negligible casualties. We should be able to win here.


Java
Splashed a Buffalo over Bandoeng. 3 139WH-3 bombers attacked our tanks outside Tjilatjap, no damage. 9 Falcon light bombers tried to attack our forces at Bandoeng, we shot down 5 of them. No bombers reached their targets.

[Molon Labe]

2 March 1942
Yorktown turns north to avoid ambush, raid on southeastern Australia begins


China
That pesky I-15 took advantage of some bad coordination and got to my bombers near Nanyang, shooting down a Sally.


Java
He tried to hit my troops at Bandoeng with Falcons again, we shot down 1, the rest ran. A pair of 139WHs followed that up, we splashed them both. A raid on our forces on the east side cost them a Buffalo.


SOPAC
The KB took station off the southeast corner of Australia and launched sweeps of Melbourne and Sydney. We had no joy at Melbourne, while encountering 23 P-40s protecting Sydney. We shot down 10 of them while losing 1 Zero. The enemy also sent waves of B-26s and B-17s after me, losing 3 B-17s and 7 B-26s to our CAP and another 3 B-26s to flak. This took a toll on our fighters though, with no shootdowns in combat but 4 Zeroes not making it back to the carriers or being scrapped due to battle damage.


CENTPAC
Yorktown was spotted again, but well north of its reported east trajectory to Pearl. Apparently he took notice that his CVBG had a detection level and responded. This puts about half my subs out of position for an intercept, making adjustments for the rest. But he now has a smaller amount of space to sanitize.



Reinforcements
10th Garrison Unit arrives at Nagoya
The Marshalls' fighter squadron has converted from Claudes to Zeroes at Guadalcanal. They'll fly back to their home base in about 3 days.

[Molon Labe]

3 March 1942
Australia industry raid


CENTPAC
No luck ambushing Yorktown on the second possible day. She's only a few hexes away now, we've got maybe 2 boats in position and they have a lot of ASW patrols.


SOPAC
With yesterday's sweeps confirming the amount of enemy resistance is low enough to proceed with strategic bombing, I attacked Melbourne with 89 Kates and 90 Vals, targeting "manpower" sites, which yielding 61 hits and a firestorm level of 26946. This earned 320 victory points as the fires damaged/destroyed light industry in the hex. I lost 6 Vals to flak. 9 Kates and 9 Vals went after a small surface task force including 2 cruisers and a destroyer at the adjacent hex, Geelong, the Vals scoring 3 hits on the Achilles and 1 hit on the destroyer Vampire. 7 more Kates peeled off to sink a minesweeper south of the task force.

A Jake flying off a battleship near Noumea claimed a hit on a submarine.


Java
We made an armored attempt on Tjilatjap, reducing fortifications but not taking the base just yet.


China
Yet another attempt on the Nanyang stack. Same result (he's taking way more squad destruction casualties), so it's working for me...just working slowly.

We captured Kukong.

[Molon Labe]

4 March 1942

Java and Banda Sea
An American sub picked off an AKL near Ambon.


CENTPAC
Safe to say the Yorktown has arrived at Pearl at this point, we do not hold contact.

A American seaplane tender was caught trying to set up shop in the Gilberts; Mavises from the Marshalls attacked twice, scoring a hit on the second run.


SOPAC
B-17s attempted a strike on the Mutsu near Nomea, they shot down a Zero but our Zeros got one of them too, flak added a second. And of course they missed the battleship.

Australia strikes were scrubbed by weather. The fires added another 30 or so VP. Strikes today were intended to go after massive numbers of transports and tankers spotted in Melbourne's port, as well as the 2 cruisers in the port next door.


Java
Tjilatjap has been captured, with a loss of at least 5 aircraft on the ground. The tanks are now headed back to Bandoeng. On the east side, we've captured Loemadjang and Malang.

We made an attack on Bandoeng as well, finding level 2 forts and achieving only 1 to 2 assault power ratio--not enough. Hence why the tanks are heading back.

[Molon Labe]

5 March 1942
Melbourne Port Strike

SOPAC
A bad decision on my part: I shelled Melboure with the Hiei and Kirishima. There was a substantial minefield that I should have expected. 2 escorting destoyers and the Kirishima were all hit. Damage on one of the destroyers is pretty bad. The task force destroyed a minesweeper on the way in. The shelling did substantial damage to the airbase, blew up 1-2 Wirraways on the ground, and damaged a tanker, subtender, 2 cargo ships, and a transport. Overall not great.

That was followed up by a port strike of Melbourne, 77 Kates and 34 Vals, damaging 22 different ships, I'd say sinking between 5-10 of those. 15 Vals separately attacked Resources at Sale, scoring 4 hits, which apparently did negligible damage.

6 Wirraways attacked the KB, with 5 being shot down. The survivor tried to drop 2 100-lb bombs on Hiryu and missed. That was followed up by 13 Banshees with 17 P-40 escorts attacking that battleship group. The were out of range of my CAP, so they only lost 1 bomber to flak and scored a hit on Kirishima. Another reason why the bombardment was a bad call.

51 Vals attacked Geelong, scoring single hits on the Dorsetshire and Achilles. Achillies has to be hurt pretty badly by now. 27 Kates made a 2nd run on Melbourne but missed everything due to a storm.

7 Banshees flew a 2nd mission, this time targeting the KB--apparently too far for the P-40s as they came in without escort. We shot down 5 with the CAP and a sixth by flak. One bomber made an attack on Akagi and missed.


Philippines
The minesweeper clearing Bataan was insufficiently careful. I have two DMSs on the way to take her place.

[Molon Labe]

6 March 1942
Heavy losses over Australia

Java and Banda Sea
We lost another AKL to a sub, this time off Koepang. That ship was intended to pick up some SNLF troops to land on Dili.

We got even, picking off an AKL off Darwin.


SOPAC
The American destroyer Porter shelled Ndeni. We really don't have anything there anymore.

Now for the bad news. I divided my attacks up again between Melbourne and Geelong. The Geelong mission was cancelled. I had one squadron of Zeroes escorting each strike, so the Melbourne strike flew with just one squadron of escorts, and the enemy CAP only had to deal with the one package. So that was a 12 Zeroes vs 17 P-40 fight when is should have been something more like two 12 v 8 fights. We shot down 2 P-40s but several made it to the bombers. We lost 12 Kates. We did a second sortie, this time with even numbers between the Zeroes and P-40s, still enough to let a couple P-40s through; 4 more Kates went down.

The strikes hit 5 more ships, with a confirmed sinking of a transport, two other merchants likely to have sunk. Overall I think I sank about a dozen ships between all these strikes. It might be significantly more because there were several loaded tankers that we ignited on day 1 that didn't seem very damaged, but we didn't see them there for the second day.

These losses mean it's time to go, though. I'm also pretty sure the enemy is forming up a wall of subs to greet me on my way out, and the longer I stay the thicker that wall is going to be. I'm heading south around Tasmania while sending the Zeroes back to sweep Melbourne. This should help reduce their numbers a bit so I can hit Sydney on the way out.


China
Another attack on the Nanyang stack, and although we didn't break through this time, we did get the most disproportionate loss ratio so far, with just 7 devices destroyed for us, but 282 of his, and adjusted assault ratio of 1.35 to 1, which is really close to an overrun. The next one might finally do it. On paper, this force is down to 56,000. I think it used to be something like 130k!

[Molon Labe]

7-8 March 1942
Kido Butai picks off evacuating merchants as it repositions for Sydney strike

Unless specifically mentioned, all events were on 7 March (8 March was quite uneventful)


Philippines
The 2 DMSs are hard at work on the Bataan minefield, clearing at least 120 mines between these two days.

Java and Banda Sea
We picked off another AKL near Darwin with a sub.
Anns flying from Ambon claimed two hits on an enemy sub (subs?).


SOPAC
The merchant raider that was not torpedoed upon leaving port encountered an enemy convoy near the Tonga islands. So, some good news, we have a pretty good idea where their supply lines are running. The bad news is this convoy had 2 CLs and 2 ASW ships escorting it. My raider was sunk; we got some hits on empty tankers in the convoy.

Meanwhile, the KB picked up several small task forces at it went around Tasmania to the south. The resulting airstrikes eliminated 4 AK/AKL, 5 AP, 1 AM, all confirmed.

On 8 March, an attempted SSX attack on Geelong failed, probably due to me using the wrong type of orders. The SSX ran out of fuel and is being recovered by the mothership to return to Noumea for refueling.


Burma
Port strike on Rangoon damaged a cargo ship; might have sunk it.


China
The pesky I-15 presence near the Nanyang stack got another Lily today.
I found another pair of opportunities to change garrison units; it will take weeks but once they arrive it will free up about 350 AV to use offensively in the southern central area.


Reinforcements
CVE Unyo arrived on the 8th. I'm sending a few DD over to bring her to the Marianas, where there are carrier-trained aircraft ready to board her.

[Molon Labe]

9 March 1942

Philippines
Mine clearance operations at Bataan and Manila have completed. Time to start moving troops again.


Gilbert Islands
I sent a small SAG (1 CL, 3 DD) after a bogey that turned out to be a PG. Not sure what he was up to, but he's on the bottom now. One of my destroyers took a hit for moderate damage.


SOPAC
I swept Sydney with 18 Zeroes, opposed by 9 P-40s; we shot down 6 of them and damaged the other 3 with no losses. Strategic bombing to follow.

At Noumea, we lost a pair of Zeroes to 4 B-17s attacking the battleship Yamasihro. No damage to the ship.


Java and Banda Sea
The day before they were due to withdraw, I raided Darwin with a Nell squadron, doing light damage to the port facilities.

[Molon Labe]

10 March 1942

Bay of Bengal and Burma

I-28 torpedoed and sank a minesweeper off the southern coast of Ceylon.
An HDML was spotted near Rangoon; Oscars made a low altitude attack and sank it with small bombs and gunfire.


Gilbert Islands
The SAG that sank the PG yesterday found a PC to sink today out to the east near Baker Island. They snuck up on it in a storm at night and sniped it with a torpedo.


China
The only air to air shootdown of the day was an I-15 getting a Lily over the Nanyang stack that lost its escort.

The enemy now has a significant presence in Kukong; it's safe to call this a counteroffensive at this point. Our garrison is outnumbered 22k to 10k--bad enough that we could lose it. I'm trying to build forts and hope that the combination of wooded terrain (2x defensive bonus) and air support will help us hold.


Java
Our western force made a deliberate attack on Bandoeng, reducing forts to level 1; disablements/destroyed squads favored us, 80 to 181. We should get it soon. The eastern force captured Madioen, along with a significant number of aircraft destoryed on the ground including 18 75A-7 Hawks, 2 CW-21 Demons, and somewhere between 5-8 Buffalos. The base had only a token force defending it.


SOPAC
Vals from the KB picked off a minesweeper near Newcastle. Storms caused the Sydney strike to be scrubbed.

[Molon Labe]

11 March 1942
Strategic bombing of Sydney, Bandeong falls

Indian Ocean and Burma

I-27 torpedoed and sank an ML off the coast of Karachi. Kind of pointless to pick off a small ASW craft when they didn't even know I had a sub up here until now.

We lost 2 Betties bombing Rangoon today, enough that I think it's time to make this an army-only mission. Too little damage to them, too many aircrews being lost.


SOPAC
After the disapointing scrub yesterday, our strike on Sydney flew today; 40 Zeroes escorting 76 Kates and 82 Vals. They had 10 Kittyhawk IA fighters on patrol, one was shot down trying to get past the Zeroes. We lost 2 Vals to flak as our only losses. The raid scored 26 manpower hits, setting off fires with a rating of 16725. At the end of the turn those fires accounted for industrial damage worth 116 victory points.

17 of my Vals went north towards Brisbane where they obliterated an APD that had been harassing my subs. 10 of the Vals scored hits. If I could only have that kind of accuracy for my port strikes.

6 B-17s from (probably) Brisbane went after the KB, followed by 4 Bolos; Zeroes took care of 1 B-17 and all 4 Bolos; flak added another 2 B-17s. No damage to any ships. Another 6 B-17s from Fiji attacked Noumea, losing 2 to the Zeroes on CAP.


Java
I attacked Bandeong again and captured it this time. 488 devices destroyed to 2. That was likely the biggest group of defenders. Surabaya looks weak--I'll be attacking tomorrow and expect to capture it easily. That that pretty much just leaves Batavia.


China
The enemy tried to take back Kukong, forts were reduced to 0 and our casualties were higher at 96 devices disabled/destroyed to 21. That's good enough to take it from me in as little as one more day. I'm adding some bombers to help out but there isn't much I can do. It's of little consequence, especially compared to the slow massacre going on outside Nanyang.

[Molon Labe]

12 March 1942
IJA forces occupy Surabaya, finding it reduced to rubble by retreating Dutch forces; 2nd day of strategic bombing in Sydney

Aleutian Islands
I laid 40 mines at Adak by submarine. This base in going through rapid expansion so there will probably be traffic to hit.


SOPAC
I launched two strategic bombing raids; the first trying to stoke the fires in Sydney a bit more (which might have been mitigated by rain) and another targeting heavy industry. The Sydney raid was 76 Kates and 15 Vals, which scored 31 manpower hits and caused 9107 level fires, dealing 160 VP worth of industry damage. No losses. 61 Vals then targeted Heavy Industry in Newcastle, scoring only 3 hits which disabled 9 HI units--basically negligible damage, they can repair a point per day.


I lost a mini-sub trying to penetrate the harbor at Portsea.


China
We lost an Oscar to an I-15 above the Nanyang stack. We suffered a deliberate attack at Kukong but held it off; the enemy took more disablements but we had more squads destroyed, which basically means they can get us if they're patient.


Java
A flight of 9 Do-24s tried to attack Kalidjata, our western landing area. They were mostly routed by Oscars on defense, with 1 being shot down.

We then attacked Surabaya with 2+ divisions, taking it easily. The capture destroyed 11 Do-24s, 3 T.IVas, and 2 Buffalos. However, the base was completely demolished by the enemy's engineers.

All 80 Resource, 190 Oil, 10 HI, 170 Refinery, and 40 LI damaged were captured in a damaged state, while the shipyard had 1 unit of 8 functioning. The port is also trashed, but that might have been my doing.

[Ostfriese]

All 80 Resource, 190 Oil, 10 HI, 170 Refinery, and 40 LI damaged were captured in a damaged state, while the shipyard had 1 unit of 8 functioning. The port is also trashed, but that might have been my doing.



Can this be repaired, and -if yes- is it worth it?

[Molon Labe]

Can this be repaired, and -if yes- is it worth it?
Yes, and... well, let's work through this. It costs 1000 supply to repair each individual point. The shipyard and oil centers are worth it for sure. Resources... no, it'll take nearly 3 years each repaired unit to generate 1000 supply worth of resources, but mostly, I just don't think I'm going to run out of enough resources globally to keep the industry producing, so repairing them won't matter. Industry... same timetable as resources, but these are the bottleneck in the production chain, it's early enough in the war for that to be a maybe. So, here's how I'm going to decide this--I'll repair the factories up to the level that there are resources on Java alone to sustain them... which it turns out is negative, Java would need to import resources to keep its factories running. So I won't be repairing either resources or industry. I may reassess this after I take Batavia, since Batavia's 41 Heavy Industry units were decisive in the above math.

On the fuel side, I wouldn't want to pay to repair the refineries because it's not a huge loss if I ship the oil to Japan to be refined into fuel there. It's nice to have locally produced fuel so I don't have to ship fuel back out here, but I have plenty of refineries operating in Borneo and Sumatra.

[Molon Labe]

13 March 1942

Java
I targeted Batavia for airstrikes but underestimated their AA, sending my bombers in at just 10,000 feet and losing a Sally to flak. Better make it at least 15,000.


SOPAC
As the KB leaves the Australian coast, I thought I'd hit the port at Brisbane due to it being a very convenient repair shipyard, especially for submarines, so hopefully I'd finish a few off. No such luck. There were 14 Kittyhawks on patrol; we shot down 5 of them while losing 2 Zeroes to them, along with 2 Kates. The port was basically empty, we hit (and probably sank) an AKL but that's it.

[Molon Labe]

14 March 1942
Nanyang stack routed clear of the road to Sian


SOPAC
My destroyer-minesweepers at Noumea detected a minefield in the harbor and got right to work. Sub-laid, obviously.

A floatplane flying from a cruiser with the KB claimed a hit on a submarine.



Java
The Dutch air force lost a Falcon light bomber to my Oscars over Bandoeng. We've captured Tjepoe.


China
We lost yet another Oscar to that small I-15 presence over the Nanyang stack. Time to fix this.

But the big news of the turn was that we finally re-defeated the massive army that we'd pushed out of Nanyang into the mountains, that was blocking my path to Sian, my first major strategic objective in China. We destroyed 1995 enemy devices while losing just 3. Glad that my patience here paid off. We still have to mop up a few stray units before moving up the road, but this is a major breakthrough. There is another stack of 130k or so troops waiting for me in Sian, but they won't have mountain cover the way these guys did.

Lesser good news, we survived another deliberate attack at Kukong. Destroyed devices were nearly even at 5 to 7 favoring him, but disablements were skewed well in my favor 49 to 166. He can only win here if he's super patient, except while he's doing that my airpower is wearing him down. So this is looking much better than after the last attack.

[Molon Labe]

15 March 1942

SOPAC
The Noumea DMSs appear to have already cleared the minefield. And it wasn't small...88 mines swept in 2 days! If memory serves, the Dutch had 2 specialist minelaying subs, looks like he used them both here.

Java
I've captured Djokjakarta with paratroopers, destroying 3 Falcons at the base.

China
The Kukong troops are being displayed on fire when I bomb them, which probably means they're in bad shape in some way or other; low supply, high disruption, etc. Not enough to get me to counterattack just yet.


Australia Raid Summary
Well, let's see if this was worth it.

We did 796 victory points worth of damage to enemy industry, including damaging 90 heavy industry units and 338 light industry units.

Estimated Naval losses:
Allies: 2 AM, APD, 4 AK/AKL, 5 AP confirmed; estimated 10-15 additional AK/AP/TK; 2 cruisers damaged, 1 DD damaged
Japan: 1 BB lightly damaged, 1 DD moderate damage, 1 DD serious damage

Estimated Aircraft losses (not including operational losses)
Allies:
B-17: 5
B-26: 10
Bolo: 4
P-40/Kittyhawk: 29
Wirraway: 5
A-24: 7


Japan
Zero: 3
Val: 8
Kate: 18

All in all, while the loss of the Kates (and their pilots) did hurt me--and it was avoidable--I think I came out ahead.

[Molon Labe]

16 March 1942
Close call for the Soryu

Java
Minefield clearance at Surabaya ongoing. We're advancing on Batavia while the eastern forces are trying to mop up stray enemy units.

SOPAC
Off the coast of Fiji, the RO-65 was depth charged by a US destroyer, sustaining critical damage. She's limping back to Noumea, but the damage is in the range where her fate is in the hands of the damage control teams. Could go either way.

We narrowly avoided disaster as the KVII lined up a shot on the Soryu in the open ocean between Brisbane and the Solomons. All 4 torpedoes missed, and we failed to prosecute the sub. Just really goes to show how hard it is to defend against these subs--this task force has 16 destroyers, along with 2 Kate squadrons and hordes of floatplanes on ASW patrol. Of course, those patrols only fly in the daytime, and this attack was at night. The sub was engaged by aircraft after the attack and one floatplane claimed a hit on her.


West Australian Coast
A destroyer-escorted cargo ship was sunk by I-171 off the coast of Perth


Reinforcements
DD Naganami arrives at Nagoya - ordered directly to Truk for assignment to the KB.

[Molon Labe]

17 March 1942 (edited)

West Australian Coast
I-157 sank a light cargo ship off Geraldton in the northwest.


Java
A surface action group paroling the Java Sea intercepted and sank a minesweeper that had been displaced from one of the ports we've been capturing.


I lost a Sally bombing Batavia even at high altitude.

Our ground forces reached Batavia and launched a probing attack, finding minimal enemy resistance. We won't need the air support.

[Molon Labe]

18 March 1942

West Australian Coast
In a night surface attack, I-165 hit an unescorted cargo ship with a pair of torpedoes near the northwest corner of Australia, sending it right to the bottom.

Timor Sea
Battleships Nagato and Fuso shelled Darwin, inflicting heavy casualties, heavy airbase damage, and moderate port damage. Part of the reason for this attack is that recon keeps claiming there are cruisers in port. There were no reported hits on any enemy ships, except for a minesweeper on patrol that we ran into and sank on the way in.

China
A small flight of 3 Oscars sweeping the road to Sian intercepted and downed one of those irritating I-15s that's been picking off the occasional IJA aircraft.

With help from some previously idle bombers from Luzon that have been temporarily rebased to China, I'm pounding the enemy army at Kukong enough to severely disrupt them. I think we're going to hold against this counteroffensive. And speaking of that, this enemy army attacked today, achieving only 1 to 2 assault odds, squad destruction favoring me at 3 to 5, and disablements favoring me at 85 to 92. Those aren't great numbers considering I'm outnumbered 2 to 1 here, but they're still encouraging, especially with our forts back up to Level 2.

I also found a division that I managed to forget was available that I'd originally planned to send to Sian--now this is going to be the reinforcement I need to tip the balance at Wenchow. They're on the way to meet up with resting/recovering armies at Chusien, once they've linked up, we'll head back east to the coast and get the job done. Once that's done I'll push southeast with the goal of linking Japanese-occupied China with Vietnam, theoretically creating a ground supply route that goes all the way to Singapore.

Our main Sian stack cleared out 3 1/3 enemy corps remnants from the road, destroying 392 devices while losing only 1. Probably the last obstacle before we get to Sian.

For Sian, I'm going to try to focus most of my medium bombers here while mostly light bombers deal with Kukong. Sian is open territory so bombers will be very effective. Troop level looks to be about 130k, which is plenty, and I'm expecting significant fortification because it's taken this long to get here. What I don't know is the condition of the enemy troops--how many of these 130k were at one point part of the Nanyang stack? Any such troops are probably suffering a lot of squads disabled and low morale, potentially making this stack weaker than it appears. My stack is about 111k troops plus 5 regiments of armor-plus 2 divisions in reserve, resting in Nanyang due to casualties they sustained clearing out the Nanyang stack.


Java
The attack on Batavia has begun. First round reduced enemy forts to level 2 with moderate casualties to both sides, with actual squad destruction favoring us significantly. Our troops did not sustain a lot of fatigue or disruption in the attack so I'm going to order a rare two-days-in-a-row attack. We could take it as early as tomorrow, if not the third attack will probably do it, we outnumber them 2 to 1 and our troops are just better quality.

One of our "mop-up" forces captured Semarang, which had 12 Falcon bombers for us to destroy on the ground.


Strait of Malacca
It took long enough--at least two subs have been spotted near Singapore. I've turned this area in to an absolute ASW juggernaut with aircraft patrols out of Singapore, Palembang, and Singkawang, plus subchasers on patrol. Now that we have confirmed sightings, I'm sending out main fleet DDs that are otherwise on standby in Singapore as hunter-killer task forces. Let's show these guys they can't mess with my tanker routes!


SOPAC
Mavises from Noumea picked up a 4-ship bogey traveling west just north of New Zealand yesterday. I have a surface combat task force intercepting now, which has been counterdetected, presumably by Catalinas flying out of Aukland. Whether I get a successful intercept probably depends on whether the enemy changes course.


The KB successfully transited the Solomons after offsetting east to avoid the obvious straight-line route to Truk that would have a chokepoint between Rabaul and the Shortlands. I was able to sanitize the alternative chokepoints between the islands with an advance DD patrol. Just trying to avoid any underwater surprises.


Reinforcements and Planning

Many of the subchaser depth charge upgrades are completing, so I'm cycling in the ones that stayed online with the upgraded boats. A lot of the upgraded boats are working their way towards the deep water chokepoints like the Makassar Stait and Banda Sea, plus keeping a few in reserve in Japan in case American subs ever show up off our coast.

We're about a week out from a rotation of DD upgrades completing.

I had been hoping to get the Nick by April, but R&D isn't moving fast enough. So it'll be May. But I'm hoping the Nick can play a critical role in this campaign, in part inspired by the ASUW success of my attack bombers in my last campaign, plus my opponent's success using Nicks to counter heavy bombers. I've started to shift IJA fighter training to include low altitude naval attacks to prepare.

With Java wrapping up, and my Luzon troops rested, I'm getting ready for the next major operation...Most of Luzon's troops have already been staged in Singapore, I'll be adding some of Java's troops to that soon too.

[Molon Labe]

19 March 1942


West Australian Coast
I-166 sustained light depth charge damage from a destroyer on patrol off Perth.


Java
Our surface group on patrol in the Java Sea picked off another minesweeper that lost the port it was monitoring.

We made our second attack on Batavia, reducing fortifications to Level 1. Our engineers took heavy casualties with 18 squads destroyed, but the enemy took 85 devices destroyed and had more disabled than us as well. I'll need to rest my troops tomorrow, but we're very close.


Hawaii
I-2 torpedoed and sank an APD in a task force departing Pearl headed northeast. Although the ship did not appear in the combat report, according to the operations report the Yorktown was "sighted and engaged" in the same hex this turn. Therefore it appears this was the Yorktown headed back to the west coast for further repairs after getting patched up here at Pearl.


Burma
Lost a Sally to flak over Rangoon. I hate losing planes for so little but I really don't want there to be huge forts waiting for me when I finally get here.


Gilbert Islands
Yet again we caught enemy ships snooping around here. This time it's the CL Trenton. We attacked with Mavises out of Tarawa but missed. A Mavis on regular patrol claimed a hit on her, though. Sending a cruiser-destroyer force to intercept.


SOPAC
We've lost sight of the bogey we were trying to intercept south of Noumea.


Sumatra
I've landed troops in Bangkalis--trying to make taking the northwestern half of the island a priority now so I can tie off Java/Sumatra with a nice little bow.

[Molon Labe]

20 March 1942
I-171 sunk. Yorktown in trouble?

Western Australian Coast
I-171 was ganged up on by some highly capable destroyers off the coast of Perth. HMS Isis was up first, scoring at least 2 solid depth charge hits and several damaging near misses. The 171 was forced to surface and ended up getting gunned down... but twice the submarine faked its own death, "slipping below the waves" only to come back up again. Unfortunately, it never got far enough away to break contact before it had to come back up, so each time, it was used for gunnery practice. It ended up being the HNLMS Van Nes, that finished the job, which was out of depth charges thanks to engaging another one of my subs but being out of ASW ammo didn't stop her from getting a kill and a sub.


SOPAC
HMAS Perth was hit by two torpedoes fired by RO-62 just off the north coast of New Zealand. This is probably the task force I was trying to intercept but lost track of. At this time I do not believe the Perth was sunk.


China
A sweep of 3 Oscars over Sian failed to shoot down any of the I-16 fighters on CAP there and ended up losing one of their own instead. The escorts for a bombing raid that followed succeeded in taking out two of these, so at least we got payback.

Our main force has arrived in Sian.
The enemy is retreating from Kukong.


Sumatra
I've captured Bengkalis.


Hawaii
Intel reported the Yorktown sank today, at a location 10 hexes northeast of its reported location last turn. I believe the location of the report to be accurate, even if the ship's status likely is not. The distance is significant, as it would be too far for an undamaged ship to travel in a single turn at cruise speed, but looks just right for a damaged ship at flank speed. Ships at flank speed tend to take system and engine damage, and ships that are already flooded tend of have their flooding get worse if system damage is high. So I interpret this message to mean the Yorktown tried to escape Pearl at flank speed and suffered a damage control failure event, increasing flooding and generating the false intel message to me.

I'm being told on Discord that these type of sinking reports are always accurate, however, I remember getting similar messages about Kaga last campaign that were not accurate, so for now I still evaluate the Yorktown to be afloat.

[Molon Labe]

21 March 1942

Karimata Strait
Intense ASW patrols are starting to pay off; we got multiple hits on the KXV including some really solid ones. Not good enough to sink her outright, but it's a long way from here to Perth or Colombo.


Solomons/SOPAC
USS Gato took a bit of a beating from the destroyer Danae off the west side of Guadalcanal.

The KB has arrived in Truk and has replaced its aircraft losses. I'm disbanding them for some well-deserved rest and maintenance.


Java
We captured Batavia. That's the last major base on Java, it's all just mopping up from here. As for mopping up, 3 broken enemy units surrendered at Soerakarta.


China
I did a probing bombardment of Sian, the result of which was a rather effective counterbattery strike that cost me 6 squads and a gun. I've got about 1.25x their assault value here, which isn't great but should be OK for a clear hex, plus I've got a bit of armor and 2 more divisions on the road, the last of which should be here in about 4 days. I'm moving as many bombers as I can into this area and moving around aviation support to be able to sustain that. The open territory is going to make bombing highly effective, and we obviously need it.


India
I laid a minefield in Karachi.

[Molon Labe]

22 March 1942

SOPAC
The SAG I sent from Noumea to track down the bogeys near New Zealand tracked down the destroyer Express and sank her after a short chase. We ended up getting attacked by B-17s and B-26s for coming this close to NZ, but no hits.


India
They found the minefield in Karachi already. Oh well.

Just before starting this turn, I remembered my amphibious unloading bonus expires as the end of the month. So I'm rushing my next operation just a little. Ships loading in Singapore.


China
We splashed a pair of I-15s over Sian. We're probably even for the losses they caused me.


N. Australia
With no naval activity around the Java Sea, I decided it was a better use of my Betties to hit Darwin again rather than just wait for ships to show up. Recon's been insisting there are cruisers in port. The attack hit a pair of destroyers, so recon wasn't completely wrong.


EASTPAC
The I-23 found Yorktown's CVBG again. Again, no actual presence of the Yorktown in the combat report of the map, but we have an intel report saying she was "sighted and engaged" here. I've got 4 subs stalking this task force right now.

[Molon Labe]

23 March 1942


SOPAC
I lost a midget sub trying to attack Sydney. Apparently I did this wrong by manually detaching the sub from its mothership by giving it its own task force entity at the target, the correct way to do it is to leave both boats in the same TF and let the code handle the port infiltration. So it just sat there until a DD found it.

USS Porter (DD) was spotted between Luganville and Fiji in a very interesting position--Just outside escorted torpedo bomber range from Luganville and right at maximum torpedo bomber range from Noumea. Looks like he's testing my defenses. The Betty flying as a scout that spotted her claimed a bomb hit.


Java
A heavy surface task force rebasing from the Makassar area to Singapore encountered an enemy minesweeper off Pontianak and sank it.


China
Another I-15 taken care of over Sian.


N. Australia
Another Betty raid on Darwin sank an AKL and hit the destroyer Thracian again. (Spoiler: based on subsequent recon, it's likely both DD that were here were sunk by these raids). The raid cost me one Betty thanks to flak.

[Molon Labe]

24 March 1942

Java
I've got a minesweeper clearing Batavia. Java is starting to feel like it's really mine, in spite of the ruins of Surabaya.

I've captured Buitenzorg and Lautem.


China
I'm hitting Sian pretty hard with bombers but the results so far are disappointing. I may need to come down in altitude, but that big of a troop concentration has to have good AA. Also, the remnants of the Nanyang stack have moved back on the road to Sian, effectively cutting off my main force at Sian from the supply line from Nanyang. So I actually need to back up and defeat these guys a third time. More time to soften up Sian, I guess.

The enemy units retreating from Kukong didn't all move at the same speed, so I was gifted an attack on the tip of the daschund's tail there, good enough to eliminate 38 enemy squads.


Reinforcements
I'm starting to equip some select base forces and AA units with radars. We'll have a long way to go before this becomes ubiquitous.

[Molon Labe]

25 March 1942

North Australia
After today's Betty raid on Darwin, recon finally stopped reporting that cruisers (or anything else) were present here. So the destroyers that were being reported as cruisers either sank or left. They were badly damaged and I have a barricade of subs outside the port, so I'm guessing I'd know if they tried to leave.


China
Near Kweisui, I made a shock attack crossing a river to fight an enemy unit blocking a road, routing them easily as they had been softened up by bombers. Device destruction ratio 2 to 80.


Strait of Malacca
Kates and Jakes flying on ASW patrol from the light carriers Shoho and/or Zuiho and supporting cruisers detected a US and a British boat on barrier patrol in the northwestern Strait, where the water gets deep.


----------
26 March 1942

South China Sea
Just east of Singapore, a pair of subchasers finally got some work done, damaging the USS Sturgeon badly enough to make her leave station.


Strait of Malacca
Despite giving all of my task forces bound for the Indian Ocean waypoints to avoid the two subs detected yesterday and instead move through a shallow water route that was being sanitized by subchasers, the Shoho/Zuiho CVBG ran over HMS Truant. Fortunately our DD escorts spotted her first and drove her off--the carriers didn't even appear in the combat report, so he doesn't know this TF is a CVBG. Except for the Kates he saw yesterday of course, but in part to create ambiguity and also to shut this area down, I'm moving 6 Kates from Singapore to Taiping for ASW patrol, so he's going to keep seeing Kates here after the CVBG moves away.

China
Oscar sweeps over Sian got 1 I-15 and 1 I-16, no losses.

SOPAC
An Ann bomber flying out of Noumea claimed a hit on a Porpoise class boat.

Reinforcements
TK Okigawa Maru arrives at Yokohama/Yokosuka - I really like these tankers, I was disappointed that I didn't start with any. They're medium sized tankers with a 14 knot speed--the medium tankers I start with are just 12-knot ships. These are ideal to use with the relatively small port sizes in Borneo. For now I'm sending it to Babeldoab, which is serving as a hub for small, inefficient tankers to move oil to--it's a more efficient ship to bring that home to Japan from the larger base. Once I get more they'll probably serve mostly Balikpapan and Tarakan.

[Molon Labe]

27 March 1942
Japanese subs getting on the board again after some frustrations

Western Australian Coast
I-166 torpedoed and sank the destroyer McCall off Perth.


Hawaii and West Coast
I-1 hit a cargo ship with 3 torpedoes south of Hawaii, sinking it from under the nose of at least one escorting destroyer.

At this point it seems likely the Yorktown has escaped again. I had two subs chasing it from Hawaii, they did catch up with her battle group a few days ago but haven't regained contact. The two up ahead tried to collapse in closer to San Fransisco on the assumption that she changed course and would approach from a different direction, but that just put them in easy range to be tracked by enemy ASW assets.


China
I'm letting one of my bomber squadrons attack Sian's airbase instead of just hitting their troops because recon says the enemy has a lot of bombers based there. We got one SB-III on the ground. We're starting to cause light-moderate casualties on the ground too.


Reinforcements
1st Ku S-1 arrives at Maloelap - Fighters for the Marshalls. Sadly initially equipped with Claudes, so I have to ship them off to Guadalcanal to transition them to Zeroes, then fly them back.

[Molon Labe]

28 March 1942
Nanyang stack defeated for a third time, massive enemy casualties; we lose an oiler in the Solomon Sea

SOPAC
I detached 2 oilers from the KB's replenishment group at Rabaul to deliver some badly needed fuel to Noumea. While moving past Rossel Island in the Solomon Sea, the KXVI put two torpedoes into one of them, setting it ablaze and to the bottom. That the second AO loss of the war, and these remain the most valuable ships he's taken out.


China
Our main force in the north-central area had pulled back from Sian to deal with the Nanyang stack, which was back on the road, cutting our supply lines to Sian. But of course, these guys having just recently been defeated were at a fraction of their former strength, and probably with severe morale and fatigue penalties. So I didn't mind hitting them again. Casualties were 3125 to 15,908, favoring me of course (10 destroyed devices to 1607). This seems like a serious error to me... the only cost of this to me is that it's slowed me down by about 4 days and expended some supply. For him, this is 12 corps that are probably never going to be near full combat strength again, along with about a carrier and a half's worth of victory points to me. If he's able to get me to completely destroy them, they'll regenerate with 1/3 of their normal power--such is the advantage given to the Chinese. But I can probably avoid doing that.


Reinforcements/Refits
Two Kamikaze class DDs have completed their March upgrades at Saigon and are being assigned to escort oilers supporting the Ceylon operation (see tomorrow).



29 March 1942
HMS Enterprise crippled south of Ceylon as invasion task force passes by

Bay of Bengal
I've been a little coy about what's going on in the Indian Ocean for OPSEC, but there's no longer any need for secrecy: I'm invading Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The operation is a bit of a rush job as when I was staging my forces I remembered that the amphibious unload bonus that Japan gets goes away at the end of March, so it's been a rush to get to the beaches of Trincomalee with at least enough to secure a beachhead to safely deliver follow-on troops.

Our task force unzipped its fly today by attacking HMS Enterprise south of Ceylon with Kates from the CVE/CVLs escorting the transports. Enterprise was hit by a torpedo and 4 bombs and is not expected to survive the night. It appears the cruiser was escorting cargo ships in the area. We also launched an airstrike against a minesweeper spotted in Trincomalee itself, which created a bit of a fight: 10 Zeroes vs 8 Hurricanes. We traded 1 fighter each, but the Hurricanes managed to get to the Kates after they sank the minesweeper and shot down 3 of the 4.


SOPAC
An Ann claimed another hit on a sub near Noumea. If half these reports are true, Brisbane and Sydney should be really busy.


Reinforcements
6th Ku S-1 arrives at Chiba - nice. This is a 45-aircraft fighter unit, ideal for training. Filling them up with Claudes and rookie pilots.

[Molon Labe]

30 March 1942
Battle of Bengal Bay, day 2


SOPAC
Six B-26s attacked my airbase in Port Moresby, causing moderate facility damage. I did not have any fighters protecting it. To stop him from disabling the airbase, I'm moving in a small detachment of Zeroes.


China
Medium bomber raids on Sian caused light casualties on the ground and destroyed an SB-III bomber. I lost one Lily to flak.


Bay of Bengal
The British began their attacks against my task forces as they began landing in Trincomalee. The first wave was six Swordfish and six Vildebeest torpedo bombers escorted by 22 Hurricanes. They were opposed by 21 Zeroes, which unfortunately did not include the CAPs from the CVLs that were standing off one hex from the coast. We got the better of the Hurricanes, splashing 14 of them without taking any losses, but we failed to reach the torpedo bombers. Flak took care of one Vildebeest, but the other 11 bombers fired their torpedoes at my two CVEs and a transport, resulting in a hit on the CVE Taiyo.

Next were four Wapiti light bombers, which mostly walked past our CAP thanks to them being busy. We splashed two, the two that got through attacked Hosho and missed.

Wave three was 11 Hudson IIIa medium bombers coming in at 1000 feet, with 2 Hurricanes. We splashed both fighters and one of the bombers, but the Hudsons managed to get a rare level bombing hit on Taiyo thanks to their low altitude attack. It was only a 250lb bomb, but it achieved critical damage, starting a fire and knocking out flight operations. Taiyo isn't in any danger of sinking, provided we do a better job of protecting her than we have so far.

The aircraft returning from Taiyo diverted to other ships, but some failed to find an available deck, resulting in 4 Zeroes and 3 Kates ditching.

In the afternoon, 10 of the surviving 11 torpedo bombers returned for another attack, but due to enemy fighter losses they only had 4 Hurricanes escorting them. Our CAP was now just 13 fighters, but that was still enough to wipe out the entire raid except for one lucky Hurricane. 8 Hudsons also made a second attack, selecting a destroyer and a cargo ship, but missed. The CVEs got four new aces today.

As for the landing, it got a little messy. They had significant 6" coastal batteries, which scored hits on two cruisers, a destroyer, and three transports. Two of the transports have major fires and won't survive the night. However, troop casualties were light, and we got most of them ashore quickly. It looks like we have overwhelming force and should take this base without a problem. I'll also be able to add a battleship to the task force that landed already and to the other that's about to land, overnight. The BBs will hopefully suppress the enemy batteries better than the cruisers did as well as attract their fire.


Reinforcements
DD Kazegumo arrives at Port Arthur - top of the line destroyer, sending to Truk to be assigned to the Kido Butai.

[Molon Labe]

31 March 1942
Battle of Bengal Bay, day 3: Allies suffer worst single-day aircraft loss since 7 December.

Bay of Bengal
The combat between my 'phibs and the coastal batteries continued before the BB joined the task force. Two more transports were damaged, with three then ablaze--and as expected, two sank by morning. A second amphibious task force arrived; the coastal batteries got hits on a cruiser four destroyers, and a cargo ship. Further offshore, HMS Truant intercepted yet another amphibious task force and put two torpedoes into a cargo ship, sinking it with about a third of the base force intended for Colombo.


Inbound for a bombardment run against Colombo, the Ise and Hyuga ran into a minesweeper and sank it.


https://i.ibb.co/89HmfQj/1942-4-1-Ceylon.png (https://ibb.co/3cnTjP0)


Daybreak brought with it a flurry of enemy air raids, mostly by medium bombers, and the RAF would fare quite poorly. With the exception of the Unyo, which was just arriving, my carriers were completely defensive, their Kates on ASW patrol and their Zeroes ready to defend the landing area. A total of 7 waves of Blenheims and Hudsons attacked my task forces, most of which targeted my heavy covering task force, which had only 10 Zeroes protecting it. This worked out in my favor as the level bombers just aren't that accurate against ships, so it wasn't a big deal that many got through. They scored no hits. We shot down 7 Blenheims and 5 Hudsons.

We reacquired HMS Enterprise just outside Colombo; a Unyo sent a small strike of 5 Kates with 6 Zero escorts went after her, running into 8 Hurricanes protecting her. Each side lost 2 fighters, Enterprise took 2 more bomb hits.

We also spotted an enemy CVBG approaching from the southwest. Unyo launched an ill-advised strike of just 3 Zeroes and 5 Kates. There were 16 Martlets (Wildcats) on patrol. We got one of the Martlets but failed to keep them away from the bombers; 4 Kates were shot down. The single surviving Kate tried to bomb HMS Formidable but missed.

Formidable launched its own strike, 12 Albacores apparently at maximum range and without escorts (probably because we were too far for the assigned escorts). They went after the main force where they faced a wall of 44 Zeroes. 3 bombers managed to make bombing attacks on CVLs Shoho and Zuiho, but all missed. And none of them made it home.

Finally, to close the day out, our forces took the enemy base rather easily, and I was shocked to find out that most of the medium bombers were in fact coming from this base rather than Columbo. The enemy's loss of the base destroyed an estimated35 Blenheims, 20 Hurricanes, 1-2 Waipitis, and 1-2 Vildebeest--a serious blow to any further capacity of the Brits to resist this invasion.


West Australian Coast
Enemy minesweepers got to work on a sub-laid minefield at Perth.

I've deployed a surface combat task force of 3 CL and 1 DD to this area to see if I can poach some ASW ships. And we did get a PG, plus a pair of AKLs. No retaliatory airstrikes.
One of my subs joined in on the action and sank an AKL of its own near Carnarvon.


SOPAC
After a long absence, B-17s made an appearance at Noumea--10 of them making an attack on the port. We had 11 Zeroes on CAP and ended up trading one of theirs for one of mine. The bombers succeeded in hitting the battleship Mutsu once and an AMC once. Nothing too serious.


Withdrawals
Four fighter squadrons are due for withdrawal today:
Komatsushima Ku T-1 - 20 floatplanes, will be withdrawn
Komatsushima Ku T-2 - 20 floatplanes, will be withdrawn
Sasebo Ku S-1 - Nate training squadron, withdrawn
4th Ku S-1 - Zeroes in the Marshalls, reluctantly withdrawn. A recent arrival will take their place.

[Molon Labe]

1 April 1942
Battle of Bengal Bay day 4: HMS Formidable, HMS Resolution crippled by Kate strikes; land battle for Sian begins


Western Australian Coast
My hunter-killer group sank a minesweeper off Carnarvon. I think I'll give these guys one more day and then pack it in. Recon says there's a heavy cruiser in Perth, which I doubt, but I'd rather not chance it.


Bay of Bengal
Overnight, the I-29 torpedoed and sank a fuel-laden cargo ship outside Diego Garcia--unfortunately blowing most of its torpedoes in the process due to poor accuracy, followed by overkill (4 hits). This sufficiently confirms that Diego Garcia was the point of origin for the enemy task forces trying to stop my invasion. My tripwire subs were watching here but just didn't spot them.


The Ise and Hyuga reached Columbo. An escorting destroyer spotted a mine and blew it up, but that was the extent of the resistance they faced. We shelled the base from 26k yards out, staying safely out of range of shore batteries and not encountering any other mines. Estimated enemy losses: 4 Hurricanes, 4 Blenheims, 2 Hudsons. Not a great result but after the massive haul we took last turn it makes sense that there wouldn't be much here to blow up.

While I was in defensive mode last turn to absorb the enemy's air attacks, this turn I intended to go on offense. The 3 CVEs would guard the phibs, with help from an Oscar squadron that I moved into Trincomalee. The BBs that tried to support the phibs formed up with some destroyers to act as a covering force, as I'd detected a few cruisers to the north at Madras that might try to come down. But now my CVLs formed up with the Hiryu and the main heavy covering force (led by fast battleships Haruna and Kongo) to advance on the Formidable.

Not having disabled the Columbo airbase, they launched several strikes. Against the raids targeting my offensive task forces, we splashed 5 Hurricanes and 11 Blenheims with no losses. And the strikes targeting my 'phibs lost 2 Hurricanes and 7 Blenheims.


https://i.ibb.co/r2WNqSm/1942-4-2-Ceylon.png (https://ibb.co/CKrD4Zz)

In a move I'm still confused about, the enemy task forces did not abort their attack after yesterday's beatdown, instead they moved east as if to box me in. As you can see from the direction I advanced, I was expecting a retreat, perhaps back to Diego Garcia to disengage completely, or to Columbo to get extra protection from land-based Hurricanes (hence why I shelled Columbo). By moving east, he failed to put himself in range of my phibs, while keeping himself in range of my CVBG and also getting into strike range from Port Blair.

As for Port Blair, he got lucky there. A Betty strike did launch, but they failed to find the enemy. My CVBG was not so unlucky. One small strike of just 5 Kates attacked the Resolution--which appears to be off on its own--and hit it with 3 torpedoes. The ship doesn't appear to be in danger of sinking from this, but between the size of the ship, the amount of damage, or the relatively low quality of repair shipyards in this theatre, I think she's out of action for at least a year. We then had two waves of attacks against the Formidable CVBG. The first was 19 Zeroes escorting 14 Kates, opposed by 10 Martlets. The Martlets never got to the bombers, two were shot down trying. We got 2 torpedo hits on Formidable, knocking her out of flight operations. Wave 2 was 31 Kates with 14 Zeroes. Despite the greater size, we managed only 1 torpedo and 1 bomb hit on Formidable, plus a torpedo hit on the cruiser Hobart. Between both waves, we lost 2 Kates to flak. Resolution also had to face a strike from the Hiryu's 18 Vals--we got 9 hits but failed to get anything through her armor. We did at least knock out a few gun mounts, which is sure to keep her in the shipyards even longer should she manage to escape.

Formidable managed to launch 3 Albacore at my CVBG before she was knocked out--probably all she had left after yesterday. They were wiped out, although one did reach the Zuiho for a failed bombing attack. The CVBG also faced a few waves of unescorted Hudsons and Blenheims--we shot down 2 Hudsons and 8 Blenheims with no losses and no hits on any ships.

A third cargo ship succumbed to its damage at Trincomalee.



Burma
As recon had recently spotted enemy fighters, cruisers, and transports in Rangoon, I restarted Oscar sweeps. We were outnumbered 13 to 12 (and then 3 to 2), but shot down 6 without taking losses. That kind of success against Hurricanes makes me think he's having training/quality problems.


China
With the road between Nanyang and Sian clear of the enemy (for now), I began my attack on Sian. Our unadjusted assault odds are just under 2 to 1. Our attack reduced the fort level to 3 (so presumably it was at least 4), we acheived adjusted assault odds of just over 1 to 1, and casualties were 1247 devices destroyed/disabled for me and 1335 for him. I'd consider this a very good result as the casualties will skew my way the more the forts come down. I believe the fort reduction will probably help my bombers wear them down as well. Sian is going to cost us, but it's a major prize, so I find these casualties to be acceptable.

I have suffered an operational level defeat, though. I had three units working their way up the north extremes of China, trying to secure small, relatively unprotected oil-producing bases. I was stopped at Hami, and I have insufficient forces to break through. So, they are turning back, and we probably won't be back until after Sian and other nearby bases fall.


Sumatra
I've reinforced my forces in the northwest and have resumed offensive operations there.

[Molon Labe]

2 April 1942

Western Australian Coast
My little hunter-killer group found another ASW ship to try to kill, the HMS Isis...but after a few skirmishes, neither side was able to hit each other. After breaking off, we found a pair of AKLs and sank them. That's going to do it for these guys, ordered to RTB.


CENTPAC
I also have a similar SAG operating near Baker Island (3 CL, 1 DD). They were investigating contacts around Baker that began with a SIGINT hit a few days ago. We found an American AVD and engaged it unsuccessfully. It turned out this enemy activity had some surface cover... USS Nashville (light cruiser) and USS Monssen (destroyer) moved in immediately to retaliate. We traded a few hits in the night battle, but overall it was inconclusive except for Monssen being damaged badly enough to retire. Even though this is 3 CLs vs. 1, American CLs are just so much better (and I'm low enough on ammo) that I'd rather pack it in. This group also ordered to RTB.


Bay of Bengal
Pretty quiet here after some major activity in prior days. I'd allowed one of my CVE-based Kate squadrons to go back to naval attack orders out of concerns that there could be a powerful enemy SAG based in to the north in Madras. I'd previously made contact with some cruisers there, and if such a group did exist it might explain why the Formidable and Resolution moved south of my forces. Unlike Admiral Halsey in Leyte Gulf, though, I left strong forces guarding my invasion forces, those Kates being a small portion of that. Anyway, I neglected to range-restrict them, so we got some contacts near Cochin and Trivandium on the mainland, and a few small strikes went to hit them...nowhere near enough to deal with the Hurricanes on CAP up there. So that cost me 4 Zeroes and 3 Kates with no victories. Ooops.

We've captured Dambulla with 3 tank regiments. The only resistance there were the former Trincomalee garrison. No losses, 111 enemy devices destroyed. My tanks will now turn north to capture the only base on my right flank, while the infantry and artillery proceed towards Colombo.


Java
I've captured Merak (the furthest western base). We had no squads destroyed; we destroyed 985 of the enemy's. This is the last base on Java's main island held by the enemy; only one pocket of enemy troops remains--and they're beginning to surrender (164 squads today). There is a minefield here blocking access to the Indian Ocean--a minesweeper is on its way.

[Molon Labe]

Aircraft Development

This seems like a good time to talk about R&D and how that fits into my overall plans for world domination, now that I'm starting to have new aircraft come online.


Carrier-based fighters
Unfortunately, the Zero is the only game in town until the A7M Sam arrives, which is scheduled for Sept 1945--too late to do me much good. R&D can accelerate this, but aircraft this far off are hard to get R&D to make progress towards. It's also far more efficient to research aircraft that are part of the same developmental line than it is to research something new. So my basic plan is to get the best Zeroes I can first, then switch R&D to the Sam when I judge there to be no benefit of further Zero research (after I get the M5).


IMO, there are two variants of the Zero that offer significant advantages. The A6M3a, scheduled for Dec 1942, offers significantly improved peformance in the 16-20k altitude range, which is the optimal altitude for the F4F to engage the A6M2, my current Zero variant. It's also the longest-ranged version of the Zero, which makes it a good Betty escort. At this time, I consider this only a marginal improvement, so I don't plan to research the A6M3a--I'll just produce a limited run when it becomes available naturally.


The A6M5, available in August 1943 I consider the best Zero version. Somewhat less manueverable than the M3a and shorter ranged, it's significantly faster. It's still long-ranged enough to escort any attack aircraft flying from a carrier and more maneuverable than its Allied adversaries. So that speed increase helps offset the main advantage the Allies will get as they upgrade from F4Fs to F4Us and F6Fs. After the A6M5 there are other Zero variants, but what they sacrifice isn't worth the gain IMO. For example, the A6M8 has armor, but can't escort Jills out to their maximum range, and might be at extended range when escorting Judies. The A6M5 is a research priority, so hopefully I'll get it significantly prior to 8/1943.


Carrier based Attack
This seems sort of obvious, because the Vals and Kates are so slow they're rapidly becoming obsolete, that we need Judies (April 1943) and Jills (May 1943) ASAP. These are both very high research priorities. For the Judy, early versions have a terrible service rating, so getting to the D4Y3 variant is a very high priority. The Jill may not completely replace the Kate in service because they don't get radars until the N2a1 variant (November 1944), while the current version of the Kate will get a radar at some point.


Maritime Patrol and Area Denial
There doesn't appear to be much value in researching the Betty line. At the moment, the Betty is better than the Nell, but starting with the G3M3 Nell (May 1942) the Nell has the better range, and also has a radar (although I'm not sure when the radar actually gets installed). Later models of the Betty get faster, but nowhere near as fast as the Frances (November 1943). So, my plan is to gradually phase out the Betty in favor of the G3M3 Nell, but I'm not researching the Nell, I'll get it in May as scheduled. I am, however, researching the Frances in hopes to get it early. The Frances lacks the Nell's and Betty's range, so it's not ideally suited to take over patrol duties. But, the Frances is so much faster than the Betty/Nell that its survivability against improving Allied fighters and AAA will make a huge difference. So as the Frances comes online, Nells would continue to operate where long-range patrol is a priority, while Frances would deploy areas likely to be invaded with carrier support. I could even mix the squadrons in some cases.


Escort services would be provided by Zeroes, preferably the A6M3a, which can escort the Frances out to its maximum torpedo-carrying range. Any other fighter would have to sacrifice range. The George is schedule to arrive in September 1943, and while it can't provide the full range of the Zero, it's faster, more durable, and better armed, so overall a better matchup against Allied fighters. The George is a research priority as well. Frances escorted by Georges should be a major threat, even to American CVBGs protected by Hellcats.


ASW
I'm actually mostly done already. Currently, ASW is being handled by "extra" floatplanes as well as light bombers, mostly from the 5th Air Division. The Ki-49-Ia Helen is now in production, and I intend for it to replace the Sally in Army service and perhaps eventually the light bombers of the 5th Air Division as well (at a cost of political points). The Helen has greater range than the Sally and carries a MAD. Later versions of the Helen will not have a MAD, so I'll continue to operate the -Ia even as later versions replace medium bomber squadrons not assigned to ASW.


Betties/Nells could also be used for ASW, but between their maritime patrol and naval strike duties, this is a big ask for a limited number of squadrons. It's also hard to maintain a corps of naval bomber pilots that have ASW training in addition to naval bombing, naval search, torpedo bombing, and land bombing. For now, my navy bomber pilots that have ASW training get priority assignment to carrier-based Kate squadrons. If I ever get plentiful navy ASW pilots, I might start using Nells/Bettys for ASW more. Their range would make them superior to the Helen.


Army Fighters
I really dislike the Oscar because it's kind of a dead end, fated to be owned by increasingly faster, more durable, and better armed Allied aircraft. I'm making getting to the Tojo (September 1942) a priority, with the earliest models available faster than the latest Oscar variants. The Tojo's armament is still kind of crappy, though, and it gives up a lot of maneuverability, so it's still not a great bomber interceptor and it's only going to delay the superiority of Allied fighters in general.


The Nick fighter-bomber will be available in about 2 weeks, and it's part of my answer. The Nick is faster than the Oscar and much better armed, making it a good bomber interceptor--something badly needed to counter B-17s and B-24s. It's still going to lose to most Allied fighters, though, so it cannot completely replace the Oscar. It's strike role is also significant. Carrying two 250kg bombs, this is potentially more dangerous to enemy ships than Vals. So, as the Nick comes online, it will partially replace the Oscar for bomber interception, AND will have a naval strike role to compliment the Betties and Nells. And a nice synergy will exist between the Nick and the Oscar, because the Oscar excels at low altitude combat, so using Nicks in a strike role will bait enemy fighters down to where the Oscar likes to play.


More long term, the research priority if the Frank, scheduled for April 1944. The Frank is faster, more durable, and better armed than the Tojo, without sacrificing maneuverability. It's faster and more maneuverable than the Hellcat. If I can get these in large numbers while still having enough living, skilled pilots to fly them, the Allies will have a serious problem.

[Molon Labe]

3 April 1942
Seas quiet as IJA advances on Columbo

CENTPAC
We didn't quite make a clear getaway from Baker Island. USS Nashville chased us down and we traded a few minor hits before we broke off.


SOPAC
The small island of Tanna (between Noumea and Fiji) will be the site of a small recon base for me. I now have marines there and I'll soon be delivering construction engineers. An enemy sub is poking around trying to interfere but escorting destroyers are keeping it away.


China
Oscar sweeps downed an I-16 over Sian. An enemy airstrike of 6 Hudsons hit out troops in Sian, disabling 13 vehicles. Going to have to put a CAP up for that. Otherwise quiet as our troops reorganize for another attack and medium bombers continue to pound the enemy troops.


Bay of Bengal
Still no contact on the Formidable CVBG - but we have a good track on the Resolution (heading west towards Diego Garcia) and hit it with another strike. For whatever reason, very few Kates actually found the target, and those that did failed to connect with any torpedoes. So we just had 6 more bomb hits, nothing that got through the armor.

I'm going to send the skimmers in to finish the job. The system damage on this ship should be bad enough that she'll be on the receiving end of everything. My CVBG will retire temporarily to take some fuel.

The base force that suffered attrition when a transport was sunk just received one of our first radars, so that's pretty cool. Should help with aircraft interception if they try to raid our new territory.


Sumatra
We've captured Medan. All oil facilities intact. I think the enemy concentrated what they had left here, so it should be pretty smooth sailing to mop up what's left.

[Molon Labe]

4 April 1942
Paying the price for Sian


CENTPAC
A minesweeper patroling Kwajelien in the Marshalls was a sniper with her depth charges, scoring a solid hit and two damaging near misses with just 3 patterns on the Pompano. Enough to put her in the yard for a few weeks.


China
My CAP over Sian was only 2 aircraft due to the range they had to fly. The Hudsons returned and got through - 5 squads disabled on the ground.

We made our second assault on Sian, this time bringing the forts down to level 2. Assault odds were a little below 1 to 1 this time, which is discouraging...we're having too many squads disabled. Totals disabled/destroyed this turn were 1020 for me and 833 for him, with device destruction titled in my favor. We'll need to rest a bit...and that's going to be enforced by the enemy, because the Nanyang stack is back on the road again. I'm moving units held in reserve from Nanyang up to deal with them.


SOPAC
A flight of 3 B-17s tried to attack ships at Noumea. Zeroes took down two, and the last was taken down by flak at is approached its target.


Bay of Bengal
After reducing my Kates' allowed strike range yesterday, they still found ships near ports to attack--this time, a sub tender in Colombo. 3 aircraft hit it with 5 bombs.


Reinforcements
Genzan Ku S-1 arrives at Chiba - Zero squadron, these guys will be replacing fighters due to withdraw from the Indian Ocean theare.

[Molon Labe]

5 April 1942
Resolution finished off; intel analysis concludes Formidable down as well


CENTPAC
I-26 torpedoed and sank the destroyer-transport Whipple overnight near Pago Pago. (Edit: Whipple survived)


Bay of Bengal
After attempting an intercept yesterday and missing, the heavy covering force led by Kongo and Haruna tracked down the Resolution, which was indeed off on her own. They finished her off with a long lance hit and plenty of 36cm fire. Resolution was mostly incapacitated prior to the engagement so she didn't get many shots off, scoring a single secondary battery hit on Haruna for inconsequential damage.

But there was another screwup on my part--I allowed Betties recently moving to Trincomalee to have naval attack missions, and once again forgot that he has small task forces on the mainland coast that were going to bait me. Between two small attacks that faced Hurricanes in large numbers, I lost 5 Zeroes and 9 Betties for no gain.


I didn't do the analysis until after the next turn, but might as well just say it now: I'm about 95% sure Formidable went down. Partly because with three torpedo hits, she shouldn't have been able to vacate the area quickly enough to evade me. But also, intel reported 3 Martlets destroyed "on the ground" sometime after 1 April, and I just failed to notice it at the time. We haven't actually destroyed any of these while bombing airbases, including the shelling of Columbo on April 1-so that appears to be confirmation that Formidable sank.

Reinforcements
Kisarazu Ku K-1 arrives at Chiba - 45 Nells for training/homeland defense
26th Air Flotilla arrives at Yokohama/Yokosuka - AirHQ unit. We could use another one of these in the Indian Ocean, I'd say.

[Molon Labe]

6 April 1942
Decent performance by RAF resisting sweep at Cochin, Wenchow captured


Solomon Sea
I've begun several small operations to take over small bases that I've bypassed along the way to my major objectives. In New Britain, I'm landing troops at Gasmata, south of Rabaul. Apparently the enemy predicted this... the sub KVII was waiting for me and picked off a pair of landing barges with its deck gun before the PB nearby was able to respond. The troops had already disembarked.


Bay of Bengal
I-162 sank a fuel-laden cargo ship at Diego Garcia in a night surface attack.
Seeking payback for the loss of aircraft over the southern Indian coast, I swept Cochin with Oscars and a few leftover Zeroes. The enemy actually got the better of me with the initial arrivals... with 12 Oscars facing down 25 Hurricanes, I lost 5 while killing only 3. By the time all sorties had completed, the score was 7 Oscars lost to 10 Hurricanes killed.

On land, our tanks cleared out the former Trincomalee garrison from our right flank. They've retreated to the only base on that side, so our tanks are headed there next. Infantry & artillery still en route to Colombo as planned.


China
The reduction of the enemy forts at Sian appears to be paying off as my bombers are causing heavier casualties than before. The Oscars flying long-range CAP over Sian did better this turn too, splashing 1 of 6 Hudsons that came to bomb my troops. The remaining 5 were able to disable a single support squad with their strike.

The reinforcements I moved to the resting armies at Chusien proved sufficient to take Wenchow, in a renewed assault we took Wenchow with a single attack. It might have helped that Mary light bombers have been hitting this base every day since we pulled out. I'm going to chase the enemy army for a bit, then head west to link up with the forces that got stopped at Kukong. Those troops are already about to receive reinforcement thanks to two garrisons on the coast being relieved recently. There's a decent chance that, with the enemy putting so much into trying to defend Sian (IMO a bad place to make a stand anyway), the southern central area will be ripe for the taking, and I might even be in position to make a move on the high-value central bases including Changsha.

Wouldn't that be fun if he left himself vulnerable defending Sian, and then lost the battle for Sian too, resulting in a complete collapse? It looks like that's on the table.

[Molon Labe]

7 April 1942
KB detected near Canton Island, sinks USS Porter


Solomon Sea
The PB acting as a mobile gas station for the barges landing at Gasmata detected another sub and prosecuted it rather successfully, causing significant depth charge damage before running itself so low on ammo that it's now headed for Rabaul to rearm. The Dutch sub stuck around and sank another barge. The troops that landed began to engage enemy troops here, element from the Lark Battalion.


Bay of Bengal and Burma
Lost a Betty to flak over Rangoon as I ordered another port strike due to intermittent recon reports of a cruiser in port.


CENTPAC
In anticipation of an enemy strike on Noumea, I deployed the KB north of Fiji and started sending it further east, trying to get north of Pago Pago. It was detected by scoutplanes. It also spotted the USS Porter on picket duty, and launched 2 strikes of Vals at it, scoring 6 bomb hits -- overkill for a destroyer.


Sumatra
My northern force failed to rout the enemy it had already evicted from Medan. What a slog.

[Molon Labe]

8 April 1942
KB breaks contact as it displaces to the east; significant Oscar losses over Cochin

CENTPAC
Having detected the KB northwest of Pago Pago yesterday, today my opponent evacuated Pago--right into some submarines I'd positioned for this contingency. One ship caught was the APD Whipple, thought to have already been sunk by a torpedo hit a few days ago. We finished her off with two hits. The same sub was then run over by an undamaged destroyer that was able to prosecute her with some success, scoring a solid depth charge pattern hit for moderate damage. I somewhat reluctantly ordered that sub to RTB for repairs.

The KB is moving off to the east rather than make a move on Pago just yet. Enemy scoutplanes did not spot the KB this turn.


Solomon Sea
The KVII's campaign against my barges continued, with another 2 barges sunk by gunfire. The troops we landed at Gasmata successfully took the base from the Lark battalion elements.

SOPAC
The I-18 torpedoed a large tanker off the southeastern Australian coast, setting it ablaze and almost certainly sinking it.

China
We're wearing down the enemy's Hudsons a bit at Sian. One more shot down this turn, several more sent home full of holes, no damage to our ground forces.


Bay of Bengal
We splashed 3 Audax light bombers trying to bomb our troops advancing on Colombo.

But the bad news is that the enemy fighter force at Cochin is apparently the real deal, as they repeated their early success against our sweeps as they did a few days ago, but without allowing us to bounce back later in the day. We lost 7 Oscars and a Zero while shooting down just 3 Hurricanes.

Our tank regiments have captured Jafna, the base on our right flank. We still have enemy troops in that area.


Reinforcements
Yokohama Ku S-1 arrives at Yokohama/Yokosuka - recently withdrawn Zero squadron re-forming.

[Molon Labe]

9 April 1942
More Blenheims thrown away over Ceylon

Bay of Bengal
We turned away several waves of air raids over our troops and ships today, although it did get a little dangerous at times. Overall the enemy lost 10 Hurricanes, 8 Blenheims, 2 Albacore, and a Hudson, with only 2 downed Oscars to show for it. But that Albacore raid was 3 planes, and one of them did manage to launch a torpedo at a cargo ship. I have some pretty valuable AOs here to sustain my presence, and a torpedo hit on one of those would have been an easy kill. Accordingly, I'm adding some more fighters here and I'm going to be much more conservative with my sweeps.


A Betty raid on Rangoon sank a cargo ship in port and damaged/sank a minesweeper.


CENTPAC
Kido Butai has been spotted again, north of Pago Pago. I'll be sweeping Pago tomorrow to get a feel for its defenses.

[Molon Labe]

10 April 1942
Pago Pago sweep encounters strong enemy fighter presence

Bay of Bengal
I shelled Rangoon with a pair of heavy cruisers. Not much result, moderate casualties, some facility damage, some fires. No aircraft or ships reported damaged. There doesn't seem to be much there besides troops.

My CVBG launched a small raid on Diego Garcia that found nothing of value there.


CENTPAC
The KB's sweep of Pago caused an 18 vs 53 engagement in the enemy's favor. We ended up losing 6 Zeroes while shooting down 1 P-40 and 2 P-39s, considering how badly we were outnumbered I don't think that was that bad. I'd been hoping to make a raid here, but clearly the enemy's evacuated most of their ships, so even if I went back in with force I don't see much to gain. And it's risky... If I allocate enough fighters to get past theirs, I'd leave my own ships vulnerable to his CVBGs if they're lurking nearby.

Pago launched a counterattack of 7 B-17s -- I'm glad it wasn't dive bombers-- which shot down 2 Zeroes while they lost 1 to our CAP and a 2nd to flak. They tried to attack Akagi and missed.

Speaking of which, 1 CV was reported sighted by a sub-based floatplane near Pearl. That's probably the Hornet reporting into theatre. Pretty good odds the Saratoga is back in service by now too, so right now the lineup is probably Lex-Sara-Enterprise-Hornet, with Yorktown being repaired in Alameda.


China
I probed the blockading force outside Sian, and it looks like its enough to hold out against my reserves thanks to the mountainous terrain. I'm sending my tanks in Sian back down the road to help out.


Sumatra
We defeated the enemy base garrisons outside Medan.

[Molon Labe]

11 April 1942
Nothing worth reporting... quiet as it gets.


12 April 1942
Sian roadblock holds


China
A single Hawk fighter appeared over Kanshein, which I've been bombing pretty much daily in preparation for my troops to arrive. Our raid was unescorted; 2 Maries were shot down. I've cancelled these raids for the time being while I transition some more Nate squadrons to Oscars.

The reverse force south of Sian, combined with the armor detached from my main force, attempted to dislodge the blocking force but failed. As we've seen many times before, the number of units destroyed sharply favored us. I'm still not thrilled about taking the casualties though, so I'm just going to have my main force back up and finish these guys.


SOPAC
A Betty on ASW patrol out of Noumea claimed a hit on an enemy sub.


Industry
The Ki-45 Nick is now in production, a few weeks early--they normally arrive in May. Probably not worth the R&D cost, I'll do something else with these R&D plants next time.

[Molon Labe]

13 April 1942
Lackluster bombardment results at Cochin

Indian Ocean and Ceylon
Thinking I had a chance to neutralize an enemy fighter concentration due to the absence of ASUW threats, I used my carriers' heavy covering force to shell Cochin, with 2 BB and 2 CA firing at somewhat standoffish range with their primary batteries. The bombardment caused moderate airbase damage and destroyed 3 Hurricanes on the ground...out of at least 30. We sank a minesweeper and a corvette on the way in, at least one other minesweeper was present but managed to stay out of our way.

In hindsight... the weather was poor and I didn't assign a floatplane to be a spotter so maybe I could have done better.

Our tanks have eliminated the enemy garrisons to the north of our line of advance on Colombo--the only enemies left are in front of me now.


China
The former garrison forces from coastal bases that I'd recently relieved are now closing in on Kanhsien. I allowed some of the garrison forces at Kukong to move out one hex to try to dislodge a small enemy force between Kukong and Kanhsien to try to stop them from reinforcing Kahnsien, but we weren't able to overcome the terrain bonus to overrun them. I had 71 combat squads disabled, him just 39.

I also have a pair of fresh divisions entering the Sian front area, one that I pulled from garrison duty in the central areas and another recently purchased with political points and pulled from Manchukuo. This should allow me to rotate some beat up divisions back to Sinyang to recuperate, hopefully, after Sian falls, allowing us to continue our advance into the oil-producing northwest region.

[Molon Labe]

14 April 1942

CENTPAC
An AKL the was presumably evacuated from Pago when the KB drew close was sunk by one of my subs when it tried to return to port. Night surface gun/torpedo attack.
Recon aircraft are now surveilling Fiji, standing by for force estimates.



China
He's trying to be sneaky around Kokong, thinking he can take it back from me while I'm trying to grab Kanshien. I will have to pull back a bit but I think this ends with me taking Kanshien anyways while he sends troops into the meat grinder for me. I've adjusted bomber assignments to try to slow down the troops approaching from the northwest just in case.

Part of his adjustment here was calling five bombers in to hit by troops between the two bases, so I'm pulling some fighters into LRCAP duties over the troops.

Bay of Bengal
My carriers attempted a limited strike on a minesweeper displaced during the shelling of Cochin, but missed. 2 Hurricanes were on patrol but no aircraft were lost in the skirmish.

16 Blenheims hit our troops in Colombo, which somehow weren't covered by an LRCAP. I'll fix that tomorrow obviously. Fortunately this raid was ineffective.

Industry
A little snag with Nick deployments--very few fighter units are eligible to receive them, just bomber squadrons for the most part. So I might be transitioning some of the light bomber units--currently assigned to ASW duty--to fulfill the ASUW/interceptor role. Which then means I'd have to pull medium bombers from ground support missions to fulfill the ASW role, or I'd just have to pay political points to pull training units to frontline service. Nothing insurmountable, just tedious.

[Molon Labe]

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)

[Ostfriese]

Industry
A little snag with Nick deployments--very few fighter units are eligible to receive them, just bomber squadrons for the most part. So I might be transitioning some of the light bomber units--currently assigned to ASW duty--to fulfill the ASUW/interceptor role. Which then means I'd have to pull medium bombers from ground support missions to fulfill the ASW role, or I'd just have to pay political points to pull training units to frontline service. Nothing insurmountable, just tedious.




This actually doesn't surprise me, as the Nick (Ki-45) was a twin engined heavy fighter, like the P-38 Lightning or the BF 110. I was already wondering about this when you mentioned the Nick first, a few days ago. If it's modelled correctly in the game it should be inferior to contemporary single-engined fighters.

[Molon Labe]

This actually doesn't surprise me, as the Nick (Ki-45) was a twin engined heavy fighter, like the P-38 Lightning or the BF 110. I was already wondering about this when you mentioned the Nick first, a few days ago. If it's modelled correctly in the game it should be inferior to contemporary single-engined fighters.


I've been warned on Discord that the Nick will get its ass handed to it by most fighters, and that was my experience in the last campaign. But, the Nick's performance against bombers was impressive enough that I took notice--well worth a higher attrition rate against ordinary fighters, given just how much of a problem American heavy bombers are for Japan. Heavy bombers were essential to my campaign for their ability to disable airbases and bomb troop concentrations into submission. I could usually maintain acceptable losses against Zeroes or Oscars, but against Nicks those losses were unsustainable. Frequently, the only aircraft I had with enough range to clear the Nicks out were P-38s, and the Allies just don't get enough of them to be able to sustain a lot of losses there. So I think the key to beating the heavy bombers is, first, to build and deploy enough Nicks to sustain inevitable attrition, and also to bait those P-38s into losing fights against Oscars and Tojos.

[Molon Labe]

Where are the Carriers? (through December 1942 arrivals)


United States Navy
Lexington - In service. Participated in raid on Luganville 27-28 January 42 and Marshalls 23 February 1942, both with Enterprise. Upgrades due 3/42 (27 days), 6/42 (30 days), 10/42 (21 days), 1/44 (21 days), 1/45 (17 days).

Saratoga - Probably in service. Torpedoed by I-9, scoring two hits on 6 January 42. Estimated repair time 2-3 months.

Yorktown - Likely under repair after being hit by airdropped torpedo on 26 February 42 during attempted raid on Wake/Marshalls. Believed to be the carrier chased by subs from Pearl to Alameda from 19-27 March 42. Potentially back in service by now (15 April 1942). Upgrades due 4/42 (7 days--Assume completed), 7/42 (10 days), 10/42 (21 days), 10/43 (21 days).

Enterprise - Participated in raid on Luganville 27-28 January 1942 and raid on Marshalls 23 February 1942, both with Lexington.

Hornet - entered PACFLEET around 11 March. May have been sighted at Pearl Harbor 10 April 42.


---
Long Island - 21 May 42
Wasp - due 10 Jun 42
Copahee 15 Aug 42
Nassau 15 Oct 42
Prince William 23 Oct 42
Altamaha 27 Oct 42
Chenango 15 Dec 42
Sangamon 15 Dec 42
Suwanee 15 Dec 42


Royal Navy
Hermes - in service

Indomitable - in service

Formidable - believed sunk in Battle of Bengal Bay, 1 April 1942, 3 torpedo hits and a bomb hit delivered by Kates.

Illustrious - entering service 28 April 42 ish.

[Molon Labe]

16 April 1942
HMS Enterprise finished off--for sure this time--with significant loss of Betties

Bay of Bengal
The cruiser sheltering in Colombo made a run for it today, and it turned out to be the Enterprise, which had taken at least one torpedo and five bombs in previous combat. She didn't get far and was hit by a Betty raid at sunrise. But, that pesky bomber-to-fighter coordination issue happened. 13 Betties flew without escorts, running into 15 Hurricanes on patrol. I lost 12 of those, the sole survivor took a shot at Enterprise and missed. The attempts that followed had Zeroes escorting as intended--which got 2 Zeroes shot down--but also got us a torpedo hit on the cruiser, then Kates flew from my carriers (also with Zeroes), to score 4 bomb hits on it for a confirmed sinking.

We made our first attack on Colombo, reducing forts to Level 2 with slightly better than 1 to 1 assault odds. Combat squads destroyed/disabled favored the enemy at 160 to 116. Good thing I landed the extra division, I'd rather not try to make up the difference with airpower here.

Sweeps of Cochin failed to fly--these likely would have reduced the numbers of fighters protecting Enterprise if they'd flown.


China
The enemy is still flying his bombers to Kanhsien--two more downed.
And our troops captured Kanhsien, destroyed devices 1 to 234.


CENTPAC
Scout aircraft are spotting some surface combattants in and around Fiji. I'm moving the KB south to see if I can get a shot at one of these task forces tomorrow.

Ordered sweep of Suva, Fiji scrubbed by weather for a 2nd straight day.


Reinforcements
14th Ku T-1 arrives at Kwajalein Island - a very welcome Mavis MPA unit
13th Air Flotilla arrives at Hamamatsu - restricted airHQ, might purchase later

[Molon Labe]

17 April 1942
Attrition at Fiji and Cochin without real progress; Sian Roadblock defeated


SOPAC/CENTPAC
A night raid by B-17s destroyed a Zero on the ground at Noumea. Looks like I need to have fighters flying at night...

The KB's heavy covering force ran into an AKL north of Fiji and sank it. This may have been a picket ship. This move by the KB is intended to get between Fiji and Pago Pago to try to get airstrikes on task forces in between, and outside the large CAP umbrellas of both bases...

...which didn't work out. I messed up the settings on one of my Kate squadrons, so it went to attack a cruiser spotted right at Suva, Fiji. That small strike ran into the large CAP as expected. I lost 7 Zeroes and 9 Kates in that engagement while shooting down just 3 P-39s, and we didn't even hit the cruiser. And of course, my ordered Sweep of Suva failed to fly for a 3rd straight day. Had this flown it might have cleared out those fighters before the strike.

But it wasn't all bad news. The I-16 attacked the oiler Neosho at Pago Pago, hitting it with a torpedo and turning the fuel-laden ship into an inferno.

Another sub tried to deliver a midget sub into Pago Pago, the SSX was lost.


Bay of Bengal/India
The sweep of Cochin did fly, but we just broke even at 4 fighters each side.


China
The Sian Roadblock (formerly the Sinyang Stack) has been defeated again, for what must be at least the fourth time by now. Destroyed devices 1496 to 4. A few units didn't rout with the rest, so we'll need to spend another day clearing them out.


R&D
All A6M5 Zero R&D plants are up and running with the 500-engine bonus secured. At the current rate of progress, I expect to be able to produce the M5 in October 1942.

[Molon Labe]

18 April 1942
HMS Indomitable torpedoed off Perth; Suva sweep finally performed as ordered... but we lose


West Australian Coast
I-158 hit the HMS Indomitable with 1 of 6 torpedoes fired in a spread, setting of an aviation fuel explosion and setting the ship on fire. The I-158 only reported one escorting destroyer, which it evaded with little difficulty. The damage doesn't appear bad enough to sink her, and there were no telllate reports of naval aircraft taking ops or ground losses en masse, so she's not down yet. I expect she'll either continue to Perth to get patched up, or will retreat west to get off-map and eventually to Cape Town. Either way, she's probably out of action for something like 4 months, and either way, there's a chance for me to finish her off in the coming days.


SOPAC
The sweeps of Fiji finally fly after 3 consecutive scrubbed missions. The enemy Wall of Fighters holds pretty well, downing 9 of my Zeroes while we take down only 2 P-40s and 2 P-39s. I think I really need to pay close attention to my pilot training to make sure I'm not compromising on anything if I'm going to be doing sweeps like these. Nothing less than elite is working anymore. I also sent this group in at 20k feet, a little higher than usual, based on expecting to see a lot of P-39s. I'd hopefully get a dive attack and I'd lose minimal maneuverability up high. Doesn't seem that was accurate.

I've snuck the Mutsu and Yamashiro pretty close to the Fiji coast, close enough to sprint to Suva tomorrow but probably not close enough to get away from a retaliatory strike. He clearly has PBYs operating around here, but they may be distracted tracking the KB as it lingers to the east. I'm going to try to get closer.

I've also laid a minefield in Pago Pago, hopefully right in time to catch ships returning from the KB-prompted evacuation.



China
I finished off the remnants of the road block force that didn't retreat into the mountains.

[Molon Labe]

19 April 1942

CENTPAC
I-21 torpedoed an unescorted cargo ship west of Hawaii. The hit started a fire but the ship was not severely damaged--I expect it will return to Pearl and survive.

At Christmas Island, the I-19 was spotted snooping around the harbor and was peppered with damaging near misses by the US destroyer Grayson. She's in no danger of sinking, but the damage is bad enough I'd rather have her repair than fight in a compromised state.


SOPAC
I have a few destroyers roaming around between Fiji and Noumea trying to pick off the AKLs he's using as pickets. One such picket was sunk today by the Tokitsukaze.

Another sweep of Suva flew today, this time by a different Zero squadron while the one that took a beating yesterday rests and gets replacement aircraft online. These were just at 15,000 feet and did better: two Zeroes lost, 2 P-40s and 3 P-39s downed.

The Mutsu and Yamashiro are now in ideal position and remain undetected.


Bay of Bengal/India
I tried to sweep Cochin again and it was a disaster; 7 Oscars shot down with no victories. Again, it appears that no compromises can be made with pilot training when it comes to sweeps at this point in the war. Not that these were bad pilots by a long shot, it's just that I can probably make them marginally better and I need every little bit.

The sweeps did keep the enemy's Hurricanes busy enough that when 8 Betties attacked a cargo ship on the western Indian coast, there were no fighters protecting it. We missed, and the bombers flew without the Zeroes that were assigned to them. So that could have been godawful if enemy fighters were around.

[Molon Labe]

20 April 1942
Suva airbase incapacitated by naval bombardment


SOPAC
We picked off another picket AKL off western Fiji with a destroyer. By day's end, the KB had picked off two more, plus the APD Talbot (with a loss one one Val to flak).

B-17 night raids at Noumea were intercepted by Zeroes, but that only resulted in a Zero shot down. The B-17s missed the port (where I'm loading up troops).

The Mutsu and Yamashiro bombardment task force ran into the FS Le Triomphant outside Suva and the task forces engaged in a brief skirmish before the French destroyer withdrew. Neither side took serious damage, although I believe the DD's depth charge launcher was damaged, which might matter as this area is swarming with my subs. The battleships then shelled Suva, laying the airbase to absolute waste. The base itself was damaged to nearly 80%, while 6 P-39, 4 PBY, 3 B-26, 2 P-40, 1 SBD, and 1 B-17 were destroyed in the bombardment. Despite an error by me that didn't leave the ships with orders to depart immediately, the only retaliatory airstrike was a insignificant B-17 attack from Pago Pago.

This could be a major breakthrough that allows me to fully neutralize the enemy airforce here, even get my own troops in, and sink ships in harbor (which right now include a submarine).


Japan
An American sub is on patrol near Tsushima, and made a failed attack on a cargo convoy. Another was spotted off Hokkaido. So, the US deployment strategy has clearly changed to include merchant interdiction.

I've deployed a number of floatplanes and bombers that were being used for training and will now be ASW squadrons. This was always planned, it's just that the absence of US subs in the home waters allowed me to use them for training up to this point, so now I have more ASW trained pilots to put to use. As far as surface forces, though, for now I'm going to be short because I've forward-deployed most of my subchasers to secure chokepoints where subs have already been appearing.

[Molon Labe]

21 April 1942

SOPAC
I let the Mutsu and Yamashiro dump their reserve ammunition into Suva before leaving, destroying another P-39 and damaging several more aircraft.

Well south of Noumea, I had detected a single bogey a few days ago and sortied the cruiser Katori down to investigate, to make sure no enemy convoys were getting past us towards Australia. As it turned out, that was the cruiser St. Louis with a destroyer in company. We traded shots and the Katori took the worst of it. Fortunately, all the hits except one were either superstructure hits or didn't get through the armor. That single exception let a little bit of water into the people tube and lightly damaged the engines. The ship broke off with significant system damage and a moderate fire, but should be able to make it back to base if it's not attacked again.

We swept Suva from the West again--despite the damage, they got 27 fighters in the air, enough that we only scored 5 enemies shot down to 6 Zeroes lost. The KB followed that up with a port strike, shooting down 4 more fighters and putting two 800kg bombs into the USS Grayback, which really should sink it a few times over. There were supposed to be Betty strikes as well, but the missions did not fly.


China
The enemy put an I-16 over Sian, which was able to shoot down a Lily and escape before Oscars could get to it.

Another enemy unit stepped onto the Sian road, right where our army already was, so we attacked and routed them for another 420 devices destroyed with just 2 of ours lost.


Ceylon
We lost a pair of Betties to AAA over Colombo.
Reinforced with the Imperial Guards Division, our main force attacked Colombo and captured it, inflicting 1948 devices destroyed while losing only 68.

[Molon Labe]

22 April 1942

SOPAC/CENTPAC
Enemy minesweepers have cleared Pago Pago.

I used the KB's covering force to shell Nadi, Fiji, on the assumption that the flyable aircraft over Fiji had been rebased there from Suva. The bombardment destroyed only 1 P-40 but damaged a bunch more. So probably 1 squadron flying out of here.

Also near Pago, the I-168 spotted USS Colorado and fired 4 torpedoes at her, without success. But we've confirmed that the task force (which likely retreated from Suva) has BBs rather than CAs. I'd send the KB here right now to Kate-strike these heavies if I wasn't getting a bit thirsty. As it stands, I'm fairly sure the US CVs are in the area just out of scout range, so if I was to run low on fuel, a second battle could run me dry completely and I could lose the whole task force. So, the KB is moving off to the west to meet their tankers. If traffic persists in the area maybe I'll get another shot. But for now, the priority is going to be getting troops into Fiji, and keeping as many of their aircraft as possible disabled until we overrun them.

There were multiple enemy recon passes over Guadalcanal today. I'm not sure what to make of this, it doesn't seem feasible to raid, much less invade, right now.


West Australian Coast/Indian Ocean
I've got a bunch of subs right off Perth in feeding frenzy mode, looking for the Indomitable, but the enemy has many high-quality destroyers operating here, and we're starting to take hits, so we need to patrol further off from Perth a bit. If Indomitable went to Perth, she's already arrived by now anyway. Trying to take a peek with a scoutplane, but the only one I have here is damaged.

In spite of the ASW coverage, an enemy cargo ship tried to cross the area unescorted, and was sunk in a submerged daytime torpedo attack.

Way out to the west, I have 3 CLs also looking for Indomitable in case it went west. They spotted a minesweeper headed southeast, so maybe a possible rendezvous. I'm going to have the CLs cheat a bit in that direction, maybe the AM will lead me to the CV? We're nearly out of station time, though.


China
We downed one SB-III bomber trying to bomb troops in Kahnsien, but lost an Oscar trying to do the same at Wuchow, thanks to 2 I-16s escorting the bombers.


Reinforcements
CV Junyo has arrived. (I don't think I mentioned it, but Hiyo has been here a few days too. We're going to size up some training squadrons and then have them join the fleet).

[Molon Labe]

23 April 1942
IJN Katori lost to catastrophic damage control failure

SOPAC
West of Fiji, USS Trout spotted the KB's replenishment group and made a failed attack on one of the oilers. But, he knows exactly where the KB is going to be now.

As for the Katori... I'm not sure exactly what happened. The fire did get bigger instead of smaller, but not enough to cause a lot of damage. The flooding went from barely any, to just a little, to severe and sinking in two days time. It's as if a bulkhead broke down and the crew forgot to close every watertight door in that compartment and every one after it.


China
We shot down an SB-III bomber over Kukong. I've been tempted to increase my CAP to try to really focus these guys down, but I've decided I'm fine with the status quo gradual attrition.

The enemy brought a few Buffalos in and shot down a Mary around Loyang. These strikes weren't that important, I'll just scrub them.


Reinforcements
SS I-32 arrives at Cam Ranh Bay

[Molon Labe]

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.

[Molon Labe]

25 April 1942

SOPAC
I ordered an amphibious task force to depart Noumea with the 4th Infantry Division loaded, bound for Nadi, Fiji. Escorting PBs quickly spotted a US sub stalking it and drove it away before we could be engaged, but not quickly enough to prevent a contact report. He knows we're coming.

At daybreak, land-based Zeroes swept Nadi, taking out only 4 P-40s while suffering 5 losses.

ASW patrols from the KB are detecting at least 10 subs protecting the Nadi coast and surrounding area. KB's main role for the time being is going to be prosecuting those subs. Our pilots reported two hits today. Closer to Noumea, Anns reported a hit on a sub as well.


China
An enemy Buffalo was shot down by Oscars over Sian. We're still resting from the thumping we took before beginning our artillery bombardment.


Home Waters
An enemy sub that's been lurking off Tsushima was reported hit twice by Ki-32 Anns on patrol. The Anns actually reported the sub as the Gudgeon, and if they were that sure of the identity of the boat it makes me think these hits were real. Two 250kg hits at sea this far from base probably means it sinks.


Reinforcements
SC Ch 29 arrives at Kobe

[Molon Labe]

26 April 1942

China
Another SB-III down, this time over Canton. He should run out soon, it was just 5 attacking today. They lost a Buffalo over Sian as well. And they'd only put up one.


SOPAC
Mutsu and Yamashiro made an attack on Suva again, but before they got in position they suffered a series of raids by SBDs, Vincents, B-17s, and Banshees. The LRCAP from my land bases never showed up, not that it would have been enough as they were too far to have enough aircraft on station to overcome the number of escorts. Battleships spit out good flak, so we shot down 3 SBDs, plus one Vincent and one Banshee. The SBDs hit the Yamashiro twice, but the armor deflected the bombs and the damage was nominal. The battleships' fire on the enemy's base was far more effective, destroying at least 2 fighters and a bomber, but probably at least damaging everything else on the ground.


The KB's Kates reported two hits on subs, but we lost one to enemy CAP fighters and two more crashed while trying to land.

[Molon Labe]

27 April 1942
4th Division ashore at Nadi, Fiji; enemy takes heavy losses in attack on KB, IJN subs getting the job done


SOPAC
The 4th Division landed overnight with minimal resistance, just a failed submarine attack and a little bit of fire from enemy troops. The landing, of course, drew an airstrike with everything they had. Relying more on LRCAP from the KB instead of nearby bases, we managed to get better cover over the phibs than the prior bombardment, but it still proved inadequate. In first raid, we had 9 Zeroes against 26 fighters escorting 11 SBDs. We lost the air battle 3 to 4 with all the bombers getting through, resulting on lethal damage to an AMC with a second AMC and the cruiser Kingugasa also taking hits. A second raid of 11 Banshees walked in without resistance, dealing lethal damage to a troop transport and hitting Kinugasa again, forcing it to flood a magazine to prevent a detonation. By this time, though, my troops had already disembarked.

In the afternoon, the enemy turned their attention to the KB instead of the 'phibs, which worked to my advantage. A strike of 11 SBDs escorted by 9 fighters, and a second wave of 7 Banshees escorted by 8 P-39s, took on the CAP of 37 Zeroes. We downed 3 P-40s, 10 P-39s, 9 SBDs (1 by flak), and 7 Banshees.

A raid of B-17s still went after the 'phibs, resulting in 1 Zero downed with the enemy losing 1 P-40 and 1 P-39 that were escorting the bombers. The bombers missed their target (an APD).

Off the southeast coast of Australia, the I-18 torpedoed a PC, reducing it to matchsticks.



CENTPAC
Back at Pago Pago, the I-16 crept into the harbor and put 2 torpedoes into the battleship Colorado. She's not in danger of sinking, just some lengthy time in the yard.

Then southwest of Pearl, the I-22 torpedoed the oiler Neches, turning it into an inferno.



China
Sian is starting to smoke when bombed now. Maybe they're breaking, finally.


Burma
I've resumed bombing Rangoon--trying to prevent any further fortification building.

[Molon Labe]

28 April 1942
HMS Danae sunk off Pearl Harbor

CENTPAC
I-23 engaged the British cruiser Danae off Pearl, hitting it with 3 torpedoes for a confirmed kill.

Nearby, the I-22 finished off the burning oiler Neches.


SOPAC
USS Finback attempted to attack the amphibous task force unloading at Nadi, but is was spotted an prosecuted with extreme accuracy. We connected with four depth charge patterns, plus several damaging near misses. The sub wasn't even able to try to surface, it just broke up and sank.

I've begun night raids on Nadi/Suva with Betties. Tonight's raid damaged a Catalina on the ground.

A deliberate attack at Nadi failed to dislodge the enemy defenders. It's close--bombardments by battleships could put me over the top.



China
I made a bombardment attack on Sian, but we got the worst of it. Looks like I'll need to send someone around to cut off supplies after all.

There are literally 30 corps at Sian right now. Makes me wonder how many total China has and just how undefended everything else must be.

[Molon Labe]

29 April 1942
I-22 briefly fights a destroyer on the surface--and survives?


Western Indian Coast
The I-162 sank an AKL in a night surface gun/torpedo attack.


CENTPAC
Near Pearl, the destroyer Hull successfully prosecuted the I-22, scoring enough depth charge hits to force it into an emergency blow. While on the surface, the two ships traded gunfire. The Hull was hit for sure--I'm not sure if the 22 was also hit--if it was it wasn't a lot. The I-22 was able to re-submerge and make its escape. Making it the rest of the way back to base, though, that's another story. Her odds are good, but I thought the Katori was completely fine, and we know how that turned out.


SOPAC
We had a few low effort raids on the KB that needed to be turned back... 1 Banshee and 1 Vincent shot down. The KB's Kates claimed a hit on the S-46 and one other sub.

[Molon Labe]

30 April 1942
Suva/Nadi still fighting back


SOPAC
Hiei and Kirishima shelled Suva overnight but did not appear to do much damage. I had some Betties do some night bombing afterwards and lost one to flak.

At the same time as the shelling, I was landing aviation support in the hopes that the base at Nadi would be mine shortly. The enemy took the opportunity to get some airstrikes in, and once again my long-range CAP wasn't really up to the task. Catalinas scored three hits on a cargo ship for a kill, and damaging a second. The sunk cargo ship took an aviation support company with it--the first complete land unit we've lost in the war. We lost 3 Zeroes trying to defend the landing while only splashing 1 P-39. Heavy bomber raids caused a few casualties on the beach as well.

An enemy minesweeper ran from my task force at Nadi, allowing the KB to pick it off with some Vals.


Sumatra
We now have full control of the island with the capture of Sabang at the northwest tip.


Malaya
The CVE Taiyo has received sufficient temporary repairs to safely move it to Japan. The CVLs Zuiho and Shoho, along with the Hiryu, have reported to Singapore for a maintenance stand-down.

[Molon Labe]

1 May 1942

Indian Ocean
Aircraft have been spotting a British sub near Colombo over the last few days; I sent an ASW task force of 3 DMSs to try to sink it. Today, the sub ambushed the ASW task force and sank one of the DMSs. Ugh. The remaining ships only slightly damaged it afterwards.


CENTPAC
The I-8 hit a transport outside of Pearl with a torpedo, causing severe damage. It's close enough to Pearl to have a decent chance to survive.


SOPAC
Mutsu and Yamashiro shelled Suva. Again, not much damage, two days in a row. :06:

A deliberate attack on Nadi went nowhere. Enemy forts holding at level 3. The main defender is a New Zealand brigade. Casualties were pretty even, although we had a small number of squads destroyed while he did not.

We fared better in today's air battles against the unloading amphibious task force, downing 3 P-40s, 1 P-39, 1 SBD, 1 Banshee, and 1 Vicent--without losing any Zeroes.

The KB's Kates claimed a hit on the S-46


Western Australian Coast
I-123 took a shots at the cruisers Glasgow and Sumatra outside Geraldton (north of Perth) and missed. It's just interesting to see them here, especially after the Indomitable was spotted and hit near Perth.


China
We broke even on casualties with a bombardment attack. We've only got about a 50% force advantage now, thanks to constant enemy reinforcement. The combined aerial and artillery bombardment doesn't seem to be wearing them down that much. Although, I got the worst of it last bombardment, so maybe breaking even is actually a good sign?


Upgrades
I've fallen a little behind, with the Atago class cruisers overdue for an upgrade along with the Ashashio class destroyers. With May, the Kagero class is now due as well. The Atago class has been tied up around Ceylon while the Ashashios are mostly escorting carriers on both sides of the theatre. The Ashashio upgrade is pretty important as it increases the depth charge launcher numbers (accuracy by volume matters!) along with a significant AA upgrade. But it's going to be easier to upgrade the Kageros because they're mostly deployed as amphibious escorts, so there are lots of opportunities at base to swap ships. I think a lot of the DD upgrades will end up happening in June-July when my carriers will also be upgrading.

[Molon Labe]

2 May 1942
Roll the dice enough times, and you eventually get a bad result...


Arabian Sea
The I-28 sank an enemy AKL off the coast of Mangalore, India in a night surface gun&torpedo attack.


SOPAC
The Allied submarine infestation finally got a tally, with USS Silversides putting a single torpedo into the Mutsu between Fiji and Noumea. Damage is moderate. She'll retreat to Noumea for now, but actual repairs will probably be done in Japan.

The single division landed in Nadi will not be enough to take it. I was always going to need the second division to get Suva, I just thought I'd have captured a close airbase by now... In any case, I'm pulling the KB and the battleships back for now. We'll be back after I replenish the KB's aircraft. The division may need to hold out against heavy bombers and even an armored rush for a few days.


China
Raids on Sian destroyed a Buffalo on the ground, in addition to the regular-ish base damage and casualties our daily raids are causing.

I've become discouraged at the lack of progress at Sian and to try to shake things up, I've ordered an end-around movement to cut off the road supplying Sian from the west. It's going to be a slow move though.

[Molon Labe]

3 May 1942

SOPAC
Hiei and Kirishima had a successfull bombardment of Nadi, the last before we pull out. I accidentlly left them on 'remain on station' so they actually stayed there instead of making it a third of the way back to Noumea. Looks like we destroyed 5 fighters on the ground.

The enemy took advantage of my error, attacking the battleship task force with dive bombers, and the troops ashore with heavy bombers. But the KB got the job done. The enemy lost 3 P-40s, 4 P-39s, 10 SBDs, and 1 LB-30 Liberator. The bombers didn't get anything done. I got 5 new aces thanks to this little turkey shoot.

I timed a deliberate attack to coincide with this bombardment--it was good enough to reduce the forts to Level 2 but not take the base. Casualties slightly favoring us. Again, we need the other division here too.


Western Australian Coast
I-32 torpedoed and sank a tanker near Perth.


Ceylon
I've caught up with a remnant of the Colombo base force that's been working its way to Trincomalee, trying to find a weak flank. They found an overwhelming force instead. The enemy is mostly tanks, though, and our AT armament is limited. Casualties even this turn.


Burma
My invasion of Burma is about to begin. I have a 4-division main force about to rendevous with another division in Moulmein. Another 2 regiments set to capture Pegu--they departed Port Blair today. Plus about another 2 divisions or so to land at Pegu once it's taken. Overall, Rangoon should be completely overwhelmed, and quickly.

[Molon Labe]

4 May 1942
Ceylon campaign ends in decisive Japanese victory


SOPAC
The enemy has started to fly some fighters at night to intercept my nightime Betty raids. This is a great result for me as it takes these fighters off the table for the main battles, any attrition to the Betties will be very low.

An LB-30/B-17 raid hit our troops, disabling a single squad. Jungle cover is nice.

Enemy units appear to be advancing fro Suva to my landing area at Nadi. The enemy also appears to have moved another 20 or so fighters into Suva. Surprising, since this looks like a battle I should be able to win.

Sound effects for a sinking sub played in the afternoon, so it looks like the KB's Kates are having some effect.


West Australian Coast
I-32 took a depth charge hit off Perth and will need to RTB for repairs.


Ceylon
The armored unit outside Trincomalee has surrendered, and we also overran the last enemy base of Koggala, forcing those troops to surrender too. That was the last of the enemy troops on Ceylon.

Very good campaign here for us. We lost a significant numbers of aircraft and good pilots with them, but the enemy suffered far more. We also took very few army losses. The only significant naval loss was the damaging of the Taiyo, and for that we got an enemy carrier and a battleship.

Enemy Losses
CV Formidable
BB Resolution
CL Enterprise
KV: 1
AS: 1
AM/AMc: 5
AK/xAK: 2
Hurricanes: 86
Martlet: 16
Torpedo bombers: 30
Hudson: 12
Blenheim: 80
Waipiti: 4
Audax: 3

Japanese Losses
CVE Taiyo damaged - will be unavailable for several months
DMS: 1
AK/xAK: 4
AP/xAP: 1
Oscar: 28
Zeroes: 20
Kates: 15
Betties: 23

[Molon Labe]

5 May 1942
Burma campaign begins with invasion of Pegu

SOPAC
My Betty raids overnight on Suva did some damage, but more important is that it's tying up enemy P-39s.

My troops had no problem enduring a few raids by heavy bombers and dive bombers.

The KB has replenished all its aircraft at Noumea. I have insufficient ammunition tenders to fully replenish the carrier's aircraft ammunition stores, and the rearming of heavy cruisers and battleships is also delayed. I'm going to get the KB back out ASAP to escort another division to Nadi, I intend to have cruisers join them en route after they rearm, and have the battleships follow that ready to bombard the troops at Nadi and the airbase at Suva.


Burma
I landed 2 regiments in Pegu to begin the my invasion of Burma. These guys will hopefully clear out the resistance between here and Moulmien so that the troops in Moulmien can cross without having to shock attack over a river. Once Pegu is secure I have about 2 divisions waiting to land right behind them. But, there's a problem with that... Enemy troops in Rangoon are already reported moving to Pegu. If they arrive before I reinforce, I might be overrun, or at the least I'll be facing more resistance bringing them ashore. I'm guessing recon flights noticed I was moving more troops towards Moulmien. So, I'm altering the plan--the relatively unprepared troops offshore will land in Pegu immediately.



China
I think I've overreacted to the situation in Sian. The end-around supply cutoff is a bad move and I'm aborting it. I'm moving over bad terrain without roads, so it will take weeks. And Sian is, in fact, weakening. Today's bombardment destroyed 13 enemy squads, which is a lot for this kind of attack. I'm also going to be able to add light bombers the bombers attacking here in a few more days. They're also trying to maintain an attenuated supply line to a base with 140k troops in it that is constantly being bombed and repaired. And if nothing else, when I take Rangoon in another week or so, the Burma Road will be closed and China's supply situation will go from bad to worse.

Near Kanhsien, I got a little too aggressive and attacked what turned out to be 2 corps with just one brigade. I lost 5 squads for that, they'll be making an orderly retreat back to base.

[Molon Labe]

6 May 1942
Burma: Pegu captured


West Australian Coast
I-32 incinerated a loaded tanker outside Perth in a night surface attack. It was unescorted--despite the numerous destroyers conducting ASW patrols in the area.


Fiji
Our troops ashore sustained attacks from heavy bombers and dive bombers while the KB was away resupplying, but damage was insignificant. Sweeps over Nadi eliminated 1 P-40 and 3 P-39s with no losses.


Burma
We captured Pegu with minimal resistance.





7 May 1942
Heavy enemy air losses over Fiji


SOPAC
The I-20 sustained depth charge damage in two separate attacks near Pago Pago while trying to deliver an SSX to the port. The damage is serious and she's limping back to Noumea for repairs.

At Fiji, the enemy CAP was rejuvenated, with 21 enemy fighters greeting a Zero sweep. We blasted 3 P-40s and 9 P-39s, exploiting the poor high altitude performance of these early Allied fighters with a "stratosweep" from 30k feet. We lost just 2 Zeroes. I guess I should enjoy this while it lasts.




8 May 1942
KB returns to Fiji - incoming enemy bombardment task force?

SOPAC
An enemy night raid of Port Morseby with B-17s destroyed a Zero and a Dinah on the ground. I really don't want to tie up multiple aircraft detachments here but I clearly need to have fighters in the air at night. Sigh.

On the east side of Fiji, the RO-34 engaged an AKL on the surface with gunfire, crippling the ship. This ship is out of position to be a picket--maybe a supply run?

After yesterday's severe losses, the enemy only had 3 fighters on CAP over Nadi--we shot down 1 with a Zero sweep. At this point, our amphibious task force delivering a reinforcing army division--covered by the KB--was close enough to draw an airstrike--just 3 Vincents and 3 B-17s. The Vincents were shot down by our CAP, the B-17s missed. A slightly stronger raid of 5 SBDs escorted by 6-P-40s targeted the KB, but called it a day after 3 of the P-40s were shot down.

The KB's scouts detected an enemy task force approaching from the east and sent a strike after it. With most of my Kates on ASW duty, this raid was heavily weighted with Vals--33 Zeroes, 10 Kates, 35 Vals--which worked against me as it turned out this enemy task force was the HMS Warspite with the American heavy cruisers Vincennes and Chester, with a single APD escort. The enemy had 14 fighters trying to protect this task force, but we brushed them aside rather easily, shooting down 3 P-40s with one Zero lost, and keeping them off the bombers. We hit the Warspite with 7 bombs and the Vincennes with 1, but I don't believe any of the bombs penetrated the ships' armor. System damage to the Warspite is probably pretty decent though. One Val was shot down by flak.

Having most of my Kates on ASW duty wasn't so bad---we claimed 5 hits on enemy subs today, with sound effects for a sub sinking at the end of the turn.

https://i.ibb.co/51WzBzK/1942-5-8-Fiji.png
So, this left me in a bit of a bad spot. A battleship and two heavy cruisers is tougher than the surface forces I have immediately available, and they are close enough to attack before the next KB airstrike. The phibs have just one heavy cruiser and several DDs; the KB has 4 heavy cruisers and probably like a dozen DDs. I have a battleship task force to the west but it's going to take another day to get here. With the enemy force detected, it's likely they'll pull back, but if he decides to charge at either the amphibs or the KB, our battleships would be engaging in the aftermath if at all. Detaching a strong force from the phib's or the KB would be a major gamble--they'd need a lot of DDs to protect them from all the subs in the area, which would in turn leave my original TFs vulnerable to the subs. Plus my heavy cruisers would likely take plenty of devastating hits from the Warspite while struggling to penetrate its armor. And I suspect enemy carriers are in the area looking for an opportunity to jump in--pulling the CAs out of the KB would significantly decrease my flak protecting the carriers.

I mentioned my situation in Jochen's discord server, and one very experienced member, Heclapar, noted that the enemy force would be vulnerable to attack by destroyers--they are too slow. And I'd noted that several times this campaign, my enemy had interrupted my bombardment attacks with wear surface forces that nevertheless ate up my ships' ammunition which was needed to hit targets ashore. So, the plan is this: I'm detaching 3 Fubuki-class destroyers from the KB, with the light cruiser Yubari to lead them, right into the path of the enemy task force before they reach us. The Fubukis are the only destroyers in the KB that do not have the deep-reaching depth charges, so their ASW contributions to the KB won't be missed very much. And they have plenty of torpedoes. This force, I hope, will be enough to force the enemy TFs to waste most of their main battery ammunition before they reach their objective, which is worth it even if that means sacrificing these ships--his accuracy will be MUCH better if he's shooting at unloading transports instead of small, quick destroyers. And with a little bit of luck, I might get close enough for a torpedo attack and cause significant damage. The KB will follow that up with an airstrike hopefully first thing in the morning, this time, with more Kates.

As for the transports...they've started unloading and we are taking far more intense shore battery fire this time around, with three transports and two destroyers hit so far. He's clearly moved something over from Suva, and it looks to me like he's probably landed reinforcements despite the almost constant coverage of the KB, land-based maritime air patrol, and submarine patrols. So our troops have their work cut out for them.


CENTPAC
The I-9 made two separate attacks on the AO Guadalupe at Christmas Island with 6 torpedoes each time, and missed every shot. The I-8 did better at Palmyra, hitting an escorted cargo ship with a torpedo, causing potentially lethal damage.

[Molon Labe]

9 May 1942
Best Girl Fubuki trashes the Warspite surface combat task force

Fiji
Overnight our amphibious task force continued to unload while taking fire from the USMC coastal batteries. Two cargo ships succumbed to the damage by the end of the day, I scuttled a third that I considered hopeless. One more cargo ship and an LSD have damage accumulating. A Dutch sub tried to add to the carnage, but was spotted, depth charged, and driven off.

https://www.wallpaperup.com/uploads/wallpapers/2015/03/27/648132/7f66c1001f1cb62c392072b49ef640cc-1000.jpg

As I had been concerned about, the HMS Warspite's group charged. Honestly, a bad move, because even if they'd been successful, the KB would have wiped them out afterwards. But, my plan worked as good as it possibly could have. The Yubari's light task force ambushed them in a night battle, firing a volley of long lances at them before they had detected us, and pressing the attack to 3,000 yards while continuing to fire torpedoes. Warspite was hit with 5 torpedoes, and Chester with 3--both ships sunk. The Vincennes and the APD Gilmer were peppered with gunfire and withdrew with blazing fires and major damage. As for my task force, all three Fubukis had taken a single hit, all from relatively low caliber guns, causing damage ranging from light to inconsequential. The withdrawing Vincennes was then set upon by the I-3, which administered a coup de grace with 2 torpedo hits. The APD was not seen in company with the Vincennes and was not spotted by the KBs patrol aircraft in the morning, so we can say with some confidence she sank shortly after disengaging.


The KB did spot the AKL that was shot up by our sub yesterday, and finished it off with a Val strike.

The enemy tried for some payback at daybreak with an air strike of 32 dive bombers escorted by 18 P-40s targeting our phibs (arriving in 4 separate waves, which decreased their effectiveness significantly). The KB contributed 11 Zeroes to defending the ships, and with the cost of just one of those Zeroes we shot down 4 P-40s and 8 SBDs. The remaining bombers missed their targets. I attribute the scattering of the enemy airstrike to the significant damage the airbase has sustained from repeated bombardments.



Arabian Sea
The I-28 took out an AKL off the Indian coast with gunfire.


Burma
My plan to move my main force towards Rangoon hit a bit of a snag--the move from Pegu to the enemy force guarding the river crossing from Moulmein was itself also a river crossing. It just didn't display on the WITP map. So I still had to cross a river and shock attack either way, so I just did so with the main force instead of the troops we landed. We easily overwhelmed the defenders--a brigade and a battalion--forcing them to surrender. We lost only 1 combat squad.

[Molon Labe]

10 May 1942

Fiji
I had wanted to bombard the landing area at Nadi, but the size of yesterday's airstrike made the airfield at Suva a priority. The Yamashiro and two heavy cruisers (Mutsu is down for repairs thanks to that torpedo hit) hit them overnight, destroying 5 P-40s and 2 SBDs. We added 3 P-40s later in the day with sweeps over Nadi.



CENTPAC
The I-9 was depth charged by a corvette near Christmas Island, sustaining serious damage and forced to return home for repairs.


Near Lahaina, Hawaii, the I-4 put 2 torpedoes into the USS Mississippi, good enough to sit her out of the war for a few months.

[Molon Labe]

11 May 1942
Paratrooper assault in Burma - mixed results

Fiji
Zero sweeps downed 1 of 4 P-40s on patrol at Nadi.


China
I cleared out some enemy units once again trying to roadblock supplies to Sian. I made the mistake of keeping a tank regiment in reserve for pursuit--it would have been a great plan had they retreated on the road instead of into the mountains--now I have a tank regiment stuck in the mountains and it's going to take weeks to get it out.


Burma
I attempted an airborne assault on several bases north of Rangoon that are part of its rail network. The idea is to let them retreat from Rangoon if they want, but only a little bit into Burma, nowhere near India or China. Success was mixed: we captured the "eastern road" bases of Meiktila and Toungo with no resistance, while taking heavy losses at Magwe and being wiped out at Tuang Gyi. The plan is going to be to try to use the forces landing at Meiktila to get us over the hump in Magwe, or at least consolidate while armor runs up the roads from Rangoon to link up and bail them out.

There are some enemy forces moving up the western roads but I can't tell how many are trying to pull out. The more the better--I expect Rangoon to be heavily fortified. I'd rather fight just about anywhere else.

[Molon Labe]

12 May 1942

Fiji
Hiei and Kirishima shelled Nadi, hoping to cause enough disruption for our troops to finally break out of the beachhead. We didn't quite get through--forts are down to level 1, squad destruction was low and about even, while we had more squads disabled. The bombardments are clearly working, though. It isn't helping that the second division we landed wasn't prepped for this in advance and ended up taking a lot of disablements upon landing, if they'd been at full strength we'd just roll over them.

Sweeps took care of 1 of 2 P-40s still trying to defend Nadi.


Burma
Our paratroopers tried again to take Magwe but failed. Light casualties.

[Molon Labe]

13 May 1942
Mostly uneventful. I made an attack at Nadi, reducing forts to 0, casualties higher on our side but not enough that I'm worried. The crippled I-20 is reporting damage control failure events and might not make it back. Kates reported 2 sub hits off Fiji.


14 May 1942
I-122 hit a mine trying to lay a minefield at Perth and sank. Live by mine, die by the mine. The I-164 sank a cargo ship approaching Socotra with a pair of torpedo hits.


15 May 1942
Yamashiro shelled Nadi, which was enough to get us over the top--it's ours, finally. And we got to blow up 7 P-40s on the ground as a nice bonus. I also attacked in Sian, which held, but with squad destructions twice as high for the enemy, and they are getting a strength deduction for low supply levels. We're so close I can taste it. In Burma, he's begun making unescorted bomber raids on my paratroops in Magwe, which cost him 2 Audax bombers courtesy of Oscars on long-range CAP. The Burmese retook Meiktila as I am trying to concentrate my paras on taking Magwe.

[Molon Labe]

16 May 1942


India: I-28 sinks an AKL near Goa
Burma: 3 Blenheims shot down over Magwe trying to bomb my paratroopers. Toungoo captured by tank regiments moving north from Rangoon.



17 May 1942


Fiji: Enemy minefield cleared at Nadi. Not that it did them any good, I've been landing troops there this whole time. Maybe it was just laid in the last couple days? Also at Nadi, the S-28 torpedoed and sank one of my minelayers being used as a troop transport.

The KB has been relieved by the Juno/Hiyo CVBG as far as covering the ongoing amphibious operation and battleship fire support. KB took replenishment at Noumea this turn.

Palmyra: I-26 sinks an enemy PC on patrol
Burma: 5 more Blenheims down over Magwe
Port Moresby: playing a bit of a guessing game with him, switching my Zero detachment from day to night patrols. Today was night and a supply run was arriving--a daylight B-26 raid attacked the convoy without any resistance on my part. Fortunately, they missed

18 May 1942


IJN Kaga returns to service. Will remain in Yokosuka for a few days resizing navy squadrons, then rejoin KB.
I've laid a small minefield of my own at Nadi to try to take out any further US submarine infiltration of my beachhead.

19 May 1942


Port Moresby: USS Triton has a great day, reattacking my supply convoy after a failed attack yesterday. First, it sinks the PB escorting it. Then it attacks the large cargo ship on the surface, using up its remaining torpedoes to sink it. The last ship, an AKL, it attacks with gunfire, leaving it crippled.
Burma/India: I attack Akyab, India with the Hyuga and Ise, retaliating for the Blenheim strikes on Magwe. We destroy one or two Blenheims on the ground, cause some fires, and destroy some support squads.
Noumea: 2 LB30s shot down by Zeroes trying to attack the port. The bombers successfully hit a docked PB.

[Molon Labe]

20 May 1942
Burma: Armor advancing towards Magwe wiped out a retreating enemy base force. We attacked Rangoon, knocking forts down to 3 and destroying 82 combat squads to 6 lost, with 4 to 1 assault value ratio. This will go quickly despite the high forts.


21 May 1942


China: we've routed enemy forces near Nanchang, destroying over 200 enemy devices while losing just 2. The retreat of this unit will allow the forces that we've slowly moved over from Wenchow to consolidate with local forces that ended up in a stalemate. In other words, the front line around the Changsha region is now fluid again.
Intel: We got a rare, big series of SIGINT hits from Sydney indicating 3 subs are in port there, with only about 15 fighters and 20 bombers defending the base. The subs are probably under repair from damage sustained off Fiji.

[Ostfriese]

Do you think you are on a good way to achieve an auto-victory by the end of 1942?

[Molon Labe]

22 May 1942
USS Hornet torpedoed off Pago Pago

SOPAC
North of Pago Pago, the I-170 fired a spread of 4 torpedoes at the USS Hornet, connecting once. There were no secondary explosions and the damage did not appear to be severe. Per the surviellance by the 170 along with scoutplanes from other subs in the area, the US has 3 task forces in the area, two of which have carriers. In response, I'm backing off from Fiji a little bit so they don't hit the relatively weak Junyo CVBG or the bombardment task forces. The KB had been heading towards Sydney, but I'm turning them around to support the Junyo CVBG if its attacked.


I lost one Betty bombing Suva, but to keep them from being distracted from a possible enemy carrier assault, I'm removing this secondary tasking going forward.

[Molon Labe]

Do you think you are on a good way to achieve an auto-victory by the end of 1942?


Yes. I'm a little behind on reports so there are some major point swings that aren't showing here yet. As of 5/22/42 (the last posted report)I have a 2.850 to 1. I need to get that to 4 to 1 for the autovictory. As of 5/27, it's 3.636 to 1. I won't be maintaining that pace! But a few more major victory point hauls and his back will be against the wall. He really needs to truly stop me somewhere.

[Molon Labe]

23 May 1942
Rangoon captured; Hornet and US carrier forces deterred by early detection and submarine attack

Fiji
Despite the possible incoming carrier attack, I allowed the Kirishima and Hiei to perform their scheduled bombardment of Suva this morning, as they're pretty fast and should be able to clear the area before being attacked. As it turned out, the enemy carrier forces broke contact, apparently not in the mood for a fight having been spotted in advance and with one carrier already damaged.

The enemy salvaged a small victory from the situation, slipping 4 PBYs in under my CAP at Nadi, which managed to tag an AMC with a 500lb bomb, causing moderate damage.

Timed to be on the same day as the battleship bombardment, I made another deliberate attack on Suva, acheiving only 1 to 2 assault power ratio with enemy forts holding at level 3. The attempt cost us both an equal number of devices destroyed and disabled, but the enemy is showing a supply shortage, so this should start to tip in my favor soon. Still, discouraging enough to get me to start loading up reinforcements from Truk and Guadalcanal.



Coral Sea
My woes near Port Moresby continued, with the KIX torpedoing and sinking one of the DMSs I sent to try to evacuate the stricken supply convoy (which is now just one badly damaged AKL). The enemy also has moved separate B-17 groups here, so he doesn't need to alternate between day and night attacks--he can do both. Without adequate supplies, I can't replace the inevitable Zero losses from intercepting these bombers (or the occasional aircraft destroyed on the ground--there's been at least one). I've pulled another Zero detachment out of Guadalcanal to try to restore some balance here, and another supply convoy is enroute.


China
Sian held out against another of our attacks, and I'm honestly not sure how. Forts have been reduced to rubble. Our adjusted assault power ratio is 1.6 to 1; anything over 1 to 1 should be an overrun with the forts at 0. In any case, their squads destroyed were double mine, and he's in a supply crunch so he can't re-enable disabled units, while I can. This will be over soon.


Burma
Rangoon fell rather quickly, with our forces overwhelming them despite them maintaining level 2 forts. Part of the reason for the easy win might be that he had begun an partial evacuation before the battle began--we're observing some land units making a run for the coast and/or India. Today's attack cost me only 6 squads; the enemy lost 580 devices. I'll be pursuing the retreating garrison all the way to Magwe if I need to, where hopefully the enemy will find that my armor and paratroopers have already taken that base from them and will be trapped.

Speaking of cutting off retreats, I hit Lashio with an airborne assault, and failed to take it probably because of having the paratroopers on the wrong settings. I still have a decent chance of taking it in another day or two--the defending garrison is so weak I didn't even take any casualties. Lashio sits on the only road connecting Burma to China and would have been the ideal place to rail retreating units out. His prospects for getting anything out of Burma look pretty grim, IMO. He can probably save units fragments with transport flights, but that's about it.

[Molon Labe]

24 May 1942


Burma:

We failed to take Magwe with a shock attack even with one of the two armored regiments having arrived to reinforce the paratroopers.
I've captured Lashio with paratroopers.

China: We've captured Pingsiang, China, causing nearly 10k in casualties to the Chinese in the process. The area south of Changsha is becoming a new fluid frontline

https://i.ibb.co/Lz1fGHH/1942-5-24-China.png

[Molon Labe]

25 May 1942


Fiji: Yamashiro and Fuso's turn to shell Suva. Wasn't that effective. The following land attack reduced forts to 2 with light casualties on both sides, slightly higher for the enemy as the tide starts to turn. The enemy is low on supplies.
Coral Sea: DMSs are now evacuating the damaged AKL, a US sub attempted an attack but missed. One B-17 shot down over Port Moresby.
I-17 sinks an APD off Penrhyn Island. The convoy included tankers and troop transports.
Burma: The enemy is responding to Lashio's fall by bombing it with Wellingtons and B-25s, their first appearances of the war. His raids into occupied Burma so far have been with far less capable Blenheims.
Arabian Sea: I-153 torpedoes a cargo ship off the Indian coast. I think it survived though.

[Molon Labe]

26 May 1942
Sian Captured -- 54,000 Chinese casualties



I-172 sank a minesweeper off Busselton, Australia
As the headline says, our deliberate attack on Sian finally caused an overrun. We lost a mere 11 squads and 3 vehicles in the final assault; the enemy lost 4,940 total devices - a loss that is sure to permanently alter the balance of power in China. We'll be following the retreating enemy all the way to Lanchow to get those oil fields. We might even be able to move on Chungking of all places--often an impossible fortress to crack. Recon says its pretty lightly defended right now, the cost of putting so much up front at Sian. More conservatively, we should be able to split off some of these forces to send south to Changsha.
The bad news: Every production facility in Sian was disabled. I don't think it's going to be cost effective to repair any of it.

[Molon Labe]

27 May 1942
Suva captured, concluding conquest of Fiji



Fiji: Nagato and 2 CAs shelled Suva without much effect. Damn jungles. But, it was enough to turn the tide. Our troops attacked and forced all remaining Allied forces on Fiji to surrender. There were 10 enemy units present, including 2 infantry regiments--a substantial loss for the Allies. Plus another 13 P-39s that had been disabled at the base as a nice little bonus.
Burma: enemy bombers are being divided up by target: Blenheim Is to Magwe, Blenheim IVs, B-25s, and Wellingtons to Lashio. We shot one Blenheim down over Magwe. Getting Oscars all the way up to Lashio right now is impractical, but once Magwe falls I have aviation support standing by to move right in--Oscars based there should be able to defend Lashio to some effect. For now, our troops just have to rely on the jungles for cover. An attack on Magwe now with 2 armored regiments failed to take the base, but it did reduce all remaining fortifications to nothing. Probably the next attack will do it.

[Molon Labe]

28 May 1942

West Australia
The I-172 torpedoed and likely sank a cargo ship off Albany, and ended up sustaining substantial depth charge damage for its trouble. But we have found the new shipping lanes being used to avoid Perth.


Reinforcements
I-31 (a floatplane carrier) joined the fleet; I ordered it to the Marshalls.


29 May 1942

Bay of Bengal
The Hyuga and Ise approached Chitagong to bombard the airbase there; the destroyers spotted a sub--a Dutch sub, oddly enough for the Indian coast--and drove it off before it could take a shot at the battleships. The bombardment did moderate airbase damage with some casualties, but it appears few aircraft were actually there.


Coral Sea
The KIX scored a pair of torpedo hits on a cargo ship about to unload at Port Moresby--which somehow survived. There are enough subs causing enough of a problem for me that in addition to the floatplanes I've already moved here, I'm bringing in some Betties as well. This is going to be a problem if I can't run the occasional supply convoy into here.


Burma
A deliberate attack at Magwe failed to overrun the enemy, but caused significant enemy casualties. Soon.

[Molon Labe]

30 June 1942

West US Coast
My first successful midget sub attack since Pearl Harbor--an SSX was delivered to San Fransisco by the I-18, which penetrated the port and torpedoed a fuel-laden cargo ship. The SSX failed to find its way back out and was abandoned by the crew. A minesweeper found the I-18 waiting for the SSX, but the I-18 was able to elude it.


Burma
We splashed 3 Blenheims over Magwe. Lashio continues to endure strikes without fighter coverage.

We've captured Prome.


---
31 May 1942
Colorado finished off en route to Alameda?

EASTPAC
The I-10 intercepted an escort convoy of battleships including the Colorado, Oklahoma, and Nevada, about 2/3 of the way from Hawaii to the West Coast. Its attack hit the Colorado twice, leaving the ship crippled. The I-10 took significant depth charge damage afterwards. I'll be trying to intercept this convoy again before it arrives. I think it's likely the Colorado is doomed, though, because it had pre-existing damage and its got a long way to go.

The I-18 was being prosecuted by a corvette, but that didn't stop it from running into the same task force, where it made a failed attack on the Oklahoma. The only destroyer in the task force that we saw was out of depth charges from the prosecution of the I-10.


East Australian Coast
The KB is arriving near Sydney to try to sink subs being repaired there. We opened with a long range sweep, which shot down 9 P-39s with no Zero losses. I've noticed a rather large number of subs on patrol in the area, though, so this is a major concern. We clearly see that his priority use of subs is defending coastlines rather than interdicting my tankers, so that's something I'm going to have to consider when using carriers offensively like this.

Vals from the KB sank an AKL near the coast, probably being used as a picket.


Coral Sea
We got 3 B-26s attempting to bomb a supply convoy unloading at Port Morseby with Zeros, a fourth was shot down by AA in the port.


Burma
Took awhile, but Magwe has fallen to us. There's a blocking force on the only rail line that runs here from Rangoon, so the pre-positioned aviation support unit still can't rail into here. But I have a few companies I can fly in. So I'll be establishing a local CAP here right away, possibly with the option to fly something long-range over Lashio. As for Lashio, they held out against another Allied attack today, but I'm clearly not going to hold it. So taking Magwe when I did was a big deal; basically the enemy was never able to rail anything out through Lashio and can only use the roads, which means I can at least chase them and cause attrition as they try to reach China.

[Molon Labe]

1 June 1942

CENTPAC
East of Samoa, the RO-34 torpedoed an escorted cargo ship. Later in the day, the I-169 found the stricken ship and put two more torpedoes into her to finish her off.


Fiji
I've cleared the enemy's mines out of Suva's harbor.


East Australian Coast
An American sub was caught attempting to get past the KB's ASW screen and was forced to evade.

The KB once again swept Sydney, disposing of 9 more P-39s. Today would have been an actual strike, but that ended up being delayed as I had rerouted the KB to avoid the subs... which obviously didn't quite work. The KB helped itself to another AKL on picket duty.


Upgrades & R&D
Four PCs are having depth charges installed and will soon be decent short-ranged deep water patrol vessels. Two minelayers are also being converted to Kaibokans.

The A6M3 version of the Zero is now available, and I'm retooling a small portion of my factories to produce a limited run of them. The M3 has somewhat improved medium altitude performance, but is not carrier-capable.

The R&D plants for the Tojo are starting to come online. As the aircraft is originally expected to arrive in September, I expect the R&D to cause this plane to become available quite quickly... possibly even before the month ends.

[Molon Labe]

2 June 1942
B-17s really grinding my gears

Coral Sea
B-17s made several night raids on Port Morseby, resulting in the loss of three Zeroes thanks to their gunners. They didn't do much damage on the ground.


CENTPAC
An enemy troop transport hit one of my mines laid off the southern tip of Hawaii's big island. It'll survive.


Burma
I used a long-range CAP to try to defend Lashio from enemy bombers. I got 6 Blenheims in that exchange. This was the combat debut of the Nick fighter-bomber, they appeared in equal numbers to Oscars but were credited with 4 of the 6 bomber kills.

We've captured Prome as our advance north towards Lashio continues.



SOPAC
The KB's raid against Sydney is scrubbed by bad weather. It picks off a minesweeper near Sydney instead, at least that's some pressure off my subs.

At Luganville, an enemy sub tried to attack a troop transport loading there but was routed by a destroyer.


China
My main force at Sian is on the move west towards Lanchow. They made a shock attack crossing a river today, which wiped out the 48th Chinese Corp on the other side, which I presume was the remnants of a Sian garrison force. We destroyed about 900 enemy squads while losing only 5.

We also had a rare negative outcome in a land battle in the central region near Hanyang, suffering 96 devices destroyed to 33 killed despite attacking an enemy force less than half our strength.

[Molon Labe]

3 June 1942

Burma
Magwe sustained minor airbase damage in a night raid by Hudsons, Wellingtons and Blenheims, with 1 Oscar destroyed on the ground.

We've captured Meiktila. Mandalay has also been swapped over to our side by proximity. Which kind of sucks because it has a garrison requirement.


SOPAC
Port Morseby also took a night bombing from B-17s, with the bombers shooting down one Zero.

The KB took out 2 minesweepers outside Sydney, taking out 3 P-39s in the process. The main raid on Sydney itself targeted the port. The CAP was non-existent due to today's earlier losses and the sweeps from days prior; although we ended up losing 2 Kates and 3 Vals to flak. Sadly the port was empty, apparently those subs under repair had already departed.


Ceylon
12 Lysander bombers attacked the port in Trincomalee, causing slight damage and mostly evading the CAP.


China
Our advance in the central region proceeded with the routing of four enemy corps outside Hengyang.

[Molon Labe]

4 June 1942
The Curse of Midway strikes....KB may be flying too close to the sun...


CENTPAC
The USN has cleared the minefield I left at the Big Island.

Floatplanes flying out of the Marshalls reported 2 hits on enemy subs near Kwajelein.


Burma
The Brits made another night raid on Magwe but we were able to harass it with fighters enough for it to be ineffective.


SOPAC
Yet another 3 Zeroes felled by B-17s at night over Port Moresby.

Thanks in part to the enemy CAP being depleted yesterday, I attacked Newcastle's heavy industry to try to at least have something to show for my raid on Sydney other than P-39 and minesweeper kills. He did have a CAP up, though, and we took out just one P-39 while losing a Zero and 2 Vals. We got 13 HI hits in the raid, which netted us a surprisingly high 72 victory points. So not so bad after all.

We suffered a retaliatory raid, just 3 B-17s. Somehow 2 of them got through the CAP (41 Zeroes!), and one of them put a bomb right through the flight deck of the Zuikaku. Damage is pretty minor and she's still flight-ops capable.

A Kate reported a hit on an enemy S-boat.



Ceylon
The Lysanders came back, but they couldn't slip past the CAP this time. We splashed 9 of 10 of them.

[Molon Labe]

5 June 1942

West Coast and Aleutians

The I-18 took serious damage from a minesweeper patroling near San Francisco. It's returning to Japan for repairs.

The I-24 also took a series of damaging near misses near Adak Island and needs to RTB for repairs.


Burma
He switched to daylight raids on Magwe. A flight of Wellingtons managed to evade the Oscars and Tojos on CAP and caused subtantial airbase damage. Nothing I can't repair, but I also can't let that keep happening.


SOPAC
The small fire set on the Zuikakau by yesterday's bombing was contained without further damage. The KB is retiring before we get tagged again. Up next for them will be a raid somewhere in CENTPAC and a move on Midway.

[Molon Labe]

6 June 1941


Ceylon
14 enemy Hurricane-IIbs swept Trincomalee, opposed by 10 Oscars. The Hurricanes came in at 30,000 feet and our Oscars were patrolling at 15,000 and 10,000 feet. I mention the altitudes because in my first campaign, my opponent eventually insisted on altitude limitations because I was sweeping at high altitudes with too much success--so in this campaign, I'm trying to see if I can come out ahead by refusing to try to win the "altitude race" and just fighting down low where I maneuver better. He won this round 3 to 2, which considering I was outnumbered, I don't think is so bad.


China
We shot down an SB-III bomber near Henyang, China, as he tries to interdict troops starting to flank Changsha. We did suffer a few squad disablements from the bombers that got through.


Burma
The focus of enemy bombers in Burma has returned to the Lashio area instead of Magwe. My priority is defending Magwe--our troops at Lashio can hold out from bombers in the mountains. Magwe's airbase and industry are far more vulnerable.


Reinforcements
SS I-33 arrives at Osaka/Kyoto
2nd Ku S-1 arrives at Yokohama/Yokosuka - restricted fighter squadron, transitioned them to Claudes and assigned to training.

-------------------------------------
7 June 1942


Burma: Tuang Gyi captured, former Rangoon garrison routed as it retreats towards India
KB arrives safely in Noumea and replaces aircraft losses

[Molon Labe]

8 June 1942


uneventful turn; Lashio troops attacked by enemy but they surprisingly manage to hold out thanks to the defensive bonus in the mountains.

9 June 1942


I-23 fires torpedoes at Prince of Wales near Baker Island in the Gilberts, misses.
I-158 torpedoes and sinks a minelayer at Esperance, Australia, takes depth charge damage after and sets course for home for repairs. The sub was on a mission with one other to mine Esperance and Albany--the Albany minefield was spotted and is already being cleared, but this one appears to have done unnoticed.
I've begun landing troops on Efate. This was an important base for the enemy months ago, but we bypassed it while taking New Caledonia; with the fall of Fiji I have some idle troops that can head back and deal with this.
We shot down 2 Blenheims attacking our troops in the mountains around Lashio.
We routed a force of 26,000 troops outside Sian, but we had over 400 squads disabled in the effort. This could potentially complicate things when I reach Lanchow.

[Ostfriese]

It's been quiet for two weeks now. I hope you are well, and in case you aren't I hope you'll soon be.

[Molon Labe]

Sorry for the late update...


Leo has surrendered. He said he wasn't having fun anymore. Disappointing that we invested this much time but never got to a point where the Allies were counterattacking. But it is what it is.

[Ostfriese]

That's unfortunate, but maybe you are just too good. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:



Thanks for the reports, I really enjoyed reading them.