[Molon Labe]

18 November 1942
Rangoon falls; Kido Butai (or just a division?) approaching Rossel Island; Lexington, Saratoga and Washington save Babar, for now

Battle of Rangoon
Overnight Val/Sally raids on Raheng damaged 3 Vengeance bombers. I hope I don't have to start taking these seriously. A heavy-cruiser led bombardment group shelled Rangoon damaging three ships under repair, including the light cruiser Caradoc. Daylight sweeps over Raheng cost the enemy 6 Oscars with no victories. The remaining Vengeance bombers resumed their interdiction mission, causing 46 enemy casualties in Pisanuloke.

The relatively small enemy unit moving north up the road from Rangoon towards Mandalay was hit by 33 B-25s based in India, causing 113 casualties. These guys might become really important as we fight to keep the supply route through the mountains open.

As expected, the enemy forces at Rangoon attacked again and overran our positions. We took over 8000 casualties as our forces retreated to Bassein. We managed to evacuate all but 3 planes before this happened, 2 Blenheims and a Catalina, no big loss. But 3 ships had to be scuttled to prevent capture, including the Caradoc. One xAP was able to get underway but I don't expect it to get far. An enemy tank unit was kept in reserve to pursue our retreating forces, so we're still in contact with the enemy. The pursuing tank unit will be the B-24s target tomorrow.

My "main force" is already in Moulmein and will attack tomorrow, I expect an easy win here at it appears the enemy has mostly just support troops here. But after that.... I had hoped I could keep Rangoon long enough to get these guys across the river into central Burma, he'd have to divide his army to stop me and I could possibly defeat them in detail. Doing that now would probably just mean I face the full force of his army, minus the few guys headed north, which is a fight I probably lose even if my Tavoy forces arrive.

For now, my best bet is to hold Moulmein until my Tavoy forces arrive, doing otherwise would allow him to cut them off and eliminate them. After that depends on whether he makes a real effort to shut the mountain supply line down. For now, my supplies are OK, the bad situation from the last few days seems to be getting back under control.

Banda Sea
Awhile ago, I had ordered an amphibious task force with an aviation support unit and destroyer-minelayer escorts to Babar. They arrived in the area a few days ago but had to stand off because of the enemy warship presence at Babar. At this point, landing aviation support might just be throwing away a good unit, possibly a good squadron too since the purpose of more support is more planes. But I do have the heavy cruiser Australia in this group. So they shelled the enemy positions, and I'll have them lay their mines tomorrow.

Also, the Lexington and Saratoga are here--their objective is to sink an enemy surface combat task force to try to change the balance of power here. It may be too late for that, as there's no one left near Babar and I'm not sure they want to come back after yesterday's asskicking. They detached the battleship Washington and the heavy cruiser Portland, which also shelled the enemy on Babar. And the task force launched an airstrike, too, which was disappointingly uncoordinated, aircraft arriving a few at a time. But with no enemy fighter presence it didn't matter too much. Along with the now-daily raids by B-17s, B-26s, and Hudsons from Darwin, the naval bombardments, the raids caused the enemy's attempted attack this turn to completely collapse, casualties 319 to 32.

Due to the sheer number of enemy troops landed, I can't win this fight unless I add troops of my own. I'm airlifting Australian light infantry and sending machinegun units by boat. I also ordered a supply convoy making a return trip to make an unscheduled stop at Port Moresby to pick up troops there to add to the mix. It's not so much that I can't afford to lose what I've invested here, it's that 2/3rd of an unrestricted enemy division is too good of a target to pass up.

Lex and Sara are going to carefully proceed north towards Ambon to get a raid in before they clear out, staying outside of Zero range from Koepang (I don't mind Betties if they don't have fighters protecting them, especially with Butch O'Hare flying CAP). I might let them leave their heavy cruisers here to continue to suppress the enemy troops. I'd include the Washington in that, but Darwin can't rearm her main batteries efficiently. But there's another consideration here...


Solomons Area
The KB sortied from Guadalcanal and is approaching Rossel Island. I normally don't believe scoutplanes' classifications, but this is being reported quite reasonably as 4 CV, 1 BB, multiple CAs and DDs. I'm hoping this is just a division of the KB based on recent sightings that suggested just 2 fleet carriers. They left before the enemy knew Lex and Sara were near Darwin, so their objective appears to be the surface combat task force that their sub attacked yesterday. I am having that task force head all the way to Darwin now, both to protect it from the carriers and to potentially face off with enemy surface forces near Babar.

If the enemy decides to go any further west, they'll be dealing with CVW-6 on Milne, which I reinforced with the two USMC SBD squadrons that just got a taste of combat at Ndeni. All the area's level bombers are assigned to scout duty to back up the Catalinas to make really sure we know where the enemy is. Except for an Australian B-25 unit at Port Moresby; we have recon showing no enemy fighters at Rabaul, just scoutplanes, so they're going to hit Rabaul to try to take some of the enemy's eyes away.

If that's the full KB, we really need to at least knock out one carrier if it tries to go west. The last thing I need is the Lex&Sara stuck between 4 carriers to the east and a potential death star of Betties & Zeroes in Koepang to the west.


Japan
USS Runner sank an AKL in a gun&torpedo surface attack between Okinawa and Kyushu.


China
It took awhile, but I have a full unit of special forces on Hainan Island now, currently on the base we control. They appear to be undetected. They're marching on the enemy naval base on the other side of the island.