My opponent is traveling this week, so we might be pausing the campaign for now. He did send me the replay file for 12 January, though, so I have partial information on the outcome of that:
12 January 1942
Invasion of Palmyra stalled, Shokaku and Zuikaku return to Pearl to boost air raids
CENTPAC
USS McCall sank as it limped away from yesterday's battle. The landings at Palmyra continued without further interference from my navy, but it looks like the damage was done. The surviving transports took more artillery fire from ashore, and a bombardment by the Oi appeared to be ineffective. The soldiers ashore gave it their best, but took 244 casualties without hurting my marines at all. This invasion looks to be stalled unless they can reinforce. They also landed combat engineers, so they might be able to deal with the forts, but it doesn't look close enough for that to be a difference-maker.
At Pearl, 6 battleships and 3 cruisers bombarded the bases. At least 2 planes were destroyed on the ground, with at least 25 more damaged. That these numbers are so small is testament to just how little is left. I don't have an estimate of facility damage yet, but I know runway damage was 10% and service damage 47% before they hit us today.
The base being nicely softened up, the Shokaku and Zuikaku rejoined the KB to join the series of air raids. The damage from today's raid was probably as serious as the original 12/7 raid:
BB Pennsylvania - 8
BB Maryland -6
BB Oklahoma - 5
BB W Virginia - 5
CA Minneapolis - 6
CL St. Louis -2
CL Helena -2
CL Detroit -1
DD Blue -1
DD King -1
AE Pyro -1 (and ironically, on fire)
AD Rigel -1
AV Wright - 2
AM Grebe -1
A whole lot of these were 800kg AP hits. The raid cost them 4 Zeroes, 4 Betties, 8 Nells, and 5 Vals. Zeroes shot down 1 Wildcat on patrol.
Well, I guess he has a decision to make now. Should he send reinforcements to have his soldiers on Palmyra, and if so, should the carriers support it? A major potential downside to saving Palmyra might be that he starts to consider my convoys a threat. I've been enjoying commerce-raider free traffic so far. For now, convoys heading to that area are going to have to turn around.
As for me, I'm SOOOOOO glad I got most of the undamaged combattants and the faster tenders out of Pearl when I did.
SouthPAC
USS Pompano found an unescorted AKE near Truk and attacked on the surface, scoring a torpedo hit and several gun hits. The AKE also hit the Pompano twice, but I won't know how badly until I get the save file. If this were further into the open ocean I'd say the enemy ship was doomed, but he might get to Truk and survive.
Malaya
Trying to imitate the success of the light bombers in the DEI, I set my Wirraways to low level attack to try to get the destroyers that are sinking my ASW craft. They didn't find the destroyers, so the went after transports in Mersing. They missed; defending Nates shot down an escorting Hurricane and flak got one of the bombers.
His bombers continue to harass the forces around Kuala Lumpur. He'll wipe them out, then consolidate to the south for the final siege.
Dutch East Indies
We repeated yesterday's raid on Miri and hit a PB. The little 50kg glorified hand grenades don't do too much damage when there's no fuel or oil to set on fire.
No raids by the CVLBG today. I wonder if he's going to head east towards the Coral Sea to deal with my cruiser force that's been giving him headaches.
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