War in the Pacific AAR Thread - ML vs JFranzen

[Molon Labe]

19 July 1942
VT-5 delivered to Hickam AFB

Hawaii
The enemy sent another flotilla of landing barges to Oahu to try to evacuate troops. They were obliterated--2 by patrolling subs that surfaced to gun them down, and 10 by USMC Buffalos on low altitude patrol.

The land battle for Oahu claimed another 902 Japanese soldiers and 14 of ours.

USS Wasp delivered the Yorktown's former torpedo bomber squadron to Pearl/Hickam, which immediately transitioned from Devastators to Avengers. They'll be fully operational in 4 days.

The suspected bait ship is moving north towards Pearl, moving deeper into my PBY search radius. My subs are trying to reach it and are searching for possible enemy forces in the areas near it outside my PBY range.

Johnston Island
I used B-24s to raid Johnston and was surprised that there was a decent CAP of Oscars there. We ended up losing 2 of the B-24s to the damage they sustained in the raid. The raid itself didn't do any significant damage to the airfield we targeted. There are ships at Johnston, including a cruiser. Probably an evacuation.

Malaya
An enemy sub skipper got a little too aggressive (I know, Subsim doesn't believe that's ever possible), firing 2 torpedoes at a motor launch patroling near Singapore and giving its position away. The torpedoes missed and the ML retaliated, scoring multiple hits with depth charge patterns, severely damaging the sub. It didn't sink at Singapore--but I'll be surprised if we ever see it again.

Singapore was hit with air raids again; 1 Zero was shot down by the CAP and AA took down 2 bombers. A Hurricane, a Beaufighter, and 2 Albacores were destroyed on the ground. The damage to the base is still manageable, but my supply is cratering. During the original siege of Singapore, I had occasional cargo runs from Palembang and the factories in Singapore had sufficient resource stockpiles to produce supply--both of those are no longer the case. A possible ray of hope: my troop movements in Thailand may be producing a reaction; troops across the river from Singapore appear to be moving north. I'm putting a recon pilot in my last Beaufort and trying to get eyes on them. If the garrison gets too weak I might attempt to break out of the siege and retake resource areas to get my factories back at full capacity.

Celebes Sea
The KXVIII torpedoed an enemy PB on patrol near Tarakan. Surprisingly, the torpedo did not appear to cause severe damage, and the PB attempted to prosecute the sub. The KXVIII disengaged, then set up another torpedo salvo, which missed.

China
Two fighters down on each side in Chengchow, otherwise everything looks quiet.

Thailand
I've resumed bombing troops near Raheng to try to deter an attack on Raheng as I'm advancing towards Bangkok, and to soften them up in case they fall back to Bangkok. Nicks intercepted; 1 P-40 and 1 Nick were shot down.

Reinforcements and refits
DD Gwin beginning refit in shipyard at Los Angeles
DD Hughes taken out of commission to begin refit at Los Angeles
SS Gato taken out of commission to begin refit at Brisbane

[Molon Labe]

20 July 1942
Japanese carrier fleet approaching Pearl

Banda Sea
The S-36 attempted a surface attack on a cargo ship near the oil-producing port of Babo, but the cargo ship scored a hit on the S-36 that caused a fire. S-36 broke off.

Java Sea
The KX hit an enemy cargo ship with a torpedo off Batavia, causing severe damage. Later in the day, the KX found another cargo ship to target and hit this one 3 times, sinking it.

Hawaii/CENTPAC
S-47 visited the port at Johnston and found 7 destroyers on patrol. It took a shot at one (missing) and then evaded counterattack.

The land battle for Oahu claimed another 1746 enemy soldiers and 14 of ours. This wiped out the "A" and "C" portions of the 21st Division.

An enemy task force is approaching Pearl Harbor; at this time its composition is reported as a carrier, 2 battleships, and a seaplane tender. My take on this is that these are the 2 fast battleships of the KB coming in to shell Hickam airbase with at least one CV providing air cover. It appears that the enemy task force will arrive shortly after sunrise tomorrow. Bombardment task forces almost always try to arrive at night, so they might actually slow down and pause to hit us overnight after tomorrow.

At this time, Pearl/Hickam doesn't yet have a whole lot of ASUW capability; we have a partial-strength SBD squadron and a torpedo bomber squadron that's only starting to come online. Plus a ton of level bombers, but they're not going to hit warships all that well. Wasp just delivered the Yorktown's former fighter squadron, VF-42, to Hickam. So at least our SBDs will have a ton of fighters available to escort them. I have two convoys approaching that I'll order to hold off, I'm backing off the few DDs and CAs I have here to keep them out of the way. I have 5 S-boats on a patrol that I'm putting in the enemy's path. Wasp, since it's acting as an aircraft ferry right now, has only its own fighters embarked, so it's just headed back to California. Saratoga and Lexington, now commanded by Admiral Halsey, are on their way here, but whether they actually engage is going to depend on timing and how many carriers they actually have. If the enemy does get a shot at those carriers, their attack pilots are going to end up shocked by the amount of AAA they're going to put up--Lex and Sara themselves have been upgraded, there are 2 CLAAs in company, plus 2 heavy cruisers and I think 14 destroyers that have all had substantial AA upgrades.

China
One Oscar down over Chengchow today.

Sumatra
I used my Fulmars to attack land units approaching Palembang, which hit them without resistance, as expected. This move is intended to cause him to set up a long-range CAP rather than actually do damage. I'm moving my Albacores from Singapore to Palembang as they're getting blown up on the ground there--and because he's choosing his shipping routes to stay out of their range from Singapore, so we may get a shot at something tomorrow, and with any luck their fighter coverage will be on their land units.

Thailand and Burma
I shifted my bomber attacks slightly, hitting the base at Pisanuloke (next to Raheng) instead of the nearby armies in the open. It worked out and I caused heavy casualties to land units that are probably packing up to be shipped by rail to Bangkok--but they flew without escorts, yet again. Fortunately there were no defending fighters.

Oscars tried to strafe MLs on ASW patrol near Rangoon; they got nothing except one of their own shot down by AA.

Solomons
A PBY that snooped Tulagi found an enemy minesweeper there and bombed it as a target of opportunity.

Reinforcements/Refits
23rd Marine Regiment arrives at Eastern USA (near full strength, unrestricted)
AM Skylark arrives at Alameda
DD Laffey taken out of commission to begin refit at San Francisco
DMS Perry beginning refit in shipyard at San Francisco

[Molon Labe]

21 July 1942
Kido Butai defeats USMC dive bombers, again

Solomon Islands
The S-28 attacked a convoy of tenders approaching the Solomons from the north, hitting a seaplane tender with a Mk10. The tender was not fatally damaged.

Malaya
A Japanese sub attacked an ML on ASW patrol and missed, the ML counterattacked, dealing substantial damage with depth charges before the sub escaped.

Enemy sweeps downed 2 Mohawks over Singapore. 3 bombers were shot down by flak. Enemy bombing accuracy isn't good enough to outpace repairs.

Oscar raids targeted MLs on patrol with strafing runs. Damage in the morning was insignificant, but they connected solidly in the afternoon, resulting in one ML scrapped.

Sumatra
2 Hurricanes down over Palembang, the first sweep was 40 Oscars to 4 Hurricanes and got worse as the day went on.

Hawaii
The enemy carrier force is getting closer, and it looks like the whole KB except for the torpedo-damaged Akagi. (confirmed: Junyo, Kaga, Zuikaku, Hiryu)

The six USMC Buffalos on low altitude naval attack orders decided the KB was an appropriate target. The CAP was 107 planes. They didn't come back.

The second raid was our partial strength SBD squadron (11 planes) with 21 F4F escorts, a small fraction of what was available. 5 got through, attacking the Hiryu and Junyo, but they all missed. All the SBDs were lost, to the CAP and 2 more to flak. 6 F4Fs and 5 Zeroes were also downed.

After one last raid that destroyed 2 light bombers on the ground at Lahaina, the level bombers and flyable torpedo bombers have all been evacuated to minimize the damage when the battleships hit us.

No airstrikes by the KB.

Pearl's Marines inflicted 1990 enemy casualties without taking losses, eliminating the 14th Army headquarters.

Thailand
1 enemy Nick shot down by Hurricanes trying to stop our bombers near Raheng. Some enemy forces at Tavoy are moving back towards Bangkok.

China
The enemy attacked at Chengchow, bringing forts down to level 3. Casualties 17810 to 7000 favoring us.

[Molon Labe]

22 July 1942
KB charges at Pearl, but doesn't attack...Land Battle of Oahu ends

CENTPAC
S-47 approached Johnston Island to attack the concentration of merchant shipping there. It torpedoed and sank an AKL. The Pollack was next, attacking another AKL on the surface, hitting it with one or two dud Mk14s but causing major fires with deck gun hits. S-47 got in on that action too, putting two torpedoes into the likely-doomed ship.

West of Oahu, the Flying Fish encountered the large destroyer formation spotted at Johnston a few days ago. It took light damage from a pair of near-misses.

The KB looks like it's going to Lahaina instead of Pearl. Covering an evacuation? It was so close we lost 1 PBY and 5 Kingfishers to the CAP. It didn't attack, with aircraft or with its battleships. And we lost track of it. Obviously, it's still close, though. It may be trying to locate any ships I had heading to Pearl and stopped on the northeast side of the island chain, so I'm backing those guys off even more.

The land battle of Oahu has ended at last, the blood of the last soldiers of the 2nd Division wiping out their foul footstep's pollution.

China
The battle in the air over Chengchow claimed 4 Oscars and 2 P-43s.

Singapore and Sumatra
Palembang was able to provide one British squadron with Hurricane replacements. The Mohawk squadron and New Zealand squadron are worn down and probably aren't coming back, so those Hurricanes plus a beaten down Aussie P-40 squadron are all that's left for both bases.

Singapore sweeps cost 1 each: Hurricane, Zero, Oscar. 6 Oscars assigned to strafing attacks were also downed by AA.
Damage to both bases is failing to outpace repairs.

Reinforcements
AMc Hinau arrives at Auckland
YMS-120 arrives at Los Angeles
VS-5 arrives at San Francisco (Yorktown's former scout squadron reformed; we don't have enough planes to outfit it yet)
No.205 Sqn RAF arrives at Koggala (Catalinas, we don't have qualified pilots for them so this has to be a training squadron)
I US Corps arrives at March Field (Corps HQ unit, unrestricted, full strength)

[Molon Labe]

23 July 1942
KB disappears after charging Pearl

Malaya/Sumatra
Massive air raids continue.

We didn't have a CAP up over Singapore today. AA took down four bombers. Damage on the ground is still unaccumulating. Repulse took a few more non-penetrating hits. Oscars strafed Singapore's last minesweeper and sank it.

We managed to get 2 Hurricanes up over Palembang; 1 was shot down. Damage on the ground is not accumulating.

The Fulmars at Palembang took off to try to hit an enemy task force, but failed to find the target.

Thailand
Enemy Nicks and Oscars got through our escorts protecting Blenheim bombers attacking troops in the open near Raheng. We lost 2 Hurricanes and a Blenheim.

Hawaii
I have no idea where the KB ended up. That I have ships north, east, and south of Hawaii and none of them are reporting sighting aircraft suggests they turned around and left to the west, but I'm still worried they're going to show up in my shipping lanes or even off the west coast.

My PBYs took advantage of the KB's absence, though, and hit a cargo ship loading troops at Lahaina with a torpedo. I'm moving my bombers back to Hickam, but I'm not replacing any lost fighters and divebombers just yet.

Reinforcements
AM Dubbo arrives at Townsville
112th Cavalry Regiment arrives at San Francisco (unrestricted, full strength)
11th USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme (unrestricted, full strength)

[Molon Labe]

24 July 1942
Successful Allied torpedo bomber strikes wipe out an ASW task force and sink a merchant full of troops; KB's general whereabouts known

Hawaii and CENTPAC
We haven't spotted the actual KB again, but we have something almost as good-Kates attacking the USS Thresher near Kona. Thresher was damaged, along with a Kate, but at least we know the KB is somewhere southeast of Pearl--possibly trying to cover transports covering troops.

If that's what it's doing, though, it's doing a **** job. 3 PBY Catalinas attacked a retreating merchant, hitting it with 3 torpedoes, sinking it instantly. 1759 land unit casualties were reported. 2 of the 3 Catalinas crash landed at Hickam due to the damage they sustained during their attack runs. VT-5 has let them know they'll take it from here.

At Johnston, the S-47 hit the AO Shiriya with a Mk10, setting its fuel cargo on fire. The Pollack also hit the tanker Tatekawa Maru with a Mk14, but of course it didn't explode.

Malaya and Sumatra
At Singapore, we got 4 fighters in the air on CAP, which was enough to shoot down a Zero and 2 Sallies. 5 more Sallies were shot down by flak as the enemy split his bombing altitudes at 10,000ft and 20,000ft. The guys at 10,000 are apparently quite vulnerable.

The Albacores that rebased to Palembang flew a sortie along with Fulmars and a pair of Aussie P-40 escorts. The Albacores did so well the Fulmars didn't even attack. An ASW squadron was wiped out--a PB, and 2 SCs. That's only going to work once, the next will have a CAP.

China
I've pulled back a bomber squadron from the Chengchow frontline because replacement Hudsons are available at larger bases in the rear. The ongoing air battle over Chengchow claimed 2 P-40s, a 1 P-43, and 2 Zeroes.

Thailand
The enemy has reinforced the base opposite from Raheng, which is good news because it keeps them away from Bangkok. Our escort situation was a mess again, 4 Blenheims were shot down; the escorts that did fly with the bombers shot down a Nick.

Solomons
I sent my B-17s to Guadalcanal after hitting Rabaul uncontested for a few days. 10 Oscars were protecting Guadalcanal-they shot down 1 B-17 while the gunners shot down 2 Oscars. We lost another B-17 to flak from the base. We slightly damaged the airbase, but in the port we found a sub and hit it twice. Regretfully, the bombers reported that the damage to the sub wasn't all that bad.

Reinforcements and refits
SS Whale arrives at Mare Island - assigned to Dutch Harbor
TK Mobilube arrives at Cristobal
AMc Sanda arrives at Auckland
38th BG/405th BS arrives at Eastern USA - B-25s, unrestricted, full strength

DD Porter beginning refit in shipyard at Los Angeles

[Molon Labe]

25 July 1942
KB disappears again, Chengchow resists a major push


Malaya and Sumatra
We managed 10 aircraft on CAP over Singapore today, which were able to bag 6 Betties and a Nell that had few escorts. Later in the day, though, a major raid of over 90 Sallies with at least 20 Zeroes escorting were able to shoot down 2 Hurricanes without loss, both shootdowns claimed the lives of British aces. Most of the Sallies bombed from 20k and did little damage; one squadron bombed from 10,000, one of their planes was shot down by AA.

China
One Oscar was shot down over Chengchow--Boyington's 4th.

The enemy "death star" army at Chengchow (about 150,000 troops) attacked in force, reducing my fortifications to level 2. Casualties were 13138 to 7247, favoring us. I think we'll be able to hold in spite of the decreasing forts.

Thailand
We traded 2 Hurricanes for 2 Oscars. I'm going to stand down my bombers here for awhile, the missions here aren't worth losing planes over just yet. The B-25 squadron that was recently delivered to India is now in Rangoon, so when we resume bombing it should hurt. I've also got 2 Canadian fighter squadrons on their way here now that I have destroyers available to escort the ships from South Africa.

Hawaii
There's a major surface task force at Johnston, not sure what their deal is. No sign of the KB today, including aircraft sightings. I'm sending subs southeast of Kona to try to re-establish contact. Heavy bomber raids against Lahaina has resumed. A Kingfisher spotted an enemy sub and bombed it on the surface.

Reinforcements and Refits
AVP Pelican taken out of commission to begin refit at Suva
AVP Thrush taken out of commission to begin refit at Eureka
SS Porpoise taken out of commission to begin refit at Singapore
AM Advent arrives at Portland (converting into a subchaser along with one other)
3rd NZ Division arrives at Auckland (unrestricted corps HQ)