War in the Pacific AAR Thread - ML vs JFranzen

[Molon Labe]

9 December 1941
Magwe under attack in Burma, Timor area mostly quiet for now


Japan
A 3-tanker convoy got past our subs near Okinawa. USS Gunnel managed one dud hit on one of them.


Timor and Arafura Seas
The local surface action group is making its way back to Darwin to hopefully resume bombardment missions. A sub intercepted it on the way, but we spotted it in time and depth charged it pretty good. The Lex/Sara CVBG was also approached by a sub, but the escorts spotted it and forced it to break off.

My carriers are backing off a bit, trying to avoid the subs and leaving the defense of Babar and Darwin to their local air forces.

New Britain
He tried protecting Rabaul with Tojos but that didn't work any better, 3 shot down with no P-38 losses. Damage from the B-17 raids looks like it's starting to accumulate, so I might be able to disable the airbase if I keep it up. With the base nearly empty, though, am I just disabling it against my own future use?

Burma and Thailand
The tip of the evacuation train at Uttaradit drew pretty much every enemy bomber in theatre, it had to be over 200 aircraft. Except for 6 Anns that bombed Moulmein. The jungle is pretty thick here so this isn't the best use of them, but it will mean we can't counterattack effectively. The enemy land forces attacked, causing 654 casualties while taking 1194. The combat report indicated the enemy had a slow supply alert, but not me. Good to see that the garbage infrastructure of the area is hurting him as much as it's hurting me. Really no excuse, though, he has a rail line from Bangkok to here and nothing stopping him from landing supplies in Bangkok. Except, perhaps, that his strategic-level supply picture is actually bad and keeping Bangkok supplied wasn't a priority.

We suffered 7 more Blenhiem losses thanks to poor fighter-to-bomber coordination near Magwe. Late arriving Hurricane sweeps got 2 of the responsible Zeroes, but suffered 2 losses of their own. Over Magwe itself, our Hurricanes shot down 5 Zeroes and 2 Oscars while taking just 3 losses, helping our B-25s and B-24s get through to the tank-heavy enemy units below. But the fighter numbers are titling in their favor up here now, too. I wish I could say it was going to get better soon, but it's not. He attacked here with his land forces--mostly tanks--dishing out 400 casualties while taking 190--and not taking significant armor losses. That's bad, really bad.

We finished off the remaining paratroops at Cox's Bazaar.

[Molon Labe]

10 December 1942
Kido Butai returns to Arafura Sea--looks to be challenging Lexington and Saratoga to a brawl. Midway liberated, Magwe captured.


CENTPAC
Midway fell to my marines with barely a whimper from the enemy. The battleship New Mexico and cruiser Pensacola bombarded the shores overnight, and the Marines hit the beaches right after that, supported by suppressive fire from the Nevada. The enemy garrison was wiped out--the 42nd Naval Guard Unit and 28th JNAF Unit, about 3000 enemy troops. We had 393 casualties. There was an enemy midget sub or two here but they failed to make any attacks.


Burma and Thailand
Both of us poured bombers into Magwe to try to influence the ground battle there. That cost 3 Zeroes and 1 Hurricane. As hard as we hit the tanks with B-24s and B-25s, it wasn't enough, Magwe was overrun; casualties 1951 to 179 favoring them. I foolishly thought we'd last one more turn after the relatively modest set of losses yesterday, so I hadn't pulled my Hurricane squadrons out, resulting in the loss of 8 aircraft and several pilots when the base was overrun.

Babar Island and the 3 Seas Around It
Betties attacked Babar in two waves--the first probably going after a pair of minelayers I sent there. The first wave of 7 Betties and 9 Zeroes was routed with just one Betty shot down before they turned around. The second wave was 33 Zeroes and 18 Betties, this group pressed and paid the price for it--7 Zeroes and 18 Betties shot down, no Allied losses. 3 Betties made it through to the base and dropped a few bombs on our ground forces--nothing they couldn't handle.

As the Lex and Sara took a sort of meandering path southeast to avoid the enemy subs, VT-2 and VT-3 were still finding plenty of them even if they weren't directly in our path. They reported SIX bomb hits on surfaced subs. SIX!!!

An enemy convoy was detected on the coast of Timor, with the enemy carriers apparently gone I had decided the environment was non-threatening enough to allow the Beaufighters to resume operations, so this contact was referred to them. They strafed 4 cargo ships while getting 3 bomb hits each on two of them; the two hit by bombs we believe sank.

EDIT: I left out the most important part! We reacquired the KB on the east side of the Timor Sea, close enough to our carriers that it's a bit surprising we didn't already start slinging planes at each other. He's too far away to get any help from Koepang. I'll be headed southeast to make it easier for the P-38s at Horn Island to help, I should get a little help from P-38s from Darwin as well.

[Molon Labe]

11 December 1942
Major Naval Defeat in Arafura Sea; Lexington and Saratoga lost, we only get the CVL Shoho in exchange

Burma
Battles over Magwe continue as that's the greatest area of concentration of enemy troops right now. We shot down 6 Oscars and a Zero, losing 2 P-40s.


Arafura Sea
Sigh. Alright, before I go here, I want to say a few things in my defense. Strategically speaking, encroaching the enemy slowly to maintain airpower over what I'm taking was only half-working, and the reason it isn't working so great has been the KBs ability to take over the airspace of anywhere it goes. I needed to cause some carrier attrition to change that. The status quo was making it look like we'd lose Babar soon, and with it, probably any hope of getting to Java before the enemy is done with Burma.

Tactically speaking, I thought I was being appropriately cautious, letting him lose planes to my land-based forces first, refusing to engage when he had extra help from land bases, and in the end, luring him into range of my own bases so that I'd have plenty of P-38s helping to protect my ships.

Here's the order of battle for this fight:
Allies:
CV Lexington
CV Saratoga
BB Washington
2 CA, 2 CLAA, 12 DD

35th Fighter Squadron (Horn Island) ~18 operational P-38s
No75 Sq RAAF - (Horn Island) 16 P-40s
VF-3 and VF-6: 72 Wildcats
VS-2, VB-2, VS-3, VB-3: 72 SBD-3 Dauntless
VT-2, VT-3: 30 Avengers (we'll call it 15 because half are on ASW duty)
[Also, about 15 operational P-38s in Darwin providing cover as the task force moves from the eastern Timor Sea into the Arafura sea towards Horn island; the battle took place after these guys were out of range or close to it, so we won't count them]
Total fighters: 106
Total attack: 87

Enemy:
CV Shokaku (27 Zeros, 27 Vals, 18 Kates)
CV Zuikaku (27 Zeros, 27 Vals, 18 Kates)
CV Hiryu (26 Zeroes, 26 Vals, 17 Kates)
CVL Shoho (18 Zeroes, 12 Kates)
BB Kirishima
BB Kongo
5 CA, 8 DD
Total fighters: 98
Total Attack: 145

Looks pretty even, but with pilot quality probably being a big boost, and tremendous AA on our side to help in a pinch, right?

Except, despite the battle only being about 120 miles from Horn Island, well within the range of the P-38s and even a comfortable distance for the P-40s, they mostly sat the fight out, so even though we had the superior number of fighters, we were outnumbered in the Fighter column in every wave.

Wave 1:
64 Zeroes, 76 Vals, 49 Kates vs 44 Wildcats, 3 P-38s, 1 P-40
As has often been the case with naval air battles, the enemy managed to keep our fighters away from his bombers despite taking heavy fighter losses, in this case 13 Zeroes to just 3 Wildcats and the P-40. The whole strike package made it to our ships. The flak made the Kates work for it, shooting 5 of them down and damaging most of the others, but seemed ineffective on the Vals. None were shot down, and of the Vals that weren't picked off by fighters after the attack, only 1 did not participate in the second attack.

The first torpedo to hit the Lexington set off an ammunition explosion. Towards the end of the wave, a Val's bomb set off a fuel explosion on the Saratoga. Those hits individually put the ships in danger of loss, but of course they weren't the only ones.
CV Lexington, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DD Caldwell, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
BB Washington, Bomb hits 6, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
CV Saratoga, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires
CLAA Atlanta, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DD Lardner, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires
DD Porter, Bomb hits 1, on fire
We shot down 3 Vals and a Kate as they tried to leave.


Counterattack: 26 Wildcats, 60 Dauntlesses, 13 Avengers vs. 52 Zeroes and 3 Rufes.
Half of the Wildcats should have gone on this attack--maybe 10 of them turned around to help defend the ships? Anyway, the air battle was pretty different. We only shot down 1 Rufe, while we lost 4 Wildcats--and then the CAP had an absolute field day on the SBDs--22 total (2 after the strike)l, a third of the strike. 7 of the Avengers also drifted out of formation and got lost, so they ended up arriving late and with no help. Those 7 were also shot down.

So, not only did we have a difference in the number of bombers getting through, but our accuracy was much lower - 18% vs 12.5% for the dive bombers and 11% vs 0% for the torpedo bombers:
CV Zuikaku, Bomb hits 1
CVL Shoho, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
CA Mikuma, Bomb hits 1, on fire

I don't know why the Shoho got more love than anyone else, but one of those bombs set off an ammo explosion on her, too. 3 1000lb bombs might have been enough to do her in even without that, so I'm calling that a kill. The hit on Zuikaku somehow hit her in the side instead of through the deck and ended up being mostly deflected by her armor, so she's still fully operational.

Wave 2: 33 Zeroes, 27 Kates, 72 Vals vs 1 P-40, 2 P-38, 4 Wildcats. With both my carriers knocked out, my aircraft diverted to Horn Island. There were minimal aircraft available to resist the second attack. We traded 2 Wildcats for 2 Zeroes but the planes otherwise made it through. Flak got 3 Vals and a Kate.
CV Saratoga, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
CV Lexington, Bomb hits 9, heavy fires, heavy damage
BB Washington, Bomb hits 6, Torpedo hits 5, and is sunk
CA Portland, Torpedo hits 1
CA Chester, Bomb hits 2, on fire
CLAA Atlanta, Bomb hits 1
DD Meade, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk

So, that happened. Nothing left to do but try to pick up the pieces.

We had one other strike in the area, the Beaufighters went after a surface group near Babar--probably the Yamato's group, though they wisely didn't attack anything bigger than a heavy cruiser. The CL Kitikama and CA Maya suffered strafing damage, but we didn't get any bomb hits. Neither ship appeared to be badly damaged.

CENTPAC
A subchaser escorting a mine tender sank a midget sub trying to intervene at Midway.

Reinforcements
ZP-31 arrives at Los Angeles (zepplins)
35th FG/41st FS arrives at San Francisco (24/25 P-39s, unrestricted)
1st USN Naval Construction Regiment arrives at Port Hueneme
15th Indian Brigade arrives at Karachi (empty command)

[Ostfriese]

Ouch.



This means Wasp is your only remaining carrier, right?
Time to do what Enterprise did historically.

[Molon Labe]

Originally Posted by Ostfriese

Ouch.



This means Wasp is your only remaining carrier, right?
Time to do what Enterprise did historically.

Yeah, unless you count the CVEs or the Illustrious & Hermes.

[Molon Labe]

12 December 1942
KB searches for surviving wounded ships


Arafura & Banda Seas
A sub finished off the torpedo-damaged destroyer Caldwell.

The Yamato, along with 2 cruisers (the two that were strafed yesterday) and 2 destroyers, shelled Babar, destroying 1 P-38 and damaging 7 other fighters.

I'm trying to gather the Lex's and Sara's surviving aircraft at Port Morseby. This usually doesn't go well if the "core" unit goes down with the ship, which is the case here. I may just have to disband them and start them over in a month or two. The KB hasn't moved far, apparently searching for crippled ships to finish off. The Caldwell was really the only ship in that category, though. The rest of the former battlegroup is making good speed south towards Sydney, everyone else is headed out of the area too.


Burma
We got 3 Oscars at the cost of 3 Hurricanes over Magwe. A B-25 was shot down by flak, plenty more were damaged. I'm going to have to increase the bombing altitude here.

Japan has moved back into Moulmein.


CENTPAC
We sank another midget sub at Midway.


Reinforcements
CVE Chenango arrives at Balboa (two more about to arrive; I'll wait)
DD Saufley arrives at Balboa

[Molon Labe]

13 December 1942
Wasp, Seawolf, and Beaufighters sink a few merchants as KB vanishes


South China Sea
HMS Truant picked off a lone fuel-carrying cargo ship near Sinkawang, Borneo.

Side note: The game often gives a sinking ship soundeffect when a ship sinks outside of combat--which is most of the time they sink. We got two of those SFXs after this, and I'm pretty sure the last ship I seriously damaged was the Shoho, so that's more or less confirmation. I'll try to confirm via aircraft losses as well. [EDIT: yes, the intel screen shows 3 Zeroes and 4 Kates "destroyed on the ground" this turn, and that defintely wasn't a result of bombing an airbase, so I'll take that as confirmation--the Shoho is gone.]


China
A heavy cruiser and a destroyer shelled Foochow. I've been noticing a building of transports on the other side of the strait. An attack on Foochow is a bit late now that his armies are all gone... so, is he softening this base up for a landing?


Philippine Sea
USS Seawolf is stationed near the exit of one of those "shallow water routes" through the Philippines, this one near Legaspi. It approached one well-escorted convoy of tankers (3 TK, 2 DD, 1 TB, 1 E, 1 PB), but was spotted and driven off.

Well, kudos to the captain, because he broke contact, sprinted back ahead of them, and tried again in the afternoon, this time scoring a hit on the Nisshin Maru #2 (Tonan Whaler class, 13340 tons), which was quickly engulfed in flames thanks to its volatile cargo. The Seawolf was briefly picked up by the TB escort but got away undamaged.


Burma
The enemy CAP over Magwe is including an increasing number of Nicks and Tojos, which are proving effective against our heavy bombers. We lost 5 today to the CAP, one more to flak. The bombers shot down 1 Nick, a later P-40 sweep got 3 Nicks and an Oscar. We also lost a Hurricane over Mandalay that was trying to reach enemy Sallies but was shot down by a Zero.

Enemy bombers are probably split 1:6 Mandalay:Raheng right now. We might actually have local force superiority at Raheng/Uttaradir thanks to all the evacuating troops arriving, but an attack would be really risky due to the amount of bombers hitting the troops, and the persistent supply shortages.


New Britain and the Solomons
I think my bombing of Rabaul is offending him, because he's moved in more to bomb. A Nick and a Tojo tried to fight off the B-17s, which had P-38 escorts this time (who were actually on bomber escort duty in the event the KB approached Port Moresby, but that didn't happen, so good call on the AI commanders I guess). We ended up trading a P-38 for the Nick. We destroyed a Betty and a Tina (transport) on the ground.

Yesterday, we'd detected a troop transport convoy approaching Tulagi/Guadalcanal. For today, I split a raid of B-17s from Efate between both ports hoping to catch them at one of them, but that raid came up empty. That was followed up by Beaufighters from Rossel Island, after scoutplanes reacquired the convoy at Guadalcanal. They strafed an escorting minelayer and put 3 bombs into a cargo ship. USS Wasp, which had been steaming towards the Arafura Sea to reinforce the Lexington and Saratogo, sprinted north from Noumea to participate in this attack as well. Sadly, the Wasp's reduced aircraft compliment was felt here, we managed just 27 SBD-3s in this raid, not enough to wipe the convoy out. But lots of damage:
CM Takashima, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Hokutai Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Atutasan Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
xAP Shanghai Maru, Bomb hits 4, and is sunk
xAK Canberra Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
xAK Shinanogawa Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Ryuzan Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAP Kamakura Maru
There are no troop casualties being reported here, which probably means he wanted to pull troops out of Guadalcanal and move them somewhere else. Like Babar.

I'd love to let the Wasp follow this up to wipe the convoy out, but without knowing where the KB went, she needs to bug out.


Banda Sea
Perhaps the result of a too-aggressive range setting on my Beaufighters, they attacked a troop convoy near Timor, running into a CAP of 5 Oscars. Fortunately that was within their ability to handle, each side lost 2 and we made it to the ships. They hit one troop-carrying cargo ship with 2 bombs and several cannon bursts, 83 casualties were reported and it's likely the ship will go down.


Reinforcements
DD Hobby arrives at San Francisco
AM Motive arrives at Alameda
317th TCG/39th TCS arrives at Eastern USA (transport aircraft, training for now)

[Molon Labe]

14 December 1942
Japanese subs add their own minefield to Babar, US and UK subs rack up kills


Java Sea
HMS Truant put two fish into an unescorted fuel carrying cargo ship off the west coast of Borneo. This was about 120 miles south of where it sank a similar ship yesterday.

Just 240 miles south of that, USS Grampus put a functioning Mk14 into another one of these cargo ships, almost certainly from Surabaya based on its location--and the fact that it was also carrying fuel that immediately burned. But Grampus wasn't done. Yet another one of these singleton fuel-carriers showed up; Grampus engaged on the surface in broad daylight, taking a few gun hits in the process, but successfully getting 1 Mk14 to explode after about 5 duds (and lots of misses), and getting several deck gun hits on the highly flammable ship. This sub was actually transitting to a patrol area in the South China Sea, and she used up all her torpedoes in these two attacks, so I'm ordering her back to Darwin.


It's an interesting route that they seem to be taking, avoiding the Strait of Makassar in favor of the South China Sea. The furthest north of them has turned slightly east, so we can rule out destinations like the Strait of Malacca and Bangkok--they're either headed for Japan or stopping somewhere along the way. These don't look like especially long ranged ships and solo ships aren't going to have an easy time getting through the Strait of Luzon, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're running a medium-range shuttle to Cam Rahn Bay or Manila and letting a proper tanker convoy take it from there.


CENTPAC
We got another midget sub at Midway. We've moved a Catalina squadron here to start bringing the new base to life. Fuel and a sub tender to follow.


Burma, Thailand, and India
Six destroyers shelled our airbase at Chittagong, India. This is further northwest than they've been for awhile. Damage was minor.

We had some air battles over Magwe and Mandalay, total losses there were 3 Zeroes, 2 Oscars, a Nick, and 1 of our Hurricanes. Our bombers took the day off while we tried to get a handle on the enemy fighter presence. I'd like to do better than 6 kills before we send the bombers back.

I made a probing attack at Uttaradit to see if it made sense to try to attack here, and unfortunately it looks like his presence has surged to over 3 divisions. My total assault value is greater, but I need to discount that for my supply shortage and take into account the defensive bonus conferred by the jungle. I'm better off letting him try to attack first.


Japan
USS Whale torpedoed and sank an escorted small tanker 320 miles south of Tokyo.


Banda Sea
We lost 2 PTs to a minefield. I'm sure it was just planted here. Will need to get on this soon. We had some supplies land today, I'm glad the PTs found the minefield instead of the transports. There was also a sweep by 4 Oscars that splashed a P-40 and got out before we could retaliate.

I took a bit of a chance and ordered the O24 to approach a convoy at a non-sub proof port on Timor--it got spotted and took moderate depth charge damage. At least we got a contact report out of it: 2 AMCs, 1 AO, 2 DD.


Solomons, New Guinea, New Britain
I split up the B-17s raids from Port Morseby to see if I could find diverted planes from Shoho at any of the airstrips on the northern coast of P-NG. No luck. We hit Rabaul too with P-38s escorting, 1 P-38 was lost along with 3 Zeroes, minor damage to the airbase. Actually, that this recently empty airbase had a substantial CAP--13 Zeroes (reportedly from Akagi's airgroup) and a Tojo, is the most significant fact about this raid.

With the Wasp bugging out to prevent the KB from reappearing in range of it, the followup strike on the troop transport convoy at Guadalcanal went to the B-17s at Efate. We hit and sank a minelayer, and damaged a cargo ship. 6 Zeroes, reportedly from Ryujo's airgroup, tried to stop the raid, one of which was shot down by the bombers.


Philippine Sea
USS Saury took a shot at the same tanker convoy the Seawolf engaged yesterday. It missed, but now I know which direction it's going--northwest, back towards the Philippine coast. So it looks like he thought he was far enough out to sea to avoid my patrol areas, but I snagged him, and now he's headed back to the shallow water I mostly avoid. Which is fine by me, because I know this route ends with the littorals of the Luzon Strait, and I'll have multiple boats waiting for him there.


Reinforcements
CVE Sangamon arrives at Balboa
CVE Suwannee arrives at Balboa
DD Warramunga arrives at Cape Town
VMF-223 arrives at Santa Ana (2/18 FM-1 Wildcats, restricted)
144th USA Base Force arrives at San Luis Obispo (full strength, unrestricted)
36th Aviation Base Force arrives at March Field (full strength, unrestricted)
1st Manchester Battalion arrives at Aden (hollow command)

SS Gar begins refit while under repair at Seattle

[Ostfriese]

IIRC the American torpedoes will become better on Jan 1st. Your submarine campaign, which should already be a pain in his back, will become even worse from then on.

[Molon Labe]

15 December 1942
Japan's subs get their turn, 3 Allied cargo ships sunk as surface threats forces convoy to scatter; VS/B-6 dive bombers cripple a CL


Babar and surrounding seas
Between the surface contacts near Babar last turn, and spotting a task force northeast of Babar that was likely to be the KB, I ordered all cargo ships that didn't have room to dock at Babar back to Darwin. But, I'd also ordered their ASW escort, a minesweeper, to stay behind to do its titular job. Enemy subs pounced, sinking 2 cargo ships in this convoy. The minesweeper cleared 7 mines.

A task force of cruisers and destroyers approached Babar and was handed off to CVW-6 at Darwin along with some A-29s I just moved in. The A-29s got lost, and 8 of the SBDs fell out of formation and actually arrived on target before the main group, almost resulting in an intercept by 5 Zeroes and 3 Oscars trying to keep watch over the ships. Those 8 SBDs got 2 hits on the light cruiser Naka, and also attacked the heavy cruiser Aoba. The main raid was 18 Wildcats and 18 SBDs--the CAP did intercept this group but failed to get to the bombers. 2 Zeroes were shot down by the Wildcats. Sadly, this group of SBDs completely failed to score any hits. 7.7% accuracy. Ugh. One SBD was shot down by flak, another was scrapped at base due to flak damage.

The fate of the Naka will be up to their firefighting teams.


Coral Sea
Not content with 2 cargo ships down near Babar, a sub in the Coral Sea (which was probably part of the large anti-CVBG deployment in the Arafura Sea a few days ago) attacked and sank an escorted cargo ship retreating south from the vicinity of Port Moresby. The minesweeper escorting it scored some damage on the sub with a near miss, but nothing serious.


Burma and Thailand
A coastal defense battalion retreating east from Moulmein fell behind the infantry unit at the end of the evacuation train, allowing the enemy to attack and force them to surrender. LOL, just got to the combat report, that "unit" was just two guns.

Further north at the new frontline, the enemy bomber sorties against Mandalay were insufficiently escorted, allowing our CAP get get 14 Sallies with only one P-40 shot down by Zero escorts. Nextdoor at Magwe, our Hurricane sweeps fared poorly against the Tojos and Nicks on CAP, losing 3 while only splashing one Nick.


Solomons and New Britain
We had a whole bunch of ships reported in port at Guadalcanal, which I assumed were mostly damaged remnants from the troop transport convoy the Wasp trashed. We sent B-17s to bomb the port but came up empty. A few Tojos and Zeroes intercepted but they were mostly kept at a safe distance by the gunners, no losses.

Rabaul got a day off from the B-17s, but still had to deal with P-38s. We shot down 11 Zeroes and a Dinah, no losses.


Reinforcements and Refits
SS Albacore taken out of commission to begin refit at Pearl Harbor

[Molon Labe]

I'll hold off on the report for the 16th because nothing really happened. Well, there was this:



I'll get him someday.

[Molon Labe]

16 December 1942
Babar makes like a nail and waits for the hammer

Banda Sea
Babar was attacked by the surface task force that the Dauntlesses gently welcomed to the area the other day. The damaged Naka was still with the group. They destroyed the minesweeper, but not before it finished clearing the enemy minefield. They also somehow managed to surprise my PT squadron right after killing the minesweeper, 1 PT was sunk before they were able to break off. A few torpedoes were fired but no hits. With the PTs out of the way, the bombarded the airbase, destroying a P-38 and damaging a few other planes.

As per the above post, the Scorpion got a shot at the Hiryu passing nearby and hit it. With a dud. She also was able to engage a pair of unescorted AOs following the KB, but missed.

Burma and Thailand
The evacuation isn't going so great. 1st Manchester Battalion deserted due to being out of supply for so long. They probably won't be the last. At Uttaradit, I have enough troops gathered there to defeat the enemy forces "on paper", but due to supply shortages I don't think any more than half of them are in shape to fight. I'm hoping he attacks so my forts can inflict losses, but so far he's not taking the bait.

Reinforcements
AM Strive arrives at Eastern USA
SC-749 arrives at Balboa
No.79 Sqn RAF arrives at Chittagong
317th TCG/46th TCS arrives at Eastern USA
175 Wing arrives at Aden

-------------------------------------------------
17 December 1942

East Australian Coast
There's a surge of submarines coming down towards Sydney, at first I though these were the Arafura Sea patrol being retasked, but some of them are too far ahead already. At least part of this surge is a new deployment coming from Rabaul or Truk. One of these guys got a shot at the Lexington and Saratoga's escorts as they're trying to make their way to Sydney for repairs. A Wirraway at Brisbane reported a hit on a sub, and a minesweeper managed a damaging near miss on another.

I'm also a little concerned about having a concentration of forces at Sydney that I can't defend. At least for now the KB is still around Timor but that could change at any time. I'd start evacuating ships now, but, with all the subs around, he'd probably figure out where they were going.

CENTPAC
We killed another midget sub at Midway. I think that's the last. I'm already sending a CVE to snoop Wake and getting marines ready for that operation. Might as well take advantage of his attention being focused around Darwin and the Solomons to make some moves here.

Burma
Our fighters at Magwe proved to be completely insufficient to support a bombing raid we attempted on troops right next door to the base. We shot down 2 enemy fighters but they otherwise had a field day with our bombers, 8 Blenheims and 6 B-25s lost. I was trying to maintain a CAP over the hex, next time I'll try sweeps. I already know the escorting is just going to result in coordination SNAFUs. As some consolation, the enemy unit below looks like it's just the 48th Division and it's really beaten up.

Refits and Reinforcements
DD Hammann taken out of commission to begin refit at Noumea
SS Thresher taken out of commission to begin refit at Pearl Harbor
120th RAF Base Force arrives at Aden
24th NZ Pioneer Coy arrives at Auckland

--------------------------------------------------------
18 December 1942

Eastern Australian Coast
One of our ASW-minesweepers got another 3 damaging near misses on an enemy sub near Newcastle. There are at least 6 enemy boats off the coast now, 5 of them near Sydney.

Burma
Switching to sweeps at Magwe did protect the bombers better, but we were throwing our fighters to the wolves. 3 P-40s downed without getting any kills. We lost 3 Blenheims, 2 B-25s, and 1 B-24.


New Britain
Recon flights said lots of fighters at Guadalcanal but none at Rabaul, so I sent a bunch of B-17s to Rabaul. And they ran into a bunch of fighters, mostly Zeroes. Two B-17s down and 2 Zeroes taken out by the gunners. We probably bombed from higher up than we needed to, 15,000ft, and damage was light. We did get a Mavis on the ground though. Speaking of Mavises, 3 of them tried to attack a supply convoy making a delivery at Milne, which actually doesn't have a CAP right now because I transferred it to Port Morseby so that a Port Morseby squadron could go to Horn Island to participate in the battle there. You know, to be one of the squadrons that sat the fight out and watched my carriers die right off the coast. Despite the convoy only being a few cargo ships escorted by a subchaser, and the Mavis being a relatively large, durable plane, they put up enough flak to take one of the Mavises down. Their torpedoes missed.

Banda Sea
I attempted a land attack on the enemy encampment on the island, figuring its not going to get any better than it is now. Hoping for an enemy supply shortage and broken morale from all the bombings. No such luck. Casualties 218 to 323 favoring them.

All enemy task forces have vanished. The can't be that far, one of my subs patrolling off Timor was attacked by a Kate (and the Kate got the worst of it, limping home damaged).

Reinforcements and refits
DD Walke taken out of commission to begin refit at Sydney
AVD Thornton beginning refit in shipyard at Brisbane
AVD Hulbert beginning refit in shipyard at Brisbane
SS Tambor begins refit while under repair at Adak Island
DD Radford arrives at Balboa
AP John Penn arrives at Cristobal
VMF-216 arrives at March Field (We've built up a pretty nice reserve of USMC fighter squadrons, which in turn have built up a good reserve of trained pilots. Starting probably around 2/1943 I'm going to start buying these restricted units out, loading them up with Corsairs, and sending them to the front)
145th USA Base Force arrives at Corvallis
171 Wing arrives at Aden
15th Indian Engineer Battalion arrives at Madras


------------------------------------------------------
A really uneventful set of turns, right now it looks like he's building up something big around Timor. I'm expecting him to finish off Babar; the Lex and Sara were really all that was stopping him before. He's probably having some trouble finding the troops to do it with, hence the empty troop transport convoy we shot up at Guadalcanal a few days ago.

[Molon Labe]

War Record of USS Porpoise

8 December 1942 - deployed to Luzon Strait
12 December 1942 - Sinks xAKL Kumakawa Maru with gunfire (Miyati class - 2050 tons)

6 January 1942 - Patrolling Japanese home waters. Sinks xAK Nasusan Maru (Gozan class - 2375 tons) with Mk14 torpedo

6 March 1942 - Patrolling Luzon Strait. Sinks xAK Ryuyo Maru in night gun/torpedo attack (Ehime class - 3425 tons).

April 1942 - Patrolling near Bangkok in support of Operation Kinky Boots (UK invasion of Thailand)

12 May 1942 - Patrolling off Cam Rahn Bay. Sinks xAK Calcutta Maru (Aden class - 4875 tons) with gunfire.

August 1942 - Patrolling Sulu Sea

December 1942 - Patrol area diverted from Sulu Sea to Banda Sea to interdict invasion or naval forces headed to Babar.

21 December 1942 - Sights Kido Butai accompanying heavy surface task force, heading west towards Koepang after bombarding Babar. Engages IJN Shokaku with 4 Mk14 torpedoes, scoring one hit and inflicting serious damage. Engaged by multiple escorting destroyers.

21 December 1942 - On eternal patrol.
Total credited tonnage: 12725

[Ostfriese]

This should put Shokaku out of action for quite some time.

[Molon Labe]

19 December 1942
ASW superstar Stuart back on the job, China receiving reinforcements


East Australian Coast
An ASW task force including the Luganville operation veterans Stuart and Nizam engaged and seriously damaged an enemy sub off Sydney. Maybe not an actual kill, but should at least be a mission kill.


Burma
Contesting the skies over Magwe was just about the only air combat this turn, aside from relatively routine bombing missions. Our bombers rested as we focused on making the skies safer for them in the future. Enemy losses were 4 Oscars, 8 Zeroes, and 4 Sallies; that cost us 3 Hurricanes.

I'm ordering some troops to fall back to Mandalay, we can't hold more than one base on this front---we probably can't even hold one.


China
This could be a first of the war--Wenchow, China, has received reinforcements from the sea. Troop levels shot up from 6500 to 38,000 per recon patrols. I tried to hit the port where they were disembarking but only caused light facility damage.

Banda and Timor Seas
The O24 was hit by a 250kg bomb from either a Val or a Kate and is critically damaged. The Spearfish was also bombed, but probably just by a floatplane as it was hit with a 60kg glorified hand grenade and is able to remain on station. The KB is detecting most of our subs in the area; I'm rotating the spotted ones away and bringing in undetected ones to throw the enemy off.


Reinforcements
317th TCG/41st TCS arrives at Eastern USA (transports - training)
78th Light AA Regiment arrives at Aden (close to full strength - to Colombo)
-------------------------------
20 December 1942
Mandalay standing by to be overrun, aircraft evacuated, O24 scuttled


Banda and Timor Seas
The KXII attempted to engage a heavy bombardment task force as it approached Babar, but was spotted by escorts. It fired its torpedoes at one of the approaching destroyers--this is usually just to force them to zigzag and isn't expected to hit anything. But this time it did, IJN Shikinami is gone. The KXII got away undamaged.

The task force shelled Babar quite effectively, with 4 P-38s and 2 P-39s destroyed on the ground, and the rest of the aircraft mostly damaged. Facility damage is heavy, and we lost quite a bit of our supply stockpiles, which are low to begin with.

The KB pretty much moved into Babar this turn. A transport plane run went ahead as scheduled, as much as AI commanders are able to scrub plans you'd think they'd scrub this, but they didn't--13 planes shot down by the CAP. We also lost a B-25 that was part of our daily bombing of the enemy encampment there, along with a P-40, but the escorting fighters took down 3 Zeroes.

The O24 lost control of its flooding. There's no hope she can make it to Darwin; I ordered the boat scuttled. The O19 and KXII were also hit by bombs. O19's damage is moderate; she's returning to port; KXII's relatively light and is sticking around for now.

Burma and Thailand
Unescorted bombers appeared over Mandalay, we got 5 Helens and 3 Sallies. The ones that got through caused moderate troop casualties. At Magwe our sweeps ended up trading 2 Hurricanes for 2 Oscars.

The beaten-up enemy division has arrived at Mandalay and there will be more to come. The planes will be evacuated for tomorrow--if they can fly, anyway. Some of the troops falling back here will arrive in time if they attack tomorrow, but I doubt that will buy us more than 2 days.

At Uttaradit, we suffered an enemy attack and held them off. Casualties 3012 to 299. But no way I can manage a counterattack with my supply shortage. This seems to be to my benefit, I get to inflict disproportionate casualties playing defense while the large army that could actually defeat me outright is chasing from behind. They can catch me eventually thanks to the bombing slowing us down, so the attacks at the front of the procession seem unnecessary. But I'll take it. 1st Burma Auxiliary AA Regiment deserted due to the supply shortage.


Solomons
I ordered a sweep of Guadalcanal; 3 P-38s got separated from the group and actually arrived early. We lost 2 of those. The rest of the squadron arrived and shot down 2 Tojos and a Zero without further loss.


Refits and Reinforcements
SS Narwhal beginning refit while under repair in shipyard at Brisbane
SS Grenadier begins refit while under repair at Adak Island
SS Gunnel begins refit while under repair at Adak Island
1st Middlesex Battalion arrives at Aden (reforming unit, empty command)