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.
__________________
|