23 February 1942
KIX sinks one of the Kido Butai's oilers, and the Lexington and Enterprise raid the Marshalls
SOPAC
Remember that pair of oilers I sent to Rabaul to top off and then rejoin the replenishment group? The KIX intercepted them on the way back, hitting the Toho Maru with a single torpedo, but that's all that's needed when the ship is a huge tub of highly flammable liquid. That's the most valuable ship he's sunk so far in the war. Operationally, I don't think it matters--the replenishment group is rather large and wasn't empty, and it now includes one ship that's 100% full. But I won't be trying to shuttle these off on their own; after I refuel the KB, the whole task force is going back to Rabaul to fill up.
As for the KB, I was sending it around Noumea to the south, but Kates spotted 3 submarines in her path. And that's just what I see, there are probably more. So I'm going to head north first... quicker to refuel that way anyway.
3 Banshees escorted by a single P-40 attempted an attack on my ships picking up construction units from Luganville. We wiped them out. A few B-17s followed that up, one of them took down a Zero, while flak got one of the bombers. The first wave of B-17s came in at 5000 feet, violating a house rule giving most 4-engine bombers a hard deck of 10k feet for naval attacks. (I should probably mention that to my opponent now that I remember.)
China
A single I-15 somehow managed to shoot down a pair of Oscars over the Sinyang stack. The way his air war is going, I hope they give that guy a medal.
A deliberate attack on Wenchow, with pretty much all available reinforcements now contributing, failed to overcome the garrison. But as we often see, the enemy had many more squads destroyed than I did even though total casualties looked even or in his favor. So I'm willing to try again after resting.
Near Nanchang, we took our last swing at the retreating 7th and 84th Corps, inflicting 129 destroyed devices at them as they fled to the other side of the Gan River.
CENTPAC
Taking advantage of knowing the KB is deployed well southwest of the Marshalls, Enterprise and Lexington reappeared, attacking an ASW patrol and the airbase at Maloelap. The naval attack sank 2 of 3 PBs in an ASW task force, while the attack on was mostly ineffective, causing moderate facility damage but completely missing the Claudes and Mavises based there.
Java
D-day -1. We bombed Tjilatjap, destroying another medium bomber on the ground. On the east side of Java, Betties found a minesweeper to attack and blow up, and another was destroyed by a sub lurking of Denpasar.
Despite the several raids targeting their airbases, the enemy managed to spot one of my trailing invasion task forces and sent 7 medium bombers after it. Because this group hadn't caught up with the main force yet, it did not have fighter cover. But, the bombers missed. The fact that both main invasion forces will be landing tomorrow but have not yet been detected speaks volumes about the current state of the Dutch Air Force.
Industry
The Devilish Mr. Lodrik stopped by my subchannel on Jochen Heiden's discord to chat about the Marshalls raid. Eventually we talked about my industry status and he pointed out an error that in hindsight seems rather obvious. It's a little in the weeds if you haven't managed Japan's economy in WITP, but the short version is that my R&D plan for Zeroes was suboptimal due to my error. It's too late to truly fix anything but I did make an adjustment to try to make it a little better. At least I know for next time.
Repairs and Reinforcements
Repair of the I-1 has completed, she's headed back to her old station near Hawaii.
Yokohama Ku T-1 Det arrives at Yokohama/Yokosuka - a pair of Emily flying boats, I sent them to Wake to spy on shipping lanes near Midway
45th I.F.Chutai arrives at Keijo - 12 Idas; training squadron
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