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Old 06-25-21, 09:45 AM   #72
Molon Labe
Silent Hunter
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Along the Watchtower
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1 January 1942
Japan lands on Kendari

Dutch East Indies
The attack on Kendari finally came. 8 transports plowed through the minefield. One took two hits and sank. One of my PT squads ran into their covering force and was driven off. Casualties from losing the AK to a mine were bad, but he still landed at least a regiment. It's enough.

Near Surabaya, a damaged cargo ship that had been sheltering at Balikpapan but was moving to Surabaya for "real" repairs was picked off by a sub.

He moved some Oscars to protect Billiton from my air raids with a long-range CAP. And Murphy showed up and made sure my escorting fighters got separated from their bombers. I lost two medium bombers and 3 Swordfish torpedo bombers.

The CVLBG is still gone. It might be replenishing at Palau, headed for the Solomons, or returning to Japan. If its the Solomons, I'll probably reacquire it in another day, maybe two.

Philippines
The S-36 sank two cargo ships in the Luzon strait, a Kyushu class and a C-class. Way to show up the more modern boats! It helps that its Mk10 torpedoes work. The Kyushus in particular are valuable, they're 18-knot boats that are great for moving armies around.

Air raids on Clark claimed a P-35 but cost him a light bomber and 2 mediums. He's still bombing from too high to hit anything in these hills. His main force has moved from Manila to Clark and is ready to attack. As expected, he left behind enough in Manila to stop my isolated units from retaking it.

I mixed things up a bit by sending my B-17s back to Cam Rahn Bay to bomb the port, but the raid was ineffective. I'm sad to report that all of my fighter squadrons here have taken such heavy losses that they're essentially combat ineffective. He's basically won the air campaign and will enjoy air superiority going forward.

Malaya
He hit the retreating transports again with Nells and did better today. We lost 2 Buffalos and claimed 3 Nells. But the Nells got 3 hits on the transport Leonard Wood, sinking it. They also got a minesweeper on ASW patrol and hit the drydocked Repulse with a pair of bombs.

His army (Imperial Guards Division and 18th Division) attacked my units as they withdrew from the Johore road. They didn't cause a rout, but thanks to their air support they inflicted much more severe casualties than they took.

I've replaced another Buffalo squadron with Hurricanes. The first conversion should get their first taste of combat tomorrow.

SouthPac
The enemy SAG sitting south of Suva decided to attack and bombarded the base. The base reports the enemy composition is 2 CL and 1 DD. Yeah, I can take them, just not this turn. The bombardment damaged 2 scout planes and did minor facility damage. Frustratingly, it appears this group has left the area. I had just positioned some cruisers for an attack overnight. Maybe it's still there and my scoutplanes missed it. Or its withdrawing towards the Solomons. It could even be headed to Pago.

CENTPAC
My patrol aircraft continue to suffer attrition from enemy CAPs. They're pretty badly degraded now. But not so badly degraded that I wasn't able to confirm that the KB was still there. And also not so degraded that I missed this:


Is that really a CVE off to the east? Probably not. (EDIT: The CVE Taiyo is NOT known to be part of the CVLBG, so this could be her) But if it's a scoutplane-carrying cruiser, that's not much better. The only thing to the southeast is my shipping lane to SouthPac. Traffic there is a lot thinner than it was a few days ago, but there is at least one convoy there that I'd really rather not get sunk.

China
My southern army trying to take lightly-guarded bases ran into an unexpected surprise: level 4 forts at Swatow. So even though I outnumber them significantly, and a lot of those troops are broken from a recent defeat, I'd need more troops to take this--combat engineers in particular. Oh well.


Guam
Added this as an afterthought. He's been bombing Guam pretty consistently with Nells/Betties and Kates from probably the Soryu. Today it was just Nells. Soryu may be on the move.
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Last edited by Molon Labe; 06-25-21 at 10:17 AM.
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