20 February 1942
Bay of Bengal
A sub off Colombo picked off another unescorted Allied cargo ship.
Java
No joy in an Oscar sweep over Batavia. Nell raid on Surabaya caused moderate facility damage with several bombers damaged on the ground. Again, no CAP. Does this mean he's running out of fighters, or is he moving them somewhere to keep safe for an attack on my transports?
SouthPAC
The B-17s went back to Luganville, just 5, meeting a wall of Zeroes, which shot down 2, then flak took care of a third. 3 of them survived long enough to drop their bombs, but did no damage. Intel says the enemy lost all five.
Philippines
An artillery bombardment of Bataan caused 23 devices to be destroyed, which is extraordinarily high for this kind of attack. The enemy has to be in dismal shape.
Reinforcements
SS I-27 arrives at Hiroshima/Kure - assigned to Indian Ocean
Industry and Strategic Outlook
I'm really disappointed in myself for not being on Java yet, I didn't realize taking Sumatra first was going to cause this great of a delay. I have two task forces ready to go, but I'm expecting enough resistance on the west side of the island that I want to gather as much as I can from Sumatra, which is probably going to take another 2 days or so. I'd say it was a mistake to make this a 2-pronged operation, I'd have been better off just approaching from Sumatra. I have to give serious thought to my next conquest after Java and be ready to do it with speed and efficiency to give myself a chance at an autovictory at the end of the year. I need 4 to 1 victory points for that. I'm at 1.75 to 1 right now.
I also noticed an error in my industry setup--I'm underproducing aircraft engines. I'd gone through the trouble of setting this all up on spreadsheets to make sure I had enough for my planned aircraft production, itself based on expected losses plus new units arriving that needed to be outfitted, plus building up a 500 engine reserve to get an R&D bonus in the 6-12 month range. It appears that while I remembered to check in frequently to make sure my aircraft production was where it needed to be, I forgot to check the engines at some point and never expanded my factories to the extent I needed to. It's probably been about 2 weeks since the expansion I did order stopped. It's possible this has been to my benefit, because the industrial expansion was causing supply shortages all over the home islands, which was preventing research and development centers from coming online. But my engine production has been high enough to support my aircraft production, just not high enough to get that 500-engine cushion for the R&D bonus--which does me no good if I have supply shortages. Anyway, I'm restarting my engine factory expansion, and since that's the only thing expanding my supply situation will hopefully stay stable.
__________________
|