5 January 1942
Missed Opportunities at Santa Cruz and Pearl Harbor
Hawaii
I launched a major attack against the Kido Butai. It was a somewhat complicated plan, which worked against me. I was trying to capitalize on three mistakes by my opponent: first, the KB has been here too long, been flying too many missions, and is low on aircraft, fighters in particular. Second, he just detached one of his carriers to chase after escaping tankers. And third, he's keeping his fleet in a base hex, which reduces the amount of aircraft it can put on CAP. I expected to have an equal number of fighters on the board as him. The strike package had three components: A sweep by 26 P-40Bs, an attack on Lahaina's port and airfield by 11 B-17s and 8 LB-30 Liberators, and an attack against the Kido Butai by 35 SBDs.The heavies would be unescorted so that the SBDs would have maximum protection by 10 Wildcats, 2 P-36s, 15 P-39s and 9 P-40Es. I made sure my not-so-great pilots rode the bench for this one.
Murphy showed up right away... the heavies went first, and the escort fighters went with them. The zeroes had them outnumbered and pounced. A rather one-sided battle saw my fighters take heavy losses. The bombers got through, but didn't do a whole lot of damage.
My sweep arrived next, and they in turn jumped the Zeroes which had come down below 15,000ft to attack the strike package. We kicked their asses. The enemy CAP over the KB ended up looking like my CAP over Clark.
The SBDs got there late and without escort. They only managed to scrape four Zeroes together to attack. They shot a few down, and some chickened out. In the end, 13 SBDs were able to make an attack, targeting the Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and... a heavy cruiser. They got only one hit. On the cruiser. There was no sign of any damage to any of the ships from that Catalina's report a few days ago. Also, there was no sign of the Shokaku or Zuikaku. So he either detached both to chase the tankers, or one or both is getting replacement aircraft in Japan.
Total losses in this battle:
19 Zeroes
4 F4F, 5 P-39, 1 P-36, 5 P-40, 2 B-17, 6 SBD
Also occurring at Pearl, he's sending more barges and a bunch of midget subs into the base hex. They're all hitting mines---which is probably the point. Apparently these are sweeping mines more cheaply than minesweepers that get sunk by my coastal guns.
SouthPAC
The task force approaching Efate was a priority target, and I got there just in time. It was two troop transport ships escorted by a light cruiser. I brought 4 heavy cruisers and 3 light cruisers to the party. You'd think I slaughtered them with those numbers, but no. All fire was concentrated on the CL while the transports got away. And that CL fought hard, firing multiple torpedo salvoes as shell hits slowly wrecked her. One torpedo from the last salvo hit the HMAS Canberra, causing serious damage. This is a serious missed opportunity--he knows I have troops on Efate so he wasn't going to bring a small unit. And those were proper troop ships, not cargo ships being used to transport troops. I can't even say with any confidence that the CL is fatally damaged.
My scouts failed to find this task force after it disengaged.
East China Sea
USS Saury found and torpedoed a cargo ship, probably sinking it (I had just adjusted its patrol area this turn, too. Glad it didn't take long!)
China
Looking for some payback against the Tojo squadron, I stopped bombing Ichang for a day and just sent the AVG there. The Tojos didn't show, but 17 Nates did. Nates have no business in a fight against P-40s. 12 of them didn't make it back.
The army I'd used to defeat enemy forces in the open near Singyang easily defeated a force that was guarding the supply road to Ichang. Ichang is now cut off from supplies. Probably still has redonkulous forts though.
Near the coast, an enemy force moved into Chusien. I don't know his strength yet, but I am not weak here, so this is a possible opportunity to counterattack.
Philippines
Another day of Clark AF being absolutely pummelled by over 100 bomber sorties. The airfield is now damaged over 60%. There's essentially nothing airworthy there anymore. But, I did manage to get a few fighters up with very experienced pilots. We got two Zeroes... but that's meaningless right now.
The Soryu showed up in the Celebes sea, narrowly avoiding a sub guarding the eastern chokepoint. If found a small task force of mine that was going to try to evac the base forces on Jolo island. They sank a small escort, one transport and badly damaged the other transport. Mission aborted!
Malaya
Another 100+ sorties targeted my forces trying to regroup in Malacca. They're taking a beating. I also sent my own bombers, which ran into Oscars on CAP. I lost 5 Hudsons and a Blenhiem. Time to stand those guys down again.
Raids also targeted Singapore. We lost three Hurricanes but took down 5 Zeroes, 8 medium bombers, and 4 light bombers. They damaged the Repulse again, along with the transport Mount Vernon.
Burma
I'm embarrassed to say I didn't notice that the unit that took an empty southern base a few days ago moved north to Tavoy, which wasn't empty. They easily defeated my meager defenders (that I should have evacuated).
At least those soldiers are now close enough for my bombers to hit them while having a fighter escort. It's close to Saigon, I'm expecting fighters to be defending them.
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Today marked the greatest one-day loss for Japanese aircraft with 80 planes lost.
