1 November 1942
Battle of Rangoon Day 3 - 10,000 troops ashore at Pegu
Battle of Rangoon
An enemy sub came up the channel to Rangoon and finished off the mine-damaged destroyer Nepal with 2 torpedoes. Two heavy cruisers and 3 destroyers caught up with the damaged minelayer off the coast and gunned it down, plus a torpedo coup de grace.
Two light cruisers and 3 destroyers entered Rangoon harbor, shelling the port and airbase. The CL Cardoc, being repaired in port, was hit, and the airbase sustained heavy damage.
Our sweeps of Pegu resulted in 4 Hurricanes and 1 P-40 downed, with 11 Zeroes, 5 Oscars, and a Rufe joining them.
In western Burma, somehow the enemy had managed to get an airbase up and running. Apparently they dropped off aviation support that one time they complimented their random paratroopers with a small amphibious landing. So Hurricanes based in India swept over here, shooting down 5 Oscars with no losses.
One again, the Sallies all bombed Tavoy. The airbase is a total wreck.
38 B-24s hit the beachhead, inflicting 266 troop casualties. Zeroes shot one down, and the B-24s shot one Zero down. Between any recon performed by the bombers and dedicated Hurricane-PR recon flights, it now appears the enemy force exceeds 10,000 troops. We can confirm it includes 2/3rd of the 18th Division and an aviation engineer unit.
We only got 3 Vengeances in the air to attack the task forces. I fired the CO of the squadron that didn't fly and replaced him with someone with a much higher Aggression rating. The 3 bombers flew with 10 escorting Hurricanes; we shot down only 1 Zero while losing 4 Hurricanes and 1 of the Vengeances; the other 2 aborted and ran.
I'd been hesitant to spend political points on any more Indian units to move to the Burma/Thailand front, but now that he's making a play on Rangoon I don't think I have to worry about them landing in Calcutta or something like that. So the units that cleared a few paratroopers out but stopped at the border I will pay the PP to purchase. They'll take down the enemy airbase in western Burma and then head towards Rangoon--to either reinforce it or participate in retaking it.
South China Sea
USS Greenling encountered an unescorted cargo ship. 12 torpedoes later, it managed to get 2 fish to both hit and detonate, sending the AK to the bottom.
Solomons Area
Near Ontong Java, the S-44 found a tanker convoy and picked off one of them, evading counterattack by an escorting PB.
The Seawolf was in the same area but wasn't nearly as lucky. It was spotted by "carrier aircraft" (per their report) and soon found themselves swarmed by destroyers, with the battleship Kongo in company. It fired at a destroyer, missing, and then evaded the attacks, sustaining light depth charge damage.
Scoutplanes reported 2 carriers in this same task force. Probably the KB. That's a shame, I was looking forward to siccing Halsey on those heavy surface task forces.
At Efate, one of my USMC Helldiver squadrons is now due to withdraw. To hell with that, not with the KB around. I'll be paying political points to keep them.
China
We lost a Vanguard over Amoy to an attempted attack by Oscars. The Vanguards had no kills, but the Oscars jettisoned their bombs and ran off.
Our land forces attacked the surrounded enemy army at Amoy, causing 1467 enemy casualties to 94 of ours. The enemy is so weak I'm temped to order a shock attack, but I'm thinking that's a bad idea when the enemy has nowhere to retreat to. Sticking to deliberate attacks.
Our land forces counterattacked the now-withdrawing flanking force near Chengchow, turning their orderly withdrawal into a rout. Casualties 6000 to 400.
Refits and Reinforcements
The North Carolina class has an "upgrade" available, but it's just stripping the .50cals off with no noted improvements. So I'll wait for the next one. There are very few new upgrades available this month, just a few DD upgrades really. But the American DDs have been upgraded so much that there's now little difference between the Bristols and Fletchers and everyone else (except for the really old ones).
DD Mustin taken out of commission to begin refit at Pearl Harbor
39th USN Naval Construction Battalion arrives at Port Hueneme
Big Picture
If he's sending a lot to Burma (and it's really too soon to say) I'd be looking for Java to be a bit of a soft underbelly. I've moved quite a bit from the west coast to Pearl since last month, and I've also reinforced Australia a bit. I'm going to start moving more troops west to enable advances in the Solomons and DEI. I'm also trying to keep pressure on in multiple places to try to force him to split the KB. I've got 2 CVs availabe now, with the Wasp in upgrades for the next 2 weeks or so, so 3 CVs after that. I won't mind taking them on at about 1-to-1 odds, especially with their struggling pilot quality and our enormous AA capability backing us up.
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