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[Kicior]

Could I take a sub?

[BishopX]

More battleships are never a bad idea.

Overkill is underrated.

Battleships are over rated. This is WWII, using BB's offensively if like bringing a battle axe to a gun fight.

[Erkki]

Could I take a sub?

I thought about a new submarine but it looks like the next one comes operational in 31 days so... I'll look one for you today!

More battleships are never a bad idea.

Overkill is underrated.

Got to agree. More flak is never a bad idea and I rather have those bomb and torpedo hits on my battleships than carriers.

Battleships are over rated. This is WWII, using BB's offensively if like bringing a battle axe to a gun fight.

Yeah, but they're still pretty good in daytime combat(that is, IF they can get close enough for the guns) and they rock as bombardment ships. Very good at killing anything bigger than destroyers as long as they can stay out of torpedo range and stay out of air threat. They're also pretty much immune to bombs so they make great floating AAA batteries if the slow speed isnt an issue. The American BBs are mostly very slow, 21 knots or slower, so they are nowhere near as good CV escorts as the Japanese 25-30 knot BBs! Americans dont have many faster than 21 knot BBs before mid 43 or so. For now they should only have the old North Carolina and one Indiana class battlewagon. British BBs are also slow. The other con is that they're real fuel hogs, and especially Japan cannot just sail them around the Pacific carelessly, and forward bases need a LOT of fuel to support any BB+CV operation.

[Erkki]

March 21th


Ontong Java in the Solomons, Manus in New Britain, some island in the Philippines and Salamaua in New Guinea fall to the Japanese forces.

East Indies: Submarines and 139WH bombers keep attacking the CA Mogami TF near Makassar. Zeros shoot down 3 bombers, and Zero pilot PO1 Kawabata F achieves his 5th kill!

CA Tone: requires 23 days of repairs in the dry dock at Singapore. At least half of the damage occurred in the collision with DD Yukikaze during the battle. Pretty good trade for those 2 RN light cruisers and 4 USN destroyers...

Could I take a sub?

SS RO-61, L4 class submarine, now near Ontong Java, returning to replenish at Truk. The 988-ton L4 submarines arent particularly big and only carry 14 torpedoes(+ an 8cm gun and a 13,2mm heavy machine gun on the deck) and aren't as long legged as most Japanese subs, but they can dive the deepest and are the least vulnerable to depth charges and aerial attacks until some time later in the war when the Allied ASW improves so much it can hit these boats as easy as the bigger ones.

Captain, Commander E. Muto, leader 68, naval 68, aggr 76 is a very good submarine captain.

RO-61 has not seen action yet, having patrolled in the Solomons and Solomons Sea, Coral Sea and new Santa Cruz Islands. Once the boat is refueled she'll head back to Santa Cruz/New Hebrides, New Caledonia or Fiji.

[Zrk2]

More battleships are never a bad idea.

Overkill is underrated.

Battleships are over rated. This is WWII, using BB's offensively if like bringing a battle axe to a gun fight.

You say it like there's something wrong with that...

[Erkki]

March 22nd


Not much happened today. 6th Ku S-1 Zero squadron formed at Chiba but I don't have enough trained pilots(Navy fighter reserves have 20 pilots, and I have suffered very little losses so far...) so that unit gets the leader with the best inspiration and 55 fresh flight school graduates and is now a training unit.

Java: we should have 2750+ AV at Bandoeng in 4 days. That should be enough to break the defenses in 3 or 4 attacks.

Pearl Harbor: This doesnt happen often but Japanese intelligence managed to raise the detection level of Pearl to 2 today, letting us do some  peeking. The harbor seems to have 4 light cruisers and 6+ destroyers. Theres exactly 100 ships in the harbor(plus minus FOW). USN CVs are possibly still camping at Sydney, and it looks like the BBs have all been moved away. 3 attacks on Pearl thus failed to damage any of them enough to keep them in the port for 3½ months, lol.

DD Makigumo is now at Lunga, Guadalcanal, Solomons. She'll form a 1-ship surface combat TF. Task is to protect the unloading transports.

I-27: now at the NW coast of Australia and heading SW. No contacts nearby.

[Erkki]

March 23rd


Not much happened today. Japanese troops retreated the Dutch on Java and near Makassar. Reinforcements arrive to Samarinda today so we will probably see the Dutch air force attacking the transports. They'll have to try to survive without air cover.

In the Kuriles, the reinforcement SNLF Bn finally arrives at Paramushiro Jima! 8-9 days and the 45th IJNAF AF Bn is also there. I have a second SNLF Bn earmarked but no ships to move it yet. After those units are in place, Paramushiro will have hopefully believable defense of the CD unit and 160AV worth infantry now behind forts 1 but they're building up. I'm not going to garrison Onnekotan Jima yet.

Near Sydney, submarine I-24 IDs 2 destroyers: Evertsen and Van Ghent! But those ships were escorting CL Mauritius now month ago, what are they doing there, and alone in a 2-ship force? Probably means that the main body of the Allies' Pacific Fleet is (still) sitting at Sydney, if they didnt have better things to do for 2 DDs other than sailing from Java around Australia...

RO-61: arrives at Truk early hours tomorrow. It'll refuel and immediately head back to its patrol area near Fiji.

[Zrk2]

So how is the Java (or was it Indian?) Sea raid going?

[Erkki]

So how is the Java (or was it Indian?) Sea raid going?

Makassar is ours and most of the ships including carriers have returned to Singapore. CVE raiders sailed all the way to Timor but only sighted and attacked one of the American DDs that survived the night battle against Japanese cruiser squadron...

[Erkki]

March 24th

Another silent day.

Burma: First time for 2 months an Allied aircraft get sighted - reconnaissance planes photograph multiple Japanese airbases including Magwe. Japanese reconnaissance keeps monitoring all the in-range Allied airfields that are big enough for bombers, but they are all either empty or have fighters or aux/transport/recce planes. Calcutta has over 300 aircraft, 150 of them fighters.

East Indies: A Japanese SNLF battalion lands at Christmas Island. The TF was supposed not supposed to land there today, but should have been 1 hex short(cruise speed set so it shouldnt have made the full speed run to target). Hmmm.. 3 139WHs strike Makassar from Kendari and get shot down by Zeros - easy kills! 30 Japanese Ki-21s bomb Soerebaja's airfield but fail to destroy any of the aircraft there. Allied fighters for some reason havent felt like flying CAP here for weeks... Reinforcements arrived at Samarinda, and once they have been unloaded its time to march to Balikpapan and get the place.

SOPAC: A Dutch submarine near Rabaul torpedoes an xAK inbound to Rabaul. The damage is so heavy that I chose to scuttle it, luckily it had transported some troops to Buna and so had only 300 tons of supplies aboard, and it was a pretty small xAK any way. Japanese Marines will land at Tabiteuea tomorrow.

[timferius]

So.... when do I get to shoot things? Anything interesting happening in or around guadacanal anytime soon?

[Erkki]

So.... when do I get to shoot things? Anything interesting happening in or around guadacanal anytime soon?

Nothing yet. We are building up. I'm going to reinforce Ndeni in a couple of weeks which might get some unwanted attention from the enemy but other than that we're waiting for them and hope to be prepared enough once the inevitable attack comes. I dont think the Allies will let us hold an island chain with long-range torpedo bomber bases right on the route from Sydney to Hawaii and San Francisco...

[timferius]

So.... when do I get to shoot things? Anything interesting happening in or around guadacanal anytime soon?

Nothing yet. We are building up. I'm going to reinforce Ndeni in a couple of weeks which might get some unwanted attention from the enemy but other than that we're waiting for them and hope to be prepared enough once the inevitable attack comes. I dont think the Allies will let us hold an island chain with long-range torpedo bomber bases right on the route from Sydney to Hawaii and San Francisco...

Excellent. I can wait. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAA

[BishopX]

March 24th

Another silent day.

Burma: First time for 2 months an Allied aircraft get sighted - reconnaissance planes photograph multiple Japanese airbases including Magwe. Japanese reconnaissance keeps monitoring all the in-range Allied airfields that are big enough for bombers, but they are all either empty or have fighters or aux/transport/recce planes. Calcutta has over 300 aircraft, 150 of them fighters.

Do we have enough intel/reconnaissance to rule out the possibility of a carrier borne strike?

[Erkki]

March 24th

Another silent day.

Burma: First time for 2 months an Allied aircraft get sighted - reconnaissance planes photograph multiple Japanese airbases including Magwe. Japanese reconnaissance keeps monitoring all the in-range Allied airfields that are big enough for bombers, but they are all either empty or have fighters or aux/transport/recce planes. Calcutta has over 300 aircraft, 150 of them fighters.

Do we have enough intel/reconnaissance to rule out the possibility of a carrier borne strike?

I dont think the USN CVs are in the Indian Ocean and the British have 2 or 3 small ones. CVL Hermes(capacity I think 20) and one or two capacity 53 ones. Their fighters are Fulmar(target drone), Sea Hurricane(good but very short range) and possibly Martler(British Wildcat). Strike aircraft, Stringbags(Swordfish) and Albacore are unsuitable for attacking anything that isn't a ship and for even that they are very slow and vulnerable.

Even if the Allies choose to use USN CVs to attack Magwe, Rangoon has 36 torpedo-equipped G4M1 long-range bombers with crack pilots and over 70 drop-tank equipped Ki-43s and 30 Ki-48 bombers. Let them come, some of the bombers will leak through the CAP even if the escorts aren't enough and with the crack bomber pilots I'd love to see another Allied CV sunk or crippled so close to Kido Butai's nest.