Part 79: Operational Report: 23/02/42

The Tambor, deployed off the Marshall Islands to support the invasions, puts a dud torpedo into the side of a very valuable resupply ship. I'm beginning to think that the more valuable the ship, the more likely the torpedo is to be a dud.



The next time she does get a hit, this time another tender. This one is a submarine tender, meaning we've just reduced the effectiveness of their thrice dammed submarines.



The tender doesn't get off scott free however, as tjr Tambor radios her position in to the carriers to the north.



The enemy send a couple of their Betty's to try and get our carrier, but the CAP shoot both down with no trouble.



More planes attack a ship bringing supplies or reinforcements to Eniwetok, and sink the ship.



Another wave finds a confirmed troop convoy, and that's six hundred men we won't have to fight on the beaches.



The enemy then send a large wave of planes in, the Betty's are driven off quickly, and turn back for home on the first sight of our planes, but the Nell's make their attack on the Lexington



They are slaughtered, from the combat reports, only one plane made it away, three being downed by the planes before they got into range, and another being taken down by the flack gunners of the Lexington.

The next wave is more of a worry, its Zero escort taking down two of our planes, but the bombers can't penetrate the wall of fire around the Lexington, and are driven away.



Our bombers find another submarine tender in the afternoon, putting two 1000lb bombs into her.



The troop convoy assigned to Kwajalein come across a lone enemy destroyer, I'm not sure what the hell has happened to the destroyers that I assigned to this fleet along with the sunk Warspite, but their absence leads to some heavy casualties amongst the loaded troops.



They seem to be back in time to land the troops, but get caught up in a duel with the Nimur Naval fortress.



The troops on the ground sent forwards to try and take the fortress take heavy losses but make no ground.



At Woje, our troops try once more to attack the enemy, but they are pinned down on the beaches, and eventually the entire force surrenders to the enemy.







The S-37 finds a task force at the mouth of the Java Sea. Unfortunately all of its four torpedoes are ineffective.



She circles around again, and this time gets a live torpedo this time.



The air raids over Sumatra continue today.



A strike at Soerabaja by two planes is driven off by our CAP with one of the planes being brought down.



A carrier based attack hots the airfield today, we take out two Zeros and a Val, for the loss of two P-400's.



To the west, we lose Djokjakarta, and with it, access to the north of Java.



The KXVI comes under attack west of Singkawang, she takes several hits before she can avoid the subhunters.






Bataan suffers yet another day of bombardment. The men there are starting to complain they have been abandoned by the rest of the allies.








The Japanese attack on Rangoon once more ends in a bloodbath, but they loose two men for every one we do, and we're still in control of the city.







Our forces attempt an attack on Kaifeng, but things go horribly wrong, and tens of thousands of troops surrender rather than attack the enemy positions.



They saw the fortifications around the city, and decided that a prisoner of war camp was preferable to certain death.







Well, today went badly for our troops, it seems that the Marshall islands are heavily defended, as was Kaifeng – this is the first time we've run into level 4 forts, and they are making their presence known. I'm now not sure we have the troops in the area to capture our targets here, I was expecting lighter defences than this, the enemy must have been building like crazy.

I order most forces to concentrate on the only beachhead on Kwajalein, ignoring the other targets for now.

Interestingly, the 22,000 men lost in Kaifeng don't add that much to the army loss points, so this must take into account troop quality.