Defending the Malay Barrier: End of Turn 2, 1st - 15th January 1942

The final actions of campaign turn 2 are potential air attacks on crippled or disabled ships underway for repair.

The first phase is a carrier strike group from the Ryojo attempting and failing to locate the crippled Houston and its destroyer escort.

The final phase are the Land Based Aircraft attempts. The WAF fail to locate the crippled HMS Dragon in poor weather. The EAF however, are blessed with clear skies and good weather and do find HMAS Canberra escorted by HMAS Hobart.

I used the Campaign Air Ops in GQ3 rather than Tactical Air Ops to speed things along.  

The first attacking wave consisted of 9 flights of 'Nell' bombers. 4 targeted Hobart and 5 Canberra. Medium bombs were dropped keeping the aircraft out of short range AA fire. Neither Australian ship scored any hits using their long range AA armament only.

The Canberra was faced with a heart-stopping moment with a near miss. They only had one hull box left and the near missed reduced that to a half!

The second Japanese wave consisted of 7 flights of 'Betty' bombers. 2 targeted the Hobart and 5 Canberra. On this occasion the Australian AA fire proved far more accurate. Hobart damaged one bomber and Canberra shot one down. 

As the medium bombs rained down Canberra held its breath. Even a near miss would sink her. Fortune favoured the Australians with all bombs falling wide. This signalled the end of turn 2.

Continued -

An overview of the events during turn 2 with the exception of the final air attacks on crippled ships.

Circled Japanese objectives achieved at the end of turn 2.

The Japanese have so far completed tier 1 and are on schedule to capture Singapore. As a reminder, the Japanese must capture all objectives by the end of turn 6 to achieve victory. The strength of that victory will depend on the ratio of victory points between each side.

Total Victory Points achieved at the end of turn 2:

Allies - 101.25

Japan - 66.25

45 of the allied victory points was achieved with the destruction of the Chitose convoy.

Respective strengths at end of turn 2:

Note that all crippled ships are removed from the campaign for extensive refits.

Japanese

EAF: 

1 x Aircraft carrier

3 x Cruisers

20 x Destroyers (2 in drydock)

LBA (#flights) - 17 x fighters, 29 x bombers

WAF:

3 x Floatplane carriers

5 x Cruisers (1 in drydock)

17 x Destroyers (2 in drydock)

LBA (#flights) - 8 x fighters, 26 x bombers

Allied

RN

6 x Destroyers (2 in drydock)

RAN

5 x Cruisers

RNN

3 x Cruisers

7 x Destroyers

USN

1 x Cruiser

8 x Destroyers (1 in drydock)

Reinforcements for both sides may arrive in the next and subsequent turns.

It is my intention to continue with the campaign for the time being and I will cover the introduction to campaign turn 3 in the next post.