War in the Pacific Mini-AAR: Dark Christmas

I continued playing War in the Pacific and I reached December 27th 1941.

The course of the events wasn't very different from the history. Japanese AI is obviously taking its cue from Yamamoto and uses Allied weakness to crush all opposition. Allied forces are fighting very hard and sometimes manage to score minor tactical victory, but they simply can't stop the Japanese onslaught.

By this point, almost entire Northern Malaya is in Japanese hands – Georgetown, Alor Star, Victoria Point and Moulmain in Burma are captured while Japanese 55th Division is at the gates of Rangoon. I'm trying to set up some kind of evacuation from besieged Kuala Lumpur but all I can expect to see is massacre of Allied ships and troop carries at the hands of Japanese air force. Japanese are feeling so comfortable that they sent the troop convoy west of Singapore – RAF and Empire air forces have mauled them, but so far failed to stop them.

Japanese have also captured Kuching on Borneo and are currently fighting Dutch garrison at Menado, Celebes.

In Philippines Japanese have cleared most of Mindanao, parts of Central and Northern Luzon. Japanese artillery has began bombardment of Manila. Half a dozen of cargo ships were sunk by Japanese air force in Manila harbour, making the evacuation of US and Philippino forces very hard. Some US air units have managed to score occasional hit against Japanese ships and some pilots can brag about downing "Zeros", but the general outlook in Philippines is grim. Another small, but insignificant comfort to Allies came in the form of one Dutch naval squadron which have managed to sink couple of Japanese patrol gunboats.

Japanese have also captured all of Gilbert Islands and are stuck in a very hard fight with determined Australian garrison at Rabaul.

US submarines are concentrated mostly in South China Sea and they are hitting Japanese troop carriers and cargo ships very hard. However, for some strange reason those Japanese ships – whether they are hit by Allied shells, bombs or torpedoes – refuse to sink. They seem to be somewhat too resilient – one of them sank almost 20 days after being hit by US coast artillery at Wake Island. I think that the 1.22 patch might address this issue.

During the entire campaign so far, Allies have lost 425 aircraft to Japanese 208. Allies lost 26 ships to Japanese 14.