Fortress Mili

[John Lansford]

Mili is next on my list of places to invade in my Central Pacific offensive, and last turn I had a TF of six old BB's and some cruisers bombard the place. I've now got two cruisers and 4 BB's with System damage over 20 thanks to the 150mm and smaller CD guns defending the place. One BB was hit 36 times!

Have others found this result to be typical? If I send an invasion force here they'll be chewed into pieces by these super-accurate, super-damaging guns!

[bklooste]

CD seemed to have improved a lot ...

[CapAndGown]

Not necessarily. My bombardment force at Darwin got smacked around pretty good. (531 coastal gun shots!) Yet when the amphib force hit the beach, it wasn't too bad. Seemed as if the defenders had used up all their ammo on the capital ships.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

Mili is next on my list of places to invade in my Central Pacific offensive, and last turn I had a TF of six old BB's and some cruisers bombard the place. I've now got two cruisers and 4 BB's with System damage over 20 thanks to the 150mm and smaller CD guns defending the place. One BB was hit 36 times!

Have others found this result to be typical? If I send an invasion force here they'll be chewed into pieces by these super-accurate, super-damaging guns!

Wait until you see Saipan. I lost two BBs (West Virginia took 153 hits in one phase and went down like a rock), a couple of cruisers, and 20+ modern landing ships (AKA, APA), plus major damage or loss to probably 50 other, mostly escort, ships. But I took it. And it's an excellent air base.

When you do the Marianas, do yourself a favor and take Tinian first, then pound Guam and Saipan, for, oh, twenty years or so.

[FOW]

Did your TF have 'escorts bombard' set to ON/YES ?
Did your TF do much damage, how much recon did you do before bombarding?

Looks like you found one of the few decent CD gun units possessed by the IJ. I would do airborne port attacks to soften up the guns before doing another bombardment - say for 2 weeks with 4EBs.
Or do what the Allies did and bypass the base then pound it as a training target. What does your recon tell you about the overall size of the defenders force.

[John Lansford]

I've had recon flights from Makin flying over Mili for over 2 weeks.  Bombers from Makin and Tarawa hitting the base as well for as long.  Escorts set to "no bombard".  Recon says there's fewer than 1500 in the garrison.  

[freeboy]

I know when you put on escorts bomb it SUX, good luck, I gave up one the one jap strong point, for me it was another Is in that chain.. but Mili is an important one afte rits built up for air and fuel/supplies waypoint between US/ Pearl and the western pacific.. good luck

[BletchleyGeek]

I found Maloelab to be packing quite of a punch in late January 42 against the AI, Scenario #2, no historical first turn.

I assembled a quite stout surface action group comprising 5 BBs, covered by USS Saratoga, and dispatched it to Maloelab (KB was kicking the crap out ABDA command at Java). Bombardment results were quite good - 1/2 TF float planes set to recon, USS Saratoga planes bombed the place the day before - but the coastal guns hitted hard the battlewagons. I remember Warspite being hit 100+ times, all other ships ranging on the 50-70 hits received. Although the slugfest was quite intense, Maloelab CD wasn't able to inflict "heavy damage" or "fire" damage.

Another story was what happened while this TF was on its way back to Pearl - a flight of 20+ GM42 successfully intercepted and sent USS West Virginia to the bottom with 5 torps... the CD had substantially softened the TF AAA capacity