This is definitely an interesting game. Not reading your opponent's AAR makes it even more interesting.
Maybe he picked up those Rockhampton units with fast transports?
If you haven't seen any interesting SigInt (e.g. "4ID is preparing for East Codswallop" or "17/4ID is on xAP Circle Maru heading for East Codswallop") then maybe a cigar is just a cigar--i.e. he's pulling back to establish a better defense.
Cheers,
CB
one thing our opponent is completely and utterly diligent about is invalidating the use of sigint. literally every single hit we get regarding 'heading for...' is fake. We guess he sets up waypoints or something like that, but it completely defeats the mechanic meant to simulate Allied real life advantages.
This is definitely an interesting game. Not reading your opponent's AAR makes it even more interesting.
Maybe he picked up those Rockhampton units with fast transports?
If you haven't seen any interesting SigInt (e.g. "4ID is preparing for East Codswallop" or "17/4ID is on xAP Circle Maru heading for East Codswallop") then maybe a cigar is just a cigar--i.e. he's pulling back to establish a better defense.
Cheers,
CB
Even with enough ships, there are loading limits for ports and I am pretty sure 10,000 men and their gear could not be loaded in one turn. I suspect some of them took the rails to another port the Japanese have where they will try to extricate them.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
This is definitely an interesting game. Not reading your opponent's AAR makes it even more interesting.
Maybe he picked up those Rockhampton units with fast transports?
If you haven't seen any interesting SigInt (e.g. "4ID is preparing for East Codswallop" or "17/4ID is on xAP Circle Maru heading for East Codswallop") then maybe a cigar is just a cigar--i.e. he's pulling back to establish a better defense.
Cheers,
CB
Even with enough ships, there are loading limits for ports and I am pretty sure 10,000 men and their gear could not be loaded in one turn. I suspect some of them took the rails to another port the Japanese have where they will try to extricate them.
At size 9 and 10 ports I have had Amphib TFs with 100 ships completely load three full divisions plus assets in a single day.
In fact when loading Three amphib TFs with 100 ships each at the same level 9 port I have had 2 out of the 3 completely load in one turn.
Interesting discussion. It's not possible he railed them out because Rockhampton was completely surrounded. Air search said the TF was ~10 ships...it's only a Size 3 port so having large enough ships to do this seems like a stretch. Maybe possible if he was doing amphib loads and not loading any supplies and had some naval support?
Or maybe our recon just wasn't very good, average skill of the pilots flying was around 50. Anybody know the mechanic for how recon pilot skill feeds into detection level? Does higher skill = higher DL or is an 8/10 DL by a Recon pilot with skill 50 less reliable than an 8/10 DL from a pilot with skill 75?
I figured out something useful for Beaufighters to do! They've basically swept away the Rufe nuisances at Lord Howe.
We hit the place pretty hard today, BBs Mississippi and Warspite plus 5 DDs do this:
Japanese ground losses:
182 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 5 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 17 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Guns lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)
Port hits 19
Port supply hits 1
Then then 2 squadrons of B-25s and one of B-17s deliver this:
Japanese ground losses:
227 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 14 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 11 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
The KB is most likely moving to Luganville to replenish, subs we have patrolling north of New Caledonia are getting 10/10 DLs on them all of a sudden.
We send out more surface ships to continue battering Lord Howe figuring we have at least 3-4 days before they could be down here. It'll be interesting to see what kind of reaction we draw. If we can get the KB to move a week or so sail away we can probably recapture the place. We have the below roster of units ready to go at Sydney (prep %):
2nd USMC Para Bn (100%)
2/4 Ind Co (100%)
2nd USMC Regt (26%)
2/8 Ind Co (63%)
Half Strength PM Brig (68%)
Kanga Force Bn at Co. Strength (70%)
3rd USMC Raider Bn (91%)
So 163 AV even if we don't use the poorly prepped 2nd Marines. Against two presumably beat to hell, disrupted SNLFs. Opinions?
Burma
With the IJN gone we win a decisive victory in the skies over Akyab, over 100 fighters sweep away his Oscar CAP. Intel says we got 21 in exchange for 3 P-40s. Not bad. We send in the BB Royal Sovereign with 4 older RN CLs and a few DDs to bombard. A B-26 group from Dacca and a couple RAF Blenheim squadrons will try to make sure the field is closed tomorrow.
Argonaut catches and sinks a loaded xAK near Rabaul.
Between the Akyab bombardment and the massed raids I'm pretty sure we closed the Akyab airfield. Intel thinks we got 10 Oscars on the ground. We'll continue the attacks until he does something about it.
We hit Lord Howe hard again, another 250 casualties. Enemy ships showing up there now, but almost all single ships so not sure if that's a real sighting. CA Louisville and CL Perth move in to intercept.
Argonaut catches and sinks a loaded xAK near Rabaul.
Between the Akyab bombardment and the massed raids I'm pretty sure we closed the Akyab airfield. Intel thinks we got 10 Oscars on the ground. We'll continue the attacks until he does something about it.
We hit Lord Howe hard again, another 250 casualties. Enemy ships showing up there now, but almost all single ships so not sure if that's a real sighting. CA Louisville and CL Perth move in to intercept.
Single ships headed to a small island/atoll occupied by a single small unit are likely delivering supply. I almost always use single ships for this task.
Interesting discussion. It's not possible he railed them out because Rockhampton was completely surrounded. Air search said the TF was ~10 ships...it's only a Size 3 port so having large enough ships to do this seems like a stretch. Maybe possible if he was doing amphib loads and not loading any supplies and had some naval support?
Or maybe our recon just wasn't very good, average skill of the pilots flying was around 50. Anybody know the mechanic for how recon pilot skill feeds into detection level? Does higher skill = higher DL or is an 8/10 DL by a Recon pilot with skill 50 less reliable than an 8/10 DL from a pilot with skill 75?
The recon skill level of the pilot does not alter the reliability of the DL. The higher skilled pilot is more likely to get you a high DL than a lower skilled pilot. Once you have the DL it doesn't matter what the pilot skill level is.
Interesting discussion. It's not possible he railed them out because Rockhampton was completely surrounded. Air search said the TF was ~10 ships...it's only a Size 3 port so having large enough ships to do this seems like a stretch. Maybe possible if he was doing amphib loads and not loading any supplies and had some naval support?
Or maybe our recon just wasn't very good, average skill of the pilots flying was around 50. Anybody know the mechanic for how recon pilot skill feeds into detection level? Does higher skill = higher DL or is an 8/10 DL by a Recon pilot with skill 50 less reliable than an 8/10 DL from a pilot with skill 75?
The recon skill level of the pilot does not alter the reliability of the DL. The higher skilled pilot is more likely to get you a high DL than a lower skilled pilot. Once you have the DL it doesn't matter what the pilot skill level is.
Alfred
The Oracle of AE has spoken!
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Interesting discussion. It's not possible he railed them out because Rockhampton was completely surrounded. Air search said the TF was ~10 ships...it's only a Size 3 port so having large enough ships to do this seems like a stretch. Maybe possible if he was doing amphib loads and not loading any supplies and had some naval support?
Or maybe our recon just wasn't very good, average skill of the pilots flying was around 50. Anybody know the mechanic for how recon pilot skill feeds into detection level? Does higher skill = higher DL or is an 8/10 DL by a Recon pilot with skill 50 less reliable than an 8/10 DL from a pilot with skill 75?
The recon skill level of the pilot does not alter the reliability of the DL. The higher skilled pilot is more likely to get you a high DL than a lower skilled pilot. Once you have the DL it doesn't matter what the pilot skill level is.
Alfred
The Oracle of AE has spoken!
[:D]
appreciate the idiot-proof answer. Helps save me from these moments -
We send four squadrons of USAAF fighters from Charters Towers to sweep Cairns. One goes in alone and struggles, but the other three coordinate and seem to do fairly well. Intel says 31 A6M2s vs. 33 P-39/40s. Don't want to drain our pools too much, but we want to keep the pressure on so we're going to go again in a day or two.
In China Wuchow falls, we had to pull our forces out to defend Kweilin.
He tries another para drop on Kunming, it doesn't work and he takes moderate casualties.
Akyab gets a bit of a reprieve as Chittagong and Dacca are socked in. We still get in a decent amount of hits with squadrons from Calcutta.
All those single ships at Lord Howe I. do appear to be subs, our cruiser TF encounters no surface combatants, just subs, we send in a trio of Aussie DDs with high ASW ratings.
3 SNFL Cos. force us out of Port Hedland
In China Kwangchowan falls to a couple of Vietnamese militia regiments.
May 22, 1942
The IJN finally makes an appearance at Akyab, four CAs intercept our bombardment TF and we lose the CL Emerald. Light damage otherwise, we retire to Calcutta.
No aerial interdiction, we continue to hammer the airfield with a few squadrons also hitting the port and troops.
We resume the sweeps over Cairns. A USMC squadron leads the way and takes some serious losses, however the follow on USAAF squadrons mop up the CAP. I'm not sure why he's been so reticent to reinforce his Cairns squadron(s)but I think we've worn the one he has there down. We moved bombers from Sydney (the Lord Howe attackers) to Charters Towers and if he doesn't reinforce next turn we'll attack all those ships in port.
He also appears to have a TF of some sort docked there, we send in a trio of DDs to investigate.
The sub horde around Lord Howe seems gone, so we send in Repulse and friends to bombard.
In Burma the IJN SCTF retires and we line up our CLs for another bombardment run. Air raids continue.
Apparently the IJN CAs did not retire as we expected so our CL bombardment TF runs into them again. We lose the DD Arrow, CLs Enterprise and Danae have serious but non-sinking damage. We barely scratch the paint on the CAs, may have slightly damaged a DD.
Bad weather (guess it is the Monsoon season) results in a day of respite for Akyab. Recon with 8/12 DL is still showing 81% AF damage so I don't think we'll be seeing the appearance of a lot of LBA. I suspect he landed a good amount of supply with his invasion force, but I wonder if that might eventually become an issue for him.
He tries dropping more paras on Kunming and is repulsed with heavy losses. I would imagine he realizes this is a failed venture, but doesn't want to abandon the units he's already dropped. We have two additional divisions arriving in a few days that should be able to mop up the remaining troops, who must have virtually no supply.
He's positioned at least 3 R-boats along the southern coast of Ceylon. Imagine he's trying to catch us moving ships out of Ceylon. Does make me hesitant to send out the old RN BBs with only one DD for escort.
Australia
Action on the ground and sea and in the air around Cairns today. In the skies he moved in a sentai of Oscars, but they don't really change the balance much, intel says we took down 21 with USAAF sweeps, we lose 14 P-40s. We have about 60 USAAF bombers of various types at Charter Towers, we'll attack the port next turn which is still showing 28 ships docked. As the below attack reveals, he's badly short of AV support here.
At sea our DDs encounter 10 PBs and beat them up fairly well. None show sunk but 1-2 probably will. The three DDs are 4 stackers that started with the Asiatic Fleet, they're having a hell of a war.
Most interesting development is on the ground, where our recon bombardment finds both divisions evacuated from Rockhampton and two others we suspected. If we could somehow figure out a way to destroy a significant portion of these forces it would be a pivotal victory. I can't imagine he'll allow that, but if we can get him to commit the KB up here perhaps we can finally feel safe launching our Lord Howe invasion Take 2. In the short term I wonder if he might try a quick counter attack. We showed up with the 7th Aus Div and a good amount of armor - just over 700 AV. If he launched an immediate shock attack with 4 divisions he might be able to defeat us. We do have the 6th Aus and Americal Divs unloading from trains at Townsville along with several independent Army regiments and a ton of arty, so I feel confident we'll be able to reduce the enemy with time.
Ground combat at Cairns (92,140)
Allied Bombardment attack
Attacking force 18560 troops, 363 guns, 620 vehicles, Assault Value = 702
Defending force 50868 troops, 480 guns, 187 vehicles, Assault Value = 1726
Assaulting units:
7th Aus Div Cav Regiment
193rd Tank Battalion
2/3rd MG Battalion
25th Australian Brigade
21st Australian Brigade
18th Australian Brigade
1st Motor Brigade
109th Tank Attack Regiment
2/9th Field Regiment
1st Medium Regiment
Defending units:
33rd Division
38th Division
21st Division
2nd Division
3rd Engineer Construction Battalion
22nd Ind.AA Gun Co
9th Field AF Construction Battalion
92nd JAAF AF Bn
That's why it's important to use enough air craft to ensure dropping the entire unit in one trip and also why reinforcing a failed drop with additional drops makes no sense.
The only way to relieve a failed para drop is with land troops.
It started at Lord Howe where our bombardment TF was intercepted by a group of Japanese CLs:
Night Time Surface Combat, near Lord Howe Island at 100,169, Range 8,000 Yards
Japanese Ships
CL Natori, Shell hits 10, heavy fires, heavy damage
CL Kuma, Shell hits 2
CL Tama, Shell hits 2
CL Kiso, Shell hits 4, on fire
DD Nowaki
DD Arashi, Shell hits 1
DD Tanikaze, Shell hits 2
DD Minegumo, Shell hits 1
Allied Ships
BB Resolution, Shell hits 7, on fire
BC Repulse, Shell hits 6
CL Hobart, Shell hits 5, on fire
DD Cassin, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD MacDonough, Shell hits 2
DD Voyager
DD Vampire, Shell hits 17, and is sunk
Resolution has 14 Sys damage, Hobart is 32 with some minor FLT and ENG. Not exactly great, but could have been worse if we got Long Lanced, I guess.
There were two additional small SCTFs we clashed with one with a CL and 4 DDs and another with just 4 DDs. No appreciable damage suffered by either side.
IJN CVs show up off Rockhampton again, not sure if this is the KB or a smaller carrier group yet.
At Cairns we do catch a bunch of ships in port, I've combined the many raids into one list of ships hit:
xAK Mikage Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Asosan Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires
xAK Toei Maru, Bomb hits 1
xAK Momokawa Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
AK Awata Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire
xAK Aobasan Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires
xAK Asakasan Maru, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
xAP Baikal Maru, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires
LSD Shinshu Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Arabia Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire
xAK Amagisan Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAP Ural Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Kashii Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire
xAK Kirikawa Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
xAP Ussuri Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
xAK Kansai Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires
xAP Taizan Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
xAP Keihuku Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires
xAP Atsuta Maru, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires
SC Ch 3, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAP Montevideo Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
We did lose 18 planes of various models in this effort, but I think it was worthwhile.
BB New Mexico was torpedoed near Kodiak, heavy damage unfortunately - 62 FLT. We'll attempt to limp back to Seattle for repairs.
Subs hit a couple of ships that were presumably trying to limp away from Cairns:
AK Awata Maru, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
xAK Aobasan Maru, Torpedo hits 1, heavy damage
xAK Toei Maru, Shell hits 5, on fire
No ships left in port.
He pours in more Oscars and our sweepers meet 50 on CAP overhead. We lose about 30 P-40s and 30 bombers, mostly A-24s and Wirraways. We have about 30 P-40s in our replacement pool after replenishing our squadrons, so we need to be a bit careful with how we use our fighters.
The KB also moves north, with the likelihood of a major strike being launched against Charters Towers I switch most of the squadrons to CAP and stand down the bombers.
May 27, 1942 is a pretty quiet turn.
A USMC squadron sweeps Cairns and takes a few losses but takes several Oscars with them.
A couple of tankers get torpedoed off Perth, one sinks. We've had good success keeping his subs suppressed with several ASW TFs in this area...not sure why he suddenly is having luck. I send out another 4 Ducth DDs to patrol.
We begin bombarding at Cairns; it's pretty clear he's not going to attack and we've had several more FA units arrive.
KB takes up a position 2 hexes off Cairns. I presume he's using them for supplementary CAP since he can't support that many aircraft with his lone JNAF unit. Likely also to cover an evac of his troops. Would love to try to trap the troops here, but attacking the KB at this point would not be a high percentage play.
However, with the KB tied up we do begin loading troops at Auckland to attack Raoul I. and send out ships to bombard Lord Howe again.
First, that a sub launched in 1922 is proving to be our most effective ship is kind of funny. Second, any thoughts on what's up with the all-PB TF composition? That's too many ships to be an ASW TF and as evidenced by the above it's clearly not functioning very well as one if that is what he's trying to do.
BBs Mississippi and Warspite visit Lord Howe I. with limited impact.
In the Bay of Bengal two RN BBs were positioning to hit Akyab, unfortunately I didn't pay attention to the possibility of a long range raid from Port Blair. Ramilles was hit by 7 torpedoes and sunk.
I guess that makes sense, but what's the logic in using PBs that way? Can't really carry that much cargo and he should have AKs that are as fast or faster than the 14 knot PBs.
