Against the Wind: Cuttlefish (Japan) vs. Q-Ball (Allies)

[ny59giants]

I think the North Pacific would be a miserable place to be stationed.

As my company continues to slowly expand, I've requested to work in Alaska for the summer and Hawaii in the winter. [:D] However, my Regional Supervisor had failed to address this in a satisfactory manner. [:D]

[witpqs]

You got Alaska in the winter and Hawaii in the summer? [:D]

[Cuttlefish]

[font="Arial"]RMKS/4 The MK VI Magnetic Exploder has been issued to all ' Fleet ' subs carrying MK XIV torpedoes. This Exploder is a secret technologically advanced device that is expected to produce high sinking ratios when used properly, that is, set to explode beneath the enemy vessels keel. Therefore ALL SUBMARINES SO EQUIPPED ARE DIRECTED TO SET THEIR TORPEDOES FOR A RUNNING DEPTH OF 10 TO 20 FEET BENEATH THE KEEL OF THE VESSEL BEING ATTACKED! Thus, for a target with a draft of 20 feet, the torpedo running depth should be set to 30 to 40 feet.[/font]
- Excerpt of Memo from ComSubRon3A detailing patrol orders for all SubRon3A submarines, 7 December 1941

8/28/1942 – 9/1/1942

While approaching Rabaul Kido Butai was sighted and attacked by an American submarine. Agaki was hit but only duds resulted. The next day, while leaving Rabaul and heading southeast, KB was attacked again. This time another carrier escaped damage. At this point I jinked KB northeast and had them proceed down the north side of the Solomons. This broke contact with Q-Ball’s undersea lurkers and KB is now down around Luganville, heading southeast. But it was a narrow escape that provided Q-Ball with useful intelligence about the location of my carriers.

The same turn that my carriers were detected near Rabaul several American cruisers showed up and shelled Noumea. Damage was negligible but again Q-Ball picked up intelligence about my forces (i.e., he knows the units that took the base are still there). In the meantime I have picked up no further sightings of his warships in the area. Sub recon shows merchant shipping at Pago Pago but no significant surface forces.

He may be up to something in the area. He may be trying to harass or hamper my withdrawing divisions from Noumea (if so he has succeeded). He may be trying to keep my attention focused on the South Pacific while he gears up for an operation in the Central or North Pacific. Or he might just be trying to rattle my cage a little, as he’s been very quiet recently.

Central Heating: looking at my outer defensive perimeter zone by zone (North Pacific, Central Pacific, South Pacific/Eastern New Guinea, DEI, Burma) there is no doubt in my mind where the weak point is: the Central Pacific. Defending the Marshalls is a real problem. The atoll stacking limits make defending with more than a naval guard unit or two and a few guns all but impossible. That means the defense there relies on aircraft (there aren’t enough of them) and KB and the Combined Fleet. There are few mines at Kwajalein, and Roi-Namur has some Zeros and Betties but that’s about it. Further south Tarawa actually has enough troops to mount a defense and Tabiteuea will also be a tough nut to crack (mines, lots of planes and troops).

The danger in losing the Marshalls, of course, is that it opens a door to the inner defensive ring. The one advantage the Marshalls have is that any Allied attack has to occur out of range of land-based air. Any invasion force will be on its own. But some day Q-Ball will have the strength to give it a try.

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Victory point screen for the end of August:

[BrucePowers]

Nice Score[:)]

[ny59giants]

Since most bases have decent AF potential, the places I would defend are those that have the port potential. The port may not be as important during the actual invasion, but any follow up forces will want that aid to be there to get in and out before KB pays them a visit.  

[Cuttlefish]

[font="Arial"]Obviously from the screaming troops you barbarically strafed the day before, you know there were troops aboard those transports. The newsreels of your dastardly acts will inspire the home front to greater exertions.[/font]
- Q-Ball

9/2/1942 – 9/6/1942

Kido Butai approached Fiji and found no targets. Side slipping the islands to the west my carriers moved south and there they found a task force of at least five APs and an AMC. AMC Hector was sunk, as were xAPs Koolama, Klipfontaine, and Macedon. Another AP was left badly damaged.

There were a lot of troop casualties reported, many of them engineers. Those transports may have been carrying base force or engineering units. Messing them up is not a bad thing. After the attack I moved KB to cover the transports that are braving a gauntlet of submarines to take two divisions off Noumea.

One of the divisions, the 4th, is being moved to Rabaul for the time being. The other, probably the 19th, is going all the way to the Marianas. The 48th is being split up and will cover Noumea, Koumac, and Luganville. The 53rd will remain at Noumea for now in case I decide on a further attack in the South Pacific.

China: I am beginning my push on the units Q-Ball has scattered south of Changsa. Some of these are stacks with three or four full-strength corps. Others consist of a single corps that have been so badly beaten in early fighting that they pretty much consist now of twelve guys and an ox cart.

It occurred to me that I would be doing Q-Ball a favor by destroying them because eventually they would come back as one-third strength units, which is a lot better than they are now. I asked him about it and he said yes, once a Chinese unit falls below 5% strength he keeps hoping it will be destroyed. To the frustration of both of us, though, they never are. They just keep retreating. And they block a road or rail line as well as a stronger unit.

Burma: it looks like some of the ten units recon says Q-Ball has in Akyab are moving towards the road south. I have a regiment keeping watch on that road two hexes below Akyab. He may have seen that unit and is reacting to it, or he may be thinking of infiltrating me from that direction. I have the Imperial Guard and the 2nd Divisions to react to a move there and the 38th Division is coming up from Java.

Shipping News: Port Arthur is right now the busiest Japanese-held port in the Pacific. There are about 1.4 million resources there and I can’t seem to haul them away fast enough. Not that I’m not trying. The screenie below shows Japanese shipping in the Yellow Sea as of 5 September. Every one of the task forces visible is either at, heading to, or coming from Port Arthur, with the exception of a few ASW forces close to Japan.

So far I haven’t seen any Allied subs in the Yellow Sea. Some of them operate in the East China Sea, though, and they are like old friends. I know some of them so well I could draw their patrol zones on a map. Finback, for example, recently returned after an absence of some weeks and some of my sub chasers threw a welcome home party. My ASW forces might as well hand out cake and streamers; it’s about as effective as anything else they try and do.

[Swenslim]

Expand Fusan to 6 lvl, many resource will flow there and you will be able to ship them to Shimonseki and Maizuru very quickly !

[FatR]

Out of curiosity, why sending troops right to Marianas? An attack there is hardly possible at this stage. Also, Burma seems to be pretty well defended, but what strategy you're going to use for defense in other regions? Are outlying islands in the Pacific going to be contested if the bulk of Allied fleet appears to take them, and if not, where you intend to make your stand? And how about defenses in DEI? Also, how your air forces are going to be deployed? Judging by low losses, Japanese LBA should be in pretty good shape.

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: Swenslim

Expand Fusan to 6 lvl, many resource will flow there and you will be able to ship them to Shimonseki and Maizuru very quickly !

Good tip, thanks!

Out of curiosity, why sending troops right to Marianas? An attack there is hardly possible at this stage. Also, Burma seems to be pretty well defended, but what strategy you're going to use for defense in other regions? Are outlying islands in the Pacific going to be contested if the bulk of Allied fleet appears to take them, and if not, where you intend to make your stand? And how about defenses in DEI? Also, how your air forces are going to be deployed? Judging by low losses, Japanese LBA should be in pretty good shape.

I'm sending the division to the Marianas now because I will want a strong division there eventually and I figure it's better to move it there now rather than risk pulling it back in the face of Allied offensive operations. There are no new divisions arriving for a very long time and I don't want to leave all my troops on the outer perimeter. I will hold the outer perimeter as long as I can, relying on my air and naval forces, but by the time he is attacking the inner perimeter the mainstay of the defense will have to be dug-in troops behind lots of forts. All the main islands of the Marianas can hold a lot of troops.

At this point yes, any attack on outlying islands will be met by the full force of the IJN. As we get later into '43 I will re-evaluate that stance but right now I will take any opportunity to engage Q-Ball under the cover of my own LBA.

I have strong forces in the DEI but the defense there is necessarily porous - there are just too many islands and bases to defend. Java has a division and two regiments, plus some armor. Sumatra has five infantry regiments. On Timor there are a lot of troops at Koepang but Lautem is currently weak - that needs to be shored up. The mainstay of the defense in the DEI has to be land-based air and I have a lot of planes here and am working to build up airfields in the region. I have a lot more planes in the DEI right now than I do in Burma.

In the Pacific my LBA is currently concentrated at four bases: Lae, Luganville, Tabiteuea, and Roi-Namur. Should an attack occur they will concentrate but this gives me pretty good coverage of likely approach routes. Overall my air forces are in great shape. I think this is a source of concern to Q-Ball from some comments he's made. He knows my air losses have been light and that when he attacks he will be facing a lot of good pilots.

One more thing that is factoring into my defensive strategy is the way forts work in AE. Right now I think I have only two bases that have built up to level 5 forts, Babeldoab and Truk, and they are both staging areas that tend to have lots and lots of engineers. If any bases are to have forts of level 6 or higher before the Allies arrive, even places like Okinawa, work on them has be underway now.

[Laxplayer]

Thank you for that picture Cuttlefish! I now have a juicy new area to send my subs to in my game! [8D]

[Swenslim]

In my game against Allied AI, LBA is dissapointing me, Nell's and Betty's cant hit anything that protected and moves fast. So I recommend you to have atleast 2 big CV's and all small CVL and CVE in Singapore to react on possible attacks on Java and Makassar-Timor bases. And i think Yamato better to be stationed with few BB's there too.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Swenslim

In my game against Allied AI, LBA is dissapointing me, Nell's and Betty's cant hit anything that protected and moves fast. So I recommend you to have atleast 2 big CV's and all small CVL and CVE in Singapore to react on possible attacks on Java and Makassar-Timor bases. And i think Yamato better to be stationed with few BB's there too.

In my experience against AI, torpedo-armed Netties fare well against early war Allied ships above DD. Unfortunately, they need very tight fighter cover. Although I suppose there were enough time to train up IJA Sally units for naval attacks in this game (don't remember any mention of them used anywhere for a long time), so Netties won't be alone and swamping enemy by sheer numbers is still an option, as long, as there are several good airfields in range.

Also, I think that splitting KB is folly in this sutuation. On the contrary, assuming that Allies have their carriers intact, I would consider forming 2 taskforces out of 6 original KB carriers and Junyo + Hiyo and use them closely together. Otherwise, Allies can probably bring significantly superior aircraft numbers to a decisive battle, just by massing all of their fast carriers. Splitting large carriers means that even with LBA cover the battle might happen at unfavorable odds. On the other hand, putting all battleships except Kongos (these, IMO, should escort carriers) into DEI or close to DEI (say, on Babeldaob), while CVs guard the Pacific, might be sensible. There they can fight under plenty of land-based air, and if the entire battleline sails together, Allies probably cannot quite match them in surface combat yet.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

[font="Arial"]You can never do too much reconnaissance.[/font]
- George S. Patton: War As I Knew It, 1947

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8/9/1942 – 8/14/1942

The attack at Noumea resumed with odds just short of 1 to 1. That’s a little disappointing for 4 divisions against 1 division plus some smaller units. We will see what kind of progress Japanese forces can make this time, though.

In the meantime I have sent my carriers over towards Suva to do some sniffing around. I looked at my Val units to make some adjustments to their search arcs and got an unpleasant shock. At some point, probably the last patch, all of them had somehow gotten set to 100% training. Not only were the units somewhat fatigued, KB has been sailing around blind and with one arm tied behind its back for days without me knowing it.

And all that training only did a little good, since the pilots are all highly skilled anyway. Ah well, potential disaster averted.

Thinking about search arcs brings up an interesting point, though. Now that the search arc display feature has opened a lot of eyes, mine included, to how searches have always really been done in WITP and AE I have some questions about the best way to set search arcs for carrier groups.

Right now my carrier task forces have eight carriers, all travelling in the same hex. That means I have eight groups of Vals. If I set them all to 10% search each group can cover 40 degrees of arc (20% if the group has 15 or fewer planes – the game seems to round down at 15 or less, meaning that only one plane is assigned to search), or not quite enough to search 360 degrees around the task forces.

Should more planes be added to the search to try to cover 360 degrees? Or should the searches focus be on the likely direction the enemy will approach? Right now I have one group each searching directions considered possible but unlikely for enemy activity (00 to 90 degrees and 180 to 240 degrees) and two groups each searching directions considered likely for enemy activity (90 to 180 degrees). Directions I consider very unlikely (in this case behind the task forces back towards Luganville, with all its aircraft) are not being searched at all.

And of course the heavy cruisers and battleships with the carriers have float planes and they can cover quite a lot of ground too. Some of them (Petes, for instance) only have a range of 4, but Jakes have a range of 10. Do I use these to cover the areas neglected by the Vals or do I use them to reinforce the “best guess” searches?

It might be possible, I suppose, to gain a potentially decisive advantage in a carrier duel by appearing from an unexpected direction, provided one’s opponent is careless in setting search arcs or is looking for your carriers elsewhere. Or does carefully fussing over search arcs not make that much difference? Any opinions about any of this out there?

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Setting the arc for Zuikaku’s Vals as my carriers approach Suva:

But is this really how it was done in WITP? I always set my carrier attack planes to 20% search and naval attack. It seems to me that they just about always spoted the enemy in any direction. It this was true then all of my planes in WITP would have been searching the same arc. I doubt that. I hope this is not the case in AE. I really don't want to be messing with search arcs for my carriers and ships. I want the computer to do it and if I got 20 to 30 aircraft searching would expect about every arc to be covered. I wish somebody would clarifiy this.

[crsutton]

CF,
 
Could you list your warship losses to this point?

[String]

ORIGINAL: crsutton



But is this really how it was done in WITP? I always set my carrier attack planes to 20% search and naval attack. It seems to me that they just about always spoted the enemy in any direction. It this was true then all of my planes in WITP would have been searching the same arc. I doubt that. I hope this is not the case in AE. I really don't want to be messing with search arcs for my carriers and ships. I want the computer to do it and if I got 20 to 30 aircraft searching would expect about every arc to be covered. I wish somebody would clarifiy this.

For the japanese it's easy. Just use a CS or two, with their Pete's upgraded to Jakes and you can cover everything around you 360 degrees.

[Smeulders]

I want the computer to do it and if I got 20 to 30 aircraft searching would expect about every arc to be covered. I wish somebody would clarifiy this.

If you don't set search arcs, the arcs are set at random. If you have enough planes, every direction will be searched.

[Swenslim]

With 1 CS al 360 are searched and all CA's and CL'S must have Jake onboard too.

[Swenslim]

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: Swenslim

In my game against Allied AI, LBA is dissapointing me, Nell's and Betty's cant hit anything that protected and moves fast. So I recommend you to have atleast 2 big CV's and all small CVL and CVE in Singapore to react on possible attacks on Java and Makassar-Timor bases. And i think Yamato better to be stationed with few BB's there too.

In my experience against AI, torpedo-armed Netties fare well against early war Allied ships above DD. Unfortunately, they need very tight fighter cover. Although I suppose there were enough time to train up IJA Sally units for naval attacks in this game (don't remember any mention of them used anywhere for a long time), so Netties won't be alone and swamping enemy by sheer numbers is still an option, as long, as there are several good airfields in range.

Also, I think that splitting KB is folly in this sutuation. On the contrary, assuming that Allies have their carriers intact, I would consider forming 2 taskforces out of 6 original KB carriers and Junyo + Hiyo and use them closely together. Otherwise, Allies can probably bring significantly superior aircraft numbers to a decisive battle, just by massing all of their fast carriers. Splitting large carriers means that even with LBA cover the battle might happen at unfavorable odds. On the other hand, putting all battleships except Kongos (these, IMO, should escort carriers) into DEI or close to DEI (say, on Babeldaob), while CVs guard the Pacific, might be sensible. There they can fight under plenty of land-based air, and if the entire battleline sails together, Allies probably cannot quite match them in surface combat yet.

I totaly agree with you about Big battleship TF in DEI. They can be stationed in Singapore for example, out of range of air attack and under air cover. And then they can use their fast speed + 6 hex reaction for sudden attack on any enemy force. Also they will be under air protection from Java airfields and Makkasar-Kendari if you have fighters there.

[String]

ORIGINAL: Swenslim

With 1 CS al 360 are searched and all CA's and CL'S must have Jake onboard too.

IF you use 100% search..

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
CF,

Could you list your warship losses to this point?

So far Japan's warship losses are three light cruisers and eleven destroyers.