Naval Bombardments - too weak?

[jackyo123]

Tonight, I hit Henderson Field with the full might of the Japanese Navy - 5 bb's (including Yamato), 5 CA's, 2 CL's, 12 DD's.

What was there? 86 aircraft, and 19,000 troops (confirmed by my opponent - we discussed the result afterwards). I hit them for 2 nights. Yamato alone expended 70% of its 18" ammo.


What was the damage?

11 casualties (only 2 destroyed). 2 wrecked planes. some base force supplies hit (FOW reported 18 casualties, but the real result was 11). Level 1 forts were in place.

And thats it.


Has anyone else noticed that bombardments are much weaker than they were historically?


Thats a really nerfed result. I remember reading that in WITP bombardments were too strong. Have they gone too far the other way?

I know now that its completely pointless to run another nightime bombardment mission of Henderson to try and keep the aircraft down. 86 Aircraft on a level 3 field (5 air groups) is a pretty crowded field. IRL, the big bombardment of Henderson destroyed about 50 planes or so, and wiped out all the stored aviation fuel. It also shredded the runways.

[Canoerebel]

Yes, many have noticed a similar trend - naval bombardments don't have the "nuclear" impact that they did in WitP.  (If you really need a nuclear impact, just land three or four artillery units and the entire American Army will surrender in a week.)
 
I have, however, also seen effective naval bombardments.  It may be a matter of random luck, or a product of good pre-bombardment reconnaissance, a combination, or who knows.
 
But overall I'd say the naval bombardments are much more realist in AE than they were in WitP.  After all, in the real war the Japanese Navy wasn't able to put Henderson Field out of commission very long and it was probably level one forts - guys were running around jumping into foxholes while shells were coming in.

[erstad]

What was the DL? The results are highly dependent on DL level, in my experience, although one never gets to "nuke" in any case

[Fishbed]

I can only agree, for having extensively tried the thing in the Solomons. Detection level matters the most: recon the place serveral times with specialized planes and seaplanes in the phases before the attack. The losses can be quite important, especially in terms of planes, and it's quite understandable from my point of view.

I wonder if you can even try to recon the place flying night recon with a seaplane, does it work...? If so, DO IT TOO!!!

Then you'll be able to inflict damages even with limited assets.

[castor troy]

Considering the fact that bombarding ships don´t use up their bombardement ammo in one night (unlike WITP) you can still inflict huge amounts of damage with bombardements. The biggest difference is that in WITP you "could" achieve a nuke without recon (most times you didn´t) and in AE it seems without recon it´s nearly impossible. With enough recon, you can make a base look like the moon with bombardements and if you think about the ships being able to do three bombardements without having to replenish for example just multiply the results below (recent happenings in my PBEM) by three and you´re very close to what was called nuke in WITP. The ammo expended makes the difference IMO.

Naval bombardment of Akyab at 54,45

Japanese Ships
BB Yamashiro
BB Fuso
CA Ashigara
CA Nachi
CA Haguro
CA Myoko


Allied ground losses:
372 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 14 destroyed, 46 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 6 (0 destroyed, 6 disabled)
Vehicles lost 4 (2 destroyed, 2 disabled)


Airbase hits 6
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 33
Port hits 17
Port fuel hits 3
Port supply hits 1

BB Yamashiro firing at Akyab
BB Fuso firing at Akyab
CA Ashigara firing at Akyab
CA Nachi firing at Akyab
CA Haguro firing at AVG Ground Echelon
CA Myoko firing at 106th RAF Base Force

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Naval bombardment of Chittagong at 55,41 - Coastal Guns Fire Back!

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
P-40B Warhawk: 2 destroyed on ground
H81-A3: 2 destroyed on ground
C-47 Skytrain: 2 destroyed on ground
Hurricane IIb Trop: 2 destroyed on ground

16 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Japanese Ships
BB Haruna, Shell hits 2
BB Kongo
CA Kumano
CA Suzuya
CA Mikuma
CA Mogami


Allied ground losses:
137 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 17 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 5 (0 destroyed, 5 disabled)


Airbase hits 13
Airbase supply hits 3
Runway hits 43

BB Haruna firing at Chittagong Fortress
BB Kongo firing at Chittagong
CA Kumano firing at Chittagong
CA Suzuya firing at Chittagong
CA Mikuma firing at Chittagong Fortress
CA Mogami firing at Chittagong Fortress


IIRC 16 ac were destroyed on the ground in this example. Multiply the hits on the airbase by three and you´ve got far over 100 hits on the runway alone. And it still matters what you´ve got at a base, if there are a lot of ac, the airfield is hit hard, if there are a lot of ships the port is hit hard, if there´s nothing at the base then the damage is done to both port and airfield (which is ok I guess). In both above examples my opponent has sent a lot of ac over the two bases (including recons I guess) and has achieved quite nice (for him) results.

[gajdacs zsolt]

Hmm, interesting point about recon. In my current game i bombarded Pegu for one night, and i got these results:

Naval bombardment of Pegu at 55,53
 
Japanese Ships
      BB Hyuga
      BB Ise
      BB Yamashiro
      BB Fuso
      CL Oi
      CL Isuzu
 
 
Allied ground losses:
      118 casualties reported
         Squads: 0 destroyed, 8 disabled
         Non Combat: 4 destroyed, 11 disabled
         Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
      Guns lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)
      Vehicles lost 7 (2 destroyed, 5 disabled)
 
 
BB Hyuga firing at 7th Australian Division
BB Ise firing at 6th Australian Division
BB Yamashiro firing at 6th Australian Division
BB Fuso firing at 7th Australian Division
CL Oi firing at 7th Australian Division
CL Isuzu firing at 6th Australian Division


3 army divisions have been fighting in the hex for many turns now, i run dedicated recon every turn (dinah set to Pegu as target), and every turn a force of 150-200 Sallys bomb the allies. In light of this, do you believe this to be a realistic result? (the enemy has a level 4 fort, i also have 1 heavy artillery and 2 medium artilley in hex. Those and aerial bombardments separately cause roughly half the casualties every turn.

I'm not necessarily saying it's not realistic, just curious of the opinion of others.

Thanks!

[John Lansford]

I had six USN BB's and 3 CA's bombard Baker Island, where there was a garrison unit and a base force present.  I've been running recon from Canton to Baker for the last two weeks straight, as well as a squadron of B-26's bombing them.  The BB's inflicted fewer than 100 casualties on the defenders.   After that kind of firepower got expended against an island as small as Baker, I would have expected much higher casualty levels.

[aciddrinker]

hmm one hex is 40 square miles? Do not you think that the probability of mass killing by bombing is negligible?

[String]

Naval bombardment of Suva at 132,160

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
SBD-3 Dauntless: 3 destroyed on ground
LB-30 Liberator: 2 destroyed on ground
Hudson III (LR): 4 destroyed on ground
SBD-2 Dauntless: 6 destroyed on ground
P-38E Lightning: 4 destroyed on ground
B-17E Fortress: 4 destroyed on ground
B-26 Marauder: 1 destroyed on ground
F2A-3 Buffalo: 2 destroyed on ground
F4F-3 Wildcat: 2 destroyed on ground
B-18A Bolo: 1 destroyed on ground
S.19 Singapore III: 2 destroyed on ground

Japanese Ships
BB Kirishima
BB Hiei
CA Chikuma
CA Tone

Allied Ships
AE Lassen, Shell hits 2, on fire
AO Kurumba, Shell hits 1


Allied ground losses:
147 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 9 destroyed, 13 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 2 (1 destroyed, 1 disabled)
Vehicles lost 2 (0 destroyed, 2 disabled)


Airbase hits 11
Airbase supply hits 5
Runway hits 89

[John Lansford]

ORIGINAL: aciddrinker

hmm one hex is 40 square miles? Do not you think that the probability of mass killing by bombing is negligible?

Perhaps if my bombardment TF had just been randomly throwing shells all over the hex, you might have had a point, but I guess you neglected to notice I said they were bombarding Baker Island. That island is not much more than a pile of sand barely large enough for an airstrip, so I'd think that my ships would know where to shoot.

[JohnDillworth]

My experince has been naval bombardment is alomost useless. Even with recon I usually get a couple of dozen causalities with 5 or 6 BB's. As the allies I took Raubal and bombarded Keveing every day for a month with 2 BB's When I took it it had no damage, not an airfiled or port hit and the defenders put up a solid fight. Solid month, 2 BB's, every day and it seems every shell missed. This was before I knew how important recon was so I had very little but still.
worthless

[freeboy]

weather or not its raining, sorry couldn't resist, if this needs to be tweeked, I think maybe a little..
My one issue, which seems so very obvious is that fortifications is a little, well odd, Some of these are permenent in real life, and are not transfereable and seem to be made of paper, on the other hand an 18 shell, or 16 for that matter moves the earth around like so much sand on a day at the beach... seriously forts on atols and small bases, large??? should really take a pounding... and as for fire control would not a bb or ca put up a recon plane to direct fire control inland?

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: String

Naval bombardment of Suva at 132,160

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
SBD-3 Dauntless: 3 destroyed on ground
LB-30 Liberator: 2 destroyed on ground
Hudson III (LR): 4 destroyed on ground
SBD-2 Dauntless: 6 destroyed on ground
P-38E Lightning: 4 destroyed on ground
B-17E Fortress: 4 destroyed on ground
B-26 Marauder: 1 destroyed on ground
F2A-3 Buffalo: 2 destroyed on ground
F4F-3 Wildcat: 2 destroyed on ground
B-18A Bolo: 1 destroyed on ground
S.19 Singapore III: 2 destroyed on ground

Japanese Ships
BB Kirishima
BB Hiei
CA Chikuma
CA Tone

Allied Ships
AE Lassen, Shell hits 2, on fire
AO Kurumba, Shell hits 1


Allied ground losses:
147 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 9 destroyed, 13 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 2 (1 destroyed, 1 disabled)
Vehicles lost 2 (0 destroyed, 2 disabled)


Airbase hits 11
Airbase supply hits 5
Runway hits 89

looks like a nice nuke to me considering the fact that the ground losses in the combat report are HIGHLY inflated and will be twice or three times as high as stated in the cr. Also looks like a complete overstacking of the airfield to me. [:D]

[jackyo123]

I reconned the base with 2 airgroups the previous day, and was also in a bombardment mode with land based troops (I landed arty at tsafaronga; presumably I was spotting the arty fall from the slopes of Mt Austen).

So I dont know exactly what the DL was - but recon had indeed been done. I dont run tracker/staff every turn so i dont always keep track of DL levels to what i should.

[JohnDillworth]

Here is a recent one at Singapore. Surrounded with a 9/10 detection level. 3 old BB's. Don't know how to calculate total number of Shells but all ships expended about 60% of their ammo. 2 ports hits and a airfield hit just seems lite, I mean you can proably see the port from the ships:

Naval bombardment of Singapore at 50,84

Allied Ships
BB Texas
BB New York
BB Arkansas

Japanese ground losses:
79 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 7 destroyed, 7 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)



Airbase hits 1
Runway hits 5
Port hits 2

BB Texas firing at 25th Division
BB New York firing at Singapore
BB Arkansas firing at 9th Base Force

[spence]

I had six USN BB's and 3 CA's bombard Baker Island, where there was a garrison unit and a base force present. I've been running recon from Canton to Baker for the last two weeks straight, as well as a squadron of B-26's bombing them. The BB's inflicted fewer than 100 casualties on the defenders. After that kind of firepower got expended against an island as small as Baker, I would have expected much higher casualty levels.

[quotehmm one hex is 40 square miles? Do not you think that the probability of mass killing by bombing is negligible?

_____________________________][/quote]

Baker Island






The garrison was cleverly hidden under the bush towards the left end of the island

[SuluSea]

ORIGINAL: spence



The garrison was cleverly hidden under the bush towards the left end of the island

My results have been negligible even with the bonus of reconning and bombing by CV air.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

ORIGINAL: aciddrinker

hmm one hex is 40 square miles? Do not you think that the probability of mass killing by bombing is negligible?

Perhaps if my bombardment TF had just been randomly throwing shells all over the hex, you might have had a point, but I guess you neglected to notice I said they were bombarding Baker Island. That island is not much more than a pile of sand barely large enough for an airstrip, so I'd think that my ships would know where to shoot.

Baker is not exactly over-run with terrain or landmarks..., especially anything identifiable in the dark. Maybe they missed it and just beat up on a patch of rough water.

Big problem is that the "naval bombardment" represented in the game is a one- hour "shoot on the move" in the dark, followed by a high-speed escape. Not very conducive to accuracy...

Most player's expect the kind of destruction associated with a days-long deliberate fire exercise. But they want it all done in the safety (to them) of a high-speed in and out under cover of darkness. I've always wished the game had made the differentiation and offered both---"Day-Long Spotted Shoot" and "Night-Time Shoot and Scoot". Though even the first was a failure at Tarawa...

[Bradley7735]

Bombardments were not, historically, devastating to troops (see many examples of US invasions, Guadalcanal, Wake, etc). They could be devastating to airfields and unprottected aircraft.

If you make bombardments more powerful vs troops, then the US will have a cake walk back to Japan.

It seems that with proper recon, bombardments are effective vs airfields. I think the troop disruption/loss should actually be toned down, unless there's 0 forts.

[witpqs]

Mike and Bradley are on the money.