An Aussie Affair: Re-Match!

[Luskan]

My surface combat group went up against a far superior group of allied TFs and still came out on top. The long lance attack wasn't as devastating as last time, but it certainly still worked.

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 10/26/42

Weather: Thunderstorms

Night Time Surface Combat, near Vanua Lava at 53,49

Lookouts and Radar both spot each other, they track each other, and at 6000 yards the IJN launches its long lances, which only hit the Helm and Patterson. After that the Takao lands 4X8 inch shell hits in a row on the New Orleans, while copping a bunch of 6 inch hits and an 8 inch hit in return.

Japanese Ships
CA Takao, Shell hits 9, on fire
CA Maya, Shell hits 3, on fire
CL Nagara, Shell hits 1
CL Isuzu, Shell hits 4
DD Onami, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Kiyonami, Shell hits 4, on fire
DD Kagero, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yukikaze, Shell hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
DD Isokaze
DD Amatsukaze
DD Tokitsukaze, Shell hits 1
DD Hamakaze, Shell hits 2
DD Nowaki
DD Arashi, Shell hits 3

Allied Ships
CA New Orleans, Shell hits 5, on fire
CA Astoria
CL Honolulu, Shell hits 6, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
DD Hutchins, Shell hits 4
DD Wilkes, Shell hits 8, on fire
DD Monssen, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Helm, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage and sank later
DD Patterson, Shell hits 6, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage - will sink
DD Lang, Shell hits 6, on fire, heavy damage
DD Stack, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Phelps, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
DD Balch, Shell hits 3
DD Farragut, Shell hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage - will also sink.


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Night Time Surface Combat, near Vanua Lava at 53,49

Japanese Ships
CA Takao, on fire
CA Maya, on fire
CL Nagara
CL Isuzu
DD Onami, on fire
DD Kiyonami, on fire
DD Kagero, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yukikaze, on fire, heavy damage
DD Isokaze
DD Amatsukaze
DD Tokitsukaze
DD Hamakaze
DD Nowaki
DD Arashi

Allied Ships
PT 37
PT 43
PT 45, Shell hits 8, and is sunk
PT 59
PT 64, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
PT 66
PT 67
PT 68
PT 110
PT 109
PT 111


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Night Time Surface Combat, near Vanua Lava at 53,49

Japanese Ships
CA Takao, on fire
CA Maya, on fire
CL Nagara, on fire
CL Isuzu
DD Onami, on fire
DD Kiyonami, on fire
DD Kagero, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yukikaze, on fire, heavy damage
DD Isokaze
DD Amatsukaze
DD Tokitsukaze
DD Hamakaze
DD Nowaki
DD Arashi

Allied Ships
PT 39, Shell hits 1, and is sunk


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Night Time Surface Combat, near Vanua Lava at 53,49

Japanese Ships
CA Takao, on fire - 25 sys damage
CA Maya, on fire - 33 sys and 14 flt damage
CL Nagara, on fire - actually at 8 sys and 4 fire damage.
CL Isuzu
DD Onami, on fire - undamaged
DD Kiyonami, on fire - undamaged
DD Kagero, on fire, heavy damage sank in the next report
DD Yukikaze, on fire, heavy damage - 55 sys damage, 34 sys damage, is the worst damaged ship left afloat - but will make it home.
DD Isokaze
DD Amatsukaze
DD Tokitsukaze
DD Hamakaze
DD Nowaki
DD Arashi

Allied Ships
PT 112, Shell hits 4, and is sunk
PT 114
PT 123, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
PT 120
PT 122, Shell hits 11, and is sunk


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Day Time Surface Combat at 0,0

Raver's angry surface ships chase down my one crippled ship and sink it - the others are all out of bomber range by now.

Japanese Ships
DD Kagero, Shell hits 6, and is sunk

Allied Ships
CA Chicago
CA Minneapolis
CL Achillies
DD Meredith
DD McCalla
DD Farenholt
DD Dunlap


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The exchange rate is also still excellent for sunk ships. On the damage side, I think although the CLs and all my DDs save 2 are actually undamaged, the two damaged CAs, and the badly damaged DD add up to more ships going back to Tokyo than Raver has heading back to Pearl.

His PTs didn't get any hits, but they certainly stopped my group from getting to the APs that were sighted in the area (and confirmed still in the area the next turn).

Most important, 3 allied CVs were spotted west of Luganville (no doubt trying to catch my ships limping home - as they were spotted last turn). Fortunately, I was expecting it and Raver's ships are going to get an awful, awful surprise if all goes to plan next turn!!!!!

His catalinas really aren't performing in the bad weather, and haven't reported loads of my ships on station ready to dash in when transports are sighted etc. However they did spot a few of my minelayers and APs east of Irau - and as a result I've turned them around (due to enemy CV activity). They can go back in later.

[Luskan]

Dont you hate it???? You set up your evil plan, it seems all is going perfectly as far as who spots who - and then you wait for the turn panting like an idiot - and then it is a big anticlimax.

That wiley Raver!! His CVs were spotted - so he ordered them elsewhere. He only has 3 at the moment - embarking 256 aircraft (90 + 90 + Wasp's 76) and I've got, well . . . almost every CV in the IJN armada - 565 aircraft, and some of those CVs still aren't up to full compliment after the big turkey shoot etc. But he got away.

Maybe they pulled into luganville, which has so many aircraft the icon on the map for the airfield is so dark it is basically a greenish black. Or maybe they sped off into the open ocean.

The plan wasn't a brilliant one I guess - a bit obvious. I send in the surface group, they do nasty things to Raver's fleet - but they get spotted going in so he sends his CVs out of hiding to mop up the stragglers - and my CVs would be there to pounce in turn. Hopefully Raver's strike aircraft would not concentrate against my CVs in such a target rich environment - guess I won't be finding out anytime soon.

[denisonh]

Any good USN player who is down CVs against an IJN opponent who has more carriers than he will not commit his CVs too far forward without any intel on your carriers. It is idiocy. That can apply to a good IJN player as well.

If you want to get him to deploy his carriers, you got to get him to believe your carriers are elsewhere (it's all about deception).

In all the times I have tried, I have only succeeded twice in getting my opponent to come forward for a significant carrier battle when I had a determined advantage. And I had to do some serious deception and "sandbagging" of newly arrived assets in theater to achieve them.

[Raverdave]

Got to credit where credit is due, and Luskan has got loads of it owing to him. As well as i have done in the sub aspect of the game, Luskan seems to have gotten the surface combat done pat. I just do not know what to do to get the upper hand in surface combat Even more so considering my ships are coming in with good radar units, he still creams me. The TFs that I have are all well balanced and have good leaders, I just don't know.....bad dice rolls maybe?

[denisonh]

Raver,

I have had a great deal of success in surface combats as the USN in my PBEM games.

One thing I am particular about are the leaders I use. Preferably leaders with surface ratings +70. And I have found two medium size TFs will do better than one big one. Spotting levels seem to also have a big impact on surface combats in terms of surprise as well.

Maybe I am not facing players who pay the same amount of attention to surface combat like Luskan:D .

[Luskan]

Actually I think Raver's surface ships are doing pretty well - he hasn't had a crippling defeat, although I'm hoping that cumulative losses of his DDs will hamper his ability to protect transports from subs and invasion forces etc. He's saved the San francisco - and was smart enough to get her and the Hobart out of port at Luganville in a nick of time.

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 10/28/42

Weather: Clear - very few of these clear days so far, so Raver and I both did the predictable thing and launched our bombers. Raver saw my night port raid on Luganville coming and moved the CA and 2 CL (both damaged from surface battles) out.

Air attack on Luganville , at 53,53

Japanese aircraft
G3M Nell x 16
G4M1 Betty x 15

Allied aircraft
P-39D Airacobra x 13

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell x 1 destroyed
G3M Nell x 9 damaged
G4M1 Betty x 8 damaged - pretty costly, as 3 of them didn't survive the flight home.


Port hits 2
Port supply hits 3

Attacking Level Bombers:
6 x G3M Nell at 1000 feet
9 x G3M Nell at 1000 feet
15 x G4M1 Betty at 1000 feet

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Raver sent his B17s to Lunga at 6000ft and man was I ready for him this time!!! However, the results here aren't as good as they ended up. Sure - he closed the airfield. Sure, he nailed 2 zeroes and 4 level bombers on the ground, while damaging loads of zeroes on the ground as well, but my zeroes got 2 b17s outright, and damaged 46!!! Later analysis of the aircraft losses tabe shows that Raver lost 16 B17s on the limp home, leaving 30 damaged B17s at Luganville. Which will give me some time to rebuild Lunga - Airfield was up to 50% damage.

Air attack on Lunga , at 38,40

Japanese aircraft
A6M2-N Rufe x 6
A6M2 Zero x 105
A6M3 Zero x 26

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 67

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2-N Rufe x 2 damaged
A6M2 Zero x 2 destroyed
A6M2 Zero x 24 damaged - exaggerated number, but certainly a shock. Fortunately they didn't have far to fly to land, and will all be repaired ina turn or two.
A6M3 Zero x 5 damaged
G4M1 Betty x 2 destroyed
G4M1 Betty x 3 damaged
G3M Nell x 2 destroyed
G3M Nell x 4 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress x 2 destroyed
B-17E Fortress x 46 damaged

LTJG R.Nagaishi of BI-1 Daitai is credited with kill number 2

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 153

Airbase hits 13
Airbase supply hits 4
Runway hits 58

Attacking Level Bombers:
2 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
2 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
6 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
9 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
4 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet

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Air attack on TF at 50,49

Now this idiot tf commander was supposed to time his run, but forgot all about it and parked himself 1 hex away from Wupenko in clear weather without fighter CAP. He should have been blown to smithereens - and rest assured I'm going to crucify him when he gets back to base. Fortunately, Raver's bomber pilots are completely hopeless (not counting his b17s which are now quite tough).

Allied aircraft
SBD Dauntless x 22


Allied aircraft losses
SBD Dauntless x 2 destroyed
SBD Dauntless x 9 damaged

Japanese Ships
CL Tenryu
CL Abukuma
DD Yudachi
BB Hiei, Bomb hits 1 - she is at 2 sys damage so I doubt this even hit.


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Air attack on TF at 50,49


Allied aircraft
B-26B Marauder x 6


Allied aircraft losses
B-26B Marauder x 1 destroyed
B-26B Marauder x 3 damaged

Japanese Ships
CL Kinu
BB Hiei

Attacking Level Bombers:
2 x B-26B Marauder at 6000 feet
3 x B-26B Marauder at 6000 feet

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So I got a lucky break with my surface ships, and I feel I should have got more of his B17s, but with all my zeroes repaired in the next turn, and the airbase has 250+ engineers to service it, I'm going to recover from my losses.

Hopefully my tf can do some decent damage this turn - although now Raver is on to me I doubt he'll bother to hang around to get shot at. Also, my TF refuses to take a straight line through the islands to Lunganville, meaning that tomorrow, in thunderstorms, they'll probably be sitting in exactly the same spot they are now, only going the other way.

Hopefully the thunderstorms will ground Raver's planes. No more CV sightings unfortunately.

[Luskan]

ARGH!!!! Mavis float plane recons Noumea to see what targets are in port (loads of them sitting in the harbour) and it reported being attacked by about 20 fighters - 3 of which were p38s!!

DAmned early for Raver to have them. Fortunately, he has no airbases within P38 range of me. No doubt there will be a grab for Irau or Nevea in the near future.

[Raverdave]

Mmmmmmm..............P-38s..............MMmmmmmmmmMMMM:D

[SoulBlazer]

I wonder if Australia ever used the P-38's during the war?

Anyone ever play the old arcade games 1942 or 1943: The Battle of Midway by Capcom? The plane you flew in those was a P-38. Although I don't think a real plane could make the 'loop-de-loop' like in the game.

[Bradman]

Sure they can, except they can only do it a few times before they run out of lives.

I hate to admit to once liking shoot'em ups, but I used to love that game.

[Luskan]

What to do when you get P-38s??

As the allied player, when I first get them, you get your first squadron and think: I can reach PM from Cooktown (just) and Lunga from Nevea (just) and lunga from Irau (easy).

But do you wait to use them or not? The longer you wait before sending your p-38s to the front line, the more airacobra squadrons that convert. I always used to think that this was the best option - I had 5 P-38 squadrons before I ever used them - I thought 5X24 p-38s over any given battlefield would be a game winner . . . WRONG!!

As it happened, there were hundred and hundreds of fresh zeroes and big flak guns blasted at them and the result after a few days was 4 very badly mauled P-38 squadrons - all my aces were dead and each squadron had about 3 planes.

Oh well, start again you are thinking. Let the replacements come in and away you go - wrong! The replacement pool shares the incoming replacements equally between the squadrons, which meant that it took about 2 months before all 5 squadrons were operational strength again - whereas if I'd sent the 1st squadron into battle straight away, I'd have taken losses - but would have had more than enough replacements to keep the squadron going continuously etc.

Thoughts?

[Drongo]

The UV P-38G suffers from relatively poor maueverability compared to the Jap lightweights. In the games I've played, I've never expected a lot from them unless they are at least close to the enemy fighter numbers in a dogfight. 100 A6Ms vs 48 P38Gs rarely ends well for the allies.

In my experience, the real killers (regardless of circumstance) starts when you use the later allied aircraft with 34+ manuever (the P38G has 32).

As you said, the Japs will have a lot of A6ms in play by late '42 so its hard to match them in numbers. Best thing to do is avoid committing the P-38Gs unless you have established some form of local equality (through bombing, bombarding, anything to reduce the Jap ability to operate their huge flying Zero circuses).

Once these conditions are met, the P-38s other qualities will do the rest. Especially if they are piloted by ex-iron dog pilots turned into experten by hundreds of hours spent shooting holes in the ground.

Raver, of course, will put them in play immeadiately.

[Raverdave]

Well infact the first P-38 Squadron turns up with something like Moral 50% Exp 50%, so thrusting them strait into battle is NOT the best option. Better to let them gain exp on milk runs without loss and use the extra to convert P-39s.

[Raverdave]

I don't think that Luskan is going to be doing any low level night bombing for a while, he copped 50% losses in this raid:D
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 11/02/42

Weather: Partly Cloudy

Air attack on Noumea , at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
G3M Nell x 10
G4M1 Betty x 6

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 17

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell x 6 destroyed
G3M Nell x 5 damaged
G4M1 Betty x 2 destroyed
G4M1 Betty x 5 damaged


Port hits 1
Port fuel hits 1

Attacking Level Bombers:
2 x G3M Nell at 1000 feet
2 x G3M Nell at 1000 feet
4 x G4M1 Betty at 1000 feet

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[Luskan]

Usually this is the spot where I jump up denying the severity of the losses, claiming Raver is lying and the FOW is exaggerating. Only this time the losses were actually worse than this (almost none of the damaged planes made it home) and these were well rested, exp in the 80s pilots.

Going to have to rethink this - although Raver has packed Noumea with AA, he is wary not to port too much there - just enough to keep me interested.

My fighter squadrons, with the noticible exception of my newest arrived bunch of zeroes, have experience in the 70s. The newest mob arrived at 59 for crying out loud.

Bomber wise, most level bombers are 70s and 80s, but float planes, and some groups of betties and vals are in the 60s. Am wondering: do ASW missions help train them up?

[Luskan]

A few interesting developments have kept the game ticking over this week - as the game nears the middle of November.

Since the last beating I gave them Raver's bombers haven't been back to Lunga - of course, that probably means that when they'll be back it'll be too late for me to do anything but cry. Depends where they strike next. Raver's bombing has been limited to sending 30-40 Mitchells to Port Moresby in each of three raids. Fortunately, they have scored about 5 hits between them, but their crews gain experience. The first raid came in at 6000, there were no fighters, and they got chomped up by my flak, which downed half a dozen (?) and damaged fifteen or twenty others. The next two raids came in at 20000 feet and were above my flak, so maybe cost Raver two or three planes total, in spite of my fighter cover.

My air squadrons have rotated once again (that shattered nell squadron got disbanded), and I am happy with the supply situation and the support situation (only one base needs more support - and that is only a little more before things are peachy). Bases are almost fully constructed now - and I will be switching to constructing many smaller bases as fallback positions to try and weather the allied bombing storm to come.

In naval news, I-28 avoiding a bunch of Raver's planes to sink a dozen shell hits and 3 torpedoes into an unescorted AK at Noumea before sneaking back out to sea. According to my pen and paper, that sub captain just sank his 4th ship. Lots of reports of Raver's tankers about the place, but haven't found any yet.

Half a dozen damaged warships slipped back to Tokyo for repairs this turn, as the inevitable thunderstorms continue (the allied air campaign is going to be really, really limited if the weather stays as bad as it has been all game!).

[Raverdave]

My B-25s just got a new arse-hole ripped into them over PM. Time to rest them for a while.

Not much else is happening at the moment, as I am still building up my bases from which to launch my attacks/invasions from. The building program is going well, and I expect to have them all on-line by the end of December. In the meantime it is just a case of keep my eye open for a chance to put in a couple of hits on Luskan.

[DoomedMantis]

Hey, did Raver tell you about my new weapon? S-42 sunk by the lethal AG

made my day

DM

[Luskan]

Did he ever!
How do I train my Ags similarly??????

Of course he bitched like you wouldn't believe.

[DoomedMantis]

And that makes me even happier:D