Best Two Out of Three

[John B.]

B.B. excellent points as always. I already have an AO on the way from Sydney to refuel the carriers and they have enough to make another turn of normal movement so they're almost home. And, as you can see, scott stayed on the other side of New Caledonia. I did not see search aircraft over my carriers today but my SBDs spotted jap subs. If Scott saw that report then he would know I have carriers down there. I suspect that he would not sprint down to try to catch me as that puts him a long long way to home and any damaged carriers would have a hard time getting back. Fortunately for me, he has spent his time bombing New Caledonia. That works since he's just using supply and fuel to blow up an airstrip that he's going to have to repair anyway. I do have a CA task force tailing my CVs to provide an alternate target in case he heads my way.

Not much else to report. He bombarded Port Blair but did not attack. He has also moved more fighters into Palembang so I'm unlikely to get any more shots at those oil wells for a long time, but, 175 damage is a nice send off.

The Yorktown is on her way to SoPac and otherwise, no news to report.

[ny59giants]

SC TF composition - It has been shown over the years that mixing BBs with CA/CLs often has the BBs just come along to get hit with a TT or two and NOT use their main gun ammo. Rule of Thumb is to have main guns with similar range grouped together - 14" to 16" are fine together, but not with 6" or 8" guns from the CLs or CAs.

EDIT - It also helps to keep SC TF at 12 ships or less. Mega-SC TFs don't work well.

[John B.]

NYGiants,

Thanks! I never would have figured that out in a million years. It's BBs alone with a cloud of DDs from now on for this Admiral Nimitz! Hopefully this does the trick and the big gun boys can get off the wagon and start pulling their weight.[:)]

[ny59giants]

BBs with a squadron (4) of DDs is the way to go, up to 8 eventually. Group the British CLs together in pairs or with 4 CLs without DDs. Dutch have all together as their is just CLs and DDs with low Endurance. For Americans, I place a pair of the Brooklyn and/or Helena Class CLs with the Porter Class DDs (most guns of early war DDs) and/or Sumer Class. Note - these two DD Classes have lousy AA and ASW upgrades so they go for SC TFs vs CV escorts.

In '43, you get my lots of my favorite Allied ships.....Fletchers and Clevelands!![&o][&o]
4 Clevelands and 8 Fletchers in a SC TF will take on anything but BBs in my book.

[John B.]

NYGiants, that advice is solid gold! [&o]

As for the game update, it took three gut wrenching days but my carriers refueled, made it into Sydney and are now headed for Perth. Scott is pushing for Port Morseby and given the complete lack of fighters in Australia, he could easily send the KB to port strike Sydney and put an end to American ambitions once and for all. I figure I might as well try to be where he ain't and maybe my carriers can keep him out of the DEI for awhile.

But, it does appear that scott is going for Oz. He just landed an entire infantry division at Port Moresby. Oddly, he did not bombard, probably because of mines, so my shore guns had some good shootin' today. with numerous CLs in bad shape. His division did get ashore and there is a whole huge BB task force that is likely to do a shore bombardment in the am and the KB may well also launch ground strikes. There is not much I can do about that but I have suspended airlift operations into Moresby figuring no sense in sending troops in before the bombardment when, if I survive the ground assault, they would be more helpful after the bombardment.

And, with Scott up north and the KB having been at sea for a little while, this may be a chance to retake Noumea. So, i'm loading up troops in Sydney. Suva is fortifying as is Townsville. Scott is also laying naval siege to Darwin. It only has 40,000 which is not great since it's so hard for supplies to make it there overland. I'll see if I can sneak some in there.

Too many fighters at Palembang so no more bombing there. And, troops are on the move into Singapore. I did get the fort level up to 3 so it may hold out for just a little while. More supplies into Rangoon and the fight at Port Blair continues. I keep flying isolated troops out of Maylaya and then ferrying them to Port Blair. Parts of a Gurkha and two Indian Brigades made it out so that's better than nothing. In China the Chinese had a chance to push back and slap around a few brigades.

Fingers crossed for Moresby. The longer it holds out the more Scott has to focus his resources on taking it and the more convoys that can reach Sydney.

[John B.]

Man, I have clearly been bad to orphans in some past life. 15 Nells did a port strike on Rangoon and, with 60 kg bombs, sank 11 AKs. I've been waiting for him to invade Tarakan. I had 9 dutch subs within 2 hexes. He had his invasion TF unloading for 6 days. In that time period I had each Dutch sub exclusively patrol in the Tarakan hex. Not one of them took a shot, or was found by his ASW. And, I have 175 mines in Tarakan and he moves all around and not one of them exploded. He's not sweeping them so I'm not sure he even knows that they're there. Similar situation at Moresby. I laid minefields (this one was at 75) he comes and goes does not sweep the mines and does not hit them. Oh well, it is January 1942, I guess things are supposed to go poorly for the Allies, but this is frustrating. [:@]

[Capt. Harlock]

Man, I have clearly been bad to orphans in some past life. 15 Nells did a port strike on Rangoon and, with 60 kg bombs, sank 11 AKs.

Ouch! Did someone leave the ammunition crates out on the open decks? [X(]

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock

Man, I have clearly been bad to orphans in some past life. 15 Nells did a port strike on Rangoon and, with 60 kg bombs, sank 11 AKs.

Ouch! Did someone leave the ammunition crates out on the open decks? [X(]

XAKs can be as small as 2900 tons capacity, and it doesn't take much to burn those up.
That said, the Naval Skill of the ship's captain plays a big role in surviving damage/fire fighting. I took the time to go through every merchant ship as they made port and see if I could replace the captains with someone better at no cost in PP (most can be). It ends up there are not enough really great ship's captains so the high-speed, high-capacity ships get the ones with 50+ naval skill, the lower speed ones with capacity >4K get captains in the 40s or high 30s, and the small xAKs get the low 30s. xAKLs get the mid-high 20s.
That is for the British and American vessels which have good pools of leaders. Dutch and Commonwealth ships take whatever they can get.

I have not kept records to prove it empirically, but I am convinced changing the leaders made a difference to survival in a number of cases. There seem to be fewer collisions, and when they do happen, ships that have significant flotation damage (in one case in the 60s) can often limp to port and even reduce some of the damage en route.

At smaller ports or in an amphibious landing the ships with the better captains also seem to unload a bit faster.

[John B.]

BBfanboy,

Good poing about the naval rating for merchant ships. I've paid attention to it for navy as I've noticed that it does make a difference but not for the merchant marine. I don't know why those poor ships went down, they were disbanded in port. And, the rest of the frustration continues. I have 175 mines in Tarakan and Scott has been there for more than two weeks and not bumped a one. He's not even bothering to sweep them. This last turn, he sent a sub into Sydney (350 mines) put a torpedo into an AP and got away. In the meantime, each time he has laid down a small sub laid minefield (Port Blair, Rangoon) I've taken multiple hits going into the hex. What am I missing on mine warfare? Do allied mines suffer from the early war torpedo effect or something.

Also, any tips on sub warfare would be helpful. Scott got in and got a shot off in Sydney. I have every single dutch sub within 4 hexes of Tarakan and even in Tarakan. They do not have any reported detection levels and are not reporting sightings. Scott sails through these clouds of subs every day and nothing happens. The commanders are good and there are no contacts during the day or night, good weather or badf and full moon or complete dark. Scott is playing a good game, but it is frustrating when I don't understand why things don't work at all.

[BBfanboy]

On mines: this game seems to treat mines as effective only until the first one is discovered, then the enemy knows where the whole minefield is! There is still a possibility they will hit a mine, but it is rare. The surprise factor can be refreshed by laying a few more mines (around 50) after the minefield has been discovered. Thus, I would lay about 150 mines initially, and when those are discovered add some more. I suspect some vessel hit one of the Tarakan mines initially without any on-screen report - you would only get the mine blast sound effect during a movement phase.

About the Tarakan mines - are they all in shallow water? Shallow water minefields (untended by an ACM or AM) deteriorate at about 10% per day while mines laid in deep water deteriorate at something like 50% per day.

About subs: In my sandbox game I have found that the AI seems to get paralyzed by too many sub TFs in the same hex or overlapping their patrol zones to a great degree. Two sub TFs seems OK, but three or more decreases the number of attacks. I use sub TFs of two subs each, small patrol zones and not too much overlap.
I also note that the Dutch have a few excellent sub skippers and quite a few that are poor in skill or aggression. There are not enough good ones in the pool to man all the subs. I try to get the best ones into the longer-ranged subs that have all 533mm torpedoes.

One or the AAR writers (apologies - I can't recall which right now) did some analysis of shallow water vs deep water attacks and found that the skippers with high naval skill but low aggression do better in shallow water (than those with high aggression), presumably because they have more patience stalking and are less likely to be discovered.

Which reminds me - pay attention to the detection level on your subs. If it is more than about 2, the enemy will avoid the sub even if it is in the same hex. You need to move the sub every time detection gets high.

A final comment on subs - before they have radar allied subs are pretty restricted in trying to find the enemy, especially if they are in waters patrolled by enemy aircraft which keep them submerged. The Japanese have their Glen-equipped subs and long range Mavis aircraft to help them find victims. The IJN sub skippers are nearly all excellent. You should not expect to match Japanese subs in the early part of the game.

[John B.]

BB Fanboy,

As always, this is great advice. the frustrating thing about Tarakan is that I had refreshed the minefield after he swept a portion of the early one. Perhaps the post war report will tell. I will move my subs so that they are not all swarming around the same few hexes. Now that you mention it, in the last game I had some good luck with the US sub blockade of Japan whereby each hex was covered but there was no overlap. I do watch the detection level and I figured that US fleet subs were pretty much worthless until the April radar upgrades so right now they're on patrol getting whatever experience they can and seeing if they can get in a lucky shot now and again.

Interesting point about low aggression skippers being better in shallow water. I try to stay out of shallow water as a rule since ASW seems to be so deadly in there but I'll give it some thought.

John

[BBfanboy]

In the first six months or so the IJN ASW is so poor that you do not really have to avoid shallow water. Their D/Cs can only go down to 150 feet so subs will usually get under them and the Japanese run out or lose contact. Their sonar also sucks. There is always a chance they get a lucky direct hit, but most of the time their attacks cause minimal damage. I don't know when they develop a more effective D/C or get upgrades that help their sonar.
Of course once they have detected you in shallow water you have to move and send in another sub.

[John B.]

BBFanboy,

Yet again more good advice. I may send in some shallow water boys to see what happens.

In the meantime, no more whining by me, at least for 1-2 posts.

As you can see below, things may be a little grim for Moresby in the very near future.
I ran two convoys there one with supplies and one with a brigade and, it seems Scott had the same idea.
So, I may get one or two impulses of unloading and then anything that is not sunk by surface
ships will be sunk by the KB. I'm running the CA and CL out of Moresby by way of intercept with
the IJN surface convoys to see if I get lucky (maybe not, no moonlight and no radar). But, all
I can do here is grin and bear it while Scott waps those poor merchant boys.

In other fronts, given that the KB just showed up near New Guinea, I'm having my task force at
Noumea unload another turn and I'm sending in the Repuluse for another shore bombardment. His
concentration on Moresby gives me a fighting chance to retake Noumea. I'm not sure that I can, but
anything to slow him down right now.

A squadron of Banshees took out two AKs and an APD north of Darwin.

Suva continues to fortify.

I'm pulling to Dutch regiments out of Soerebaja. My last two games having lots of troops there did
not help and they all surrendered, so, I figure, I might as well get them to Australia to save VPs
and give me garrison troops down there. He attacked Tarakan last turn and did not do much damage.

In China, I do have a division surrounded that I've been pounding on. it will get out, but it will
be a wreck.
My hope is that he takes a long time to take it. And, with BB Fanboys sage advice maybe my subs
can do a little bit of damage.

[John B.]

Well, it was the best of times and the worst of times near Moresby. First, the bad news. My transports were in Morseby (see above picture). but, rather than unload they decided to scatter. Since someone (I can't imagine who) set their home ports to Townsville they cleverly scattered right into the teeth of the IJN. In fact, during the daylight naval move two groups of transports ran into the KB. I can just image that look of surprise on everyone's face. Frankly, I think that the Japanese pilots who subsequently sent the AKs and APs to the bottom-- along with an infantry brigade -- should lose experience out of shame for having such an easy time of it.

The CA and CL did get into two surface actions and put some serious damage into an IJN CA and may have sunk a CL. In the aerial onslaught the Pensacola actually made it to Townsville but sank before I could disband her. the Leander made it away.

The good news is that PT boats came out with a vengeance the next day. Every torpedo but one exploded and six AKs went to the bottom. Four were 5,000 tons, one was 6,000 tons, and only one was under 4,000 tons. That is all the less supply they will have to fight at Moresby. He does have two divisions there and I have a hotch pot of units so I'm not sure how long I can hold out, but I'm still there.

On other fronts I just spotted a huge group of task forces headed southwest with an apparent target of Darwin/Wyndam. Scott is moving fast this time so it would not surprise me to learn that he is making his move on Northern Oz. I have put most of an American infantry regiment there from Clark Field (the PBY's have been ferrying troops since day one). And, troops have been marching that way from the rest of OZ since day one. Don't forget the Dutch regiment at Wyndam.

Speaking of Dutch. I pulled two more regiments out of Java and they are headed to Perth. And, I keep loading up oil and fuel from Balikpappan and Soerebja. I'm doing my best to make sure that big stockpiles don't fall into Scott's hands. Scott tried an assault at Tarakan that failed. He also assaulted at Port Blair and failed. I would counter attack but I don't want to risk it right now. Another big supply convoy is headed to Rangoon. Let's hope this time my CAP works.

In China, we seem to be paused. He is shelling me to kill troops but now (except for the far north/west) the dramatic advances are over.

Following BB Fanboy's sage advice my subs seems to be actually shooting again and got an AK heading to Moresby!

[John B.]

A quick update. As you can see, there is a whole mess o' ships heading Darwin way.

The Mini KB is there as well as several task forces. I find it hard to believe that Scott would
go down the teeth of the Darwin port defenses, but we shall see in 12 hours of game time. If so,
I hope the CD guns put some hurt on him.. But, he may just be taking the dot
islands to build up bases and hem in Darwin. We shall see.

In other news, he continues to land at Moresby and I keep getting some hits on the landing ships.
The KB is headed south towards Noumea. It may mean that he kills the brigade I landed there but,
at least it distracted him from Moresby and made him burn some fuel to get there. I think my merchant
pipeline and other ships will be out of harms way from him. B-17s should start bombing Noumea this
next turn.

More as it develops.

[John B.]

Well, there are doings afoot.

1. Scott sent the KB down to Noumea where, IMHO, they are wasting time. They launched a ground strike on my hapless brigade and it should surrender this turn or next. But, in a minor victory, they are making those carriers run around and he is not up ground striking Moresby.

2. At Moresby there has been a nice attrition of his landing ships. He has two divisions ashore an has not yet launched an attack. My artillery has been picking away slowly at squads. If I could get another brigade in there it would make a difference but I don't think I can. On the good news front, the firing pins started working on the mines and it looks as if they sank a CL and damaged a BB.

3. Darwin. Yep, he has splashed ashore with a division and a host of support troops. And, I think that he is now learning why attacking Coastal Defense forts is a bad idea. There have been numerous hits recorded on AKLs and AKs and, I don't think he can push me out before significant reinforcements arrive that have been on the march since December 7th. My fort level is 3 and building. And, more importantly, three American carriers are heading in from the east. I'm a little leery of a trap since I caught Scott this way in the last game but I do know the main IJN carrier force is far far away. If there is a battle, it's likely in two days.

4. Tarakan. Scott is still stuck there. He may not care and is not taking any real action, but I view it as a chance to continue to suck fuel and oil out of the DEI. I don't know how long this gravey train can last but it is helping out Austrialia a great deal.

5. Port Blair. He appears to be having reinforcements on the way and I've sent out a British CA taskforce from Rangoon to intercept him. May be surface action tonight. I have managed to really bog him down here and I hope I can hang on. I think keeping Blair makes it much easier to keep Rangoon.

6. China. He is shelling me and I still have his division trapped near KuKong.

More as it develops.

[BBfanboy]

Looking forward to all the action reports!

[John B.]

After the action reports coming soon! As you can see, the Brits did not quite make it to Blair last night and, as a consequence, a Nell put a torp into a CA. But, it's full steam ahead into Blair to see if I can catch his transports. I also have the Hermes just off screen steaming in to launch Swordfish. Scott may cut and run but we will see.

In an interesting twist off of Darwin, the mini KB and BBs left and are headed towards Boela. But, the invasion force is still in the hex. My Carriers are creeping forward but I wonder if I should let Scott know I'm there or simply unleash some Banshees next turn. Hmm, decisions decisions. We'll see what the search reports are. More damage to his landing force from the Coastal Defense fort. More to follow.

[John B.]

Well, as I feared Scott skedaddled from Port Blair so I missed him by a couple of hexes. I got in some desultory bombardment but at least his land based air did not do any more damage to my CAs.

But, as you can see, it looks like it's on North of Darwin. The mini KB came back so now is as good a time as any to spring the trap (and hope that the trap is not being sprung on me). Come the air phase I should be in range of his carriers with three fleet carriers against his various escorts. I should outnumber him by quite a number in the air. There has been no indication that he has significant land based air assets in the area, but we shall see. More as it develops.

[Capt. Harlock]

The mini KB came back so now is as good a time as any to spring the trap (and hope that the trap is not being sprung on me). Come the air phase I should be in range of his carriers with three fleet carriers against his various escorts. I should outnumber him by quite a number in the air.

Well, I'm rooting for you, but January strikes me as too early for carrier to carrier action. Of course, Coral Sea was done before the Wildcat, Avenger, and 40 mm flak upgrades, so it might just work.