Rabaul 1943

[paolorossi]

It's 27th June 1943 and as Allies I'm trying to reconquer Rabaul
IJN navy is virtually absent as it is the air
it's almost 2 months that twice a day around 45 HB drop everything on Rabaul
twice has been bombed by sea
There are around 45k IJN soldiers in Rabaul (allied forces are only 16k by now but more are arriving)
Yesterday my troops entered Rabaul but in the first day of battle they lost 1085 men
IJN army never attacked since they try to escape from bombing
What strategy should I put in place?
Many thanks for your suggestions
Paolo

[bartrat]

Keep bombarding them from the air,sea, and land until out of supplies. One way to see if low/out of supplies is on combat playback to see if anti aircraft guns fire at your planes. Wait until out of supplies then attack. Also build up a three times the combat strength as Rabaul has then attack.

[Uncivil Engineer]

ORIGINAL: teseo tesei

It's 27th June 1943 and as Allies I'm trying to reconquer Rabaul
IJN navy is virtually absent as it is the air
it's almost 2 months that twice a day around 45 HB drop everything on Rabaul
twice has been bombed by sea
There are around 45k IJN soldiers in Rabaul (allied forces are only 16k by now but more are arriving)
Yesterday my troops entered Rabaul but in the first day of battle they lost 1085 men
IJN army never attacked since they try to escape from bombing
What strategy should I put in place?
Many thanks for your suggestions
Paolo

By pass.

If there's no naval forces, no air forces, and running out of supply, let the ground forces starve. Just make sure no resupply arrives by sea; a trickle of aerial resupply won't matter.

[jwolf]

If you really want to take Rabaul, use naval bombardments -- DAILY. Have 2 surface fleets and several AE/AKE based at Shortlands. Your ships can alternate bombardment runs at Rabaul, retiring and rearming at Shortlands. These bombardments are much more effective than the bombing, though you should continue that as well.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: jwolf
Have 2 surface fleets and several AE/AKE based at Shortlands. Your ships can alternate bombardment runs at Rabaul, retiring and rearming at Shortlands.

Any dot base with AKEs disbanded would do, those nearest to Rabaul best as long as air threat is eliminated. No need to burn fuel and spend time and sys damage sailing from Shortlands

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: GetAssista

ORIGINAL: jwolf
Have 2 surface fleets and several AE/AKE based at Shortlands. Your ships can alternate bombardment runs at Rabaul, retiring and rearming at Shortlands.

Any dot base with AKEs disbanded would do, those nearest to Rabaul best as long as air threat is eliminated. No need to burn fuel and spend time and sys damage sailing from Shortlands

BUT ... the AE/AKEs themselves need to be re-stocked and a dot hex will not load enough in a turn to make up for what your bombardment force is using. So you need to have enough AE/AKE to run back to a bigger base to restock while leaving enough to replenish the bombardment TF, or you need to hold them in a large enough port to reload them quickly.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy
BUT ... the AE/AKEs themselves need to be re-stocked and a dot hex will not load enough in a turn to make up for what your bombardment force is using. So you need to have enough AE/AKE to run back to a bigger base to restock while leaving enough to replenish the bombardment TF, or you need to hold them in a large enough port to reload them quickly.

Well, Allies have enough AKE-able shipping (I mean lots) to get this to work. Much better than tieing up additional combat ships and fuel for their runs in my opinion

[MakeeLearn]

Drop some bombs into the volcano...

[Macclan5]

This is almost a continuation of a previous thread.

Welcome to the forum though you appear to be here longer than I, and welcome to the very hard choices/consequences of the Allied Supreme Commander [8D]

I love this game for its very real consequences. It makes all your decisions meaningful.

You have great advice from Vets of this forum above.

1) Bypass or

2) Continue to grind it out through Naval Bombardment / Air Bombardment / Ground attacks. Replenish Ground troops with AMPHIB supply ships.


Additionally some other minor insight; these are by no mean exhaustive measures but gleaned through the wisdom of many helpful vet posters in this forum:

i) What are the fortification levels of the IJA ?? Do you have a battalion of Combat Engineers helping with the attacks ?

ii) How much ART is on sight ? Do you continue to bombard them daily to cause the 'usage of supply' and 'disruption of the IJArmy troops' ?

iii) Its not just about troops nor the statistic AV... do you have ARM / ART / INF / and ENG all attacking ?? As many vets here opine - the pure comparison of AV to AV can be misleading. You should have "combined armed tactics" to conquer such a fortress.

iv) Have you got a CAP or LR CAP over Rabul ? Is the IJN sneaking in supply by air ? Do you have a nice little squadron of P38's and F4Fs in Shortlands putting CAP over your objective?

v) Have you totally interdicted Naval supply from reaching the defenders ? There are no quickie IJN Navy ships getting some supply through ?

vi) Different actual air bombing missions ? Some attacking Airfield, some attacking Port, some attacking Ground. Some dive bombers (Dauntless) in addition to Level Bombers (B17's) for example. Likely the support troops of the IJA will constantly drain their own supply if trying to repair PORT and AIRFIELD damage.

In short no one answer covers everything.

Above all its about combined tactics and projecting your force forward.