The Brit 18th ID

[JeffroK]

DOCUP,
Until Singapore fell Australia thought it was their first line of defence. Why move only 1 Bde to Darwin,move the whole Division if you are worried, plus bring back 6,7 & 9 Divs as well.

[Ian R]

If you send a British armoured CV into the South China Sea in 12/41 with a few Fulmars (or even Sea Hurricanes) they won't/shouldn't, due to poor fighter control and period radar, stop the IJ TBs. And the armoured box won't stop the torpedoes. When Illustrious was hammered by the Luftwaffe in early 1941 in the central Med, she survived several 1000lb bomb hits/damaging near misses from Stukas. Not torpedo hits. Even then she was out of the war for months, and it was later found that the accumulated damage(and some from a near miss in 1945) had warped the armoured box beyond economic rectification.

I reckon the RN was lucky Indomitable went aground, or they would simply have lost it with Repulse & POW.

[John 3rd]

Cannot deny that Ian!

[spence]

If you send a British armoured CV into the South China Sea in 12/41 with a few Fulmars (or even Sea Hurricanes) they won't/shouldn't, due to poor fighter control and period radar, stop the IJ TBs. And the armoured box won't stop the torpedoes. When Illustrious was hammered by the Luftwaffe in early 1941 in the central Med, she survived several 1000lb bomb hits/damaging near misses from Stukas. Not torpedo hits. Even then she was out of the war for months, and it was later found that the accumulated damage(and some from a near miss in 1945) had warped the armoured box beyond economic rectification.

I reckon the RN was lucky Indomitable went aground, or they would simply have lost it with Repulse & POW.

I find it interesting that the IJN torpedo bombers, which had NEVER fired a war-shot (except perhaps for dropping bombs on undefended cities in China from 10000+ ft) are accorded such accolades. In the game, where Force Z is essentially offered up as a "free" sacrifice (2 days early) to said torpedo bombers I have seen that they really don't fare particularly well in cases where the ships are (rarely) accorded a decent amount of air cover (inexperienced Buffalo fighters even). So it seems quite likely to me that had they been opposed, even by Fulmars or Sea Hurricanes, they would have fared about as well as they actually did after the historical sinkings of POW and Repulse. After all the RN had plenty of experience actually fighting the war prior to Dec 8th. Although fighter direction was primitive in the RN by later standards it was a dang sight more developed than it was in the IJN WHICH HAD NO FIGHTER DIRECTION AT ALL FOR THE ENTIRE WAR.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Sounds like your going to church to think about the Indian brigade TF. [:D]

When my mind wanders in church, I often end up thinking about AE. [:D]

[spence]

OK. Here are my thoughts:

1. Moving in the 18th would, probably, be too much and not realistic due to their real life timetable.

2. In the spirit of the Allies 'sensing' the danger of the Japanese build-up, we reflect the changes in the CenPac back towards Singapore. IRL there are two Convoys on the west side of India carrying a pair of Indian Brigades. How about we bring one to Singapore and have it unloaded BUT the ships are still present. We'll say that they--literally--just arrived. The other advances to Ceylon for deployment as the player sees fit.

3. With that in mind, we move Indomitable's TF from present position Bombay to Ceylon where it can link-up with Hermes. It isn't much but the Allied player would then have a small strike force available. By placing them here, they can influence events pretty quickly but NOT be a sacrificial pawn on Day ONE.

4. We've already allowed for extra 1st Line Fighters to be deployed (Hurricanes), perhaps we add some more to the pool allowing the Allied player the opportunity to keep the Hurricane Squadron fully formed OR changeover a Brewster Squadron to Hurricanes. Be a good choice to put on the player.

What do you think?

I am not a great IJ afficionado. I think that since you are looking at a Mod and since most people seem to agree that the Japanese attack on the Allies doomed Japan to defeat from the very start that you make a Mod that has an end OOA 15 March 1942 (or maybe 4/15/42).

Give the Allies some flexibility and see if the Japanese Player can still pull off the conquest of the DEI and Malaya within the historical time frame. The old WitP had such a scenario (Rising Sun IIRC) but it failed because, I think; it was not particularly well developed.

(One instance was that the IJN could literally hunt down any and all Allied ships because they had no area on the map to which they could retreat that was far enough away from the theater that commitment of the KB to one area precluded commit to another. Another instance was that the damage to Kaga (which occurred immediately upon arrival in theater (hit a reef), restricted its top speed to 19 kts perhaps restricting KBs mobility. Also there was the Zero Bonus which pretty much precluded any significant Allied success in the air war for the entire game irrespective of training. Also the fortification of Singapore can not begin because the same bombers that usually sink Force Z were the same ones that bombed Singapore during the night of Dec 8th. Since Singapore has damage initially it can't begin fortifying until it is repaired. At least make the IJ Player choose whether to bomb Singapore OR set to Naval Attack on Dec 8th. There were a couple of others but it has been such a long time since I played this scenario that I really don't remember any)

[John 3rd]

Spence: That is a rather interesting idea. I do not remember that scenario but it sure sounds fun.

[spence]

I played "Rising Sun" several times against the AI and once as a PBEM. In the AI games it was possible to win as the Allies - in the PBEM I lost but I had fun until about March 1st 42 when it kind of became "Japanese Player hunts down all remaining Allied ships (mostly damaged)" and wipes out Java.

[RedTaurus]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Those are interesting. Does anyone have more thoughts on these ideas? I like a couple of them a lot.

Michael?

Kitakami??

Others???

If you are considering a stronger footing for the allies - would they have not deployed more of their subs from the PI into the South China Sea to gather intel?

T

[Ian R]

Looked up some details about the UK carrier fleet deployments in December '41.

HMS Indomitable airgroup during shakedown cruise in the Caribbean in October-November 1941.

#800 Sqn FAA, 12 Fulmars
#880 Sqn FAA, 9 Sea Hurricane 1b (also seen this identified as #806 Sqn, which was a Martlet Sqn shipped later)
#827 Sqn FAA, 12 Albacores
#831 Sqn FAA, 12 Albacores
#796 Sqn FAA, (part) some Albacores

The air group was not worked up (it was the maiden voyage). Sending her to the South China Sea to work up would have been most unwise, but in any event she wouldn't get there in time even if she had avoided Pinnacle Rock.

Incidentally, Illustrious, Formidable & Indomitable were all in Norfolk NYd in November 1941 being repaired. It took them only 11 days to put a new bow on Indomitable - sailed 21 November to continue work up, Illustrious sailed out for trials after many months repair on 25 November, Formidable completed repair in December. Formidable and Illustrious then sailed for the UK, and on the way collided, putting Formidable back in dock at Belfast for 2 months. The Ark Royal had been lost in mid November. Hermes was laid up at Durban. Furious was under refit at Philadelphia Nyd until March 1942. Eagle was refitting at Cammell Laird in Liverpool.

As at 7/12/41 Victorious was the only modern carrier operational, deployed with Home Fleet. The only air cover for Force H was the obsolete Argus (Corelli Barnett says that it was kept at Gibraltar despite being only really useful for aircraft transport/training, while the Eagle's refit was truncated so it could go to Gibraltar in February '42) .

Assigning any RN carrier to Force Z requires some major departures from history.

[spence]

It seems that no aircraft carriers were available on 12/07/41 to provide any air cover to Force Z.

Although up until that date no Japanese aviator had ever fired/dropped a "warshot" the Fleet Air Arm had been fighting a real war for over two years. By that time, handicapped by their rather obsolete aircraft, they had sunk a significant number of ships. It would seem that unless the FAA had experienced a complete turn-over of pilots in late 1941 that the experience level of the FAA pilots, particularly the torpedo bomber pilots, that show up with their carriers later on (Winter-Spring 42) should be much higher than that accorded them by the standard game.

Interesting website re FAA: http://www.fleetairarmoa.org/fleet-air- ... y-timeline

[Dirtnap86]

Having any sort of fighter cover over force Z is...pretty doable, tbh. Indomitable misses her date with the rock and suddenly there's a lot more of a chance to get the ship to Singers. Have her show up with some SYS and ENG damage from running the ship hard, low on fuel or something, if you want to do that.

If Indomitable had been able to get to Singers on time, her 2 fighter squadrons could have done a number on the attacking planes. Japanese planes were quite flammable even the bombers, seeing as they had no self sealing fuel tanks and were poorly armored until later in the war. Someone pointed out British fighter control was poor, but poor is better than nothing. How many times have unescorted bombers turned back in your games from having a pair of Mildcats or Buffaloes show up? I've seen it more than a few times. But that's the trade off you take for having torp capability out past fighter coverage.

The .303s on the Sea Hurricanes (8 for a I, 12 for a II) ran AP/IT rounds, the AP rounds would open up the fuel tanks, the IT (incendiary tracer) rounds would set the flowing fuel on fire, setting the wing on fire, poof down goes the bomber.

I think it's probable to get the ship there. the 18th Div I'm not as sure about, the ground combat in the game isn't quite my favorite.

[Ian R]

There were (2 groups totaling) 54 Zeros in range. If there is a carrier, the Nells get an escort. There were 90+ Nells, 60+ had torpedoes, 32 or so had bombs. Barnett doesn't mention any Betties, just 22 Kok nells. The last group of about a dozen bombers aborted when some F2As belatedly turned up, but it was all over by then.

As Correlli Barnett puts it: "Fortunately for the Indomitable and her crew .... [it wandered out of the channel at Jamaica and hit a big rock]".

I can't see a sortie with Force Z ending well for Indomitable.

In fact, Force Z would be better going a direct route to the invasion beaches, with the RAF actually providing LRCAP for the run up like they were supposed to, and trying to get in and out of the anchorage at night. Even so, Ozawa and Hashimoto have plenty of cruisers and destroyers with type 93s to make things interesting.

[spence]

There were (2 groups totaling) 54 Zeros in range. If there is a carrier, the Nells get an escort. There were 90+ Nells, 60+ had torpedoes, 32 or so had bombs. Barnett doesn't mention any Betties, just 22 Kok nells. The last group of about a dozen bombers aborted when some F2As belatedly turned up, but it was all over by then.

Actually the strike against PoW and Repulse was carried out at the extreme range of a Zero with drop tanks based on intelligence which was hours old (a sub sighting at 0315). An air search for the ships was launched approx 0600, the torpedo bombers launched around 0700 ordered to proceed to the best estimate of the two ships position. The search planes actually located the two ships at approx 1100 on their return flight to base. They broadcast the location and the torpedo bombers attacked shortly thereafter.

Taken from Force Z Survivors Assoc website interview with Capt Sonokawa (IJN)

Due to the long range of the attack and the uncertainty of the ships' position a Zero escort for the strike was highly unlikely.

(About the only circumstance that actually applied to the in-game naval attack by the IJN torpedo bombers was the name of the ships which were sunk)
www.forcez-survivors.org.uk

[John 3rd]

I've ruled out the 18th arriving. Instead, we are placing a Gurhka Brigade at Singers with the TF that brought it one day's sail up the coast heading for India.

I'm placing Indomitable at Ceylon. She will have all four squadrons aboard for a total of 21 F and 24 TB. The CV can be joined up with Hermes to form a little strike force.

[Ian R]

Edit.

[Ian R]

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