MrKane vs Wargamer part II

[Mike McCreery]

March 14, 1943

[Lowpe]

I never ever fought way down here.

[Mike McCreery]

March 16, 1943

Multiple patrol aircraft do a thorough recon of the amphibious assault task force and escorts and there is no doubt he knows I am on the way. Currently the TF is 7 hexes away from Pago Pago. I will have the mine sweeping task force go to Pago to sweep the mines. A small TF swept 25 mines this turn.

[Mike McCreery]

March 17, 1943

Minesweepers go in.

[Mike McCreery]

March 18, 1943

Amphibious unloading begins at Ta'u and Pago Pago. No significant response has been detected yet. 5 mini-subs are destroyed by sub-chasers and destroyers. Pago Pago is bombarded by a cruiser TF to ensure that he cant easily use the airfield.

[Mike McCreery]

March 19, 1943

The 1st marine division troops are fully unloaded but the heavy equipment and support is still on the ships.

No response other than being covered by patrol aircraft.

[Mike McCreery]

March 20, 1943

I am getting nervous as the KB nor any significant surface forces have been spotted. My air cover is pulled back to protect the CVE's from destruction along with the large bombardment group.

Several groups of Nells out of Suva attack my convoys and put a torpedo into a ship in each one.

[Mike McCreery]

March 21, 1943
5000 more troops managed to unload overnight on the 20th. It would take 3-4 more days to completely unload at least and given the Nell attacks I did not want to subject the Amphibious assault TF to more damage so I withdraw them.

Nells fly again but I put fighters at Savaii which shot some down and prevented the Nells from doing any more damage at Ta'u.

Because the tanks and marines were in good shape with low disruption the first attack goes in.

[Mike McCreery]

March 22, 1943

Most of the vehicle disablements are support for the tanks so I attack again. More nells are taken down by the wildcats at Savaii.

[Mike McCreery]

MrKane finally shows a response to aggression by having a cruiser TF take out a sub chaser and a mine sweeping group at Pago Pago.

[Mike McCreery]

March 23, 1943

The marines attack once again because of low disruption and fatigue and capture Pago Pago.

[Lowpe]

Did the Marines shock attack in those first two attacks?

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Did the Marines shock attack in those first two attacks?

No, I only had the tanks shock. On the 2nd day I may have only had 1 tank bn shock, one was getting damaged pretty good but the other had very light losses.

[Mike McCreery]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

[Mike McCreery]

March 25, 1943

[Mike McCreery]

March 26, 1943

[Mike McCreery]

March 27, 1943

This is good news for me, he is focused on building up Luganville and Suva.

[Mike McCreery]

March 29, 1943

It appears that MrKane was not anticipating a move into the DEI at this time...

I managed to get the entire group next to Koepang without significant detection but the gig is up!

[Mike McCreery]

As typical, everything went tits up!!! Even though there was no significant surface forces to thwart my landings, MrKane's expert airforce caused havoc with unloading and the ships were packed too full. I anticipated his landing forces on the islands so most are alright in terms of troops but supply is sketchy.

I was worried about an attack by MrKane so I unloaded an army at Koepang, more than I had planned.

Then MrKane struck from the Northwest which I was completely unprepared for. Fortunately, due to split strikes, and the sheer number of ships involved in the fighting, no carriers were hit in the attack. 2 battleships suffered significant damage and will have to return to the yards overseas.

According to the battle report he lost 243 bombers and torpedo planes but very few fighters as the dogfighting was very short and the allied fighters took out most of their frustration on the bombers.

Koepang was overrun by 12-1 odds on the first attack after supporting bombardments by my cruiser and battleship groups on the same turn of Kane's strikes.

Surprisingly, Koepang did not suffer much damage to the airfields in the bombardments and 150 fighters were immediately positioned on the island. They helped kill 70 zero's on the subsequent day. Today the port has 1 damage and the rest was repaired by the engineers. This is good news as the airfield is level 4 headed for level 9. There are also parts of 10 AA units landed at Koepang along with CD units and mines.

[Mike McCreery]

Early April 1943