Rookie Problems - Operation Shoestring

[BBfanboy]

Air Units offer a better chance of getting through to target if they have more aircraft, so disbanding those dribs and drabs INTO the parent unit is good. If you try and disband them at a remote base without a large enough airfield or Air HQ, you might get a message saying the planes "will be destroyed". Do not disband them - you don't get enough replacements in this scenario. If the aircraft cannot make it to where the Parent unit is, assign a small xAKL to pick it up in Transport mode and bring it home. You can only put one unit or portion thereof on a ship, so if there are several bits and pieces in the same area see if you can get them to the biggest AF and combine them by disbanding (until the message about destroying aircraft comes up).

[RangerJoe]

Once you can no longer disband into an air unit, wait. The excess planes will go into the reserves and can be removed. Then disband again as needed. Make sure that the disband color is white when you disband.

[DanielAClark]

12-13th September

Nothing much happening in New Guinea. Our planes are pounding the enemy force on the track. I have no intention of launching an offensive here...so I am not sure what else to do.

More B17s arriving at Townsville.

I shift some ASW assets around to better cover the approaches to Sydney as I am sending a lot of shipping between Sydney and Noumea.

The enemy tries to land supplies at Tasafaronga by using two freighters escorted by Katori. [:-]

The Cactus Air Force savages them, hitting Katori six times with thousand pound bombs and hitting the freighters several times as well. The entire group left heavily aflame.

2nd Marine Regiment is now unloading onto Lunga Point. Supplies are unloading as well.

I load up the Enterprise's groups onto transports and prepare to send them to Sydney. Wasp's old group will go to either Efate or the airfield at Espirito Santo...to await developments.

Supplies at Henderson Field reach the point where I begin expanding the airfield.

Will the enemy throw more at us? How long will they need to recuperate before they come in force? Will the large force at Tasafaronga come to Banzai into the airfield defenses?

[DanielAClark]

Thinking about the New Guinea situation, I looked into the real life actions of everyone.

About late September is when the Australian advance began. I have not been pushed back as far as they were historically (I estimate the current positions to be around Templeton's Crossing or Brigade Ridge, NOT at Ioribaiwa Ridge). In any event, I think it wise to begin thinking of probing the front to see what is in front of us sometime in the next few weeks. Air recon has been bad at identifying units in the jungle.

The whole idea of trying to mount an offensive in this area is horrifying from a supply perspective. The actual reality of how it was done in 1942 is stupifying. Do we even have air supply capability in the scenario?

I was even looking at the possibility of initiating my own Operation Lilliput out of Milne Bay, but there are no base hexes between Milne and Buna that could be developed as a hub to dump supplies and combat assets to.

In real life, the offensive from Port Moresby to Buna took until mid-November, and was greatly aided by a withdrawal from the field by the Japanese forces. I do not yet know if that is the case here, though I suspect that the enemy has abandoned his offensive (due to a complete lack of bombardment attempts on my forces).

In addition, it looks like I will need about 1900-2000 political points to buy out the 32nd Infantry Division, to potentially bolster any attack out of PM...though historically they were not used until 1943.

Anyway, just my musings about the situation in New Guinea...

[DanielAClark]

Apparently, I was wrong...32nd infantry division arrived in PM mid-september.

MacArthur really wanted to get back into the limelight!

[DanielAClark]

14-18th September

A bit of a lull in the action.

I move up some B26 squadrons to Port Moresby, and run the following:
P40 squadron
P39 squadron
Beaufighter 1C squadron
Three B26 squadrons
...out of the airfield. This increases our ground strike capability MASSIVELY, and we do quite well hitting the track.

I move the PBYs to Milne Bay, to give better warning of the Bismarck Sea.

The enemy once again sends Betties after Port Moresby and Milne Bay, and manages to get them through the CAP on most days...but they go after ships in the harbor and not the airfield. Silly. No hits.

On the 17th, the enemy run out of escorts and we savage the bombers.

I move the component parts of the 32nd Infantry Division to the same town...and combine it. More to practice the concept than to use it. I now know how to do it.

My 'plan' for a Buna offensive is to move the component parts of the 5th Australian Division to Port Moresby, form it into a unit, and have it attack along the trail. This will mean some juggling of the units at Port Moresby and Milne Bay, so I will need some carrier cover for the operation. Not sure if I will actually get this done or not.

At Henderson Field, the enemy occasionally sends in Betties against my sub chasers still futilely going after the midget sub hanging around Tulagi. The CAP has trouble intercepting these unescorted bombers, and they eventually sink one of the sub chasers. Sigh. I have more.

Long Island reaches Espirito Santo and is stood down for repairs pierside. The area now has some CAP and some strike force, but its rudimentary.

Transports are finally underway with supplies and the 7th regiment of the 1st USMC division. Once it arrives at Henderson Field, it will combine and then move out towards Tasafaronga, while the 2nd regiment of the 2nd USMC division holds the airfield.

[RangerJoe]

Maybe put some mines at Tulagi if you can.

[DanielAClark]

I have mined Tulagi already.
Lost two of my own destroyers to the mines.

[DanielAClark]

19th September

The enemy launches a large Betty raid on Milne Bay...over 30 Betties. Their raid got separated and my beefed up fighters take down 3 Betties and damage 7 more. The second wave of bombers makes it through to the base and damage a few planes on the ground.

[DanielAClark]

20-21st September

We kick over a hornets nest by trying to resupply Milne Bay. The enemy sends over 50 Betties, heavily escorted by A6M2 and A6M3 Zeros.

Our cap does a good job, shooting down half a dozen zeroes and a few Betties for the loss of only one plane. The enemy doesn't hit any of the ships (an xAK and two destroyers) and does minor damage to the airfield.

Resupply and reinforcement of Henderson Field continues undisturbed.

[DanielAClark]

22-23rd September

The massive raids on Milne Bay continue, they beat down the CAP and sink the freighter with all of her supplies. Now we have to get another freighter convoy setup.

We send massive P39 reinforcements...so on the next day the enemy switches to attacking the ships unloading supplies in the slot. Helena takes 2 torpedoes, but everything else misses. She gets sent towards Espirito Santo.

The 1st Marine Division is now complete and constituted at Henderson Field and is commanded by Vandegrift. Time to begin the advance on Tasafaronga.

If the enemy Betties stay so strong, I will abandon the plan to constitute the 5th Australian Division, and will setup a 32nd Infantry Division transport to Port Moresby instead.

[RangerJoe]

If you have APDs, they can do fast transport missions to get at least some supplies where you need them. In and out fast. Otherwise, send you freighters with a lot of CAP at various levels, including low CAP to mess with the torpedo bombers.

[DanielAClark]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If you have APDs, they can do fast transport missions to get at least some supplies where you need them. In and out fast. Otherwise, send you freighters with a lot of CAP at various levels, including low CAP to mess with the torpedo bombers.

The APDs have been supplying Tulagi. I have debated using them for Milne Bay...but I cant use them for both. I have too few of them.

I added more fighters to Milne Bay specifically to deal with the attacks. The enemy just sent more Zeros and we never really dented the Betty attacks. Milnes airfield is just too small to offer real defense against raids of over 50 planes.

[HansBolter]

Airlift and submarine delivery are good, albeit, light weight, stand ins for emergency supply delivery.

[DanielAClark]

Yes...I am considering the options.

The real message here seems to be that Milne cant be part of the buildup towards a Buna offensive so long as Rabaul has large numbers of aircraft.

Now that Tulagi is more secure, I can and will most likely switch the APDs to supporting Milne...as the enemy Betties have a hard time hitting the DD speed ships.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: DanielAClark

Yes...I am considering the options.

The real message here seems to be that Milne cant be part of the buildup towards a Buna offensive so long as Rabaul has large numbers of aircraft.

Now that Tulagi is more secure, I can and will most likely switch the APDs to supporting Milne...as the enemy Betties have a hard time hitting the DD speed ships.

Is he bombing and suppressing the construction of the airfield at Milne?
Do you have sufficient engineers there to make buildup of the airfield happen in a timely manner?

If you can't use Milne for the build up against Buna, it at least continues to serve as a flank protector.

[DanielAClark]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: DanielAClark

Yes...I am considering the options.

The real message here seems to be that Milne cant be part of the buildup towards a Buna offensive so long as Rabaul has large numbers of aircraft.

Now that Tulagi is more secure, I can and will most likely switch the APDs to supporting Milne...as the enemy Betties have a hard time hitting the DD speed ships.

Is he bombing and suppressing the construction of the airfield at Milne?
Do you have sufficient engineers there to make buildup of the airfield happen in a timely manner?

If you can't use Milne for the build up against Buna, it at least continues to serve as a flank protector.

The airfield is level 1 with a capacity of 1. I assume it can be expanded a bit above this, but long term I dont want to.

What I want to do is replace the current garrison with another unit and unite the current garrison with the rest of the Australian 5th division...which is cheaper in political points to use than my other options to launch at Buna.

I am struggling to get sufficient cap up to cover such an action for a few days.

I am perfectly ok just leaving Milne as flank protection and supplying her by APD, if necessary.

I will then just use the 32nd Infantry Division directly through PM, which has sufficient air defense to allow the required transport moves.

The 5th division idea was a potential shortcut on PP so that I could move on Buna earlier.

Unfortunately, I havent been winning the air war sufficiently to let me do the little transport moves to pull it off.

None of this is critical to winning the scenario as I can just hold defensively and win. But I am trying out new things and seeing how stuff works.

[HansBolter]

Experimentation is the best way to learn what does and doesn't work.[:)]

[DanielAClark]

Yes.

I would be doing better if I had started with a plan for the PP points.

I feel like this is going to help me when I eventually get to the grand campaign.

I also really want to get a feel for what is necessary for a proper land offensive.

[RangerJoe]

Yes, struggle now you so you will learn. Try the scenario a few times since you will learn and improve each time - at least, you should!