Never Thought I'd Start Another One - tc464 (A) vs. Mike (J)

[sfatula]

Regarding night bombing with those B17s, this would be a house rule item. B17 raids against Rabaul at night were pretty bad in WW2 and tending to have very high ops losses. Quite ineffective without radar. What altitude were they at? That's a lot of damage (kills). I don't think a rule should eliminate all airfield or ports night bombing for the whole game either though.

[Mike Solli]

Question for the group:

Do you think it's more effective to bombard with one large bombardment TF or split it into 2 separate TFs? I'm thinking Adak. I have a total of 7 BB, 6 CA and 7 CL there. This would be the bombardment on the same turn as I do a deliberate assault.

I'm convinced that it's better to split it into 2 when there are planes at the base because the first one will damage some and the second one will destroy some of those damaged planes. Not sure about devices though. I don't have a lot of data points, but I did hit Adak with 2 bombardments in the most recent turn. You'll see it below in a few minutes.

[RangerJoe]

14 Dec 42

Sub War

The I-30, also at Adak, put a torpedo into LSD Shinshu Maru causing light to moderate damage: 5-31(28)-1-0. She'll head for the Home Islands for repairs.

If I read that correctly, a Japanese submarine torpedoed a Japanese ship?

Use Pete's at low level for night fighters. The idea is just to disrupt their attack.

If air unit upgrades are needed at bases that can be bombed, I would consider dividing the air units into thirds before upgrading and then only upgrading one third at a time unless there are a lot of defenders.

The best defense against Allied 4Es is to bomb/bombard their bases at night. During the day, a long range LRCAP at even a low percentage can increase the operational losses for those enemy air units that fly during the day.

[sfatula]

Yeah, slow floats are a great option. The idea there is they can't really catch or engage the B17s mostly but it does still count as disrupting the bombing runs.

[Mike Solli]

20 Dec 42

Sub War

The Dutch sub, KXVI, torpedoes an xAK a hex SE of Truk. The xAK made it to Truk and is expected to survive. She does have 6 fires, so whether or not they go out will determine what happens.

5 Fleet

So, I sent in 2 separate bombardment TFs (as mentioned above). Ted decided to spend some of his supply at Adak on PT boats. There was a group of 12. The first TF (3 BB, 4 CA, 3 CL) found them and took them by surprise. Only one got off its torpedoes and 8 of the 12 were obliterated by the TF. The 4 surviving PT boats then ran into the second bombardment TF (4 BB, 2 CA, 2 CL) and got away without taking damage or launching their torpedoes.

The two bombardments went in. Here's what it looked like:

First bombardment:

Japanese Ships
BB Yamashiro
BB Fuso
CA Ashigara
CA Nachi
CA Haguro
CA Myoko
CL Oi
CL Kitakami
CL Yura

Allied ground losses:
401 casualties reported
Squads: 4 destroyed, 12 disabled
Non Combat: 10 destroyed, 34 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 14 (2 destroyed, 12 disabled)
Vehicles lost 9 (2 destroyed, 7 disabled)

Airbase hits 8
Runway hits 13
Port hits 2

Second bombardment:

Japanese Ships
BB Hyuga
BB Ise
BB Musashi
BB Haruna
CA Chokai
CA Takao
CL Kuma
CL Agano

Allied ground losses:
315 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 15 destroyed, 24 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 26 (6 destroyed, 20 disabled)
Vehicles lost 11 (6 destroyed, 5 disabled)

Airbase hits 10
Airbase supply hits 3
Runway hits 29
Port hits 3
Port supply hits 1

The second bombardment was more powerful and they did kill more squads. I'm still not sure if combined they'd do more damage than if split. What do you guys think?

After the bombardments, the 4 surviving PT boats went after 3 DMS I had in the hex on ASW duty. They expended their torpedoes and the DMS went home. Well, those 4 PT boats are toothless now, unless Ted wants to waste more supply on torpedoes.

The US troops didn't bombard at Adak today. Supply running low? I hope so!

4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

There were a total of 59x 4E and 17x 2E night sorties against Rabaul, destroying a Thalia and causing little airfield damage that was easily repaired.

A dozen Kittyhawks swept Madang and ran into 9 Zeros, who shot down 3 for no loss. An additional 3 Kittyhawks were reported to be op losses too.

A total of 31x 4E sorties hit Lunga/Tulagi. There may be an invasion force of APDs moving in, so KB2 is moving in range tomorrow.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

Nothing to report.

China

Kienko was attacked today getting 1:1 odds and reducing the forts from 1 to 0. They'll attack again once they get supply.

The bombing/bombardment claimed 42 Chinese squads.

Raw AV:
Japan: 3476 (+3)
China: 5069 (-115) - Nice day!
Enemy strength: 311k (-1k)
Enemy units: 91 units (no change

Other Stuff

Reinforcement
AMC Gokoku Maru

[Mike Solli]

14 Dec 42

Sub War

The I-30, also at Adak, put a torpedo into LSD Shinshu Maru causing light to moderate damage: 5-31(28)-1-0. She'll head for the Home Islands for repairs.

If I read that correctly, a Japanese submarine torpedoed a Japanese ship?

Use Pete's at low level for night fighters. The idea is just to disrupt their attack.

If air unit upgrades are needed at bases that can be bombed, I would consider dividing the air units into thirds before upgrading and then only upgrading one third at a time unless there are a lot of defenders.

The best defense against Allied 4Es is to bomb/bombard their bases at night. During the day, a long range LRCAP at even a low percentage can increase the operational losses for those enemy air units that fly during the day.

Lol, it was S-30.

Good idea on splitting the air unit. Fortunately, 44 of the 46 planes will be repaired by tomorrow. None have been hit, so they still are an unknown to Ted.

I'd love to put some LRCAP on the bomber air bases, but they're all out of range of my fighters.

I'll have to "upgrade" some floatplanes to Petes. I have none in any combat zones.

[Mike Solli]

21 Dec 42

Sub War

Nothing to report.

5 Fleet

I'm waiting to attack Adak because the 9 and 56 Divisions both have disruption in the 20s and fatigue in the 40s. For some reason, it's just not coming down very quickly. Once it's about half that, I'll attack.

4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

Today, 65x 4E and 21x 2E night sorties hit Rabaul destroying 4 planes on the ground. I converted a small FP unit to Petes at Kavieng. When they repair, I'll send them to Rabaul on a low level night CAP mission. One B-17 was destroyed by flak and a B-24 and 2x 2Es were allegedly op losses.

Twenty-five P-40Ks swept Gasmata getting the bounce on 9 Zeros there and shooting down 5 of the Zeros (3 KIA). That sucked. Hopefully, they come back tomorrow because my vaunted Tojo IIc sentai is there ready to get its baptism of fire.

Fourteen B-17s hit Lunga and another 17 hit Tulagi.

KB2 was in range of a small TF 2 hexes west of Tulagi, but they didn't attack. A sub was spotted just to the SE of KB2, so they're moving NW a bit. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

Nothing to report.

China

Today's bombardment/bombing destroyed 41 squads.

Raw AV:
Japan: 3478 (+2)
China: 5004 (-65)
Enemy strength: 304k (-7k)
Enemy units: 91 units (no change)

Other Stuff

Nothing to report.

[Mike Solli]

22 Dec 42

Sub War

The I-25 was caught a couple hexes SE of Noumea nosing around down there looking for enemy carriers. She was hit twice, at least once by a mousetrap. They must have a small warhead because her damage is only 19-30(19)-4-0. She'll head home for repairs because there are a lot of small TFs (probably ASW) in the area. I took a screenshot:

Noumea.jpg (221.33 KiB) Viewed 19 times

Take a look at the number of ships in port! Kind of hard to hide that!

5 Fleet

Nothing much to report. The 9 and 56 Divisions are still pretty fatigued (~40 each). I put them in reserve.

4 Fleet

Nothing to report.

SE Fleet

The night raids on Rabaul consisted of 77x 4E sorties and 20x 2E sorties in 13 separate attacks. An Emily was destroyed on the ground. Very little airfield damage ever happens, and the little that does happen is easily repaired. The Emily was one of 3 damaged Emilies remaining at Rabaul. The unit has moved to Gasmata.

I haven't been telling the whole story of Allied attacks in this AO. I don't bother to mention the 100 or so P-39Ds that strafe/bomb and the 11 A-20A1s that bomb in SE PNG. I'm sending my brand spanking new Tojo IIc sentai to sweep Finschafen from Gasmata. Let's see how they do.

The only action at Tulagi was an 11 Wildcat sweep. The bombers rested.

SRA

Nothing to report.

Burma

Nothing to report.

China

Today's bombing/bombardment netted 71 destroyed squads.

Raw AV:
Japan: 3481 (+3)
China: 4925 (-79)
Enemy strength: 310k (+6k) - I think this number is not very accurate because I see fluctuations like this one. I'm sure it's close though. Good ball park.
Enemy units: 91 units (no change)

Other Stuff

I got word that the BB Colorado didn't sink. I knew that. She took a bunch of non-penetrating bomb hits that wrecked her topsides though.