Help With Timing My Tarawa Invasion

[Terminus]

But you have to consider that the "Fleet Train" didn't really get fully organised until 1945, which is modelled in the game. Also, you don't do UNREP at high speeds, you have to slow down...

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

But you have to consider that the "Fleet Train" didn't really get fully organised until 1945, which is modelled in the game. Also, you don't do UNREP at high speeds, you have to slow down...

Interesting ... history books I have mention the Fleet Train as early as the attack on the Gilberts in November 1943.

[Terminus]

Hmmm... Then I guess "fully organised" is a matter of definition.[8D]

[Dereck]

Okay I did some checking concerning underway replenishments and found I was both right and wrong.

I was right in the fact that the US Navy did underway replenishments as early as World War I (though then only on emergency basis) but wrong in that I included supplies.

It seems that the US Navy only underway replenished fuel. All other supplies (food and ammunition, etc) were replenished at anchor or in port. Underway replenishment of all supplies and fuel didn't start until the mid 1950s.

So, in effect allowing replenishment from AE ships at sea even in 1945 never really happened.

[Halsey]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

And leave the Seabees and the Base Force behind; they are almost useless in an invasion. You should be prepared to land your Floating Reserve very quickly; either you immediately break the enemy on D-Day, or it's going to take quite a while.

The big BF's are not useless in an invasion.
They have engineers.[;)]

[Terminus]

Ah, but that's not what they're FOR...

[Halsey]

Maybe not, but they still have combat engineers in the TO&E.[;)]

[Arkan]

Could you give an example of a Base Force with combat engineers?

[Halsey]

ORIGINAL: Arkan

Could you give an example of a Base Force with combat engineers?

The US BF's that have the combat engineers are two digit ones.
52 BF, 72 BF, etc. These also have large aviation/support organic to them.

The three digit ones are the small BF's.
Such as the 123, 124, etc. These are not as robust in invasions as the others.

I always land a big two digit BF. They are not as good when invading atolls, but an absolute must when invading an island/coastal base. They will augment your armor and other combat engineers.

When invading atolls, you really don't need eng units. This is because your units are going to shock attack anyway. Engineers destroy fortifications when using deliberate attacks.

Infantry destroy fortifications when using shock attacks. If the odds are right.[;)]

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Hmmm... Then I guess "fully organised" is a matter of definition.[8D]

This is what someone answered me when I posted a question an another forum (history, not game) about the establishment of the US Fleet Train in the Pacific during WWII:

There are some books with more definitive info but this is what I can provide quickly. Notice that the fleet train was fully organised no later than November 1943 and most likely many months before. Did it continue to grow? Of course but then so did the whole fleet. In fact at least as early as the battle of Coral Sea in early 1942 oilers accompanied the fast carriers. Does this constitute "fully organised" probably not but then neither was the fleet as a whole for that matter.:

The Central Pacific Offensive and Leyte

J.F.C. Fuller ["The Decisive Battles of the Western World" Vol. III ] writes thus of the Central Pacific offensive directed by Admiral Nimitz -

"Nimitz's problem differred from MacArthur's. The latter was land-based, but Nimitz had to move his base along with him, which meant that his fleet had to be both his base of operations and his striking force. It was therefore a four-fold organization - a floating base, a fleet, an air force, and an army, combined in one. That it was designed, built and assembled within 18 months of the Battle of Midway Island is without question the greatest organizational feat of naval history."

The developments which led to operations becoming both more continous and more protracted were the 'fleet train' - which by provisioning, refuelling and rearming ships at sea meant not only that forces could remain at sea for long periods but that they could remain at sea and continue operations almost indefinitely, despite long periods of action - and the dramatic intensification of air-sea warfare.

For, in the days of sail, ships could remain at sea for long periods - sometimes as long as a year - and of course did not need to refuel. However, if involved in a serious encounter with the enemy they were likely to need to return to a naval base to replenish their ammunition. And in any case encounters between opposing ships were only occasional - and remained so into the Twentieth Century.

What led to combat taking place day after day was the coming to maturity of air-sea warfare. This meant that a fleet operating so to speak 'at the front' ( i.e. within a few hundred miles of enemy air bases) could be attacked almost hourly for day after day and for week after week. Moreover, the fleet itself could be called upon to conduct offensive air operations almost continuously, again for weeks at a time. And the immense strength of the American Fast Carrier Force meant that it could remain in an operational area for unprecedentedly long periods - and all the time slugging it out with land-based airpower.

The capacity of this force to move into an enemy area, establishing and then maintaining air superiority in that area, was convincingly demonstrated in the period between November 1943 and June 1944 - beginning with the US landings in the Gilbert Islands and ending with the US occupation of the Marianas. However, airborne and ground resistance in these outlying island groups was in each case quickly eliminated, and as yet operations had thus not become a matter of more than a few weeks.

[Arkan]

ORIGINAL: Halsey

The US BF's that have the combat engineers are two digit ones.
52 BF, 72 BF, etc. These also have large aviation/support organic to them.

I guess I'm overlooking something, first I checked the 72nd BF in the scen.15 reinforcements screen, then I looked it up in the DB and then I loaded the 44 scenario where the BF is already on the map but nowhere did I find combat engineers included.

Engineers destroy fortifications when using deliberate attacks.

Infantry destroy fortifications when using shock attacks. If the odds are right.

I think the main difference is that combat engineers can destroy fortifications irrespective of the odds. Infantry can destroy forts with deliberate attacks too. I think they just can destroy more than one fort per turn with shock attacks, but I could be wrong on this.

[Sardaukar]

Most infantry units have engineer squads to reduce forts and I think shock attack increases the odds plus you can reduce more than one. But I think for unit with *no* engineer squads shock attack is only alternative to reduce fort level.

[Arkan]

But I think for unit with *no* engineer squads shock attack is only alternative to reduce fort level.

That's wrong, a 1 to 1 deliberate attack will destroy one fort. If a fort is destroyed by combat engineers it will read like this "Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to x", if it's destroyed by infantry or anything else because of positive attack odds it will read like this "Japanese Assault reduces fortifications to x".
Normal construction engineers can't assault at all and cannot destroy forts.

As a clarification I think it's important to note that combat engineers and construction engineers are NOT determined by the type of unit they are in but only by their squad type. So Engineers and Engineer Vehicles are always construction engineers as well as USA Engineer Squad, USMC Engineer Squad, Dutch Sapper Squad, etc. are always combat engineers regardless if they are in an Inf, Eng or HQ type unit.

As an example a typical US division will have some Engineers as well as some USA Engineer Squads in its TOE. The USA Eng. Squads have an AV and can take part in attacks, they will have a chance of destroying forts before the assault because they are combat engs and they will take part in the assault along with the division's infantry squads and will destroy forts if the assault odds are better then 0 to 1. However the division's Engineers have no assault value and will not do anything useful during an attack.