Lunacy In The Pacific Mogami Vs. Tom Hunter

[tsimmonds]

To me, as someone who plays IJ, it seems really too late to be going for New Caledonia vs a competent Allied player. If I didn't have it by the end of March I would pretty much forget it. Course I have had caution beaten into me thru gaming vs Halsey for the past 35 years.....

[Tom Hunter]

Clouds cover Koumac, Mogami does not even get a sighting report of the US TF in the hex.

With the Allies shifting to CAP the air-sea battle gets a little more relaxed though there are still some encounters between Zeros and Allied bombers. 3 more Japanese DDs take a bomb each, this one is notable:

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 17
Allied aircraft
B-25C Mitchell x 3
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
B-25C Mitchell: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged
Japanese Ships
DD Nagatsuki, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Both because 3 B25s blew past 17 Zeros to drop the bomb, and because the already damaged Nagatsuki rolled over and sank.

The 1st USMC Division and an AA battalion are now about 4 days out from Noumea. All planes are back on their CVs and the Surface TF at Koumac is on its way back to Noumea.

Koumac will be a level 4 airbase with a level 5 fort in one day, that should get my 2 engine bombest flying more often.

KB moved a little bit North from its position of the previous day.

Sorry guys no big battle, just slow attrition and dogfighting.

[rtrapasso]

Anyhow... I thought attacker needs AT LEAST 1:1 on ground attack to have some possibility of reducing forts. In your above post he had 0:1 and still reduced the forts by 1....

Two reasons i can think for this:

1) The forts were only at 8, and were not reduced. The reporting routine will say "it is reduced to x" even if the fort is not actually reduced - or at least i have seen this when fort was at 0, and was reported "reduced to 0" during the combat report.;

or

2) He had engineer regiment with combat engineers to reduce the fort (i think can do this even if not a 1-1 odds, although it doesn't ALWAYS happen, iirc.)

[AmiralLaurent]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

Anyhow... I thought attacker needs AT LEAST 1:1 on ground attack to have some possibility of reducing forts. In your above post he had 0:1 and still reduced the forts by 1....

Two reasons i can think for this:

1) The forts were only at 8, and were not reduced. The reporting routine will say "it is reduced to x" even if the fort is not actually reduced - or at least i have seen this when fort was at 0, and was reported "reduced to 0" during the combat report.;

or

2) He had engineer regiment with combat engineers to reduce the fort (i think can do this even if not a 1-1 odds, although it doesn't ALWAYS happen, iirc.)

Yes engineers may reduce the forts before the combat ratio calculation. So it is possible even if the attack then achieves 0 to 1 ratio. And in a big force like that, even without Eng Rgt, the engineers of IJA divisions will be enough to hope a fort reduction.
On the other hand, engineers may reduce forts and deliberate attack acchieving 1 to 1 ratio or more will reduce them of one level, but I have never seen this combined. If engineers reduced fort one level before the attack, the deliberate attack never reduces forts.

[Ron Saueracker]

Pretty mean cranking us up with all this imminent crisis situation stuff in SOPAC and then no turns. Meanies.[8D]

[Tom Hunter]

Blame Mogami

Though we are definitely dancing around each other.

Since he did not see my BBs at all last turn, and may miss them again he may not know they are there.

I wonder what combat between a 16 ship capital ship TF and a 200 ship AP TF looks like?

I doubt we will find out but anything is possible.

[mlees]

Down at Aukland the Prince of Wales is down to 5 sys and most other ships are below it. Saratoga's air group will not turn to 33 planes but she and Lexington did upgrade, but I have no idea what they got for it.

From the database on spooky's site:

Lex upgrade for June '42:
Durability raised from 110 to 120.
Endurance raised from 10000 to 12500.
Fuel raised from 5400 to 6500.
AA value decreases from 1184 to 1040.

Sorry so late with post. I dont browse the forums on the weekends...

[Ron Saueracker]

Is this Russ's day to go hammer beers with Bear at the VFW? Might explain the lack of action people!!!![:'(] Let get a move on men!

[jrlans]

All the suspence is killing me, as if im one to talk

[Tom Hunter]

Mogami has a cold so he is running a little slow.

In China the Japanese are sending more troops to Changsha and attempting to stop the Chinese from concentrating. Several armies of various sizes are running around the countryside.

There is a set of radio transmissions coming out of the hexes at 68/83 68 113 and so on. There because of the volume of traffic and movement I suspect they are large convoys. This is the second day they have occurred in this patter, I am starting to watch for them now.

Very little action in South Pacific, 31 LB-30s raided Luganville and hit the airfield a bit and a big raid smacked 3 AKs off La Foa.

The Japanese did not pick up the BB TF and I disbanded it this turn, there is no immediate threat of shore bombardment.

KB is now 2 hexes from Koumac and Koumac is now an L4 airbase with 269 AV. I flew in 2 Marine Wildcat groups set to Escort 0 CAP, a Wirraway group and set up another Wildcat group and a Kittyhawk group at La Foa. 200-250 bombers are on Naval attack, two groups of Wildcats from the CV fleet flew to Noumea to beef up the P40s and P39s covering there.

Weather is percipitation if KB stays in place my airforce might fly, and if it coordinates there could be 150 plane strikes. There are a lot of ifs but the Japanese CVs may get hit tomorrow.

The CAP over Noumea is also very fierce over 160 planes including 50 Navy Wildcats. I left a few convoys unloading in port to try and pull a Japanese strike.

Mogami is clearly being careful but he may have created an opportunity for me. Of course if he moves more than 4 hexes from Koumac nothing will fly.

This is the 4th day of serious action and KBs Zeros have flow LRCAP and Escort missions every day of the last 4. Hopefully they are getting a little bit tired and I will get some bombers through and score some hits. It has been nice to shoot up a handful of DDs but I am really after bigger game.

[Ron Saueracker]

Mogami is one of the guys who is only too aware of the design's ins and outs like fatigue and morale and I'd be surprised if he pushed his air units any further without a break of some kind. But, there may be no escaping it with an operation of this size, if that is what it is.

[jrlans]

I think hes trying to get a sence of your fleet assests in the area and maybe trying to lure the US fleet out. I cant think of any reason that he would bring KB that close, seems like a risk to me.

[Tom Hunter]

More dancing around in China. Mogami seems to be trying to get even more than 440,000 troops ready to hit Changsha.

I am trying to get some of my own troops there which is somewhat difficult due to Mogami haveing the central position. The Norther army is also on the move in an effort to suprise the Japanese and get local superiority.

I just got a report of 116 division planning for Akayb. The British are moving troops to Chadpur and Diamond harbor they will load on ship for Akayb as part of the offensive into Burma. So the 116 division in planning for Akayb and Akayb is planning for 116 division.

For India the key is Spitfires. Australian pilots on New Caledonia will get the first 32, then India gets the rest.

Noumea Buildup

Koumac: AF 4 AV 269 Fort 5 AP 198 supplies 33242
La Foa: AF 4 AV 114 Fort 4 AP 987 supplies 22053
Noumea: AF 5 AV 299 Fort 9 AP 661 supplies 217191

On June 14 an AA unit arrives in Noumea. This is needed badly because the 51 Airbase force has no intrisic AA and the other base forces took most of the guns to Koumac and La Foa.

A day later a Marine Para battalion arrives, 3 days after that (June 17) the 1 USMC division arrives. 4th Australian division is at sea but will not arrive until later. Right now I have 1750 Assault Points on the island the two division will add another 700 brining the Allies to about 2500 (some additional replacements, the marine paras etc make up the rest).

The fighter situation is also better, recent arrivals include another RNZAF Kittyhawk group and the upgrade of a Wirraway group to Spitfire Vs. The second Wirraway group will also go to Spit Vs. Pilot quality is kind of low (mid 50s) but with Spits I think they will still be ok. At the end of the month Formidable can upgrade 18 Fulmars to 18 Seafires which continues the slow transformation of the RN CVs into the ultimate bait force.

There is very little action but much manuevering in the South Pacific. Noumea has so much CAP that Mogami will not fly planes over it so the Allies are able to unload a continous stream of men and supplies into the level 8 port. It is 36% to L9 and climbing slowly, when it hits L9 the Americans will be able to load mines at Noumea instead of Brisbane which should help bring the mine fields from 250 each to 600-800 each.

On June 12 the Japanese grabbed several smaller bases in the area between Rabaul and Lae and Vanikolo fell with the loss of one abandoned PBY. The Japanese clearly want their rear area to go dark.

Something important happened on the US West Coast on June 13. 7 ARs, and MLE and an APG showed up. 4 ARs are heading to Pearl, 2 to Aukland and the MLE is heading for Suva. Right now I have no PT boats so the APG is sitting in Frisco.

Strategically I think Ron's comment on fatigue is a very important insight into Mogamis operations. He once mentioned that it takes 3 or 4 weeks to recover from an attack like the ones that finally took Manila in Mid April. If we accept (for the sake of argument) that the very methodical Mogami rested the army that took Manlia until it was in good shape then the time table looks like this:

April 18 Manila falls
May 18th army ready?
May 22 army loaded on transports?
June 10 army arrives SouthPac

Well the math does not work, but there is a lot of friction and he may be a bit behind. If he was 10-14 days slower than the time table above his convoys would be at the places I head a lot of radio traffic a day or two ago, and he would need to stop me from flying recon flights near Rabaul right about now.

I am guessing that I have enough time to return the fleet to Aukland and upgrade some of the Wildcats to F4F4s, oops forgot to do that earlier! and then turn around and get back on station. It is also plenty of time for first USMC to arrive.

[Tom Hunter]

Here is a close look at China.

The Wuchow army has 2 Japanese units South of it and has moved 32 miles in their direction.

Hengchow will have 5 corp in a level 5 fort to stop the Japanese coming up from the South.

Changsha is a L7 fort now, the Japanese are taking fort level off at the rate of one per attack and getting zero to one odds. This is the attack of June 13th:

round combat at Changsha

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 407336 troops, 4323 guns, 350 vehicle
Defending force 198862 troops, 992 guns, 0 vehicles
Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 7
Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 7)
Japanese ground losses:
12147 casualties reported
Guns lost 272
Vehicles lost 10
Allied ground losses:
7797 casualties reported
Guns lost 161


Changsha is in a dicey spot right now but if it can hold for a week or two it will get a lot of relief.

Further North the whole of the Hsinyang army is going to come back South, the Japanese blocking force is 3 units, and I don't care which 3 units they are the 3000 Assault Points of the Hsinyang army are not going to lose when they come over the river.

Kaigan is an L9 fort so the Chinese are putting a smaller garrison there and moving most of the army South to the main battles. Some will go to Hsinyang and others will cut the coastal railway line. If things go well the Chinese might try for a coastal city.

In the air Allied single engine planes continue to make small more or less random bombing raids. I set replacements off to try to keep supply consuption down. These raids do small damage, gradually increase the pilot quality and cause the Japanese to consume more supplies. It is possible that they are slowing some Japanese movement by a day or two as well but I doubt they accomplish all that much.

The Japanese have a bigger airforce in China and it does launch very large strikes. Sometimes Mogami shuts a Chinese airbase for a while and causes some increased supply consumption. But there are a lot of aibases in China so again there is little strategic effect.

India has unloaded an Australian Brigade into Akyab, the first move. The Chinese 55th corps was destroyed North East of Peking in March, it is back and switched to SEAC command and now flying in to India to rebuild itself. I will leave it at Karachi as a guard force and collect it when it hits 330 AP. Most of the other Chinese units are in India building up as well, and I am starting to send in full strength brigades to Mandalay while flying out the 80% troops of the Burma army. I don't feel it is safe to leave India uncovered yet, but I am confident enough to defend with weak units while pooling the strong ones for the offensive.

Down in the South Paciific the 1st USMC division is in Noumea harbor it starts coming ashore now. 4th Australian is comeing too, but due to the usual loading glitches part of it will come early and part late. The AA unit and the paras are ashore and a SeaBee unit is about to arrive as well.

We have had reports of units planning for an attack on Koumac as well as the ones planning for Noumea. 2nd USMC division is heading for Koumac now, 1st will stay in Noumea with the Americal, 6th Australian is garrisoning La Foa. At the moment there is about 600 AP in each location but when 1st USMC division unloads Noumea will go to 900.

Fighting is sporadic right now, this was the big air battle of the two day period:

ay Air attack on Efate , at 73,109
Japanese aircraft
Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 54
Allied aircraft
B-26B Marauder x 15
B-17E Fortress x 38
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 3 destroyed, 21 damaged
Allied aircraft losses
B-26B Marauder: 1 destroyed, 7 damaged
B-17E Fortress: 21 damaged
Aircraft Attacking:
14 x B-26B Marauder bombing at 22000 feet

Elsewhere Mogami continues to clean up, taking Saidor, Sag Sag and Hansa in the last two days. These are all small bases near Rabaul. The last of these bases has some PBYs scouting, still no signs of major convoys near Rabaul.

Dutch base forces unloaded at Cairns and Cooktown will get another BF shortly. Additional US troops are also on thier way, the build up is slower than New Caledonia but it is coming along nicely. A few more weeks and that corner of the world will be strong enough to consider attracting Japanese attention.

When New Caledonia gets strong enough to defend itself without help from the US navy I will send the CV fleet up to Pearl for refit. That should be true in a few more weeks.

After the CVs are done repairing it will be time to start the first Allied offensive moves. At the start these will be modest:

Put an L2 base on the small islands between New Caledonia and Efate-Luganville then start flying fighters against the Japanese bases 4 hexes away. This will get my pilot quality up, a key issue.

Start sending B17s from Cooktown against Lae. Send in a swarm of fighters to Port Moresby.

Start the Burma army South and take back the two unoccupied airbases South of Mandalay.

Any (maybe all? [X(]) of these operations could be cancelled by an agressive move by the Japanese in the area.

[Tom Hunter]

Map of China

[Ron Saueracker]

When New Caledonia gets strong enough to defend itself without help from the US navy I will send the CV fleet up to Pearl for refit. That should be true in a few more weeks

I'd just refit one at a time there Tom. Having one less CV TF present if he comes vs not having any to seize the moment at a critical time might be the game.

[Tom Hunter]

Ron, I think about refitting one CV at a time Vs. all at once. It is not an easy choice.

If you do one at a time you have 4 US CVs ready to strike which may be enough to capitalize on a mistake but it might not be, 20% of your force away is a big chunk.

So it does keep you capable which is good, but not very capable which is bad.

Also the one being refitted can get dry gulched too.


Doing them all together keeps the CVs somewhat safer but leaves everything else more exposed to KB.

I am more inclined to move the whole fleet together and do them all at once, but ultimately dodging the decisions right now.

Back to the war.

China makes me a bit nervous. I had to Pull about 50,000 troops from Changsha to meet the 13 Jap units coming up from Canton so I now have 150,000 to 440,000 with my guys in an L7 fort. Mogami is building his army bigger as well. My Wuchow army is 40 miles along moving at 4-6 miles a day, the two Japanese units in its path are a speed bump but they could be as many as 5 days from attacking.

The Hsinyang army is moving fast on the rail but will slow down when it comes time to jump the river. More than 10 days before they get into action.

I really don't know if the 150k troops can hold or not. If they can make it though one attack then the reinforcements will make it and the place will hold, if not then away goes the Chinese center.

On the bright side if they do hold the Japanese army in Changsha will be cut off and in some difficulty. I won't kill it, but I might hurt it some.

Far to the North the Chinese have a Mongolian base Tu Gu? or something like it that is Soviet. I am flying a Chinese BF in to improve it and will turn it into a bomber base drawing Soviet supplies. I am also putting a small number of Soviet planes in. I am wondering if I may be able to trigger the Soviets or get Mogami to do it by accident. If the plan works you read about it here first.

Burma-India

Akyab just got another Brigade of troops, it is turning into a fairly dangerous place.

I flew 3 Wellington groups and a Blenhiem group to Mandalay, currently an L4 airfield soon to be L5. After a day of rest and recon they are going to start bombing heavy industry in Hanoi. At the very least that ought to cause the Japanese to rebase some of the fighters they are using somewhere else.

South Pacific

We continue to steam around staring at eachother. KB is North of Luganville, the Allied CV fleet is down at Aukland converting a few air groups from F4F3s to F4F4s.

Again I am getting the bomber force ready, 150 4 engine planes grouped at Noumea today, tomorrow they get strike orders for Luganville.

The Marines are mostly ashore, SeeBeas are unloading today and an artillery regiment and AA battalion unloaded recently. The Noumea build up is as follows:

Koumac AF 4 AV 264 Fort 5 AP 580 Supply 32701
La Foa AF 4 AV 113 Fort 4 AP 508 Supply 21341
Noumea AF 5 AV 299 Fort 9 AP 1066 Supply 246095

I am building up the forst as fast as possible at Koumac, then I will finish the airfield. La Foa is the other way round. I have read that forts make shore bombardment less effective, anyone have proof? Of course BB TFs make it totally ineffectual, my trust is not in the forts, it is in the integrated defense I have build up around the island.

I get 3 more Marine F4F4 groups in the next month that will pretty much solve my air superiority problem in the South Pacific and once I have enough fighters I can move the slow British BBs into Noumea too.

The Crisis in the South Pacific is slowly passing and I think it will be over within 45 days.

I was thinking about this earlier today and realized something that kind of suprises me.

Mogami's big offensives:

December: NEI and unstoppable smashing of the weakest member of the Allies.
January Marches into Malaya but does not figure out the Allied army is gone until the end of the month.
February: Southern Burma falls
March: lots of troops to the Phillipines
April: Manila finally goes.
May: Nothing
June: Attack in China

It is not a lot of offensives and it is noteable that he goes in one at a time. Interesting

[Gen.Hoepner]

In China he's made a lot of mistakes imho.

[Mike Solli]

Is it really surprising? Mogami is nothing if not methodical. To me it looks like he chooses a target, plans the mission and masses to overwhelm the defenses.

[Ron Saueracker]

Hey, you are going to drop a ball once in awhile when you juggle what, a dozen of them? How many games does Mog have going?[X(][8D]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

In China he's made a lot of mistakes imho.