Reinforcing Port Moresby - February 1942

[bradfordkay]

The 30th Aus Bde is a great start to your PM defense forces. Later, when you can, try sending in either an Australian division or one of the SWPac US infantry divisions.

I agree with the idea that hanging on to Milne Bay (Gili Gili - depending upon which scenario you are playing) is a key to the PM defense. A brigade comes in handy there as well. I will tend to send all the troops from New Britain to Milne Bay as I pull them (or their survivors) out. Another source for troops are the British forces in Sarawak, Borneo and Brunei. Once they've been forced into the jungle, I will send ships and subs to collect them and take them to PM/MB.

You will be shuttling fighters in and out of these bases as the fight progresses. I've developed a habit of setting the squadrons in New Guinea to "No Replacements" and just replacing them with fresh units as needed. This means that precious supplies are burned up in New Guinea, and morale seems to do better when they get a chance to rebuild back in Oz.

In one game of mine against the AI, they broke off the Shokaku/Zuikaku/Zuiho from the KB in June '42 and sent them east from Kendari to support the PM invasion. I had Enterprise and Yorktown coming up from Noumea and managed to destroy that CV TF with little loss. Good things can happen to those who wait...

[afspret]

Well I'm currently in the first week of Sept 42 and the AI has yet to make a move on Port Moresby, although I have seen messages on the intel screen saying the AI was plannng an attack. But from about late April until mid July the AI tried to bomb it out of existence from Rabaul, even KB made a two day visit in mid August, but those attacks have tapered off.

Currently, in addition to the LCUs already there, I have the following:
-6th Aus Inf Div
-32 Inf Div
-3rd Aus Tank Regt (spent the PPs)
-Two Aus AT Regts
-51st USAAF Base Force
-All three of the LCUs from Rabaul (still don't know how I managed to get them out!).

As for air support at I PM I have managed to built up a respectible force consisting of 3 squadrons RAAF Kittyhawks, 1 USAAF with P-40s, 1 Aus squadron and 1 AAF squadron with A-20 and 1 AAF sqaudron with A-24s as well as 1 Aus Catalina squadron. I also have 1 RNZAF squadron with Kittyhawks and an RAAF squadron with Spits at Cairns and 1 each AAF group with P-39s at Charter Towers and Cooktown if needed.

As far as moving LCUs there I have found that most IJN subs hug the east coast of Oz from Cooktown to Rockhampton, except in transit, so I sent all my supply and transport TFs from Sydney and Brisbane and sent them out wide. Sure it adds a few more days to the trip, but so far I haven't lost any transports, just a couple of DDs and MSWs. I also moved all the Oz Hudsons from the south & west coasts to the east coast and, along with remnats of the 93rd BS and 19th BG, set them all on ASW.

All this took time, but now I'm confident PM is safe from being captured, so I'm not worried. I am however worried about holding Mytkina, which I re-took at the end of July, and whats coming down the road 'cause I just took Lunga!

[Nikademus]

wow...sounds like its time to attack Oz instead! [:'(]

[sacorsair]

The 2 Squadrons of US Army A-24's sre lifesavers as DBs wee eat transports !!!! Also if you still have the Marblehead and some of the ANZAC CL and CA's with torpedoes.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

Agreed, PM won't need that much firepower. Keep a small (emphasis on small) cruiser force in the area to raid incoming transports. When you sink half his landing force you will need half the defense.

If Rabaul still stands consider sending your PM forces there quickly. With all your "bird" battalions and some base forces you can repulse the AIs initial invasion. When the 30th AUS Bde shows up that is all the reinforcements you need. If you hold Rabaul you won't have to fight the entire Solomons campaign and that really shortens the war. Warning though, the AI will send the KB you will need lots and lots of fighters...lots!

Rabaul is lost against anything approaching correct play, but Port Moresby can probably be held. The time to think about achieving that good thing, though, isn't some lazy day in February of 1942 but on 8 December 1941. On that date the Allies should devote considerable shipping assets in the DEI to stripping that area of as much fuel and supplies as possible (a chore that needs to be done anyway) and directing a significant portion of this, on a regular basis, to Port Moresby and Townsville (and some to Brisbane, too, I'd imagine). (I also strip off a fraction of this shipping after the second supply cycle from the DEI to PM, and send it off to America for inclusion in that shipping pool).

At the same time effort can also be made to begin building a base at Milne Bay (except I notice this base has been severely truncated in the most recent CHS version of the map, so perhaps that's a nonstarter now for anything but stock--don't know).

Engineers for this effort on PNG come initially from DEI (strip all the unnecessary engineer units from the various redundant bases throughout the DEI), along with some of the fairly valuable CD units as well. The thing to do is to load these units at start so that only the useable portions of them are captured (calculate this beforehand with regard to shipping), then load the attrited portions for refit over at Townsville, at which juncture they can be transferred over to Port Moresby (or Milne Bay) for mating up with their parents. Some of the Dutch ground units can also be used for land defense.

The big item in this scheme is time. Time enough to build up the port/airfield complex at Port Moresby to defeat malarial attrition, plus develop a decent fort system should the Japanese actually assault.

Further reinforcement that is absolutely critical to Port Moresby's defense are the handful of long-range fighter squadrons available. These must not be squandered in hopeless battles early. Use them if and when necessary in the SRA for your ongoing withdrawal defense, but make sure they're available for eventual transfer to Port Moresby so as to give the bombers you eventually place there the escorts they will require in order to fly against carriers. This will become necessary if the Japanese arrive with carriers (which is precisely what a clear-thinking Japanese play would arrive with) come D-Day.

Anyway, to hold Rabaul is a pipe dream. The small force there needs to be evacuated immediately. Should you want to hold PM (and you should) against an aggressive Japanese player, then start its defense (and in serious fashion) ASAP.

[herwin]

What's wrong with holding Rabaul against the AI? It sent some old battleships from Truk in mid-January, and I hit them hard with air and continued the damage with a surface TF. The AI decided to leave well enough alone for a month. That allowed me to move the 2nd Marines and the 2nd CD bn in to hold the base a bit more strongly. In mid-Feb there was a visit from the KB (10 CVs in one TF???), but I had a good deal of air on the ground by then, backed up with two surface TFs and two air TFs a few hexes behind the base--much like Midway, but with a stronger USN force. That produced a Mexican stand-off because the IJN APs really couldn't move in close.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: herwin

What's wrong with holding Rabaul against the AI? It sent some old battleships from Truk in mid-January, and I hit them hard with air and continued the damage with a surface TF. The AI decided to leave well enough alone for a month. That allowed me to move the 2nd Marines and the 2nd CD bn in to hold the base a bit more strongly. In mid-Feb there was a visit from the KB (10 CVs in one TF???), but I had a good deal of air on the ground by then, backed up with two surface TFs and two air TFs a few hexes behind the base--much like Midway, but with a stronger USN force. That produced a Mexican stand-off because the IJN APs really couldn't move in close.

Rabaul can be held against the AI if the player send reinforcements early to it instead of PM and the AI makes its typically less coordinated attack. The two times I have done it the AI made multiple tries, but could never seem to manage to come with overwhelming ground AND naval force so was repulsed. Personally, I would rather make a stand at Rabaul than PM, even if I lost.

[Pascal_slith]

ORIGINAL: Kid

I know some of you will cring at this but you could evacuate some of the Duth garrisions and move them to PM to bolster its defense. It does not cost very many PPs to reassign them and you can get some avaition support that way to.

Kid, what determines the PP cost? Is this hard coded?

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

And the baby KB?

I still say that putting all your eggs in one basket is VERY risky.

Well, I reinforced Port Moresby with those units and need to find a spare aviation unit to put there. I'm rather glad I assigned two carriers to babysit the transports since they provided good air cover and also managed to bushwack a Jap bombardment task force coming around the tip of New Guinea. The Japs were sent packing with the battleship Heie going *glug glug* as it sank.