Toraq´s AAR: Defending the Empire

[toraq]

Thanks Juggalo, I appreciate your words. It has been difficult to get that DRAW and as I said before, is more than I could expect against Timtom who is the best commander that I met (except my brother). Now Juggalo Tanaka dedicates you this post

Well, readers, as you know one of the biggest question in my PBEM was if I should have attacked the enemy BBs. Now that I know Timtom´s password I was able to simulate a NIGHT NAVAL BATTLE. The battle took place at Shortland, with Tanaka leading IJN BBs and Reeves (and not Tisdale) on the US side.
I used the existing TFs in our game. No changes were made in their numbers/commanders, etc.

There were 3 engagements, at distance between 5000 to 8000 yards. In one engagement, Japs surprised allies a little bit. I could say that ONLY the naval battle was an IJN minor victory, but afterwards, the naval bombers attacked BB Mutsu and Yamato. Both of them would have sunk in the next days.

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Night Time Surface Combat, near Shortland Island at 29,34

Japanese Ships
BB Kongo
BB Nagato, Shell hits 2
BB Mutsu
BB Yamato
BB Musashi
BB Fuso, Shell hits 3
BB Yamashiro
CA Takao
CA Maya
CA Kumano
DD Suzunami
DD Umikaze, Shell hits 3, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
BB North Carolina
BB Washington
BB South Dakota
BB Indiana, Shell hits 2
CL Montpelier, Shell hits 1
DD Radford
DD Jenkins
DD Gwin
DD McCalla
DD Farenholt
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Night Time Surface Combat, near Shortland Island at 29,34

Japanese Ships
BB Kongo, Shell hits 1, on fire
BB Nagato, Shell hits 2
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 2, on fire
BB Yamato, Shell hits 4, on fire
BB Musashi, Shell hits 2
BB Fuso
BB Yamashiro, Shell hits 1
CA Takao, Shell hits 1
CA Maya, Shell hits 3
CA Kumano
DD Suzunami, Shell hits 1
DD Umikaze, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
BB North Carolina, Shell hits 2, on fire
BB Washington, Shell hits 6
BB South Dakota, Shell hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
BB Indiana
CL Montpelier, Shell hits 15, on fire, heavy damage
DD Radford
DD Jenkins
DD Gwin, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD McCalla, Shell hits 1
DD Farenholt
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Night Time Surface Combat, near Shortland Island at 29,34

Japanese Ships
BB Kongo, Shell hits 1, on fire
BB Nagato
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 2, on fire, heavy damage ***16 inches shells***
BB Yamato, Shell hits 6, on fire, heavy damage ***several 16 inches shells***
BB Musashi
BB Fuso, Shell hits 3
BB Yamashiro, Shell hits 1
CA Takao, Shell hits 1
CA Maya
CA Kumano, Shell hits 1
DD Suzunami, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Umikaze, Shell hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
BB North Carolina, Shell hits 4, on fire
BB Washington, Shell hits 5, on fire, heavy damage
BB South Dakota, on fire, heavy damage
BB Indiana
CL Montpelier, Shell hits 10, on fire, heavy damage ***sunk***
DD Radford
DD Jenkins
DD Gwin, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD McCalla, Shell hits 6, on fire, heavy damage
DD Farenholt, Shell hits 1, on fire
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More details
- the Musashi attacked the CL Montepelier, which was hit by several 18.1 inch shells
- Yamashiro only shot a few times, almost useless in this battle.
- Yamato is quite vulnerable against 16.1 inch shells
- Sometimes my BBs attacked enemy DDs, which attacked with torpedoes
- To my surprise, CAs took a minor role in the battle. Despite his Long Lance, only 1 torpedo struck an american BBs

Results
- 3 IJN BBs out of action. Yamato and Mutsu severely damaged my 16.1 shells. Also BB Kongo with 30 sys damage.
- 2 USN BBs severely damaged, but they won´t sink at all. Also BB North Carolina was damaged but it could be used in a defensive role.
- CL Montepelier sunk

The naval bombers attack
Weather was partly couldy and Lambeti and Vella Lavella bombers took off to attack my BBs. If we count this attack, Mutsu and Yamato will sink so the result of the battle will change to a allied victory (decisive if we count the VPs)

Allied aircraft
F4U-1 Corsair x 24
SBD Dauntless x 30
TBF Avenger x 16
P-39D Airacobra x 24

Allied aircraft losses
SBD Dauntless x 2 damaged
TBF Avenger x 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 12, Bomb hits 5, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
BB Yamato, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DD Umikaze, Shell hits 24, Bomb hits 5, on fire, heavy damage
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Air attack on TF at 28,34

Allied aircraft
F4U-1 Corsair x 46
SBD Dauntless x 26
TBF Avenger x 15
P-39D Airacobra x 23

Allied aircraft losses
SBD Dauntless x 1 destroyed x 2 damaged
TBF Avenger x 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 16, Bomb hits 6, on fire, heavy damage
DD Umikaze, Shell hits 16, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
BB Yamato, Shell hits 8, Bomb hits 8, on fire, heavy damage

However, the Yamato resist most of the 1000 lb bombs. Even with this damage, sys damage is 60 and floatation is 70, with maybe 30 to 40 fires. Yamato class are difficult to sink! [&o]

[TAIL GUNNER]

OK, now how about a daytime engagement?

Chad

[toraq]

Well Juggalo your wishes are orders to me [:D]...yes I played a daylight battle. I sent my BBs against ships in Vella Lavella. But results were poor again. No air attacks were made, mainly because of my fighter escort, but also there were some alternative targets (AGs). But if the real batle had occurred, Timtom would have seen my fighters in the bases close to Vella Lavella and thus, it is possible that he had prepared a more powerful welcome. Who knows?[&:]

However, after the BB vs BB battle, my TF attacked another enemy TF, with two CLs and wiped it out[;)]

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Day Time Surface Combat at 30,35

Japanese Ships
BB Kongo
BB Nagato, Shell hits 4
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 1
BB Yamato, Shell hits 1
BB Musashi, Shell hits 1
BB Fuso, Shell hits 2
BB Yamashiro
CA Takao
CA Maya
CA Kumano
DD Suzunami
DD Umikaze

Allied Ships
BB North Carolina, Shell hits 2
BB Washington, Shell hits 1
BB South Dakota, Shell hits 2
BB Indiana, Shell hits 3
CL Montpelier, Shell hits 1
DD Radford, Shell hits 1
DD Jenkins
DD Gwin
DD McCalla
DD Farenholt
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Day Time Surface Combat at 30,35 ***three engagements, I posted the last one***

Japanese Ships
BB Kongo, Shell hits 7
BB Nagato, Shell hits 6
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 5
BB Yamato, Shell hits 2
BB Musashi, Shell hits 5
BB Fuso, Shell hits 6
BB Yamashiro, Shell hits 2
CA Takao, Shell hits 4
CA Maya, Shell hits 2
CA Kumano
DD Suzunami
DD Umikaze

Allied Ships
CL Cleveland, Shell hits 17, and is sunk
CL Columbia, Shell hits 25, on fire, heavy damage
DD Bagley, Shell hits 2, and is sunk
DD Mugford, Shell hits 8, and is sunk
DD Henley, Shell hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DD Gridley, and is sunk
DD Fanning, and is sunk
DD Hull, Shell hits 14, and is sunk
DD MacDonough, and is sunk
DMS Long

Not bad results, but far from a IJN decisive victory. Allied player has a army of DDs and the loss of 6 wouldn´t change anything. Anyway a interesting result.

[timtom]

Bring ít on, dude!!! [:D]

Not particularly surprised that IJN BB breeze past subs. Not very happy that IJN BB's navigate minefields blocking (?) passage between Bougainville & Choiseul.

Got plenty DD's to spare...

Would've attacked if in Nip shoes.

Large no. of fighters forward would've elicited response. Large no. of fighters at Buka not necesarily so (quite normal prior to capture of Vella). Post-capture Vella probably give pause to thought. Admittedly my recon of Buka was rather lacking towards the end. However I think you'd have to put up ALOT of fighters to prevent attacks on BB's. Furthermore, a seriously damaged BB might well need two turns to clear the danger zone. Not sure you'd necesarily be able to repeat the result against the CL's - to my experience BB's tend not to do well against smaller, agile, ships - and visa versa.

I think there's some sort of bug with the P-39's. They never ever go down on doing naval attack. Quite vulnerable to AAA when doing ground attack though. Beaufighters bite the dust (water rather) soon as you look at them.

[TAIL GUNNER]

Interesting results toraq....

I was kind of worried that daytime suface combat was "broken".....but that last engagement that wiped out the CLs and DDs reaffirms that it's working just fine...

Thanks for doing that, and thanks for the great AAR....also thanks to timtom...

Chad

[toraq]

Thank you Juggalo!

Yes a lot of work to write down the words and the maps. Unfortunately in the last game days I didn´t have much time to prepare my posts.
Anyway, now I´ll try to point out somethings about this last scenario. It has been a painful one as I suffered a lot of damage. Many of my ships were sunk and that meant I could only get a draw at the end.

CHAPTER ONE: FINAL RESULTS
In these numbers I don´t include the final day because I was no able to play it again and see the results.

Japanese losses
Japanese always lose a variety of ships, aircraft in 43. No matter what you do, you will lose a lot of everything. In this scenario I put a lot of emphasis to protect my APs from the air and to reduce the alllied submarine power. Even so, losses due to air attacks were heavy as you may see.

Ship losses
By enemy surface forces
All the losses were "mistakes", I didn´t want to attack enemy surface forces but patrol rules hit me hard!. 3 CAs and one CL were lost in that ugly surface combat at Vella Lavella. The same with the DDs
3 CAs
1 CL
4 DDs
5 SS (all of them sunk by Mk 7 depth charges!!![:@])

By air attacks
Enormous, considering that Timtom didn´t use his CVs at all. Some of them were sunk because my ships approached too close to his bases "by computer mistake": that FT which advanced too much and 2 ASW patrols which didn´t retreat. MLs obviously because they took part in the most daring missions, to mine front areas. Fortunately they were sunk in the final steps of this scenario.
6 DDs
1 CL
5 APDs
2 MSWs
5 MLs
3 PCs
5 APs

By subs
Most of them were 1000 cargo APs which were in ASW TF (later on a house rule forbid this kind of tactic), but also some of them while retreating to a safe port. PCs sunk in ASW TFs
1 DD
2 MLs
5 PCs
11 APs

Air losses
For me, the most amazing thing is the amount of losses among Vals and Naval search planes. Most Vals losses were operational ones, while flying ASW or naval search missions. Maybe 10 or 12 of them were lost by AAs in a couple of attacks.
But the real pain is to lose Jakes, Irvings and Dinahs. The reason was allied CAP, especially the F4U squadrons. While flying above allied bases (on recon missions but especially on naval search mission) they were shot down in great numbers. I´ve seen F4U victories. One squadron has 21 or so and the others more than 10 in most cases.
Considering that there were only 2 engagements with my zeros (about 8 M3s lost), the rest were naval search/recon planes victories. TERRIBLE!

Fighters
A6M2 159
A6M3 108
Ki 43 58

Bombers
Even so betties never encountered enemy air opposition, I lost many of them (almost my three months replacements). Some of them lost due to F4Us (while flying ASW missions) but most of them were op. losses. Nells, mainly lost by F4Us when flying ASW missions

Betty 52
Nells 21
Vals 63
Kates 21

Others
Most of them shot down by allied fighters, but alos op. losses were high
Jakes 37
Irvings 28
Petes 18
Dinah 15

[toraq]

CHAPTER TWO: FINAL RESULTS
I continue with the final results of my game against Timtom

Allied losses
A little bit dissapointing. I can infere two things: the failure of my ASW efforts and the failure of my deep raids inside the Coral sea by my CVs: except in the first appearance in Nevea they didn´t find any ship afterwards. On the opposite side, air losses among allied were heavier than japanese ones. A present for avoiding ATA against F4Us [:)]

Ship losses
By surface forces
I never wanted a naval combat as allied BBs are so powerful that could seriously damage my ships. So losses were quite poor, compared with my ship losses due to enemy SC TFs.

1 CL by CAs (night engagement)
2 DDs in Nevea by DDs and CLs
1 PG
3 SS (by depth charges)

By air attacks
Almost none of my Nells or Betties were put on naval attack missions. Only Kates and Vals found some preys around Nevea.

2 APs (by Kates)
1 AP (by Vals)
1 DMS (by kates)
3 PTs (By Zekes)
2 SS (by Betties)

By submarines
Very poor results as a consequence of Timtom´s ASW efforts, poor SS performance, and reduced SS numbers.

2 AKs
1 CL
1 APD
1 MSW
1 DMS

Air losses
I´m very pleased with the results. Despite allied air power, I caused as many ATA losses as my enemy. Also field losses were quite similar.

(Allied/Japs)
ATA 210 / 211
On the Field 61 / 74
Flak losses 158 / 31
Operational 321 / 348

To honour my fighter pilots, I should say that ATA japanese victories were against enemy fighters and heavy bombers. Allied losses among naval search planes and naval bomber were minimal, most of them caused by AA fire.

Fighters
P-38 117 (many op. losses)
F4Us 43 (op. losses)
Kittyhawks 47 (ATA combat)

Bombers
B 25 97 (many shot down by AA from ships)
B 17 54 (op. losses, ATA combats, AA fire)
Beauforts 43 (AA fire)
B 24 39 (op. losses, ATA combats, AA fire)

Others
Dakota 59 (operational losses)
Kingfisher 5 ONLY[:@]
Seagull 11 ONLY!!!!

See how few naval search planes were shot down, despite my Zeros were flying CAP missions above the bases they were flying. [:@]

[toraq]

CHAPTER III: THE LEADERS

Well, I would like to add a few comments about my opponent and my whole performance during the scenario. I´ve never said aything about Timtom, and since this is the third time I combat him, I think I should do it now.

Timtom is a finest strategy. A complete opponent. It is very difficult to surprise him and he knows very well his assests and his weaknesses. A mighty veteran. [&o]

I could critize that he always "arrives late" or starts his movements/operations late. In our two scenarios he has been short in one month to get the victory. In this last one if he had started his offensives sooner, he could have won the scenario by isolating my foward bases at Munda and Vila. But this little mistake could be avoided very soon. Timtom learn fast!

Anyway, the way he uses his assest makes him a dangerous opponent, with little or no mistakes. See how he got a draw without ANY major risk while I have to move my CVs and BBs between his subs, use the FT missions to supply my foward bases... I was a little bit lucky. If one of his subs had managed to put two torpedoes in one of my CVs in the middle of the ocean I could have lost the scenario. I think I´ll never play a new 43 scenario against Timtom. I don´t want to suffer!!

My performance
Well I think my whole strategy was more or less right but I did some mistakes and maybe I played with much caution sometimes. I put some examples:

- My carriers could have played a more decisive role. Although it was stated the Timtom could "employ" his CVEs (but not in the same TF of a normal CV), he didn´t use them at all. If I had known he could not use them, I would have used them more aggresively.
Anyway, I could have forced a CV battle: it could have ended with a IJN minor victory. But there is a lot of arguments against it: damaged CVs attacked by subs, losses among naval bombers, etc, etc...

- I did many mistakes: 3 CAs were lost to this cause, as well as maybe 6 DDs. Japanese player can not afford this kind of mistakes!!![:@]

- I could have planned a major battle against his BBs. With thunderstorms, and a very good LCAP, I could have put two or three enemy BBs out of action vs 3 or 4 IJN out of action/sunk. In VP I had lost the battle but strategically it could have delayed his offensive in New Georgia (which gives me VP also)[8|]

-My ASW efforts were bad employed: I realized it when it was late. Even damaged SS could still operate in front areas so at the end, despite my great efforts, 90% of his subs were trying to attack me. Only 4 were sunk which is very poor. Also his subs were using Allied foward bases for replenishment. If I wanted a succesful ASW strategy I should have attacked his port facilities (in GG, Dobadura, Momote...) to destroy fuel and supplies so his subs had had to be sent to Australia or Lunga for replenishment.

-My submarines played a minor role: yes, 5 lost [:(] to little success. It´s true that I had only 6 submarines (compared to 30 or 35 in the allied side) but maybe I should have used them in mining duties. Also Timtom ASW effort was considerable, with a lot of ASW patrols and he was changing the normal supply lines to his bases constantly.

And that´s all (I think). I´m thinking about a few advices for the japanese players...specially if you´re playing a 43 scenario.

One more thing, a last tribute for my best datai, F2/251 Datai, the one with more air victories. The datai took part in the Black Thrusday, the most atonishing victory of the Zeroes: 63 enemy victories against 16 planes lost due to enemy action. After that, the datai played a defensive role over Rabaul, shooting down some 4 engine bombers. From time to time it escorted betties in their raids over allied bases at NG. During the final days, it showed its power in sweep missions over PM and Buna, shooting down some P-40s.

[wernerpruckner]

I think I´ll never play a new 43 scenario against Timtom. I don´t want to suffer!!

NOOOOOO !!!! [:D]

please play another one !!
you two are great, your AAR was really enjoyable and some of us readers learned from your efforts !!


hoping for another Toraq vs Timtom AAR
Werner