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US artillery units in WWII were the best in the world in my opinion.

I'm sure ALL your units were prepped 100% for the assault before doing this, right?

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Um...we *STILL* use the 155mm gun. One of the finest on the planet.

Yes, but when I looked the TOE of a couple Defense Bn only listed 3 155mm...shouldn't be too much for a well put together invasion force.

You were talking about 155MM Guns.  CD units generally have the 5" Gun--which seems to me to be 125MM--and THAT is what taught the Wake Island Invasion Force its' lesson.  The Marines there did NOT HAVE ANY 155MM at Wake.  

The only 155MM that are present are with the FA Regiment and they DON'T work that effectively against an Invasion Fleet.

Perhaps not, but they work great against guys unloading way too slowly onto the beach.

Next time bring a BB bombardment fleet and put some CAs in your invasion fleet...which will be large enough to unload all your guys and supplies in two phases..ie ONE day.

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

This is a RANT!

In my game against Canoerebel (Dan), I invaded Pago-Pago a few days about. KNOWING there was a CD unit there, I did not fool around. The landing consisted of an entire Japanese Inf Div, Regiment of Engineers, Artillery Regiment and two small Base Forces. My opposition is a CD unit, FA Regiment, and small Base Force.

In the four days since landing, my two base forces as well as Artillery Regiment have been wiped out due to attrition and my other two units are at less then 50% strength.
Not to mention the probable loss of 10-15 AK/AP from THE SAME GUNS!

This means that a total of 5,000 troops have nearly wiped out 35,000 soldiers. Talk about CRAP... [:@][:@][:@]

John,

did you have a CA (or better 2 or 3) in your invasion TF? Most often those soak up the fire or surpress the counterfire and in hundreds of invasions against CD units I have yet to see the invasion TF get mauled when CAs are in the TF. Without 8 inch+ guns in the invasion TF I see the TF get heavily hit perhaps one out of 10 times... but then something like in your case is happening and the CD units alone fend off the invasion.

ORIGINAL: BrucePowers

US artillery units in WWII were the best in the world in my opinion.

thought the Wehrmacht had better guns [&:]

ORIGINAL: castor troy


thought the Wehrmacht had better guns [&:]

I'm not the data guru that others here are, but I can tell ya Germany had some of the best direct fire weapons of the war.

However the U.S. had the edge in indirect fire, stemming all the way back to the end of the Civil War and leading all the way through today

Well, the Russians had some pretty good indirect fire stuff too, some of it was lend-lease but a large portion was of their own making.

Chez

Yeah, the Russians had a fascination with indirect fire.  Treated it as one of the 3 parts of a succesfull battle.  And they came up with rocket artillery a full year before the allies [;)]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

ORIGINAL: castor troy


thought the Wehrmacht had better guns [&:]

I'm not the data guru that others here are, but I can tell ya Germany had some of the best direct fire weapons of the war.

However the U.S. had the edge in indirect fire, stemming all the way back to the end of the Civil War and leading all the way through today

I'd agree. Germany's indirect weapons were mostly mostly remakes of World War I artillery pieces, which were re-designed and first produced in the early to mid-30's, and I believe most of the re-design was in the carriages to take advantage of better available materials. I believe Germany was one of the first armies to use widespread organic gun artillery (75mm and up) at the sub-regiment level, though.

With the US's delayed entry to the war and lack of armament buildup until the very end, much of their artillery was designed/re-designed in the very late-30's/early 40's. The US also had excellent indirect ammunition, some of the best in the world.

Another huge advantage of the US was that all of its artillery was self-propelled or motorized. Germany had self-propelled artillery, but never enough. And it's towed artillery was typically horse-drawn.

I am not sure of the quality of the Russian artillery, but they sure had a lot of it!!!

Russian artillery generally had shorter range for the caliber than German or American artillery.  I believe their accuracy was also not as good.  They over came the lack of quality with quantity.

The US not only had the benefit of all motorized artillery, but also had the luxury of plentiful ammunition most of the time.  When possible, US doctrine was to pummel the enemy with stand off weapons then accept his surrender.

Bill

Well...since the thread is hijacked.....[:D]

The US also had the best communications system in place for calling indirect quickly. Lots of radios with front line, low-level officers who were trained how to request FFEs.

Russian artillery, like much of their war machine, was based on "quantity had a quality all its own". [8D]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Two days is still too long to be unloading.

What? Yikes! I've been doing it all wrong then. It takes my invasion forces an eternity to unload. Say, A week? Maybe more? I just thought that's the way it was.

Is there a rule of thumb so I can figure out how much transport I should have in an invasion?

ORIGINAL: Nightcrawler1

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Two days is still too long to be unloading.

What? Yikes! I've been doing it all wrong then. It takes my invasion forces an eternity to unload. Say, A week? Maybe more? I just thought that's the way it was.

Is there a rule of thumb so I can figure out how much transport I should have in an invasion?

Yes - there was just a thread about this YESTERDAY, iirc - number of vessels needed is (LOAD FACTOR)/400

EDIT: This allows you to unload your troops in 2 phases (1 day). You need to have additional vessels for supplies.

This information was seen yesterday in the source of all knowledge: The THREAD! [:D]

Oh, that The Thread thing.  I never knew what that was all about so I just ignored it.  I guess I'll have to delve in.

Of course, that info is probably in half a dozen other threads too if I had just done a search.  Thanks.

You cant stop an invasion with out infantry defending.  Most CD units have only a marginal defense strength (if at all).  If you're stopped on the beach and losing guys it's because he as an INF unit there, not because of the CD unit.
 
-F-

Against an atoll you certainly want to unload all your troops in one day. Multiple shock attacks without resting can gut your combat units. It's not quite as important against a non-atoll base, but it still helps.

I did some testing on this recently, since I'm currently on the offensive in 3 games. The testing probably could have been more thorough, but here's what I've concluded so far:

1. Troops, if they're in the lowest-numbered task force, will unload 1000 load points in the first day. For example a typical Marine division requires @24,000 AP load points or 35,000 LST load points. To ensure it unloads fully in a day you'll need to load it on 24+ APs or 35+ LSTs.

2. Troops, if they're in an additional (higher-numbered) task force unloading at the same time, mostly obey the same rules, but not always. I didn't do enough testing to isolate why, but TF #2 (or #3) doesn't always completely unload. It seems to unload 80-90% of its troops. To be safe add an extra 25% margin. So for the Marine Div example above you'd want to load it onto 30 APs or 44 LSTs.

3. Supplies unload at 200 points/phase or 400 points/day. However on an initial invasion supplies don't seem to unload during the first phase. On D-Day you get only 200 supply points per AK dedicated solely to supply transport.

Let's take that Marine Division again for example. At rest it might have a supply requirement of 1200. Combat doubles requirements so it will need 2400 supply for combat. To give it 2400 supply in one day of unloading you need 12 AKs solely dedicated to carrying supply.

I hope this makes some sense. It might seem like a lot of shipping - heck might be overkill - but I've had several successes & no failures applying these rules of thumb.

ORIGINAL: Feinder

You cant stop an invasion with out infantry defending.  Most CD units have only a marginal defense strength (if at all).  If you're stopped on the beach and losing guys it's because he as an INF unit there, not because of the CD unit.

-F-

The 7th USMC CD (which he said is opposing him) has 6 x 5" guns, 12 x 3 in AA guns, 12 x .50 cal MG, 12 x .303 MGs, 12 x USMC squads, and 60 support squads. Not sure what FA regiment is involved - possibly it has infantry, but i doubt it has much. The Base force could have considerable infantry with it...

In the time it took to find the answer on The THREAD, I got a more detailed answer here. Thanks ctangus.

I did get hypnotized by the shadow of a spinning dancer while I was there though, so that took extra time.