Guad Mod - AE Scenario 4 - AAR - No Nik

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
Correct. Search sectors are map relative.

Reminds me of Harpoon...

[jwilkerson]

04-05 December 1942

Solomons
Our fleet launched a long range fighter sweep against Lunga, sending in about 30 A6M2 from two different ships, hard to tell exactly what the losses were, but looks like we faced about 34 Wildcats and lost 16 A6M2 for about 13 of the enemy. We see a giant USN carrier fleet several hexes East of Lunga, but they did not intervene in the action.

Amphibious units continued South towards Shortlands, as did the AOs.

B-24s continued day light raids against Shortlands.

Papua
Our Lily's from Wewak launched a night attack against PM losing one of their number of obtaining no results.

Planning
The fleet will withdraw WNW to refuel. The Amphibs will continue to the jump off position for the run in to Tass. It looks like Nik will not commit his carriers until we try to land supplies or troops on Tass - and that Lunga strike planes are set to short ranged missions so they don't "expend" themselves against our carriers at long range.

Here is a pic of the air action.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Correct. Search sectors are map relative.

no good!

Well maybe we're not understanding each other. Searches from AE task forces always originate from the TF, but the search sectors are absolute not relative to the heading of the TF, but to the map degree heading from the TF. Based on the data I have, this is how both USN and IJN did things in 1942. If you have another understanding please share.

[Fishbed]

I still don't understand some of your moves boss. You sacrified unvaluable assets to a quite hazardous strike while you could have sent the Kongs bombard the crap out of Henderson field... 

[jwilkerson]

Lunga is swarmed by light forces, PT boats by the multitudes, mine sweepers etc. Likely result of one single surface attack on Lunga would be loss of several Japanese surface ships who would not clear the area sufficiently to avoid Lunga based strikes and minimal temporary damage to the airfield. We could try to attack the enemy surface forces and clear them out - to enable sustained bombardments of Lunga - but to me this is lower priority. Must win the carrier battle before focusing planes on Lunga and the ships there.

In terms of ability to capture Lunga in the remaining time - only getting massive amounts of supply aboard TASS and then landing the 17A will make any difference. Besides that we have to win the carrier battle at roughly a 2-1 ratio in carriers and planes - which is extremely unlikely - but also a pre-requisite - otherwise the troops on the ground will be bombed endlessly by Lunga and Espiritu based bombers.

[jwilkerson]

06-07-08-09 December 1942

Solomons
Great Solomons Turkey shoot finally happens over 08-09 December. At the end of the Battle we have 40(ready) out of 64(total) remaining carrier planes aboard the fleet with 1 CV sunk and 2 sinking. We think we damaged one Allied CV.

Here is a pic of our first wave going in.

[jwilkerson]

08-09 December 1942

Here are some excerpts from the combat report


AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Dec 08, 42
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on TF, near Auki at 115,135

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid detected at 160 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 60 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 34
B5N1 Kate x 68
D3A1 Val x 9
D3A2 Val x 77



Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 117


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
B5N1 Kate: 42 destroyed, 9 damaged
D3A1 Val: 6 destroyed
D3A2 Val: 38 destroyed, 12 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 3 destroyed

Allied Ships
BB Indiana
BB North Carolina, Torpedo hits 1
BB South Dakota, Bomb hits 1
CLAA Atlanta
CA Chester
CV Saratoga
CV Wasp, Torpedo hits 2
CV Hornet








-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on TF, near Rekata Bay at 113,133

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 47 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 80



Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 97
SBD-3 Dauntless x 120
TBF-1 Avenger x 42


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 27 destroyed
SBD-3 Dauntless: 2 destroyed, 45 damaged
TBF-1 Avenger: 23 damaged

Japanese Ships
CV Zuikaku, Bomb hits 7, heavy fires, heavy damage
BB Haruna, Bomb hits 3, on fire
CA Chikuma, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CV Shokaku, Bomb hits 6, heavy fires
DD Akizuki
BB Kongo, Bomb hits 4, on fire
CL Kinu, Bomb hits 3, on fire
CA Tone
DD Makigumo, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires
CA Atago, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CA Chokai
CL Tenryu
DD Takanami
CA Maya, Bomb hits 2, on fire
CL Sendai, Bomb hits 2, on fire





-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Rekata Bay at 113,133

Weather in hex: Severe storms

Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 47 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 27



Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 30
SBD-3 Dauntless x 79
TBF-1 Avenger x 35


No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 3 destroyed
SBD-3 Dauntless: 4 destroyed, 24 damaged
TBF-1 Avenger: 3 destroyed, 27 damaged

Japanese Ships
CV Hiyo, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CA Myoko, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CL Tatsuta, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DD Arashi
BB Yamato, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
CV Zuikaku, heavy damage
CV Junyo
DD Nowaki
CL Isuzu, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CA Haguro, Bomb hits 1
DD Tanikaze
CA Aoba




Planning

Based on this result, the fleet will head back to Truk to try to preserve as many damaged units as possible.

The ability to land and sustain 17th Army aboard Guadalcanal has been irrepairably damaged. What remains, is to try to hold on in the Solomons and Papua as long as possible with submarine and fast transport supply covered by land based air and limited surface force intervention.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

I still don't understand some of your moves boss. You sacrified unvaluable assets to a quite hazardous strike while you could have sent the Kongs bombard the crap out of Henderson field... 

"Bombard the crap out of" doesn't work the way it did in stock.

[moose1999]

Wow, those are some heavy casualties your strike force took when attacking the American carriers.
While they only took minimal losses attacking yours...

Judging by the low losses of your escort and his intercepting fighters, most of your losses seem to stem from flak.
Is this correct?

I've heard that the flack has been toned up in AE, but these losses seem a bit on the wild side.
And the disproportion between his and your losses stands out too.
Is American flak generally more effective than Japanese?
Or is it down to plane vulnerability (he did have quite a few damaged planes).

Or is it just the dice at play...?

[aciddrinker]

I think this losses are more like

A6M2 Zero x 34 vs F4F-4 Wildcat x 117.

Huge CAP over KB. Probably some Wildcat's attacked Escort, other just passed and attacked bombers.
And we need remeber about FoW.

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

I still don't understand some of your moves boss. You sacrified unvaluable assets to a quite hazardous strike while you could have sent the Kongs bombard the crap out of Henderson field... 

"Bombard the crap out of" doesn't work the way it did in stock.

Yes, but I was referring to the way it did in real...

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
Yes, but I was referring to the way it did in real...

Historically, there was one BB bombardment of Lunga that generates all the attention , this one happened night of 13/14 October. Certainly a lot of colorful descriptions of this bombardment come from the US side, and I'm sure anyone going through it would have thought the world was ending, but the next day, despite the "horrendous pounding" dozens of sorties were flown and the fighters at Henderson field meet a double wave Betty/Zero strike over the base and shot down a number of enemy planes as they had been doing over the previous days.

In AE as in stock, raising the DL against the base prior to a naval bombardment will make a big difference in the results, but having several groups of PTs blocking your path will also make a difference - and that's what I was seeing as the issue - I didn't want to waste sorties shooting up the PT boats while I was fighting a carrier battle!

[spence]

Yes, but I was referring to the way it did in real...

One needs to remember that "the way it did in real" happened exactly ONCE,
that said bombardment had a special fire control team flown in prior,
that there were relatively few personnel casualties (compared to most Vanilla bombardments by IJN BBs),
that Henderson Field(s) still managed to launch strikes against the IJN transports on the day following the bombardment in spite of damage to planes and field
that in reality, the "sure thing shoot and scoot" of WitP cost the Japanese a couple of DDs and a cruiser (Kinugasa) sunk by Henderson Field a/c before they scooted far enough away (different bombardments/Tokyo Express missions)

Sounds to me like "real" is more real than previously

[Fishbed]

Hey Superman it's ok, bitchin around about JFB stuff is not on my agenda.
And we're talking about the single bombardment mission that went unopposed. Yes, hardly representative. But again, well, the single time with big guns that went unopposed.

And let's be realistic too: although the bombardment wasn't an all-out holocaust, there were only 7 SBD out of 39 who could take the air immediately, not a single TBF was operational, and the USAAF fighter force was reduced to ready 4 P-400 et 2 P-39. VF-5 lost 4 F4F out of 12, with 2 damaged. Nearly the whole avgas reserve got torched. And yes, Fighter One got spared with all the Marine fighters. Still it can't be said it wasn't effective or something. The "launch strikes against the IJN transports" will not help, especially seeing it was made of 5 SBD and a couple P400...

But I understand fairly well Jwilkerson's argument about a possible nuisance force at Lunga.

[Dili]

Well maybe we're not understanding each other. Searches from AE task forces always originate from the TF, but the search sectors are absolute not relative to the heading of the TF, but to the map degree heading from the TF. Based on the data I have, this is how both USN and IJN did things in 1942. If you have another understanding please share.

Yes probably.Every time i see defined search path of a carrier(modern) based force is relative to their heading in open sea. Coast and perceived local threats can change that, tough anti-submarine searches doesn't change much unless speed is slow and then tends to go to 360º with no much bias to fleet heading. If you say that it is how it was made in 1942 then it is okay.

-----
What was the idea of depleting the fleet fighter force making a sweep at Lunga before the carrier battle?

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dili
What was the idea of depleting the fleet fighter force making a sweep at Lunga before the carrier battle?

The idea was to deplete the enemy fighter force!

[Dili]

Napoleon says one enemy at each time.[:D]

[jimh009]

After seeing the results of this battle, since the Allied SBD's and Avengers seemed to break cleanly through the CAP screen, do you think the battle might have gone better to have had your carriers more concentrated (perhaps 2 CV's per TF) instead of 1 CV per TF? This would allow for more AA per TF. The Allied player had very few losses of their bombers...so it seems that the Jap AA wasn't very effective.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Dili
Napoleon says one enemy at each time.[:D]

And that was essentially the argument I used for not going after the PT Boats - but I also believe that during the 04-05 November time period, the USN carriers would be likely to be out of position - and hence no carrier battle would happen. So this gave me a bit of time to try to weaken their "5th Carrier" the airbase at Lunga. In the subsequent carrier battle, Lunga strikes did not achieve any hits on the fleet.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: jimh009
After seeing the results of this battle, since the Allied SBD's and Avengers seemed to break cleanly through the CAP screen, do you think the battle might have gone better to have had your carriers more concentrated (perhaps 2 CV's per TF) instead of 1 CV per TF? This would allow for more AA per TF. The Allied player had very few losses of their bombers...so it seems that the Jap AA wasn't very effective.

I think concentrating the carriers would just have increased the damage - that is why I split them up!