Nanshin! or the ramblings of Local Yokel

[Local Yokel]

Extracts from a recent email exchange:

cantona2: "Getting those size 0 afs to size 1 takes forever"

Local Yokel: "Yes, I’ve been keeping an eye on Vanikoro, waiting for your engineers to get the airfield to size 1 before I choose my moment to invade it again."

He landed engineers on Banks Island and Vanikoro some time ago, both of which are 0 sps airfield sites, and it's certainly taken him lots of time and effort to construct a strip on either - both have yet to gain an operational airstrip. Having recaptured Vanikoro on a previous occasion, I have no reservations about suggesting to him that I might repeat the exercise. Ain't psyops fun!

There are growing signs that something is going to kick off in that part of the world soon, so I've attached another 'Premonitions' map to illustrate them. Particularly interesting was the following from the ops report:

PB2Y Coronado sighting report: 1 Japanese ship at 74,114 , Speed 12 , Moving West
PB2Y Coronado attacking I-25 at 74,114
SBD-5 Dauntless reports conning tower at 74,114
SOC-3 Seagull reports oil slick at 74,114
...
PBY Catalina attacking I-25 at 74,114
PBY Catalina reports periscope at 74,114
SBD-5 Dauntless attacking I-25 at 74,114
SBD-5 Dauntless reports diving submarine at 74,114
SBD-3 Dauntless attacking I-25 at 74,114
SOC-3 Seagull reports diving submarine at 74,114

So, two species of SBD take a pop at I-25. They could be operating out of Efate, but I suspect carriers.

He has a massive number of bombers based on Espiritu Santo, and on 5 July they launched a major raid against Lunga field:

07/05/43
Day Air attack on Lunga , at 67,101
Japanese aircraft
J2M Jack x 50
Ki-45 KAIb Nick x 5
Allied aircraft
F-5A Lightning x 4
B-24D Liberator x 96
Japanese aircraft losses
J2M Jack: 37 damaged
Ki-45 KAIb Nick: 5 damaged
D4Y Judy: 1 destroyed
A6M3a Zero: 1 destroyed
Ki-46-III Dinah: 1 destroyed
H8K Emily: 1 destroyed
Allied aircraft losses
B-24D Liberator: 11 destroyed, 74 damaged
Japanese ground losses:
33 casualties reported
Airbase hits 14
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 57
Aircraft Attacking:
3 x B-24D Liberator bombing at 15000 feet
...

The Raiden were at pretty much optimum interception altitude, and scored relatively heavily against the attackers, who nonetheless achieved significant damage of the airfield. However, there's been no repetition of this raid, and I suspect he is not going to attempt its closure again until his invasion transports are at sea - wherever they may be bound.

For dispersal reasons, I moved my Lunga-based unit of Type 2 flying boats up to the Russells - and his reconnaissance effort immediately followed them there. I also had a chutai of these invaluable aircraft in an exposed location at Tassafaronga, so I've now taken measures to rectify this vulnerability.

It's hard to make sense of some of the Allied shipping movements, which are as much away from the New Hebrides as towards them, but I still suspect that a USMC division is being embarked at Luganville preparatory to a move into the Lower Solomons. I think this may be linked to a diversionary operation against Tarawa and Makin and/or Attu, given that there have been two Sigint reports of w/t transmissions at Dutch Harbor within the last fortnight. We shall see.

Elsewhere, the operation against Changsha has started to pay dividends. The major Chinese force just west of Nanchang attempted a deliberate attack against the Japanese in the woods there on 13 July, and received a bloody nose:

07/13/43
Ground combat at 47,38
Allied Deliberate attack
Attacking force 61602 troops, 247 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 1915
Defending force 82481 troops, 368 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 1848
Allied max assault: 1816 - adjusted assault: 101
Japanese max defense: 1933 - adjusted defense: 3443
Allied assault odds: 0 to 1
Japanese ground losses:
716 casualties reported
Guns lost 18
Allied ground losses:
4993 casualties reported
Guns lost 68

The taking of Changsha has left these characters badly isolated from sources of supply, and I am wondering whether an element of desperation prompted this attack.

[1275psi]

Yokel

Good to see you doing so well against the common foe.
I really feel cantona rushes turns at times -I have sunk a lot of ships going directly home -via my waters.
But - once he sets his mind on a target -he takes it -regardless of losses.

I think though the best thing is, we share a very, very reliable, fair and fun opponent!
Continue with the good hunting!

[Local Yokel]

Herbie-san, been away some time operating a smaller boiler than those with which you are familiar [;)] so I am catching up here. Congrats on your victory - yours is a hard act to follow! Both sides in this conflict have been precoccupied with other things such as weddings, so progress has been slow, but we are still going forward.

21 July 1943 is an exceptional day for Japanese anti-submarine efforts. This is largely due to the intensification of the airborne ASW effort in the approaches to Truk so as to safeguard a carrier inbound from refit at Kure. Here are the relevant ops report entries:

OPERATIONAL REPORT FOR 07/21/43

Ki-49 Helen sighting report: 1 Allied ship at 65,77 , Speed 2 , Moving West
G5N Liz sighting report: 1 Allied ship at 66,80 , Speed 4 , Moving Northwest
…
G4M1 Betty attacking Pompon at 66,80
…
G4M1 Betty attacking Pompon at 66,80
G4M1 Betty reports periscope at 65, 77
…
D4Y Judy reports shadow in water at 66, 80
B6N2 Jill reports radio transmissions at 65, 77
E13A1 Jake reports shadow in water at 65, 77
E13A1 Jake reports radio transmissions at 66, 80
E13A1 Jake reports suspected submarine at 65, 77
…
E13A1 Jake reports shadow in water at 65, 77
…
G3M Nell reports suspected submarine at 65, 77
…
B6N2 Jill reports periscope at 65, 77
…
G5N Liz sighting report: 1 Allied ship at 61,66 , Speed 6 , Moving West
G5N Liz attacking Sawfish at 61,66
Sawfish is reported HIT
…
D4Y Judy reports periscope at 66, 80
D4Y Judy attacking Grouper at 65,77
Grouper is reported HIT
…
Ki-49 Helen reports suspected submarine at 66, 80
…
G5N Liz reports radio transmissions at 66, 80
…
G5N Liz attacking Grouper at 65,77
Grouper is reported HIT
G4M1 Betty reports periscope at 66, 80
G4M1 Betty reports diving submarine at 65, 77
…
D4Y Judy attacking Pompon at 66,80
Pompon is reported HIT
B6N2 Jill reports suspected submarine at 66, 80
B6N2 Jill reports periscope at 65, 77
…
E13A1 Jake reports diving submarine at 66, 80
E13A1 Jake reports periscope at 65, 77
…
D4Y Judy reports diving submarine at 65, 77
…
G5N Liz reports suspected submarine at 61, 66
G5N Liz attacking Sawfish at 61,66
Sawfish is reported HIT

I would guess that some of the carrier bombers and attack planes mentioned here are from the carrier herself, though some may have been operating from Truk. Sawfish must have been sunk by a Shinzan operating from Orote on Guam, whilst Pompon and Grouper had been lingering near Truk for some time.

All three submarines reported as hit were also reported sunk, though only one of their CO's was reported killed.

A welcome if somewhat ahistoric result. Still, that's the risk you run by staking out a Japanese main fleet base.

[Local Yokel]

Hostilities Terminated

Regretfully, I have to report the end of this PBEM match. The computer my esteemed opponent Jonathan was using for this game has died, taking with it his CHS files. This means that, with apologies to GDW, this particular version of the Pacific War must be regarded as… unentschieden.

Sadly the loss of his computer will mean that Jonathan can never know the full details of what he would have had to overcome in order to subdue Japan. The best I can do is throw open to him this AAR thread and give some additional details of where the game stood from my perspective. Jonathan has let me know the outline of his plans and the forces committed to them, and it’s clear that if the game had continued there would shortly have been a series of massive battles around the Lower Solomons. I’ll post some more details shortly, and hope that Jonathan will add a comment or two on how he saw the contest developing.

Before dealing with the South Pacific I’ll make a few observations about the other active theatres.

Australia:

I think I had forced a stalemate here. I believe there was insufficient Allied strength committed at Daly Waters to force the issue, the more so in view of the dispersion of Allied formations into the surrounding countryside. I had two full divisions committed forward with two more effectively constituting a reserve/defence force at Darwin. These reserves also constituted a (fairly) rapid reaction force to meet any move into the Lesser Sundas. I thought such a move unlikely in view of the commitment of SWPAC HQ to the Daly Waters effort, but I was a bit concerned to note a heavy concentration of shipping at Perth and the growth of Exmouth as a potential jump-off point. I had it in mind to shift 2KB from the Bay of Bengal into this area once its mission to support Andaman ops was complete, with the potential for a port strike against Fremantle by aircraft from Junyo, Hiyo, Ryujo and Ryuho which I think could have achieved surprise and some good results.

I probably committed far too much of the JAAF’s strength to this area, since Darwin was normally playing host to about 300 aircraft and Katherine another 100. A force of up to 100 Donryu bombers had a choice of five localities in the countryside around Daly Waters against which to launch CAS attacks at will, and the dispersion of Allied forces was such that the risk of them encountering serious CAP resistance was small. Conversely, a regiment from Japan’s 2nd Infantry Division remained in place to the NW of Daly Waters to discourage a repeat of the enveloping move attempted here, and this regiment has recently been the target for repeated Allied air attack. These raids have come in unescorted (they involve endurance just beyond the F4U’s capabilities!), and they have repeatedly been met by determined resistance by LRCAP flown from Katherine. This has yielded a good haul of downed Allied aircraft at relatively little risk to the defenders.

China:

I thought my seizure of a bridgehead across the tributary of the Yangtse NW of Changsha somewhat ‘courageous’ (as Sir Humphrey Appleby would have put it) and it was certainly wide open to attack whilst Changsha remained untaken. In the event, the fall of Changsha permitted the bridgehead’s reinforcement, but it now seems that, rather than attack it, my opponent felt obliged to move forces into defence of the two hexes adjacent to the bridgehead on its north side. In doing so he vacated the hex SW of Ichang and a move into that hex was tempting but for the presence of very substantial counter-attack forces in Ichang itself. Such a move would, in any case, have been pure opportunism, as my long term plans were to open the road westward towards Kweiyang once I had reduced the Kanhsien salient and opened a secure LOC from Nanyang to Changsha for the support of such a move. In the long run a thrust in the direction of Kweiyang seemed to me to pose such a threat to Chinese forces holding Hengchow, Kweilin and Liuchow as to compel their withdrawal; this was to be my ‘brilliant manoeuvre’ to break the deadlock at Liuchow other than by frontal assault.

Burma:

As previously recounted, the Allied move towards Akyab was the source of enormous consternation, since possession of the airfields here would have brought the whole of southern Burma under effective Allied air attack, together with the threat of my left flank being turned by a further advance in the Arakan.

Very much to my surprise, I was allowed to fly into Akyab significant contingents of both infantry and engineers. The failure to mount a sustained air attack against my Burma airfields not only allowed me to build the forts at Akyab to level 7, but also made it possible to reconstruct the defences at Mandalay that had been dropped a level by the initial attack – restoration of level 9 forts here was due to be achieved within less than a week.

I don’t know whether my defences at Akyab would have held against a determined and fully supported attack (I worried about naval bombardments, but none ever came), but at least I had the makings of a defence against this potential crisis point. I managed to lift the AV here to 593, but my forces were woefully lacking in artillery, and attempts to march the guns up the jungle tracks were foiled by Allied air attack. Next I was thinking of getting these guns in surreptitiously by barge/sea truck, but such an exercise might well have ended in disaster.

I also drew great comfort from the recent switch of the heavy bomber effort to resource targets at Moulmein. I was not worried by the loss of any of these resources as I had from the outset never expected them to survive long in the face of Allied air attack. However, since that attack was being mounted at a range apparently beyond Allied escort capabilities, I was able to put up large contingents of JAAF interceptors against the unescorted bombers. As in Australia, this meant that I could shoot down plenty of Allied bombers at little risk to myself, whilst Allied fighters were gaining nothing in the way of combat experience against enemy fighters. As a result, Moulmein’s resources suffered no further damage after the initial raid.

The Bay of Bengal:

The stalled invasion of Port Blair presented me with an opportunity to eliminate an elite Allied infantry formation in the shape of the AIF 7th Division. To accomplish this, Japan shipped into the islands two elite formations of its own: the 48th and 21st Infantry Divisions. Together with their supporting units these divisions currently provide an adjusted assault value of about 1450-1500 against the embattled invaders’ average AV of 375. Theoretically this should have been enough to wear the defenders into extinction, but the first deliberate attack upon the Allied positions yielded a 2.5:1 casualty rate in the Allies’ favour despite adjusted odds of 5:1 favouring the Japanese, so the issue remains in some doubt. The willingness of Japanese bombers to provide timely CAS has always been patchy, so I have had to depend upon naval bombardment for reliable fire support for the ground troops’ effort. Another such bombardment and ground force attack was set up for the turn marking the end of our game, so unfortunately we’ll never now how things would have turned out. My plan was to eradicate the Allied invasion force before withdrawal of the counter-attacking infantry divisions into strategic reserve, reinforcing the 3rd Tank Division which represented the greater part of the forces remaining available for the defence of Malaya and the exposed length of the Kra Isthmus.

I wasn’t expecting a further amphibious attack in this area in the near future, given the local dominance of Japanese naval and air forces and the damage done to Allied shipping during the Allied invasions of Sabang, the Andamans and Nicobars. It became clear that the Japanese could deploy substantial land-based air assets to meet any amphibious operations in this area, and by limiting the range of these attacks so as to strike only the shipping in the invasion hexes themselves I found an effective tactic to put a big dent in the enemy’s shipping. I suspect that this will have acted as a substantial deterrent to further amphibious ops in the Bay of Bengal.

[Local Yokel]

The wide Pacific sea:

I now know that Jonathan’s next objective was indeed the Lower Solomons, and that he had amassed a force of about six divisions for this purpose, with Guadalcanal and Rennell Island as the initial invasion targets. Rennell would have fallen fairly easily, being defended only by a small IJN base force and NLF with a combined AV of about 40, sitting behind level 4 forts. Lunga and Tulagi would have been a different proposition, as each was defended by the equivalent of a full division in level 9 forts with ample air support based further up the Solomons chain at Shortlands and Buin/Kahili. The job of the Guadalcanal defenders was to hold on long enough to allow reinforcement by elements of the Central Pacific strategic reserve, based at Truk and built around the Imperial Guards and 38th Infantry Divisions with the support of Yamashita’s 10th Area Army. I had ample lift available at Truk for this reserve, and indeed the Guards Division was actually at sea when the game ended, as I had anticipated a Solomons landing taking place in the near future (as noted in previous posts). In addition to the strategic reserve I had another 5 divisions garrisoning Pacific bases that I could have called forward at short notice, so that, in terms of ground force strength, I had the potential to create a stalemate in the Lower Solomons provided I could get the reinforcements ashore.

That, of course, is the big proviso, and the outcome was going to depend upon who ultimately established control of the waters around the Lower Solomons. To this fight Jonathan was bringing 5 fleet carriers, 2 light carriers (I assume Independence class) and an indeterminate number of CVE’s. In battle line terms I expected him to have available most of the standard battleships (having only disposed of two in the initial attack on Pearl Harbor), together with all the North Carolinas and South Dakotas – a substantial force with which to reckon!

Against this I could bring to bear the six or sometimes seven fleet carriers of 1 Koku Kantai. For the foreseeable future only six fleet CV’s would be on immediate call, as I was rotating one fleet carrier at a time back to Japan for flak upgrades, although, as it happened, all seven CV’s were in the Nan’yo at the time the game ended.

Having felt the punishing effect of a battleship bombardment of Noumea, I was determined to deny the Allies a repeat of this success if I could. I was equally determined to find a way in which my super-battleships Yamato and Musashi could be used to good effect before their practical emasculation by Allied naval air power. This was what lay behind the plan I conceived and christened Odachi-go (Operation Great Sword), which positioned the two behemoths, with a brace of Kongo fast BB’s in support, within one day’s steaming of the Lower Solomons and the anticipated targets at Lunga/Tulagi. The four battleships were to be supported by a division of my most capable radar-equipped destroyers from the Yasen Butai for maximum night-fighting efficacy and commanded by R Adm Tanaka. With only 8 ships in the Odachi force I was confident that both Yamato BBs would come into action and I eagerly awaited the opportunity to confront an Allied bombardment force in Savo Sound.

To oppose a landing in the Lower Solomons I had deployed 5 groups of torpedo-capable land attack planes at Kahili on Bougainville and Vunakanau near Rabaul, with a further three groups (+ 1 group of Shinzan 4-engined bombers) in reserve at Takeshima in the Truk archipelago and another three in the Mandates. I could have done with some more Model 22 Zero units as escorts for these, but there was no shortage of Raiden interceptors at Solomon bases to fend off Allied carrier air attacks and cover the Odachi-go force. A sentai of Type 2 Shoki was en route to Darwin as a potential replacement for the No.2 Detachment of the Genzan Ku, which could have then redeployed to the Pacific and raised to five the number of Reisen groups available between Truk and the Solomons.

Against this, I am aware that Jonathan had large numbers of 4-engined bombers deployed to the New Hebrides, from which he made repeated efforts to shut down the level 4 airfield at Lunga with only limited success, as I had a large contingent of engineers beavering away at repairs there. He was also developing airstrips on Vanikoro with a view to flying P-38 operations over Lunga, which is just within their range. I suspect he may not have appreciated that he needed a level 2 airfield in order to fly offensive operations such as sweeps, so initially his P-38s could only have attempted LRCAP operations over Lunga at extreme range. I should have been pleased to meet such incursions with my Raiden and expected to get the better of such encounters, the more so since the Americans would have been going up against units of the elite Tainan Air Group.

One other factor going into the mix was my minelaying effort. I have previously mentioned my plan to conduct a ‘smoke and mirrors’ exercise in the Gilberts and Marshalls, attempting to compel my opponent to prepare full divisions for atoll assaults for which, in reality, a more modest force would more than suffice. On the other hand I had a couple of islands on the west side of the Marshalls prepared to meet a divisional-scale assault, but in this case I had added mines to the defensive mix with a vengeance, having laid in excess of 15,000 at each of these two bases - though with this size of minefield the attrition rate was severe! In CHS you get three auxiliary minelayers, each capable of laying 500 mines at a time. Used together and with the assistance of some lower capacity regular minelayers it becomes practical to put down a field of 2000 mines per night, and I was in the process of liberally strewing the waters around Guadalcanal and Florida Island with these little beauties when the game ended. I suspect that, as off Sabang and Port Blair, the invaders were going to pay a big penalty when they ran into these fields.

Unfortunately we are not now going to find out how effective these Japanese preparations would have been. For my part, Lunga was an objective to be defended to the utmost, because its airfields in Allied hands would have largely unhinged a Japanese defence of the remainder of the Solomon chain, and by extension led to the reduction of Rabaul and breach of the Bismarck barrier. Beyond this the way up New Guinea’s north shore lay clear – there wasn’t a single Japanese unit between Lae and the Moluccas bar a sound detector and 5 aviation support squads at Hollandia! Once through the Bismarcks the Allies were to be allowed a clear run westward until they bumped the next defensive complex at Morotai-Galeia-Weda which was in an advanced state of development when the game ended. There wasn’t much to oppose him in the Western Carolines either, though I should have made some effort to keep him out of the decent harbour at Ulithi. Before then, however, there was deadly work to be done at Guadalcanal, at the outcome of which we can now only guess. My suspicion is that even if the Allies had succeeded there, they would have paid a very high price for their gains, as I think I had given the Japanese a sporting chance of holding out in the short term at least.

To give some further idea of naval force dispositions in the Nan’yo at the game’s end I have attached an image of the Solomons area.

[Local Yokel]

A couple of thoughts on the game as a whole

As it’s been my practice to post an image of the Intelligence screen at the end of each month I am doing so here to show the final state of the game in VP terms. There’s not a great deal to note here, but I see that despite the fact that the Japanese sortie rate continues to exceed that of the Allies the latter are still losing about 2.3 aircraft for every Japanese aeroplane lost. Also, though it’s not something on which I’ve previously commented, I note that there is a steady rise in the number of Allied aircraft downed by flak and a closing of the gap between Allied and Japanese aircraft so destroyed. This suggests that my heavy flak concentration at Daly Waters and the somewhat smaller concentration at Burma bases has been paying off in a modest way.

I can’t overstate the extent to which I enjoyed enormous good fortune in capturing SRA oil and resources with minimal damage. Resources are the big bottleneck in CHS and only at Soerabaja were they all damaged. By the game’s end I had repaired all but two of these damaged resource points, and had started to repair the damaged resources at Billiton as well. The intact capture of the SRA put me in prime position to run the Japanese economy successfully, and I don’t think there has been any occasion on which the Empire’s pixel forces have suffered any serious shortage of supply, fuel or equipment. But that would never have been possible but for a very large slice of luck indeed.

That leads to the only big criticism I have of CHS: it still left the Japanese with a massive surplus of merchant shipping. I believe that in CHS Japan’s merchant marine is appreciably reduced in numbers and/or capacity relative to the glut enjoyed by the player of vanilla WitP, but I found that I was nonetheless able to ship more resources back to Japan than the SRA was capable of producing and still have a large body of merchantmen lying idle. In this respect the changes made in AE are an improvement although I’m not sure whether they go far enough, since from what I’ve seen the only real bottleneck I’ve seen in AE arises from the pitiful (and accurate) dearth of tankers.

This was a NikMod game. It was infuriatingly difficult to shoot down aircraft, especially heavy bombers, yet from my uninformed viewpoint the air war had a feel of authenticity to it. What did seem clear to me was that, if you picked your tactics and battles with care, you stood a good chance of conserving intact the Japanese pilot corps through the middle years of the war until the more durable Type 4 Hayate came online to replace the Shoki and the Hien.

The other important consequence of a reduced aircraft loss rate is the correspondingly small rate of growth of the aircraft VP total. In the early years that’s critically important because the higher the aircraft loss rate the more difficult does it become for Japan to open and maintain a VP lead in multiples of the Allied VP total. Put another way, Japan gets a better shot at auto victory the less bloody the conflict is. I achieved an auto-victory but in large part I put this down to the fact that casualties on both sides were low relative to those you’d get in a vanilla game. This makes the case for the Allies making the war’s early months as bloody as possible, even when this means that their losses are substantially greater than would otherwise have been the case. In the quest for Japanese auto-victory, the higher the casualty rate the harder Japan’s task becomes. Proponents of good Sir Robin’s strategy should bear that in mind.

The other critical factors in a Japanese auto victory? Easy: Noumea and Noumea and Noumea.

When I started this game I only knew a little about the Japanese war machine beyond the fact that their warships looked exceedingly cool. I’ve learned a lot and frequently been taken aback by my discoveries. It may come as a surprise to hear that Japanese scientists have as good a claim as any to being among the first developers of cavity magnetrons, with all the significance they had for microwave radar development. Yet there still seem to be plenty of people apparently susceptible to pre-war stereotyping of the Japanese as a backward race capable only of waging war in matchstick-and-paper aeroplanes. If the Japanese were really as inept or technically backward as they are sometimes portrayed, I find it difficult to understand why a nation with about seven times their economic clout took three and a half years to bring them to heel. Parshall and Tully showed us in ‘Shattered Sword’ how easily we westerners can be led astray by our preconceptions, and I believe and hope that dispassionate analysis of the historical record – especially when it relies on original Japanese material – will bring provide us with further unexpected insights into the way in which the Japanese waged their war.

Enough already! I need to bring these ramblings to an end! In the years this PBEM game has run I have had the benefit of an enormously gracious and tolerant opponent who has had to bear the pain of the Japanese war machine in the ascendant and has now been denied the opportunity of getting his own back for the woe I inflicted upon him. Jonathan, my compliments and my thanks, and I look forward to crossing swords with you again – perhaps next time in the forests around Orsha-Mogilev-Vitebsk, or the rolling hills around Kursk!

[cantona2]

John taken me a while to read this but its FANTASTIC!
You level of planning and detail is remarkable!
See you on the Ost Front my friend