two Germans in the Pacific - Sc17

[RGIJN]

Sometimes, I brought heavy cruisers with 98 sys damage into Truk. You watch such ships every turn to make sure the will make port. But at least two times I was foolish enough to offer precious ships to enemy bombing raids while sitting in port. I really was about to bounce upon the screen then... [:@]

However, at least I was able to keep the USN at bay with their carriers. Out of the 16 most juicy units, 10 were allied[:D]

[RGIJN]

ORIGINAL: fuelli

ORIGINAL: fuelli

All in all there is no doubt that the whole solomons campaign so far is a defeat for me even If I take Irau which is most unlikely right now. It really seems that I found one of the hardest spot in the enemy's defence.

But on the other hand: If I count the enemy troops involved plus the troops he already lost and then take a look at my intel (OOB) I think there is maybe a weak spot somewhere else....

This is were I started to Plan Operation "Rabauke"[:D] Knowing that the Japanese has lost three divisions in PNG and now has 3 Divisions to defend Rennel and Irau the math was simple: 2 Divisions and 2 Brigades left to cover the Solomons and Rabaul. Looking at my ground forces I counted 5 Divisions and some Independence regiments that I could use in a big blow Invasion. Transport capacity was tight but sufficient. So far so good. Now for the target Attacking in the solomans will give point for nothing more then a draw. Only if I sink the whole KB a decisive victory is possible. Or taking Rabaul which will change the VP for 5400 points into my direction. But what if my Opponent anticipates my move, what if his whole fleet is at anchorage in rabaul when my transports eneter their operation area? This was my biggest concern. But this can happen anywhere. With woodlark I have a decent base to provide LRCAP for the Invasion fleet. If I take Gasmata i can also provide close airsupport with corsairs. But taking Gasmata would reveal my future plans. So everything had to be done in a thight schedule. But it became clear that Rabaul will be my final target before I have to retire. One other reason was counting for Rabaul: Mines. I noticed heavy mining activities in the Solomons. It was obvious that my opponent was expecting me there.
Again the math was simple: Lots of mines in the Solomons could mean not so much at Rabaul.
After the Irau campaign was over and Woodlark was a secure base I starte my preperations. Firdst of all I need masses of ressource at woodlark and at Lea. Woodlark of course for my fighter and B25 and Lae for my 4e bombers. While my transports were busy with that job I started to reckon the whole map. Special forces were deployes at several main bases to find out were his remaining Inf regiments are located and lots of Catalinas, SBDs, TBFs and 4es were doing their part as well. I was eager to find out where is main Fleet units may be and even tried to attack them once when I sighted them north of the Solomons. The outcome was meager: A Transport TF was attacked and the newly arrived CV Essex was hit by one 250Kg bomb. 45% Sys damage! I had to send her back after just one week. Neverthe less when the November came nearer (Start of Operation was scheduled for 05.11.1943)I knew that I will have 5 Fleet carriers (1 essex 3 Yorktowns and Saratoga) + 1 CVL and 6 BBs mostly older types. I knew that he has 10 BBs left and Yamato and Musashi are part of them....
After m Transport fllets had finished loading Troops and supplie and were approaching the coral sea I had a first contact with the japanese main fleet. North east of Shortland.Obviousls he was expecting an attack iin the Solomons and not at Rabaul. Perfect. Looking at the map I realised that if he wants to reach Rabaul be the direct route from there I can pick his surface units with my carriers before they arrive. Or he has to take a different route which will make him come to late. But everything came alittlebit different...as usual. More tomorrow.

thanks for the retrospect intel. Will post my "grand" strategy also tomorrow and try to give some sight for "the whole picture" then.

[fuelli]

ORIGINAL: RGIJN

However, at least I was able to keep the USN at bay with their carriers. Out of the 16 most juicy units, 10 were allied[:D]

Yes this was one of the important factors in this game. Somehow I never was able to assemble a strong carrier force to oppose the KB. And when I finally had 5 fleetcarriers and 1 CVL everything got screwed up:

Lets go back to day -3 of my invasion of Rabaul.
I knew were is fleet was and I knew he is not anticvipating my move into Rabaul. Now it was time to start Operation Side Kick. A FT TF dropped a portion of ten Australian regiment at Gasmata which has been reckonned for weeks. One Nav Garrison was expected to camp there. On day -2 The aussssies attack with the support of two marine para regiments making it a short fight. On day -1 a first BF and supplies have been ferried in by Dacotas and FT TF and on Day 0 3 Squadrons of corsairs start their operation above Rabaul. For that matter everything worked perfect.
Back to day -1. My Invasion force is 120 miles south of Rabaul and has already survived two half hearted attacks by Japanese LBA when an intense strike came in. Finally the bettys show up. Even the cap is doing a good job three carriers got hit by torpedoes and are out of action for the remaining operation. Now I´m left with two fleet carriers and a CVL and the enemy fleet is appraoching Rabaul. Now I know I can not take on the KB and several surface fleets with only two carriers left. Therefore I have to rely on my two battlegroups with 3 BBs each. Now comes the crucial part of the operation. My transport and surface fleets are ordered into Rabaul to start invasion while my carriers get order to follow their replenishment TF 30 miles to the west staying under heavy cap from Woodlark to attack shipping in the area of Rabaul. Should a surface battle occur I´m sure the Japanese ships will retire to the north. I hope I can get a few strugglers with my carrier airforce.

Day 0 Oh my god what happened...???
Basically tha night of day 0 starts in the best possible way. A huge surface battle took place and my surface fleets were able to protect the transport while inflicting heavy damage. Nevertheless the damage taken is also huge. But when daylight came in and I received word from my fleets and there whereabouts I got shocked: The replenishment TF that was order to move 30 miles to the west had moved 60 miles to the north. Why? I do not know. But whta makes things really catastrtophic, both carrier TFs that had orders to follow the replenishment TF have move 300 miles to the south east and meeting up with a group of damages surface units coming from rabaul and retiring to Noumea. (That was of course my fault). Now they are out of reach for my LRCAP from woodlark. The inevitable happened and my remeining CV force was annihilated. It is still a secret who in the chain of commands made the mistake. But is was costly.

Everything else is history already. My transports stood up and more then 5 divisions attacked the garrison at Rabaul on Day 3 smashing their fortification and finishing the Job on day 4. In the end it wasn´t the carriers that decided the war. It was one big decisive surface battle between battleships. Therefore my opponent did exactly what a Japanese player had to do. The result of this battle wasn´t a victory for either side. I thin I lost mor ship VP then my opponent but the implications paved the way for my victory.

[bigbaba]

wow..klasse, dass ihr es zuende aufgefochten habt. respekt an euch beide.[&o]

vieleicht spielen wir eine partie AE gegeneinander, wenn es rauskommt..würde mich freuen.

[RGIJN]

let me add some A/C stats here.

Our losses were always decent, and until early 1943 we were even at about 3000....3500 losses each. From then on, japanese aircraft started dying faster than allied. I think both sides tried to adopt proper measures to limit a senseless waste though, but somehow it did not work out completely.
While I was able to preserve the core of the Betty & Nell units, my entire fighter inventory suffered early from staggering blows. And given the poor replacement rates in Sc17 I never recovered from that problem after late spring 1943. Of course the experience of my fighter pilots declined drastically. And although the Rennell/Irau operation was repelled successfully, this came at a high cost to me. It was the death of my landbased Vals.
As mentioned before, I could at least save some of KB original strength with their cracks. Of course this meant to act very reluctant with my carriers in 1943. Except from the Irau days I made no significant moves with my flattops.


We finally ended up with approx. 4500 (A) and 6500 (J) planes lost.

[RGIJN]

the numbers below show clearly that neither B17s nor Corsairs or Hellcats are invincible. But of course their impact on the battlefield with ratios of 1:5 ... 1:25 (sometimes even more) was devastating to me nevertheless.

[RGIJN]

more tomorrow then guys [:)]

[fuelli]

Aftermath of the sea battle at Rabaul.





Idaho and Nevada will surely go down. They are still several hexes away from a port. Massachusetts just arrived at Woodlark. But I think she will go down as well. Without allied damage control a lvl 4 port isn´t too save.

[AbeSimpson]

Great AAR!! Was fun to read and exciting to the last!! Grats to both of you.
I hope there will be a start of an other round coming soon.....

[fuelli]

Thanks allot for participating. I will need rest now. But I already offered a revenge for Ralf later this year maybe after summer. Right now he has two other games running.

[bigred]

Yes, a most comprehensive AAR.  Very entertaining.

[fuelli]

On special request[;)]:

I would like to thank everyone who followed this AAR and hope it was entertaining enough to encourage others to start a game and let us participate. Special thanks to my opponent who definitely belongs to a group of gamers I would like to cross my sword anytime again.

And of course happy easter vacations to all of you!

[xj900uk]

Yes, many thanks for posting the AAR which I have been avidly following for the past few months.  Has made a very interesting & entertaining read!

[RGIJN]

Hey guys, also for your patience with us [;)] and your much appreciated attendance to this thread!


But it´s not over yet, after some days off at Easter I´m gonna post some more facts & the (failed) grand plan of the Emperor later tonight...!

[RGIJN]

since I think it´s getting not before tomorrow with some elaborate analyis, I´m at least posting the final frontline here.

First the Frontline at the end of July 1943 again... when we´re were still fighting for Irau[:)] Oh nice to remember those days back!

[RGIJN]

... then during the (brief) time when the Allies where in possession of Rennell... They felt that save on this island that they even stationed some Corsairs there. This time I was still able to counter and repel the whole operation...

[RGIJN]

after the ill-fated try to set foot on the Solomons...

[RGIJN]

and eventually after Frank succeeded with his final move the map changed one more time. Drastically. After I lost Gasmata (acted very quickly as additional allied LRCAP base), Madang and RABAUL then it was just GAME OVER!

[RGIJN]

The "grand plan" was a simple one and I guess most IJ players bear something like this in mind at the outset of the game. Even more so in a Sc19 with a plenty of resources at hand.

First I made a very quick and swift "seizing trip" over the middle of the map. As fleet as possible I secured the whole Solomons, the Northern Hebrides (Nevea and Gavigamana) and everything in the Solomon Sea (Rossel, Woodlark, Kiriwana). Also most crucial was the fact I took Buna & Gili Gili on the 3rd turn. Mostly my initial warships (cruisers, minelayers and destroyers) were deployed for fast trans runs to achieve quick success, using the numerous NavGsn units available. Of course you have to pull some of them off from other spots. But I never worried about that since there is no need to defend Kavieng or the Shortlands with many troops at this time. I just wanted to claim my "outer defense perimeter" as early as possible. What worked pretty fine so far since there was nowhere significant resistance from my opponent who wisely not even tried to interfere.
After that, say from middle May to early July I was busy to start development of the most potent and proper spots into formidable bases (mainly Lunga & Tulagi, Rossel, Nevea). But even in Scenario 19 you can feel the lack of ENG units for the Japanese. It takes forever with just one construction, pioneer or any other engeneer echelon to step up from one level to the next! Lunga, Nevea, Irau and Rossel were equipped with search planes soon then. But I was very reluctant in the PNG area... what led into the major mistake in my game.[X(]



(The picture shows the actual japanese airstrip in at Guadalcanal, Lunga Point - it was almost completed at the time of the Operation "Watchtower" invasion on Aug 7th 1942)

[xj900uk]

I find that the Japanese, although strong early on,  aren't limitless.  You have to decide whether to thrust through PNG via Lae and Salmua, try to land substantial forces at Buna (I usually bother only with fast tranposrts bringin in one of the naval garrison units, ditto @ Gilli-Gilli & hope they don't get too isolated) or else the most risky but greatest rewarding strategy for an early PNG policy is to bring a big transport force looping in around Gilli-Gilli to land at Port Morseby, hoping his carriers dont' interfere & the presence of your own carriers discourages too many LBA attacks.
The alternative early Jap policy is to expand SE down through the Solomons to try and capture Lunga, Tulagi, Irau and Nevea.  If these aren't contested, then press on & go for the big ones - Luganville & Efate.
 
For me, when playing as the Japs I try to land as muhc on PNG in the first couple of weeks then concentrate on the SE thrust down to Irau & Nevea.  Then I can marshall, see what he's doing & see if I can get Luganville & then Efate