Small Ship, Big War - The Voyages of the Hibiki

[Q-Ball]

I will add to the chorus of praise. This is a most excellent AAR! The standard by which others are measured. The Billion or so hits should be enough of an indication.

I am honored to be your opponent in AE! Hopefully I give you a game worthy of Hibiki

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I will add to the chorus of praise. This is a most excellent AAR! The standard by which others are measured. The Billion or so hits should be enough of an indication.

I am honored to be your opponent in AE! Hopefully I give you a game worthy of Hibiki

Thanks, and glad to have you as an opponent! But what if you sink Hibiki, hm? How are you going to feel then? If I were you I would fall back to the West Coast just to avoid that possibility.

[1EyedJacks]

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I will add to the chorus of praise. This is a most excellent AAR! The standard by which others are measured. The Billion or so hits should be enough of an indication.

I am honored to be your opponent in AE! Hopefully I give you a game worthy of Hibiki

Thanks, and glad to have you as an opponent! But what if you sink Hibiki, hm? How are you going to feel then? If I were you I would fall back to the West Coast just to avoid that possibility.

ROFL

[Cuttlefish]

August 16, 1945

Location: Wakkanai
Course: None
Attached to: Disbanded in port
Mission: Surface combat
System Damage: 0
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: See below

---

Hibiki’s crew is assembled, standing in rows on the fantail, atop the rear deckhouse, along the rails, on the torpedo deck. Almost two hundred men, all of them looking alone and afraid. Their world has been overturned.

Lieutenant Miharu, taller than almost anyone on board, stands with the other officers. Kuwaki is next to him, a solid and reassuring presence. Sugiyura is next; he stands rigidly, his knuckles white, and no one thinks any less of him for the tears on his face. Sakati is last in the short line, his face grave.

Nearby is Ensign Izu, for once bereft of jokes. Next to him are Konada; there is a scuff mark on one of his shoes but he has not noticed. There is Paymaster Kataoka, and Lieutenant JG Nakagawa, the medic, and the rest of the ship’s officers.

Riku stands with the deck force, with Oizuma and Shoji and Yoshitake and all the others. Petty Officers Aikawa and Okubo stand together, their enmity forgotten. Shun is there of course, the lines on his face even deeper than usual, but as solid as always.

The torpedo men stand together too, Kinsei and Chuyo and Hosogaya and the rest. Taiki stands with the gunnery section; he is still tall and slender, though he looks much more than three and a half years older than the young man who started the war. Shiro is nearby, his round pleasant face looking woebegone.

“Ship’s company, attention!” Shun barks, his voice carrying clearly. The men do so. Walking slowly down the starboard side comes Captain Ishii. He is in his dress whites and wearing the sword his men gave him. He passes the Y-racks and reaches the very stern of the ship, then turns.

It is a fair day. A light wind pushes a few wisps of cloud overhead and sunlight shimmers on the water. Captain Ishii stands for a moment, his shoulders hunched, looking down at the deck. Slowly he raises his head.

“At ease,” he says. There is a shuffle as the men do so. Ishii takes a deep breath.

“You have all…” he begins in a hoarse voice, then stops. The men wait. Ishii gathers himself, then begins again.

“You have all heard the Emperor’s speech,” he says. The men furthest away have to strain to hear him. “The war is over. We have admitted defeat.” Ishii looks at the men around him, examines their faces, then squares his shoulders. From somewhere strength seems to flow into his stocky frame.

“We have been ordered,“ he says, “to proceed to Osaka, there to surrender this ship. We shall do so immediately.” A murmur begins among the men, quickly stilled as Ishii resumes speaking. His voice is firm now.

“We may surrender,” he says, “but remember that this ship, this crew, has not been beaten. As painful as our duty is now, remember that; no one can take from you the honor you have earned. Again and again you have done all that has been asked of you, and more. Remember that. I will remember, for few captains have ever been favored with such a crew.”

His voice falters for just a moment, then returns strongly. “Japan will need such men in the years ahead. We must rebuild, we must create from the ashes a new Japan. That will be our next duty for the country and the Emperor we have served, and served well. In the meantime, we have one last mission to carry out together. Let us be about it! Chief Shun, if you please!”

“Ship’s company, dismissed!” bawls Shun.

“Make all preparations to get underway!” barks Lieutenant Miharu. The men break ranks, moving briskly again, and with purpose. The ship is soon abuzz with activity.

On the bridge a short while later Miharu informs the captain that all sections report ready. Ishii paces the length of the bridge, checking the wind and tide. He then returns to his accustomed place.

“I have the con, Lieutenant,” he informs Kuwaki.

“The con is yours, sir,” Kuwaki replies.

“Take in all lines forward,” says Ishii. On deck men scramble to obey. Pushed gently by the wind, Hibiki’s bow begins to swing slowly away from the dock.

“Take in all lines aft,” says Ishii.

“Lines taken in aft,” comes the report.

“Port engine back one third,” says Ishii. The nimble destroyer begins to swing away from the dock. The captain issues a series of orders that brings the ship about and the deck plates rumble as Hibiki picks up speed, heading out of the bay.

The Rising Sun snaps briskly at the stern and a wave curls foaming away from the flaring bows. The destroyer surges forward, water hissing past her flanks, as if eager to have open ocean under her keel. Hibiki is finally going home.


[center]The End[/center]

[Bluebook]

Thank you for this fantastic story.

[Panther Bait]

<sniff>&nbsp; I will not cry.&nbsp; I will not cry. Dammit.[:(]
&nbsp;
Awesome as always.&nbsp; Cuttlefish.
&nbsp;
Thank you,
Mike
&nbsp;

[Redd]

Best AAR I've ever read. Sorry to see it over. [:(]

But on the other hand I'll be following your work over on the AE forum, so feel free to be as creative as you want over there.[:D]

Thanks for the ride.[:)]

Dave

[cantona2]

'...in the gantry, in the stands, in the executive boxes, in the £2 docks behind the goals, in the VIP seats the crowd as one stand and clap acknowledging a masterpiece and the dropping of the curtain on such...'

I repeat my request to make this AAR a sticky!

[Onime No Kyo]

:salute:

[&o][&o][&o][&o]

[MajorDad]

Bravo Zulu!!!

One of the best war fiction reads in a long time.

Til you next adventure....

[Dave3L]

I bet we'll see a Blooper Reel from the Hibiki crew. You know, things like Benzaiten barfing on Riku...Taiki flubbing a line...Captain Ishii breaking up when the crab salutes him...over and over...

[tocaff]

What can I say that hasn't already been said?&nbsp; Thanks again for a masterfully told tale that offered more than we ever had a right to hope for from an AAR.&nbsp; You have set the bar for the future at a lofty level. &nbsp;

[kaleun]

Unreachable level if you ask me.

[Capt. Harlock]

ORIGINAL: Cuttlefish

August 16, 1945

Location: Wakkanai
Course: None
Attached to: Disbanded in port
Mission: Surface combat
System Damage: 0
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475

Orders: See below

So ... Hibiki not only survived the war, but ended up in full repair. Benzaiten came through in spades.

This is simply the best AAR of all time.

[Cuttlefish]

Analysis: the game

From the beginning I decided I would fight this war mostly along historical lines. The result, I think, was a war that went about the way WWII might have gone had the Allies been defeated at Midway and the Coral Sea. Japan would have lost all the same, it just would have taken a bit longer and cost more.

That by 1945 the game was back on roughly the same timeline as the real war can, I think, be attributed to the accelerated pace of operations possible in WitP.

So no invasions of India, of Australia, Fiji, Hawaii, or anything like that. My idea was to establish a defensive perimeter as protected from Allied four-engine bombers as possible and dig in. To that end I decided that I had to have Port Moresby; my opponent could bomb it all he wanted to from Australia while I protected it with safe bases at Lae and Rabaul. And I needed New Caledonia and the New Hebrides to deny my opponents bases in range of the Solomons. Nanomea and Baker would protect the Gilberts.

In the DEI Timor was a must, and that was the best I could do there. In China all I really wanted to do was clear the Changsa – Wuchow rail line and leave it at that, though I wanted to maintain a certain amount of pressure there and was willing to be opportunistic.

Expansion: I proceeded swiftly in Malaya, the Phlippines, and the DEI, more slowly in the Pacific. I delayed invading Port Moresby, Noumea, and Efate until late February; I might have moved sooner but wanted to stay closer the that “historical feel.” My early attacks went well except when I tried landing at Mersing. I suffered heavy losses in ships and it ended up doing nothing to shorten the Singapore campaign.

Wolff (wolffpack) did not do a Sir Robin. He kept striking back, often at unexpected (which is to say, good) times and places. A few times I got lucky and a few times I was well prepared. He didn’t always succeed but it did keep me honest.

The first carrier battle of the game took place near Gardner Island and I flat-out got lucky there. I knew there were American carriers down around Fiji and took KB south to look for them. What happened, as I learned somewhat later, is that Wolff had Enterprise, Yorktown, and Saratoga there. Hornet and Lexington were en route to join them. When KB was spotted by search planes out of Fiji I jinked my carriers to the southeast to try and break contact – and ended up almost right on top of Hornet and Lexington. Boom. Another turn or two and he would have had all his carriers together. In a Nik mod game like this one that would have almost certainly meant that my carriers would have taken a lot of damage even if I won.

My campaign in China proceeded without any real problems. In Malaya Singapore fell on 21 January and I turned my forces north. In Burma I captured the bases along the line of the Irrawaddy, from Rangoon to Myitkyina. I launched thrusts at Ledo and Akyab but was turned back in both places. At that point I established my defensive line and started digging in.

Early Allied counterthrusts: Wolff struck at three places in the Pacific in late spring ’42; Wake, Nanomea, and Gili Gili. In all cases he timed his attacks carefully, waiting for KB to be busy elsewhere, and in fact for a while he had me reacting to him, not the other way around.

Nanomea was destined to be a non-factor in the game. Wake was, I think, my single biggest error. I had not moved swiftly enough to garrison it. I made him pay a heavy price to maintain the place when he took it back but I could not keep up a tight enough blockade and took too long to counter-attack. When I finally did, in June ’42, I suffered my first major defeat.

For a long time Gili Gili looked like a mistake on his part. He lost a pair of British carriers in the operation and then could do nothing with the base. It became a training ground for Japanese bombers; any fighter he tried to move there was swiftly destroyed and he lost a lot of ships and planes trying to turn it into a viable base. Not until early ’43, when he was able to use better aircraft, was he finally able to put it into operation. When he did, though, it was his key to cracking the New Guinea/Bismarck Archipelago defenses.

Allied offensive operations begin: Wolff’s first attempt at a major counterthrust was Timor (specifically Koepang) in January ’43. In his defense it was the first major amphibious invasion he had undertaken in WitP and I think many would agree that this kind of operation is one of the harder things to master in the game. Koepang had a full regiment plus support troops behind level 9 forts. I also had a rapid reaction force nearby (I think Balikpapan, don’t remember for sure now), consisting of a division and fast APs to carry them, ready for something of the sort. At that he still might have succeeded if I hadn’t won a series of carrier victories against him. Once he lost control of the sea around Timor it was all over.

The defeat stalled his offensive efforts for months afterwards. On the positive side for him he was able to skillfully extract most of the invasion force.

As Wolff slowly began putting pressure on Rabaul I used the extra time to fortify the inner defenses in the Pacific. I was not able to stop him but I was able to make every invasion a costly major undertaking.

Turning point: Wolff’s rebuilt carrier forces were finally able to challenge me again in May ’43. I decisively lost a major carrier battle near the Santa Cruz islands and the door was at last open for major Allied offensive operations in the Pacific. He took New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, then bypassed Rabaul by thrusting up through Lae and capturing the Admiralty Islands. From there he cleared the north coast of New Guinea and began island-hopping in earnest.

Wolff had a lot of time to make up and he compensated by thrusting directly for the heart, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. It was an expensive strategy but he made it work. He captured Eniwetok to shorten his supply lines and then moved up to take bases in the Carolines and Marianas. From there it was Iwo Jima, Amami and Okinawa, and then Japan itself.

My strategy during this period was to resist long enough to make it cost him and then withdraw my naval and air assets before they were exhausted, always keeping and rebuilding a reserve. It worked well; by ’45 he was out of trained Navy pilots and by the end of the war I think he was hurting for capital ships (not as badly as I was, of course!).

My cut-off bases never quite “withered on the vine.” Single small freighters kept up a shuttle run from Ominato, down past Marcus, and between his bases at Eniwetok and Guam/Tinian to such places as Truk, Lunga, and Tarawa. I was thus able to maintain positive, if low, supply numbers in these places. Some of the ships were lost but many made it there and back safely.

The Road to Mandalay: Burma was, I think, his biggest frustration in the game. Again and again he thrust against the Irrawaddy Line, when one attempt failed he would shift his point of attack and try again. Several times he almost succeeded but I had divisions behind the line rotating to cover trouble spots and I was working on interior lines. He was never able to break through.

I also had the entire coast fortified, from Moulmein to Alor Star. Every base was covered by at least a division or a regiment and there was a reserve at Bangkok. This, and the fact that Andaman was like a bone in his throat, kept him from trying a flanking maneuver.

He finally, in ’45, used the British fleet to assault Alor Star. His losses were horrible; what was left of my carriers showed up in the Gulf of Siam and sank several cruisers and a lot of destroyers and transports. To cover what was left he had to move his carriers right next to the base. While they were pinned there Japanese battleships snuck up from Singapore and intercepted them by night. All four carriers present were knocked out of the war – armored flight decks don’t help much against 14” shells. This was my favorite action of the entire war, I think.

Still, sheer weight of numbers prevailed and he soon took the base. When that happened I withdrew from Burma to shorter lines (with prepared level 9 forts) along the Salween River (Moulmein and Rahaeng). Other forces moved south to Songkhla. Thailand was thus held, though he quickly overran Malaya and by the end of the game was knocking on the gates of Singapore.

Land War in Asia: in the first few months of ’42 I cleared the Changsa – Wuchow road, as mentioned. During the rest of ’42 I also captured Ichang and Homan, but further thrusts (at Sian and Yenen) were turned back. Thereafter I reverted to the defensive and China was quiet for the rest of the war.

End Game: Hibiki was heavily involved in most of the doings towards the end of the game, so I don’t think I need to do much of a recap here. The only real mystery, to me at least, remains Operation Longbow. It might have worked; I got caught with my pants down and with strong follow-up forces and a better blitz of my air bases on both sides of the Korea Strait it could have been impossible to dislodge the invaders. I have no idea what happened on the Allied side; communication with Wolff has been sporadic since his deployment to Iraq.

This, I think is a good place to thank my opponent once again for the game he gave me. He was gracious in victory, cheerful in defeat, always fair, and always consistent. I would gladly play him again and would recommend him as an opponent to anyone. Here’s to you, Wolff, for making this saga possible. Come home safe.

[kaleun]

Hear Hear!

[Cuttlefish]

Just for kicks, here is a table showing all ships sunk during the war, by type and side. The most significant statistic from my point of view: of 97 Japanese DDs lost, not one of them was Hibiki!

[Cribtop]

Great recap. Would love to have seen both of your faces when the IJN BBs hit the RN CVs off Alor Star. Bet that was one hell of a combat report!

Think for just a moment about the amazing, almost impossible good fortune of the Hibiki. Her survival is miraculous, especially considering that far from holding her back you threw her into most of the major engagements.

What a story. Thanks again.

[BigDuke66]

Like all the others I must thank you for this fantastic ride.
So BIG THANKS Cuttlefish!


BTW 97 destroyers gone from how many?

[davidgillsol]

Yes- thanks for the overview.

What a fantastic AAR - I am sorry it is over but you have set a standard which I don't think will ever be beaten................but will be following any new AAR on AE hoping that it will be!