Big Guns of the Pacific: FatR (A) vs NY59Giants (J)

[FatR]

March 21-22, 1942

A quiet turn. The core of Pacific Fleet refueled at Perth and now starts its voyage towards DEI. My NavSearch detects at least two TFs and Denpasar, one of them includes BB. That might be a worthy prey. The accidental sortie by Dutch Catalinas revealed that NY59Giants has less than 30 fighters on CAP at Denpasar. As Japanese air search south of Java seems nonexistent so far, I stand a good chance of achieving surprise.

In bad news, KB disappeared from the Allied radar. With my limited search assets I simply cannot adequately cover both front and rear areas with trained squadrons. Thankfully, it wasn't seen moving north, and it shouldn't have fuel to pursue by carriers around Australia, so even if NY59Giants guessed my plan correctly, it shouldn't be able to lay a trap. No signs of any major invasions as well. Japanese took Ocean Island the last turn, but my cruiser TF, that escaped from Brisbane to the north, to avoid KB, is close enough to punish their landing fleet, if it loiters around for one more turn.

[FatR]

Lessons to be learned from the Sydney debacle.

First of all, it must be admitted, that I was saved by sheer luck. NY59Giants was extremely close to hitting the jackpot and reversing the fortunes of the war radically.

What put me into this unenviable position?

1)Dividing air support assets (and, consequently fighter squadrons, even after the attack was detected) almost evenly between Sydney and Brisbane was a major mistake. Brisbane should have been kept a forward base.

2)Allies don't have enough Catalinas for their NavSearch needs in early 1942, and I was sloppy with establishing my search perimeter. Currently, I started training my USAAF Liberator squadrons for nav search and retraning the two units that were flying ASW around Pearl.

3)After losing BC Constellation to a sub attack I put an emphazis on short-range ASW patrols, employing all Kingfishers from surface combatant in this role and some Devastators/Dauntlesses as well. This, possibly, was a mistake. NY59Giants accurately followed my carriers to Sydney. Maybe that was a good prediction, or maybe anti-sub attacks by carrier planes tipped him off.

[FatR]

March 23-26, 1942

Lots of Zeros and Oscars, up to 90 per day (in three-four separate raids), swept Soerabaja from Denpasar every day. My CAP was putting a good fight on 23th-24th, but eventually the weight of numbers began to tell and Allied squadrons got the short end of the stick. Still, this probably was costly in terms of pilots to Japanese, while Allied pilot losses remain minimal.

However, both Force Z and USN surface combatant are positioned to flatten the Denpasar airfield on the next turn. This will be followed by daylight bomber raids to shut it down for good. Unfortunately, the IJN SCTF previously positioned at Denpasar seems to be gone. In fact, NavSearch failed to detect anything anywhere in DEI during the last turn. My carriers will move south of Makassar, to cover most of the possible target locations. I fear this might be a trap, that is still undetected by my blind and deaf flying boat pilots. We'll find out on the next turn.

Meanwhile, my troop convoy reached Tjilatjap and started unloading, but this time Netties finally reacted to my activities in this port. I lost two large transports and CL Capetown took 79 flotation damage from a single torpedo. Thankfully, troop losses were minimal. CV Illustrious, previously escorting Force Z, is detached to provide air cover.

An element of 38th Division landed in Cotabato on Mindanao, where my troops won their recent victory. Looks like that tactical success caused some significant operational consequences. I'm glad to see NY59Giants using elite troops to clean up rear areas in these critical months.

My offensive operation in Southern China more or less succeeded at catching forward Japanese units and smashing them. I'll post a screenshot later. However, the fact that the firsr of the routed units was 28th RGC Temp. Division, which has no businness fighting on the frontlines, makes me suspect a trap there as well. Some large Japanese troop movements between Hangchow and Nanchang are observed. Still, nothing good comes from being paralyzed by shadows of possible disasters, and I cannot hope to hold the line by only reacting. I ordered a shock attack in the hex between Chuhsien and Wenchow to try freeing up some troops. And a deliberate one in the hex south of Loyang, where the standoff between my 2000-AV stack and Japanese units, whose numbers seems to get lower every turn (unless that's a FOW deception) continues.

[FatR]

I got the combat replay from NY59Giants and what can I say, this was probably the bloodiest turn of the war. I cannot fully assess the losses without the turn file, but Japanese probably lost 70+ planes on the ground and about 50+ in the air, AV, 2 DMS, 1 PB and 6 transports. My losses are about 40+ planes in the air (unfortunately, mostly carrier planes), one xAK and both modern USN battleships damaged (floatplanes redirected from one of them, so the situation must be bad). On the ground there were four battles, including the assault on Singapore, and losses are upward of 14k for Allies and upward of 16k for Japanese, although most of my losses were Chinese. I'll post the details later, when I get the turn.

[FatR]

March 27-30, 1942: The battle of Denpasar

First of all, I underestimated the carnage of this turn, the plane losses are even heavier than they seemed. See below. Japanese losses might be exaggerated, though.



First of all, on the night of 27th Force Z appeared, flattened I-156 with depth charges on the way and bombarded Denpasar before retreating.

Naval bombardment of Denpasar at 58,108
Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21-IIa Sally: 28 destroyed on ground
Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 24 destroyed on ground
A6M2 Zero: 17 destroyed on ground
C5M2 Babs: 1 destroyed on ground

Allied Ships
BB Beatty
BC Repulse
CA Cornwall
CL Phoenix
CL Omaha
CL Glasgow
DD Isis
DD Electra
DD Decoy
DD Tenedos

Japanese ground losses:
257 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 10 destroyed, 34 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 11 (7 destroyed, 4 disabled)
Vehicles lost 13 (5 destroyed, 8 disabled)

Airbase hits 16
Airbase supply hits 21
Runway hits 288


In the day phase, USN battleships moved in to finish the job:

Naval bombardment of Denpasar at 58,108
Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21-IIa Sally: 3 destroyed on ground
Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 3 destroyed on ground
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed on ground

Allied Ships
BB Louisiana
CA Canberra
CL Boise
CL Savannah
CL Philadelphia
CL Achilles
CL Leander
DD Phelps
DD Selfridge
DD Porter
DD Mahan
DD Jarvis
DD Ralph Talbot
DD Bagley

Japanese ground losses:
793 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 121 disabled
Engineers: 7 destroyed, 22 disabled
Guns lost 16 (1 destroyed, 15 disabled)
Vehicles lost 10 (2 destroyed, 8 disabled)

Airbase hits 64
Airbase supply hits 9
Runway hits 1042
Port hits 1

Having recon from Java certainly helped. Dutch bombers finished the job over four days, completely destroying the Denpasar airfield and picking off whatever planes the naval bombardment missed.

Unfortunately, my USN bombardment force wasn't ordered to retreat. Big mistake. I expected that any air attacks will be drawn to USN carriers, on the hunt to the east. They weren't. Louisiana was lightly damaged by 2 Netty torpedoes and South Dakota took 60 flotation damage from the same number.


Meanwhile, carriers found what they wanted - a small IJN TF, probably returning after recent landing in Northern Australia.

Morning Air attack on TF, near Roti at 64,120
Weather in hex: Heavy rain
Raid spotted at 22 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 2

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 10
SBD-2 Dauntless x 17
SBD-3 Dauntless x 26

No Japanese losses
Allied aircraft losses
SBD-2 Dauntless: 4 damaged
SBD-3 Dauntless: 2 damaged

Japanese Ships
xAK Ume Maru, Bomb hits 7, and is sunk
xAK Enzyu Maru, Bomb hits 5, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Tokusima Maru, Bomb hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAK Hokumai Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires
DMS W-20, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage

[FatR]

On 28th my carriers moved north and detected both a small amphibious force that just carried troops to Madjene on Celebes and a lot of Japanese, including mini-KB south of them, around the western tip of Timor. The Madjene force was annihilated, two xAKs and and a PB went under. Unfortunately, that meant weakening of the strike against IJN carriers.

Morning Air attack on TF, near Roti at 66,115
Weather in hex: Overcast
Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 55 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 57

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 10
SBD-2 Dauntless x 16
SBD-3 Dauntless x 12

No Japanese losses
Allied aircraft losses
F4F-3 Wildcat: 4 destroyed
SBD-2 Dauntless: 9 destroyed
SBD-3 Dauntless: 7 destroyed

The report underestimates losses. No Dauntlesses survived this. As you can see in the losses roster, 16 SBD-2 flew and 16 were shot down. Enterprise's DB squadrons were annihilated almost completely.

In return, Japanese launched 23 unescorted Vals and Kates. Replay shows their total elimination, but, again, the Intelligence screen shows that it might have been FOW.

In the afternoon phase smaller unescorted strikes were launched by both sides. Some more Kates and SBDs went down. Then a squadron of SBDs found AV Sanuki Maru and DMS W-7, protected by just two Zeros and left both in sinking condition


While all these dramas were happening, Netties from Biliton tried to strike at my ships around Tjilatjap. Luckily, most of them targeted Illustrious, and even more luckily, she somehow dodged more than 20 torpedos, while exacting heavy toll from the attackers with her flak barrage. Hurricanes, Sea Hurricanes and Fulmars had a field day too. Lots of Netties perished there on that turn, and only one transport took moderate damage.

[FatR]

On 29th both forces retreated. Mini-KB was found northeast of Kendari, my ships concentrated around Tjilatjap. As all my SCTF has almost no ammo after the bombardment (I expected that the bombardment will use only about 1/5th of total ammo, as usual, but almost 90% was spend), and there were cripples in the sea, I feared an aggressive pursuit by Japanese. This did not happen.


Ground combat events that happened on 27th of March were momentous as well. First of all, NY59Giants ordered an attack at Singapore.

Ground combat at Singapore (50,84)
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 80293 troops, 859 guns, 421 vehicles, Assault Value = 2724
Defending force 67254 troops, 929 guns, 725 vehicles, Assault Value = 2154
Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 4
Japanese adjusted assault: 2999
Allied adjusted defense: 7077

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 4)
Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), leaders(+), experience(-)
Attacker:
Japanese ground losses:
9597 casualties reported
Squads: 16 destroyed, 483 disabled
Non Combat: 61 destroyed, 426 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 94 disabled
Guns lost 1 (0 destroyed, 1 disabled)
Vehicles lost 172 (76 destroyed, 96 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
3506 casualties reported
Squads: 10 destroyed, 110 disabled
Non Combat: 16 destroyed, 447 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 25 disabled
Vehicles lost 60 (2 destroyed, 58 disabled)

It seems, that PP spent on replacing poor commanders paid off well.

In China, I attacked in three hexes: on the Central plains, between Chuhsien and Wehchow and at 86,55. The first attack failed bloodily, others succeeded. See the map below. You can see, that NY59Giants failed to mass his forces. He also neglected interdicting Chinese movements from the air until the last turn. Now I intend to evict his small roadblocking forces north of Foochow.

[FatR]

The situation in Northern China is far less rosy. I lost or abandoned due to lack of supply most of positions in the far North.

[FatR]

In other news, I found the hard way that xAKs apparently cannot refuel their escorting DDs. Two DDs escorting convoys from Cape Town to Australia sank due to system damage accumulated from the lack of fuel, and the third is in danger.

Also, there was a flurry of Allied sub attacks on 29th, around 8 in all. No torpedos exploded, though. Even S-boats and Dutch were cursed that day.

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: FatR

Naval bombardment of Denpasar at 58,108
Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21-IIa Sally: 3 destroyed on ground
Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 3 destroyed on ground
A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed on ground

Allied Ships
BB Louisiana
CA Canberra
CL Boise
CL Savannah
CL Philadelphia
CL Achilles
CL Leander
DD Phelps
DD Selfridge
DD Porter
DD Mahan
DD Jarvis
DD Ralph Talbot
DD Bagley

Japanese ground losses:
793 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 121 disabled
Engineers: 7 destroyed, 22 disabled
Guns lost 16 (1 destroyed, 15 disabled)
Vehicles lost 10 (2 destroyed, 8 disabled)

Airbase hits 64
Airbase supply hits 9
Runway hits 1042
Port hits 1

Ouch. So much for 'Naval Bombardments arent deadly enough'...

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: FatR

In other news, I found the hard way that xAKs apparently cannot refuel their escorting DDs. Two DDs escorting convoys from Cape Town to Australia sank due to system damage accumulated from the lack of fuel, and the third is in danger.

This seems rather strange, I thing I've got enough destroyers refueling from the convoys they are protecting, maybe it has something to do with the off-map travel or settings (do not refuel ?)

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Smeulders

ORIGINAL: FatR

In other news, I found the hard way that xAKs apparently cannot refuel their escorting DDs. Two DDs escorting convoys from Cape Town to Australia sank due to system damage accumulated from the lack of fuel, and the third is in danger.

This seems rather strange, I thing I've got enough destroyers refueling from the convoys they are protecting, maybe it has something to do with the off-map travel or settings (do not refuel ?)

Maybe refueling doesn't work if the convoy does not carry enough fuel for the round trip and depends on refueling at the destination port... Maybe off-map travelling is the culprit. One way or another, NY59Giants just got some compensation for his bad luck.

[FatR]

March 31-April 1, 1942

Netties tried to visit Tjilatjap again. Japanese clearly didn't think this idea through. Raids were uncoordinated and my fighters ripped them apart. No hits were scored, despite some bombers making torpedo runs at transports. Either Japs are out of good pilots, or they were too fatigued.

On Mindanao, 146st Regiment tried to move into Cagayan hex alone. NY59Giants either did this accidentally or mistakenly assumed that my troops will fight around Cotabato. Two days of shock attacks pushed it back in disarray, but my losses were fairly heavy. In fact, the cost of battle in combat squads was heavier for Philippino troops. Still, considering this quality, this is a considerable success.


Quick plans update.

My convoy at Tjilatjap is almost unloaded, so I'm pulling most forces out. Both USN carriers and Force Z will visit Billiton before retreating towards Colombo, to wipe out some more Jap planes. Also, most Allied bombers are ordered to attack it in the daylight. Now I have about 60 Dutch Mitchells and Bostons, so I hope to shut down Billiton for good, even though the fighter escort is fairly weak. South Dakota is stuck at Tjilatjap due to damage

In SWPac, old battleships will bombard Lunga, covering landing of a sizeable force at Ndeni. This might be getting over my head, but there were no signs of significant IJN activity for several turns.

[FatR]

April 2-3, 1942

The Billiton operation went fairly well. Any air losses are more than offset by butchering some more Nells that tried to attack USN carriers. I'm not sure that the airfield will be shut down more-or-less permanently, though, as the follow-up LBA attacks were disrupted by weather.

IMO, NY59Giants is way too passive with his surface combatants. Both in general and in his current operation around Java. He had Mini-KB for air cover and, apparently, a massive surface force. He could have turned my dubious tactical success into a gigantic defeat by agressively moving to Tjilatjap. My ships hadn't even had ammo for a big surface fight. Instead, he allowed my ships to pretty much do whatever I needed to do as a part of Operation Breakwater, thus scoring a major strategic success. I'm honestly afraid that my recent stroke of luck might have demoralized him. At least, recent Netty operation disturbingly resemble desperate attempts to get lucky. On the other hand, the suspicious lack of Zero units on the frontline (Billiton was crewed by Oscars) might mean that he's up to something.

[FatR]

April 4-7, 1942

Old battleships bombarded Lunga and retreated without any interference. The landing at Ndeni proceeds now. So far there are no signs of detection.

I tried to raid the port of Rabaul with 4 squadrons of Marauders and one of Mitchels, without escort. Raid coordination was relatively good, but still, I lost a dozen of planes, and very few hits were scored.

On 6th a transport convoy appeared at Denpasar. Mini-KB covered it, and Zeros chewed up both my regular airfield strikes and Vildebeests that sortied against the ships. It looks like I'm completely out of Vildebeests. Good thing, now I already have first Beauforts. Bad thing, they failed to hit anything. But at least their threat probably served to discourage Mersing landing.

Louisisana is at Colombo and she cannot be completely repaired there. After readiness repairs she will be sent off map.

NY59Giants attempted to attack at Singapore once again, with even worse results. While his assaults dropped the forts from 5 to 3, total Japanese losses are over 18k of troops. Unfortunately, supply level in Singapore dropped in the red by now.

More troops seem to be moving to the north of Moulmein. Too bad, that 2 recently bought Chinese Divisions are already on the trains, heading for Pegu.

The real rate of repairs in ports with only auxilaries for repair duties seems to be far inferior to the rate the game shows you. A bunch of my subs at Midway and Townsville is stuck in repairs for almost a week now, even though most of them supposedly required only 2 days of repairs.

[FatR]

The statistics update for the fourth month of the war

I'm still ahead in VPs. This probably will change in a few days - Cagayan on Mindanao is completely surrounded and ready to fall, more troops are moving into Clark as well.

[FatR]

Detailed aircraft losses

A great month for Allies, thanks to Operation Breakwater, although the last two turns allowed Japanese to close the gap a bit. Very high Jap ops losses, even in Mavises that never participared in raids (don't even know where they encountered flak) make me think that NY59Giants drives his pilots too hard.

[FatR]

Pilot losses

Pilot losses jumped considerably, while still remaining tolerable and 27th RAF still is in the lead. Hurricanes clearly dominate the air combat early in the war. Just look how few aces fly other planes.

[FatR]

Allied ship losses.

The list includes all Allied ships with VP value > 10 lost to date. Despite the name of this AAR, air attacks and subs accounted for the vast majority of them.

[FatR]

Strategic map on 04/08/42

As can be seen here Northern Australia was overran with minimal resistance. In other regions, my positions hold fairly well to very well.