Thinz2 vs Zuluhour

[zuluhour]

She will only move from pierside to shipyard, the old lady is stuck!!

[ny59giants]

Calculate the risk. Sink his CVs now and remove KB from future planning or have to face them again later in the war. It's a tough call if it goes against you.

[DOCUP]

Ny59giants: nice thought.
 
Kurt: sorry about the Yorktown.  But good job hitting those CVs.  From what I see looks like 3 of them will probably sink in a day or two. 

[zuluhour]

February 8th 1944

SitRep: Combat detail to follow: map of current situation off Manus and Aitape:

[zuluhour]

Update:
BB, 2-CA, 3CL, and most likely more sighted at Ambon. This is Yamato. Musashi must still be in the yard from the two torp hits in the fall. Yamato and escorts are one day at flank from the north coast of Biak where it can try for the Aitape beach head, (transports weighed anchor last night and moved south along the coast), go for a mid ocean intercept on our CVs or hunt Yorktown (now at 2kn speed) or revenge attack the south coast of New Guinea. We are weighing this now. Our carriers are low on torpedos but have plenty of sorties left. The main TF group (north of Wasp on map) has 230 aircraft ready, Wasp a further 70, and the CVLs just to the west 148.

[zuluhour]

Update: High light reel: Manus is again hit at night by G4M1s from Truk, this time RNZAF is on CAP. The Bettys trade a plane and crew for an airfield hit. It's clear skies over the IJN SCTF headed to Aitape and Yorktown. 12 DBs with escort land 6 1000#ers on them. Smoke and fire can only help the follow up raids locate them. Heavies from Port Morseby arrive over Hollandia in numbers this morning. 120 Liberators arrive in three packages. Pilots report 163 base hits. In a stroke of luck we target Ambon for the first time as we notice a level 4 airfield and Koepang is no longer a threat to southern mist. We spot (we firmly believe) is Yamato and escorts. Only the airfields are the target but the intel is worth more than the 108 base hits. In late morning in light rain we find Kaga nnw. 30 DBs arrive with escorts and find no CAP. 12 1000#ers find their mark. Pilots claim Kaga sunk and 2 escorting DDs on fire with heavy damage. In the afternoon several more raids go in against the IJN SCTF off Aitape and rack up hits. two DDs are reported sunk, 2 more on fire with heavy damage, and Chikuma with heavy fires and heavy damage. News from Burma is positive also as we claim 500 IJA lives between Schwebo and Mandalay. Sweeps over Prome turn up nothing. In China the IJAF seeks revenge all along the Yangtze but casualties are very light.

[ny59giants]

Create some PT boats to put in the way. At least at Manus that you can send west during the night and return in the day. Its good to send in a small TK with the invasion to off load some fuel for them. Two TFs of 6 PT each should help. They may get lucky or at least cause the Japanese warships to expend valuable op points.

OT - in a short lived game, I sunk Yamato with just over 20x 1000 lbers from my SBDs off Suva. [:)]

[zuluhour]

Whoa, 10 tons of TNT to do her in. I have my orders out now and am in wait mode. The PTs are great idea; I would'ent mind having some forray to and from the Yorktown either as she gets closer. The fuel situation is not good, the Bunker Hill TF is at 30%. I have a sizeable fuel storage area at Suva, to far away, and some small reserves at Shortland (being used up quickly by AOs loading now). Theres only 6800pt or so aboard the AOs off Aitape left. I do have 100,ooo+ points on the way to Kavieng, some time out, and a CVE TF with around 50,ooo pts 48 hours out from Kavieng. I need to get much better at logistics should I ever do this again. It seems I am always 5-7 days behind with the fuel for the Ops. Landing fuel at the beach heads never occured to me. I will add this into Operation Thoroughbred. The scramble for for Op Thoroughbred now is getting transports back to the west coast to pick up needed base forces. Fuel at Pearl Harbor is over a 1,ooo,ooo pts as well as supply with tankers and AKs riding anchor waiting to unload to. The transport TFs with division sized elements hit Pearl the same week as 500,ooo pts of fuel and large supply TFs. It's Grand Central Station at rush hour there.

[zuluhour]

February 9th 1944

SwPac: No spots on the IJN today. Our CVTFs sailed 200nm to the NW hoping to get in one more strike but not so far as to bring the IJAF into the equation. We are running out of fuel and orders are to follow ASW assets to the SW before turning to the SE and port. Yorktown struggles to maintain two knots, we reroute her to Manus. The Yamato may be off Biak so we are still in some trouble. Two out of three of the battlewagons have or are limping into port. We pray for foul weather and one days head start to get under air cover from land based aircraft. The amphib TF to Aitape is further withdrawn into the Bismark Sea as an extra precaution. Our only combat at sea sees the CVs finishing the IJN SCTF off Aitape, one lone DD. I was wrong about the CVEs and oilers from Pearl on their ETA, they are 4-5 days out now. The raid on Truk today is another rough one. We are losing too many valuable Liberators. The airfield at Kavieng should go to 8 tomorrow and we can rethink our deployments. B24s from the south coast of New Guinea at Merauke are withdrawn to the continent as a precaution. Yamato has struck here as well as Darwin before. We leave Darwin's aircraft in place and bring another Dutch sub to patrol the harbor. Weak but the tactic has put three torps in Musashi before.

[zuluhour]

February 10th 1944

SwPac: There is only sub contacts. The group sized raid over Truk suffers at 19ooo' to Franks and Georges, we lose three for little gain. Shermans TFs make little progress and the hope is they make better time tomorrow and overnight. No sign of Yamato. Good news at Kavieng as a CVE TF did arrive yesterday with 28,ooo pts of fuel, I forgot there is more than one effort under way, plan B so to speak.

CBI: quiet as well as China. The IJN does get a tanker off Ceylon. We let our ASW guard down there as there has been little activity at Columbo not related to repairs. A solid CAP is on station though.

[zuluhour]

February 11th 1944

CenPac: Needed transports set sail for the west coast yesterday. First IJN sub in a long time spotted off San Fran. Base force units congregate and are issued orders for the Pacific. YorktownII gradually recovers in the yards. An ARD passes the halfway point to the forward areas as a second departs Pearl.

SwPac: It's a waiting game now. Ships are drying out all over the northern Solomons and New Ireland awaiting ARs, ARDs, and naval squads. Truk is the big tactical question now. We stand down raids until Kavieng's fields are fully developed and we can hit with three groups or more on opposing days. Liberators are staged to the rear so we can add extra fighter cover for the fleet. Aitape almost has a strip up. Fuel and supply convoys are on the way as well as units scheduled for OpThouroughbred. SouthernMist has turned to the northwest and is expected in Columbo in 26 days. IJN subs persist in patroling close to Manus, New Ireland, and New Britain. We score ASW a/c hits daily and ASW ships are hitting boats with increasing frequency as well. In order to make supply and reinforcement easier on the navy the reduction of Truk must take place in the next 45days. I don't believe it will be hard to keep down but it's fields must be closed. There will be 3-5 older BBs available soon as well as New Jersey and Iowa. It maybe the older ships stand off 10,ooo yds and pound the place the first day, followed by the fast BBs the second day, followed by back to back 100 plane heavy raids. Any thoughts? . The base is just to much astride future sea lanes to be ignored for much longer. I am unsure I want to commit carriers but if it has to be, so be it.

[ny59giants]

Truk - bomb from the air. I wouldn't go against any of the pre-war bases with large CD guns present from the sea. They may not be as nasty as Singapore or Bataan, but why do it??

OT - What is your situation in the Marshalls and Gilberts area?? Screenshots please!

[zuluhour]

Marshalls:

[zuluhour]

Gilberts:

[zuluhour]

Ref: above: no large troop concentrations revealed through recon and airfields are easily suppressed from Makin with navy B24s.

**There were only two combat actions today. A small Beaufighter raid on Schwebo and an ASW action off New Ireland**
**The only news: 72 hours till we have an open airstrip on Aitape, 10-12 days Kavieng will be fully developed for air Ops.**

[Alfred]

1. Having a standoff range of 10k yards is still quite close. I wouldn't bother relying on any bombardment contribution from the escort vessels and therefore would standoff at the extreme range of the rifles of the old BBs only, with escorts set to not bombard.

2. Better to not use the fast BBs to bombard. Instead keep them around as a dedicated surface TF able to intercept any sorties from the Yamato/Musashi against the bombardment TF.

3. With 3-5 old BBs available, you have enough to equip two bombardment TFs with them. Although I'm not certain that you get a better outcome from two smaller forces operating on consecutive days than if they are concentrated all in a single bombardment TF on a single day.

Of course you could always just scrub the mission.[:)]

[zuluhour]

Zulu HQ respects the imput above. The BB raid is shelved for the time being. Looking at a "shoestring" Op to take an island or atoll to launch sweeps from looks iffy to. Even the P38s would need to strap on tanks for the runs to the island. Fearing high pilot losses to the Georges and Franks again, we are going to try a large 4E raid when Kavieng reaches level nine. This should be about a week. Supply at Kavieng is approaching 100,ooo pts with another 65,ooo at Namatanai. Another 100,ooo is at sea passing south of the Gilberts. The last couple of days are composed of allied ASW and an IJAF effort against the Yellow River mountain pass, Changsha, and the Yangtze River salient. Very few Chinese have suffered under the 50+ twin engine raids. In Burma we should see our infiltrating forces begin long treks to their jump off points in the spring in about two weeks. In SwPac we have so many ships pierside and at ready making repairs its doubtful any offensive TFs will weigh anchor for the next ten days. Enterprise will arrive at Balboa very shortly. At Aden we await the arrival of the B29s. We will begin to rearrange ground support in the coming weeks. On the west coast support elements for Thoroughbred load transports.

[zuluhour]

**News Flash**

I-45 reported sunk after oil and debris appear on the surface. 4 large hits among numerous smaller hits heard by hydrophone. She was attacking our ARD closing New Ireland. Fresh escorts ordered to her.

Kavieng at 49% (AF)(now at 8).

Aitape has fighter CAP.

5 Divisions on new Ireland with two more on Shortland.

[zuluhour]

**News Flash**

Only combat of the day: I-165 takes multiple hits trying to intercept convoys into Kavieng.

Support ships leave for SwPac from CenPac. No further movement spotted in China. Burma: quiet. New airstrip spotted less than 100mi up the coast from Aitape. Two squadrons of Liberators sent with a load of TNT as a welcoming party. Kavieng aerodrome at 59% 8(6). Well over 600 engineers on the project and will switch to enlarging the port after the airfield is completed. They will begin to get new orders for Thoroughbred soon. Some squadrons refitting with P38j models. Enterprise is one day away from the Panama Canal.

[zuluhour]

Submarines begin to deploy at Thoroughbred: