Guad Mod - AE Scenario 4 - AAR - No Nik

[jwilkerson]

Background:
Back in early 2007, I joined Nik as the "Beta" team for his Guadalcanal Scenario for "NikMod" with the stock game engine. After about six months of play testing we released the scenario and then Nik started working on porting the scenario over to AE.

The design goal of this scenario is to put the player in the role of theater commander - and present the problems to the player that the real theater commanders had.

First and foremost is logistics. In Nik's GuadMod scenario, you will wonder "where is all my supply"? where is my "fuel"? How can I do anything with no supply or no fuel? In stock and in AE it is possible to stockpile large amounts of fuel and supply as you prepare to operate in a given area. Players (who plan ahead) rarely find themselves operating on a shoestring. In the real war - the Americans and Japanese in the South Pacific could not direct their bosses to send them everything they needed - they had make do with what they had.

But the player will find shortages of everything: Aircraft, engineers, transport ships. All the things the players wants most, will be in short supply!

So, if fighting a campaign under (simulated) realistic conditions sounds like your cup of tea - then the Guadalcanal Scenario will be for you. A six month campaign - long enough to require planning as well as execution - but not so long that your kids will grow up while you are playing it!

Japanese Plan:
I have not played the AE version of this scenario in over a year - and I understand much has changed since then - so I am the equivalent of a newly assigned Commander who is comming from far away - let's say I've been reassigned from Central Mongolia where I was in charge of the rivervine forces there - now I'm running the SE Pacific Area. The Army units assigned to my command are attacking across the Owen Stanley from Buna towards Port Morseby and my naval engineers are completing an airfield at Lunga.

We know we have a supply shortage - and we know our predecessor dropped a fairly large quantity of supplies on Ponape (9,000 supply) so one of our early missions will be to send some ships over to pick up that supply.

We also would like to build an airbase at Shortlands to provide a way station for aircraft staging back and forth between Lunga and Rabaul - so we will send an engineer unit from Rabaul to Shortlands.

The Navy will plan an amphibious operation against Milne Bay, so we will begin planning for that. Also we will assign some of our cruisers to bombard the Allied installations there.

The Navy has a few (6) A6M at Lae - they will fly some ground support missions in support of the Army's attack across the Owen Stanley.

We have three minelaying submarines - with mines aboard at Rabaul - so we will send one to Milne Bay, to lay an offensive minefield, one to Lunga to lay a defensive field and the third to Luganville at Espiritu Santos to lay an offensive field. We have two R-boats in the Coral Sea - one will patrol in the Triangle Cooktown, Milne Bay, Port Morseby and the other will patrol a triangle Townsville, Newcastle, Great Barrier Reef.

And here is a pic of the Army Brigrade which is advancing across the Owen Stanley.

[Grotius]

I look forward to reading more!

[thegreatwent]

Subscribed. I wonder if using the A6M as ground attack is really their forte. I look forward to the results.

[Alikchi2]

I really loved the WitP version of this scenario, eager to see how it plays out in the new format.

[RevRick]

I liked the 42B scenario. Begin with Guadalcanal as a campaign game. I guess it's because the old man was there.

[RevRick]

Actually, the real reason I want a Guadalcanal Campaign game start is so that I mod back in the ships lost at Coral Sea and Midway and have one gihumongous whangdoodle of a donnybrook sometime in 1943 or so.

[Flying Tiger]

sounds great. I'm in.
 
Gotta say it again.... LOVE the new map!! Well done to all involved.

[IndyShark]

I second that. The new map is great.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: thegreatwent

Subscribed. I wonder if using the A6M as ground attack is really their forte. I look forward to the results.

hehe - of course - but the theme of this scenario is - "we fights wid what we gots" !!! [:D]

ORIGINAL: RevRick

I liked the 42B scenario. Begin with Guadalcanal as a campaign game. I guess it's because the old man was there.

Er, well this is not the full war starting in August 42, this is the Guadalcanal campaign only - partial map - ends in Feb 43. Kinda like the AE version of UV!

[jwilkerson]

One of the first difficulties a Japanese player faces in this scenario is deciding which way to go. To prioritize the Solomons or Papua. The base definitions in the Guadalcanal scenario are much reduced to further emphasize the difficulties the historical commanders faced. Here is an overview of the bases from the Japanese perspective.

[jwilkerson]

And here is a slightly more comprehensive list. Basically all the other bases in the area are 0(0) 0(0). Other than a very few engineer squads in some of the base forces - the Japanese start with eight construction engineer units - one at Tulagi - two at Lunga - these of course will be either destroyed or heavily damaged by the American landings - so I write them off. So there are five construction engineers that I will actually be able to use - one of these is a Buna - and due to the difficulty of moving supply there - it will actually probably be best to try to extract the unit there and move it elsewhere. And there is one unit at Rabaul - and three at Truk. So planning out where to send these construction units is one of the first and most important decisions I will have to make.

[Fallschirmjager]

Cool scenario, but I wish the time frame was longer. What I really want in a WitP scenarion exactly like the ones found in UV. That run from spring 1942 to Dec 31st 1943

[jwilkerson]

6-7 August 1942

Solomons
American carrier aircraft conduct strikes against Lunga - hitting the construction engineers - causing moderate casualties and also against our forces on Tulagi causing horrendous casualties.

Papua
Many enemy air bombing sorties against our attacking troops in the Owen Stanley - our attack fails causing 1066 casualties on our side to an estimated 298 casualties on the enemy side. Our supporting zeros lose one of their number to defending P40s over the mountains.

Our cruisers bombard Milne bay and cause light damage to the facilities.

Plans
We will followup with a full airstrike from Rabaul against Milne Bay. We will send 18 A6M2 on a sweep at 11,000 followed (hopefully) by 15 A6M3 escorting 32 G4M bombing the airfield - all at 11,000 feet.
Our remaining 5 A6M2 at Lae will fly a diversionary sweep over Port Moresby.

We will send 4 submarines on patrol from Truk to the areas around New Caledonia and Espiritu Santos - into the rear area where the American carriers are based.

[IndyShark]

Great screen shot. Too bad we didn't have any PT boats there to welcome Chokai

[cantona2]

Thanks for this AAR. Already sat here waiting for update!

[jwilkerson]

Operations
With some degree of hindsite (meaning we assume the Americans will capture Lunga and Tulagi) we planning our "major op" during the scenario to be the invasion of Milne Bay. In terms of victory conditions this base will not buy us much - but it is about the only place other than Port Morseby or Lunga which is even an option to attack. Assuming Lunga and Port Morseby are too strong - we wind up with Milne Bay as the only other choice. But potentially also - an operation against Milne Bay might generate some surprise and cause the enemy to make a mis-step in their own plans.
At the same time - we will have to continue with credible threats to both PM and Lunga else the enemy guess our intentions.
We will try to build up airbases at Shortlands, Gasmata and Finschhafen, ideally we will try to put two construction engineers at each base, but we only have 4 free and the start of the scenario so this one will move to Shortlands. We must keep a credible threat alive at Tassarafaronga as long as possible - and this means getting supply there - which will be very tough with no barges (see below).

Tactics

Air Units
We intend to use the Betty's in the Naval Strike Role - we hope to avoid using them to strike land targets - though on rare occasions we may use them to strike Milne Bay. For most of the game we expect to restrict the Betty's based at Rabaul to flying at a range which is less than the range to Lunga because actually - we do not wish the Betty's to attack the enemy carriers except in the rare case of a coordinated attack with the carriers. So the Betty's will be standing by to attack enemy shipping which comes nearer to Rabaul than Lunga - but usually not out beyond that range.
We will use the A6M2 as long range escorts - and the A6M3 to defend our bases.
The Mavis and Emily will be used as long range supply transports - mostly to move supply to Lunga. When our carriers are near the enemy - we will switch the Mavis/Emily to naval search missions in support of the carriers.
The land based Vals will be used for ASW patrol around Truk.
Most of the other aircraft will remain at Truk to avoid spending supply in the forward areas.

Ships

The Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships and Carriers will be used to form the carrier force.
The smaller escorts will be used for ASW protection of convoys.
The destroyer transports will be used for high speed supply runs to forward bases like Lunga, Shortlands, Buna and Lae.
In this scenario, it looks like the Japanese barges have a range of only 60 nm, and hence I do not plan to use them.
Submarines will be used to interdict enemy shipping heading towards Papua and the lower Solomons and if things get desperate enough to carry supplies to forward bases.

Carrier Tactics
We will plan to use the carriers in single carrier task forces and mass the carrier task forces together. We do this because we do not think we have enough defensive power to stop an American strike (if we did we would go with one big powerful TF) and so we must use a defensive split to try to present multiple targets - understanding we will loose some carriers in a battle but hopefully not all of them. We will pair up one BB with each carrier if possible - which should divert some attention from the carriers. The cruisers and destroyers will be spread around evenly to provide what protection they can.
As to the fighter percentage to use - I'm not sure. In stock I had evolved to a very standard 70% for carrier battles. With a large number of fighters, the 70% could provide an "uber cap" (70-100 fighters) while still allowing enough escort fighters to get the bombers through. In AE your defensive fighters cannot generate an uber cap - and hence may be best used as escorts. I've mostly used a 50/50 ratio in AE and will probably continue that in this scenario.
The carrier bombers will be at range 6 - this is normal range for the Vals. I will not plan to use any carrier bombers for search because I believe between the submarines, the Mavis/Emily, and the float planes aboard the fleet we should have enough search. The Japanese also get a large number of landbased float planes in this scenario.
We will plan to hover either North of Lunga as was done historically - or also in the Coral Sea maybe WNW of Shortlands. The second location will give us better coverage by Rabaul - and also allow us to support operations against Papua - but will have the detriment of making it easier to see us. Probably showing ourselves in both locations will be good as this will keep the enemy guessing.
In this scenario there is not enough fuel to remain on station for very long - so we will need to time our sorties in conjunction with trying to accomplish something. Comming out when the enemy carriers have to go back to port is one idea - then we might be able to ambush some enemy supply ships. And of course we would want to come out to support our landing at Milne Bay.
Having the fleet remain in being will of course keep the enemy "honest" but IIRC all the Americans have to do to win decisively is take and hold Lunga - and our carriers cannot do much about that - so we are best off looking for opporunities to capitalize on mistakes - but otherwise hanging back and remaining in existence.

[jwilkerson]

8-9 August 1942

Solomons
American Carrier strikes on Lunga and Tulagi continue to inflict heavy losses on our defenders. The US Marines have also begun to unload. Mavis' flew supply to Tassaraforaga but lost 2 Mavis to attrition.

Papua
Our air strikes on Milne Bay are executed flawless though little damage in inflicted. We lose one A6M2 of the sweeping force in exchange for 3 Kittyhawk I defenders - but our following escorts and bombers flew through skies clear of defenders.

Over Port Morseby the opposition is tougher and we loose 3 A6M2 to the enemy 2 P39 and 1 KittyHawk.

The enemy continued pounding our Army forces in the Owen Stanley with tactical strikes.

Our light forces completed a fast transport mission to Finschhaven, deliverying 650 supply points.

Plans
We formed our first supply convoy at Truk to make a delivery to Rabaul. The convoy has 3 PB escorts, 2x3000 Supply Point AK and 1 1500 Fuel Point Tanker.
Another convoy of 2 AKL and 3 escorts is loading 1500 supply at Ponape to move to Shortlands - and a second convoy is forming to repeat this mission.
Another fast transport force will sortie from Rabaul to Shortlands.
One of our submarines laid an offensive minefield at Milne Bay, another will attempt to lay a field a Lunga and a third is enroute to Luganville.
Two R-boats formed a resupply convoy to Tassarafaranga - given the losses of Mavis to attrition over the past two days - it does not look like sending supplipes by flying boat will be effective - so we must use some submarines.

Here is a shot of one of our sweeps going in to Milne Bay.

[jwilkerson]

8-9 August 1942

And here is one of the strike missions going in.

[Grotius]

I love that the airstrike arrows are now just vectors. A big improvement.

So do you have any hope of getting across the Owen Stanley Range on foot?

[jwilkerson]

The last time I played the scenario - if the Japanese attacked on turn one they booted the Aussies out - but looks like the "30 Bde" has been strengthened - and given all the Allied planes in the area - I'm not too hopeful. But we must keep up the threat!