Northern Australia Plan

[Hartmann]

Ok, so it is crystal clear now:

If you have taken PM as the Japanese and want to take on Australia before the winter, then Townsville is definitely out of the question. There is no beachhex nearby where to unload. Unloading directly into the port is suicide. Though knowing better, I tried it and got wiped out while unloading. Recon may have it that there are only engineer units, but don´t ever be fooled by that.

Pays off that I brought more than one huge invasion force with me.
After having been thwarted at Townsville, I took Cooktown and Cairns simultaneously. That´s the way to do it in the first place. These cities are comparatively lightly defended and have beach hexes where you can unload safely. Beware, there will be HEAVY airattacks from Townsville, Cooktown and Cairns, though, and you can only bombard one airbase with bombers from PM, and one with a bombarding TF. Prepare for losses. Send your CVs to give longrange CAP to the APs.

Followup problem in this setting is that after you have taken Cooktown and Cairns, you have to use trailhexes to get to the road to Townsville. I´m not that far yet, but the danger is that your troops will be exhausted when reaching Townsville finally. I´m not sure whether it is at all doable. A kingdom for a beachhex near Townsville!

Hartmann

[von Murrin]

Very interesting. I'll have to keep that in mind for future games.

[brisd]

Good job! Thanks for the report, your "recon in force" will save many Imperial troops in future campaigns. I am curious as to your current game date?

[Hartmann]

Current date is October 27, 1942. I could have been faster, but I wasted time building up Irau.

Cooktown and Cairns are secure, but I somehow forgot to bring aviation support, so I get pounded from Townsville like hell and can´t do much about it at the moment except attacking Townsville airfield from PM. But this is more costly to me than to the AI regarding numbers of planes lost. In this operation, I lost the biggest amount of transports until now in one go: 8 APs.

I noticed that as soon as you attack somewhere, the AI tries to beef the base and the bases in the vicinity up with airplanes massively. That´s why I now say: things have to go faster in Northern Australia, so it is ok to unload directly in the ports of Cairns and Cooktown in Hindsight (because nothing much is there to shockattack you).

I´m pretty sure now that the Australia option is more difficult as the Luganville option because of the many enemy bases in the vicinity, and especially the ammassed LBA. The number of troops in Townsville is at least 70k. I would not even dream of pulling this off against a human player, that´s for sure. He even now could easily starve me by interdicting my supply lines to Australia.

But, the hell: we´re experimenting!

Hartmann

[brisd]

Hartman - I think Australia would be harder because of both the number of LBA and the large number of land units. It is best just to fortify PM and Gili Gili and throw your weight at the east side, at least that seems the strategy with best chance of success. I do think a good Japanese player can beat a human in scenario 17 at historical settings but time will tell.

My recon of New Cal shows only Noumea held by infantry and the other lovely 9air/9port bases just sitting there nearly empty of aircraft or troops? What does the computer do with all those reinforcements? Noumea must look like Manhattan population-wise . In my game it is now 11/12/42 and a week ago the LBA in Australia came back from their gamelong southern vacation and now swarms of medium and heavy bombers are hitting PM. I have neglected the air defences there somewhat but it does have the strongest AA forces and I am adding to the fighter units. I have loaded my first tf with the brand new 6th division headed south from Truk to New Cal and hope to be landing troops in a week.

The most excitement I had was when the San Fransciso, Northhampton and DD's got homesick for Lunga and paid a visit. Unfortunately I had no surface TF there and it looked like I was going to pay dearly as I had about 20 AP's docked there! BUT the AP's DD escorts were very courageous and not one AP was sunk. All my DD's were sunks but I got the SF with Nell's on the way out, those torps do a number! Then Chicago and Nashville with Northhampton sortied and sailed to Lungaville and fought the Mogami. a CL and DD's. That Nashville can really dish it out but I did sink her and lost the CL. Then that bug I reported over on the Bug Board showed up (AI stealing my ships). I am going back for a few more days of fun before bed.

[Hartmann]

Good job! I now try to get AA and aviation support to Cairns - this town gets pounded like hell, even during the night turns! The damage to port and airfield is over 60% already. Cooktown is relatively save, though, even if only because they concentrate on Cairns. I have some aviation support in Cooktown, which lets me provide longrange CAP for Cairns, but my Zeros are no match for the masses of planes the AI can throw at me.

On a side note: the AI has laid a mine at the hex of ..... TRUK! I lost a PC because of this impudent action.

The AI seems not to send big ships to Northern Australia ... just AKs and APs. Either it is hardcoded to concentrate on the Lunga region with this, or it is confident that I can´t do anything more up there. I also wonder why the AI does not just set the HUGE army in Townsville in motion - I could only hold out if I brought reinforcements, which would be costly because of the LBA. And the first P38 have arrived, too ....
I have the weird problem of having too much supplies in Australia. I have to figure out how to get rid of it until January.

And I´m also not sure how to proceed in general now ... should I maybe also go for Luganville now? (Of course, from a strategical point of view, I should have done this anyway. Otoh, I think that taking Northern Australia gets more and more difficult the longer one waits.)

Hartmann

[brisd]

Sounds like you have your hands full. I looked at the northern Australia map and see there are only TWO beach hexes. So your options are limited as you noted. But taking those two bases is an accomplishment but against human it would be painful but doeable. Townsville and southward seems unlikely, eh?

I decided to utilize my Betty's that have spent most of the time gathering dust. I managed to get every Betty on the map to attack Cookstown with 2 Zero and 1 Oscar squadron as escort. I realized from start that I would probably get my clock cleaned with so little fighter support but I was trying to provide relief for PM's airfield and keep the AI from transferring any air assets to New Caledonia to oppose my invasion there. The first few days I had light losses and did a little damage but the last turn 30 Zeros and 100 Betty's were opposed by about 90 allied fighters. It wasn't pretty, I will be ceasing those operations till I can get more fighter support. I am beginning to pay for neglecting Gili Gili's airfield - PM is a 6 but with mess with the constant pounding.

My invasion of New Caledonia has commenced. Koumac fell to the Yokosuka SNLF (engineers only defending). I have three divisions in transports and attempted to shut down air ops at Noumea, which appears to be only active airbase in the region. For some reason, Yamaguchi and Nagumo have not followed orders and have not launched airstrikes at Noumea despite being in range for three days. Meanwhile a force of 30 fighters, 10 medium and 75! Dauntlesses attacked my CV's. This was after TWO bombardment forces of 7 BB's and escorts pounded the airfields. Not easy to knock out a big airbase it seems. I held my breath but my CAP did well and disrupted their attacks, I suffered TWO 500 lb bombs hits to Soryu, which limped off to Lungaville to lick her wounds as she couldn't operate her planes.

Then the next turn it was the CVE's turn, proving close cover for my AP's. About the same size strike hit her, overwelming the defenses. I hit the DONE button because I couldn't watch the slaughter. Turns out her air group relocated to Port Villa and she was still afloat the next day, the most damage I have ever seen a ship take and stay afloat (96 system. 97 float, 45 fires); I scuttled her to save a few points as she was not going to make safe harbor. Several of my AP's have taken severe damage as well. One reason I think my air assets have not been effective is the weather has been bad during the invasion. Of course a few times Noumea didn't put out a strike as well so it evens out.

This coming turn I face a choice: try a direct assault of Noumea or land my troops on the beach two hexes north. I am not sure I will be able to march the distance before the game ends with AV, but I will try that approach. After game is done I will reload this turn and replay to do a direct assault against Noumea.

Lessons learned so far? It will take a concentrated air assault on New Caledonia to knock it out vs a human player of skill, if possible at all. If all four air bases on New Caledonia are utilized by Allies, it would seem an almost impossible task. The IJN should take Lungaville and secure with max forces. Leave New Cal alone!

[Hartmann]

One pattern I found is that we can airbomb almost any base one or two times with ok odds, but then the AI rotates too many bombers and fighters in. Also, the CVs with CAP in the 70/80% may repell the LBAs completely for a few times, but then suddenly the effects of fatigue kick in ... so one should definitely not loiter in any given LBA area for very long.

That the AI tries to send its a/c to where the action is is a good move on its part, but it can be exploited, too. I more or less accidentally did, I think when taking Cairns and Cooktown. I attacked these places with Bettys and Nells from PM, and I *think* they continued to stack a/c there even when I was just about to take those cities. But even if I may have destroyed many planes this way, it surely did not help in the end. They just seem to have endless reserves.

If this was a real war for Australia, then my only chance of winning it now would be to go for broke and try a last major effort to take Townsville with anything I can muster. But transporting the troops to Cairns, and then walking the guys all the way to Townsville may very well result in too much fatigue (despite the roads). Maybe the recently debated trick to let all the APs stop one hex short of the port before entering next turn will help to get enough troops ashore in one go to survive the initial shockattack? I don't know. Also the APs will then suffer heavily from LBA this turn.

At the moment, I'm thinking of freezing the game until the patch is out because I seem unable to get rid of my excess supplies in time! Darn autovictory! (I would have to send in a whole bunch of valuable APs just to take the supplies away.)

Hartmann

[brisd]

I don't have a big problem with the game ending Jan 1 1943 as I have tested many of the strategies I wanted to in this scenario. The Noumea conquest is the next phase. That stopping one hex away from invasion site seems a viable strategy but the losses I will be dreading. I still am being surprised by the AI even at this stage of the game and in hindsight there are many mistakes I made but the AI did much worse of course. Management of supplies and engineers is crutial and easy to mismanage. The overall strength of the Japanese OOB and the AI's agressive tactics have sealed this victory in July. It is apparant that in Nov 42 the Allied LBA gets very powerful and the scale begins to tip their way. I plan on playing this or similar campaign scenario as Allies, mostly to gain Intel and tactics when I am serving the Emperor.

[brisd]

Amazing how 50 Wildcats, 80 Dauntlesses and 30 Avengers can ruin your whole war! During my invasion of Noumea my carriers finally sent in their airstrikes, unfortunately the escort was overwelmed by at least 80 USN fighters. That day I lost 65 aircraft vs 10 to the enemy, including most of my carrier based Vals (and there are none in replacement pool). The damage to the Noumea airfield was minimal and then disaster struck when the Hiryu was severely damaged by the return strike (it could have been MUCH worse). Then I learned some valuable tactical lessons concerning leaving your TF's "on-station": it appears my two battleship TF's ran out of AA ammo(!) and the same tactical air out of Noumea punished them severely. Musashi and Nagato were heavily damaged, with Mutsu also hurt. I think all three will make it back to Lungaville harbor. Despite six major bombardments from ALL my combatants including 7 BB's, the airfield is fully operational and enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground minimal.

Then there was the transport fleet - when invaded an enemy held base, make sure to bring some MINESWEEPERS! At least 20 AP's hit mines over the past two days and that has caused more damage than the air attacks! Very realistic historically and a good lesson to remind me in future games.

About 20000 infantry offloaded in first day and were hit by a 2 to 1 deliberate attack which killed about half them. There are 110000 allied troops there and entrenched to level 9. So I am considering withdrawling my troops and let the computer have his base, it is a fortress that will take many weeks to conquer.
Due to my AP losses I think major reinforcement of my troops is problematic and I think it is time to cut the losses and run as there are two weeks left in game before AV.

I may replay from earlier turns adding in some minesweepers and landing on the beach hex as originally planned. But until that LBA at Noumea is neutralized (unlikely), its conquest is near impossible with its current garrison. Plus it has unlimited supply and troops and ships "magically" appear there. Despite my mismangement of the invasion, my lead is still 10000 points and Lungaville and Port Vila are fairly won.

[Hartmann]

Yeah, all this is right on target. And I feel your pain.

I always have minesweepers (usually more than one) going with every one of my invasion TFs.

The AA ammo is a really important issue, also for the CV TFs. Add the fatigue effect of constant CAP and it becomes clear that two turns within heavy LBA is max, even with a real big CV force.
And I was always preaching about the "being attacked while still unloading thing". I guess everyone who had the unlucky dice rolls once, never does that again except against a really minor force.

In that other thread in the AAR section by silkworm, I have posted about how the AI seems to handle reinforcement of forward bases. It seems like it always tries to stack units like hell in the forward bases, especially once they get attacked. That's why I think that it may be easier to take a major base in the second line at times. This was not possible in your case, though - as Lunga, and Luganville where already gone, he stacked units on Noumea.

When your game is through I would be interested in how many troops were stationed in Townsville. If there were comparatively few (1100 assault in my game), then the best strategy probably is to "change fronts" after a major invasion success in one corner of the theater.

Hartmann

[silkworm]

Hey Hartmann, I think if you occupy Innisfail, the beach next to Cairns, and put supply there, that would put the entire road to Townsville in supply. You can then land in the road hex two hexes northwest of Townsville (8,61) and march over. On one of my PM attempts I parked my transports on patrol in a coastal hex (10,41 believe it or not), and my troops started going on shore. I had no way to move them however since there was no destination that could have been considered in supply!

[silkworm]

An even more effective tactic might be to take Rockhampton and starve Townsville.

[silkworm]

, where is an effect induced by starvation

[Hartmann]

I already own Cairns, so there should be no need to occupy that beach.

IIRC we can't land on a no-beach/port hex at all! At least I tried once and the transports just didn't comply.

Because of what the AI does - pumping everything into the forward bases, it would indeed be the best idea to take Rockhampton (even Brisbane would be possible).

But it feels like cheating/exploiting to me (especially now that I have officially ended my game and already loaded the scenario from the Allied side. ).

Hartmann

Edit: I see we have moved to the war room ... that's nice.

[brisd]

Hartman - I plan to look at five or six saved files of the game and see what the AI was up to as the Allies.

I suppose I had "victory disease" and thought my forces invincible. My domination of PM, Lunga, and Lungaville with primarily carrier based air gave me an inaccurate belief in the Noumea's operation's success. My recon showed the LBA to be numerous but I choose to go ahead to see what would happen. I am glad the debacle occured as it shows that the AI is capable of defending itself under certain conditions and it gave me a sense of what an hotly opposed invasion would face and how long to keep TF's on station. Now, I plan to extract the troops landed and damaged ships without losing them all. I would not have done such a risky operation against a human. In hindsight I should have left Port Vila open for him to reinforce and picked off his transports full of troops? It is hard to second guess your plans in an attempt to "prevent" AV!

One reason I lost the air-battle at Noumea was I kept my CV CAP at 60%. Victory point wise it was probably the correct decision as losing a CV is very costly. As it was the third day of battle after nearly sinking three of my BB's with no loss (no AA ammo!), the same 80 fighters/110 bombers hit my CV's (at six hexes!) with 50 fighter CAP. After shooting down maybe 10% of them, I closed my eyes expecting all five CV's to be flaming wrecks. I was LUCKY to get one heavily damaged and one lightly damaged. The fighters (Wildcats, P-39's, P-40's) at Noumea not only were numerous, they were very very good. It was first time I saw 55 of 70 bombers shot down in one combat round at almost no cost to the attacking fighters. I think I will call this episode:
The Noumea Turkey Shoot!

[silkworm]

brisd -- now it seems I got lucky with my timing. I invaded before his land based Dauntlesses arrived in force -- he actually kept some squadrons uselessly in Lugaville. Like you, I couldn't keep the airfield suppressed with my entire navy bombarding. Thankfully his LB attacks were meek and ineffective.

Against a human opponent, my objective after Lunga would have been to advance the destruction of his navy. For this I would have gone after Lungaville under escorted LBA cover. With Lungaville in my hands I'd take my time wearing out his forces operating out of Noumea.

[brisd]

Last night I finished the Scenario 17 campaign I've been referring to. There was no victory screen, just ended on 1/2/43 and popped into scenario/save game selection screen. My final victory total was something like 16000 to 6000, I held all bases except Australia mainland. Noumea and the little base just southeast of it. I looked at some of the same game files and will post more tonight on this thread when I am home. It was too late last night when I finished but I will give the Imperial High Command a DETAILED Intel report then.

[brisd]

Hartman - if there is any particular intel you would like from my replays let me know and I will post them here. From what I could tell here was AI's forces first week of DEC42:

Cooktown, 4 Divisions (7500 infantry) and 300+ aircraft. Townsville, 9500 Infantry and 200 air. Other Aussie cities had original defense brigade and minor air. On Noumea, I faced over 400 aircraft including 120 divebombers, 30 torpedo bombers. 50 level bombers and over 200 fighters, mostly F4F. The 1st AND 2nd Marine Divisions and the rebuilding Americal (which surrendered at Tassafargona in July) faced my invasion in Dec 42. Not much chance of success there.

If I had landed at Cairns or beach south of Cooktown, I would have faced only 1500 infantry at former (60 aircraft) and cut off the majority of their troops at Cooktown. So your comment about the AI concentrating its forces in forward "jump-off
" bases and ignoring defense of its rear is right on. Noumea, Cooktown and Townsville were strongest concentrations on map.
Eitherway AV was assured with holding Lungaville, it would only be playing into the Allies hands to attack them on ground (sea?!) of their own choosing.

Further game play awaits the patch! The mine warfare and ship to ship combat really need patching and I won't play till they are fixed. :p

[Hartmann]

Oops, I somehow had missed your last post, brisd. Thanks for the intelligence report, very instructive.

I have something to tell, too. After the patch came out, I spontaneously decided to continue my game (mainly because I could now play on due to the new autovictory conditions), and what a game it suddenly has become!

First of all, I lost about a dozen ships to my own mines ... *gasp*! In the end, I decided to sweep them all, except those in shallow water (the effect of "offensive mines" to friendly ships seems to be totally out of whack). But I had to even clear a minefield in shallow water South of Rabaul because every TF going through this hex hit a mine.

Secondly, and this is the good news, the AI woke up! They suddenly landed at Cairns and even took the city back from me! I´m now hardpressed to not loose Cooktown. Of course, I´m now thinking of taking a rear-city like Brisbane or Rockhampton in revenge rather than Cairns - not sure yet.
The AI surprised me with another landing at Dobradura (the beach near Buna)! Alas, this was too cocky, of course, - I sank all the transports. His troops are at the beach, though, but only partly. I will probably wait and see what he does before snuffing him out. Maybe I can sink another couple of ships when he tries to supply his troops here in the middle of *my* realm. Btw: while the AI protected the transports at Cairns with at least PCs and Subchasers, the transports to Dobradura went totally unprotected.

Still, I´m happy that the AI seems to play more aggressive now, and I´m actually looking forward to play that game a bit further.

Hartmann