Concerning Naval Bombardments

[Mike Scholl]

Shortly before midnight of 13 October, a Japanese naval force which included the battleships Haruna and Kongo sailed unchallenged into Sealark Channel. While a cruiser plane illuminated the target area by dropping flares, the task force bombarded the airfield for eighty minutes, the heaviest shelling of the campaign. The.battleships fired 918 rounds Of 360-mm. ammunition, of which 625 were armor-piercing and 293 high explosive. They covered the field systematically. Explosions and burning gasoline lit the night brightly. In the words of a Japanese report, "explosions were seen everywhere, and the entire airfield was a sea of flame."42 Forty-one men were killed, and many aircraft damaged. When the shelling had ceased, enemy bombers raided the airfield intermittently until daylight. On 14 October only forty-two planes would fly—seven SBD's, twenty-nine F4F's, four P-400's and two P-39's.43 An American report states:
When the men could finally come from their foxholes and survey the damage they knew what had hit them. They found jagged noses of shells measuring 14 inches in diameter—the shells from battleships' guns—and smaller pieces of shrapnel [sic]. Bits of clothing and equipment were hanging from telephone wires.
The field itself was in shambles.... The 67th [Fighter Squadron] was fortunate-only two P-39's were damaged, and, miraculously, not one of the old P-400's was hit.44
The next morning a few B-17's which had been operating temporarily from Henderson Field took off safely from the 2,000 feet of usable runway to return to Espiritu Santo.45 The bombardments had rendered the airfield unusable as a base for heavy bombers. Moreover the presence of Japanese aircraft and warships over and in Sealark Channel prevented cargo ships from bringing in fuel, so that the perpetual shortage of aviation gasoline on Guadalcanal had now become more acute. As a result B-17's could no longer be staged through Henderson Field.


The above is the recipient's description of THE BOMBARDMENT! The ONE that serves as the template for ALL Naval Bombardments in WITP. TF runs in at night, shoots for a bit over an hour, and then runs out under cover of darkness. Leaves Henderson Field and the Cactus Air Force "banged up"..., but please note that while the airfield and the A/C and 41 field service personell were hit, there is no damage mentioned to ships anchored off the island, or to ground troops, or to anything else. It was an "Air Field attack", pure and simple. No generalized devestation of everything in the hex! Naval bombardments in the game are FAR to effective and damaging---and one good reason is because they attack EVERYTHING!
Obviously the above shows that wasn't the case. So way aren't Naval Bombardments forced to choose a target like air bombardments do? It would certainly bring what could be accomplished in an hour long "shoot and scoot" more into line with historical reality.

[anarchyintheuk]

For shoot and scoot (nighttime) missions, I'd agree. They just didn't have the time and/or recon ability to effectively engage LCUs, although there could be some morale effects. Daytime bombardments were done more leisurely and they usually underperformed compared to expectations.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
snip...

The above is the recipient's description of THE BOMBARDMENT! The ONE that serves as the template for ALL Naval Bombardments in WITP. TF runs in at night, shoots for a bit over an hour, and then runs out under cover of darkness. Leaves Henderson Field and the Cactus Air Force "banged up"..., but please note that while the airfield and the A/C and 41 field service personell were hit, there is no damage mentioned to ships anchored off the island, or to ground troops, or to anything else. It was an "Air Field attack", pure and simple. No generalized devestation of everything in the hex! Naval bombardments in the game are FAR to effective and damaging---and one good reason is because they attack EVERYTHING!
Obviously the above shows that wasn't the case. So way aren't Naval Bombardments forced to choose a target like air bombardments do? It would certainly bring what could be accomplished in an hour long "shoot and scoot" more into line with historical reality.

Mike, you are right on the money.
I have no idea if there will ever be another patch released, but if there is - hopefully they may address this with a choice menu as you suggest ...couldn't be too hard to do since they already have that mechanism.

By the way, don't forget the pasting we gave Tarawa before we landed, nonstop surface bombardment and air bombardment for ? what? 24 hours? Or was it several days - I really can't remember off the top of my head, but I know it was significantly less than we did thereafter.
Anyway, we gave it the works far more than "The Bombardment" from Guadalcanal, and the damage was mostly superficial as the Marines found out.....so YES naval bombardment in WitP should be adjusted.[:D]

[Ron Saueracker]

It obviously needs toning down by several orders of magnitude for the simple reason that a year after release, players use battleships/bombardment missions as strategic weapons/viable strategy when this was impossible IRL. When a game design distorts the reality to this degree SOMETHING IS OFF.

[String]

Bah.. there wasa test conducted some time ago that showed quite nicely that the bombardments had little effect on ground combat troops in the hex. Naval bombardment is basically a combined airfield/port attack. Airifield for reasons stated in the beginning of the thread, port for killing off CD guns

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: String

Bah.. there wasa test conducted some time ago that showed quite nicely that the bombardments had little effect on ground combat troops in the hex. Naval bombardment is basically a combined airfield/port attack. Airifield for reasons stated in the beginning of the thread, port for killing off CD guns

Yes, it has reatively little effect on ground troops in the hex - as compared to the other damage.
But I beleive the point Mike was trying to make was simply that "as with arial bombardment - there should be a select target type mechanism" for naval bombardment.
I don't see how you can argue against that, nor the harm in providing it, that's all.

[Dutchgy2000]

Easy to argue against. If you sail along all night and see different targets, you reload and fire. If you fly over in a bomber once the bombs are dropped, it's done. Quite a difference.

Not to mention that in above example maybe the reason for lack of damage is that there were not 100 ships anchored at the same place at that time which strangely enough seems to happen in the game a lot. No admiral is gonna miss that target even if his orders are to shell the airfield.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Dutchgy2000

Easy to argue against. If you sail along all night and see different targets, you reload and fire. If you fly over in a bomber once the bombs are dropped, it's done. Quite a difference.

Not to mention that in above example maybe the reason for lack of damage is that there were not 100 ships anchored at the same place at that time which strangely enough seems to happen in the game a lot. No admiral is gonna miss that target even if his orders are to shell the airfield.

In 60 minutes, at close to 30 knots, in the Dark, you don't see shit! Especially against the background
of a land mass. Bombardments were planned against reported targets on the site. They just didn't wander up and down the slot looking for targets of opportunity in the blackness.

[Toast]

I don't think WITP distorts reality too much on this issue. I think a few things need to be kept in mind:

1. The "Bombardment" at Lunga in RL was a one shot bombardment with 2 BB's that almost shut down Henderson Field. The reason the bombardment did not completely succeed is that the Japanese seemed to be unaware of the existence or location of the Fighter One strip and the next day the few remaining planes were able to take off from that stip.

2. This same type of mission was never duplicated in RL because the effect of the first one was so powerful that both sides either made sure adequate naval defenses were in place at vulnerable airfields so a bombardment tf could not "slip" in (the Naval Battle of Guadacanal happened because the AMerican Navy had naval assets in place to prevent such a raid from shutting down Henderson Field and covering a reinforcement/supply mission) and if the naval forces weren't there to prevent, the a/c just left rather than risk such a raid.

I have read several threads regarding the ease with which such tf's can come close to a base undetected and that would concern me, the first one the Americans weren't expecting and the second one was iuntercepted and stopped, so it should not be very easy to slip such a tf in, although it could happen. I have not had direct expereince with that, though.

The main problem I see is the lack of differentiation between vulnerable airfields and airfields that should not be vulnerable. All bases in a coastal hex have their airfields vulnerable to such a bombardment whether the geography of that hex allowed that in RL or not. The hex is 60 miles across. Not all the coastal hexes with bases on them had their airfields located so close to the coast that it would be vulnerable to such a bombardment. Yet in the game they all do. I think this is the most unrealistic thing about bombardment tf's in the game,

An ability to select a type of mission woudl be welcomed, though and would seem to make the more realistic.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Dutchgy2000

Easy to argue against. If you sail along all night and see different targets, you reload and fire. If you fly over in a bomber once the bombs are dropped, it's done. Quite a difference.

Not to mention that in above example maybe the reason for lack of damage is that there were not 100 ships anchored at the same place at that time which strangely enough seems to happen in the game a lot. No admiral is gonna miss that target even if his orders are to shell the airfield.

Not to start flame war, but - YES - ITRW the best Japanese of admirals missed that exact target - in that exact location, namely the beachhead off Lunga Point.
Read the history of the Battle of Savo Island. Their whole mission was to accept the sacrifice their task force to the (they believed) inevitable annihilating carrier strike the next morning AFTER they had swept the transports of the invasion task force - thereby destroying any chance of success of the Guadalcanal invasion. We know what happened that night in Aug'42, but when the target they sought was at their mercy Vice-Admiral Mikawa ignored it and beat a hasty retreat back up the slot.

So anyway, I think Mike's point stands.

[String]

ORIGINAL: Big B

ORIGINAL: Dutchgy2000

Easy to argue against. If you sail along all night and see different targets, you reload and fire. If you fly over in a bomber once the bombs are dropped, it's done. Quite a difference.

Not to mention that in above example maybe the reason for lack of damage is that there were not 100 ships anchored at the same place at that time which strangely enough seems to happen in the game a lot. No admiral is gonna miss that target even if his orders are to shell the airfield.

Not to start flame war, but - YES - ITRW the best Japanese of admirals missed that exact target - in that exact location, namely the beachhead off Lunga Point.
Read the history of the Battle of Savo Island. Their whole mission was to accept the sacrifice their task force to the (they believed) inevitable annihilating carrier strike the next morning AFTER they had swept the transports of the invasion task force - thereby destroying any chance of success of the Guadalcanal invasion. We know what happened that night in Aug'42, but when the target they sought was at their mercy Vice-Admiral Mikawa ignored it and beat a hasty retreat back up the slot.

So anyway, I think Mike's point stands.

*Sigh* that wasn't a bombardment operation to begin with, rather a surface interception (IE not a bombardment TF but a SC TF) Mikawa returned because he was afraid that the allied carriers were still in the region. There was no intention of sacrificing the taskforce to carriers.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: String

ORIGINAL: Big B

ORIGINAL: Dutchgy2000

Easy to argue against. If you sail along all night and see different targets, you reload and fire. If you fly over in a bomber once the bombs are dropped, it's done. Quite a difference.

Not to mention that in above example maybe the reason for lack of damage is that there were not 100 ships anchored at the same place at that time which strangely enough seems to happen in the game a lot. No admiral is gonna miss that target even if his orders are to shell the airfield.

Not to start flame war, but - YES - ITRW the best Japanese of admirals missed that exact target - in that exact location, namely the beachhead off Lunga Point.
Read the history of the Battle of Savo Island. Their whole mission was to accept the sacrifice their task force to the (they believed) inevitable annihilating carrier strike the next morning AFTER they had swept the transports of the invasion task force - thereby destroying any chance of success of the Guadalcanal invasion. We know what happened that night in Aug'42, but when the target they sought was at their mercy Vice-Admiral Mikawa ignored it and beat a hasty retreat back up the slot.

So anyway, I think Mike's point stands.

*Sigh* that wasn't a bombardment operation to begin with, rather a surface interception (IE not a bombardment TF but a SC TF) Mikawa returned because he was afraid that the allied carriers were still in the region. There was no intention of sacrificing the taskforce to carriers.

Yes, it wasn't a bombardment mission - But YES - Mikawa was quite angrily resigned to sacrifice his task force to US carriers the following morning. There have been excellent books written about it. Mikawa thought he was on a suicide mission - but he did it anyway, and he was angry with his higher HQ for the state of affairs. His sole objective was to sink the US transports at any cost and defeat the invasion at Guadalcanal. After his success at Savo he lost his nerve and returned home with a naval victory ...and lost the campaign...BTW he had no way of knowing but the US carriers withdrew that morning anyway.

The whole point was that a task force with one mission sailed past a juicey target ITRW.

[CapAndGown]

Gee, why haven't I been getting these uber-bombardments? I have been bombarding left and right (see my Atlantic 10 championship AAR) and haven't seen anything like this. And I am not even using "shoot and scoot". When I come in I come in just before the invasion with "Patrol/Do not Retire" so that I bombard both night and day. I am afraid 1 or 2 anecdotes is not going to convince me that anything is wrong.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Gee, why haven't I been getting these uber-bombardments? I have been bombarding left and right (see my Atlantic 10 championship AAR) and haven't seen anything like this. And I am not even using "shoot and scoot". When I come in I come in just before the invasion with "Patrol/Do not Retire" so that I bombard both night and day. I am afraid 1 or 2 anecdotes is not going to convince me that anything is wrong.

I'm not saying it's terrible,

I just agree that "gee, a target choice, as in airial bombardmnet, seems quite easy and logical"

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Gee, why haven't I been getting these uber-bombardments? I have been bombarding left and right (see my Atlantic 10 championship AAR) and haven't seen anything like this. And I am not even using "shoot and scoot". When I come in I come in just before the invasion with "Patrol/Do not Retire" so that I bombard both night and day. I am afraid 1 or 2 anecdotes is not going to convince me that anything is wrong.

I'm becoming suspicious that bombardment efficiency is related to terrain type. When PzB did naval bombardments of Karachi and the Java bases his bombardments closed down those airfields within two bombardments, despite there being level 9 fortifications and a level 9 port in Karachi. Yet when I bombarded Majuro, which is an atoll, I succeeded in only getting 1 air hit and 1 air support hit, although I did cause a number of casualties.

On the otherhand, maybe commander skills have something to do with it? PzB has been using really good naval commanders and mine are average for the most part. I've seen huge commander effects in other aspects of the game (particularly for air units).

This is a very hard game to figure out at times.

Dave Baranyi

[denisonh]

Aggressive commanders seem to have a significant impact. I have a 4 BB bombardment TF with a very aggressive TF CDR who wreaks absolute havoc in an ongoing PBEM.

Here is a "shoot and scoot" hightime bombardment result:

Naval bombardment of Palau, at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3 Zero: 10 destroyed
G3M Nell: 6 destroyed
Ki-43-Ib Oscar: 13 destroyed
G4M1 Betty: 2 destroyed
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
H8K Emily: 2 destroyed

Allied Ships
BB Mississippi
BB Tennessee
BB Pennsylvania
BB Maryland

Japanese ground losses:
1536 casualties reported
Guns lost 55

Airbase hits 10
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 86


It seems a bit too effective.

[Mike Scholl]

My point was that if 100 heavy bombers came over a hex with ground troops, a TF, a port with shipping, and an airfield, they would drop those 800 500 lb'ers on only ONE of those targets. In terms of explosive, a 500 lb bomb contains as much as a 14" shell, so it's a reasonable comparison. If bombers, flying above the hex with a view of everything below can only chose ONE of the available targets, it seems bizarre that ships aren't forced to make the same choice. They get multiple attacks (and results and damage) for
the risk and cost of only ONE attack. And the game seems to over-rate the effectiveness of such raids as well..., but that's another issue.

[Iridium]

I've never gotten results like you guys, what are you doing in order to reproduce these? I've used the entire slow IJN BB group and still have never seen anything in the thousands in terms ground force of casualties. Must be mojo...[:D]

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Iridium

I've never gotten results like you guys, what are you doing in order to reproduce these? I've used the entire slow IJN BB group and still have never seen anything in the thousands in terms ground force of casualties. Must be mojo...[:D]

I don't know, but a friend(?..joke) of mine pounded Wake Is. with the Mutsu (PBEM), and did over 1,000 casualties...at night.
However, let it be said that when I reviewed the the damage on the next day - the posted combat result WAS greatly exagerated.
So...I don't know[X(]

[ChezDaJez]

In the example Denisonh gave, there were no port hits only air related hits and troops.

Now IIRC, B-17s historically spread there bombs over a fairly wide area. In the European theater bombing survey, they noted that only 50% of the bombs fell within 1000' of target. So I could see it if a few hit other target areas.

In addition, places like Henderson were very small in land area and that includes the so-called port there so it would be reasonable to expect bombs hitting the port, airfield and troops at that location. However, I agree that it shouldn't happen at a place like Singapore and other large bases.

Chez