Fortifications & Coastal Artillery

[Zubnik]

It seems that air and naval bombardment of bases does little to impact fortifications and/or Coastal Artillery.

What am I doing wrong?

G

[Mike Solli]

Welcome to the forum. Can you give us some more details? Bombardment can be very effective. Over the weekend I bombarded Attu. Here's what happened:

Naval bombardment of Attu Island, at 91,35

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
PBY Catalina: 4 destroyed

Japanese Ships
CL Jintsu
CA Kumano
CA Suzuya
CA Mikuma
CA Mogami
BB Hyuga
BB Yamashiro
BB Fuso

Allied ground losses:
1697 casualties reported
Guns lost 56
Vehicles lost 21

Runway hits 4
Port hits 5
Port supply hits 3

Note that a bombarding TF will use about 2/3 of it's available main gun ammo. If you stay and bombard a second time, it's effectiveness drops tremendously.

Edit: Note that this was after they caught a 15 AK supply convoy in the hex and trashed them before the bombardment.

[Zubnik]

Interesting

I am using an 8 battleship fleet (with screen), a 4 carrier fleet (with screen), 6 squadrons of B17s and 8 squadrons of B25/26s to bombard all installations of Kwajlein and can inflict 100% damage to the port and airflied, but only negligable damage to troops and guns!

I attempted an assult after 2 weeks of daily air/naval attcks with the 3rd Marine and 24 Infantry, 3 engineers and a base force.

The landing was decimated by coastal guns and the level 9 fortification.

Any suggestions?

G

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: MrGrooves

Interesting

I am using an 8 battleship fleet (with screen), a 4 carrier fleet (with screen), 6 squadrons of B17s and 8 squadrons of B25/26s to bombard all installations of Kwajlein and can inflict 100% damage to the port and airflied, but only negligable damage to troops and guns!

I attempted an assult after 2 weeks of daily air/naval attcks with the 3rd Marine and 24 Infantry, 3 engineers and a base force.

The landing was decimated by coastal guns and the level 9 fortification.

Any suggestions?

G

Hello Mr. Grooves. IMO it is difficult to supprss coastal guns, but not impossible. Two weeks of bombardment should do the trick though. Question: is it your landing transports that are taking damage or the troops landing on the beaches?

Here are some things to consider

A. Port attack is the best form of attack for reducing coastal artillery. So, on your bombing missions target the port.
B. Amphibious landings in the game are a messy business anyway. I assume you are playing the AI. If the AI has stacked massive amounts of troops on the island you are going to face a lot of guns no matter what you do, not just CD units, but divisions and artillery with heavy guns. These won't damage your ships but they will make a mess of your troops during a landing. The only way to counter act this is recon and make sure you bring enough force to deal with them. 2 Divisions sounds a little light.
C. When all else fails, stack some CLs in the invasion fleet to soak up some of the coastal gun fire.
D. If you are playing a human opponent that doesn't have the supply advantage of the AI cut off the island for a month and keep bombing. If you can run him out of supplies you will silence the coastal guns.

[treespider]

C. When all else fails, stack some CLs in the invasion fleet to soak up some of the coastal gun fire.

Per the manual the addition of CLs, DDs and the like, to the Transport TF, aid in suppressing coastal guns during a landing.

[Zubnik]

Thank you for the reply!

The island has been cut-off for over a month, no naval activity since an AK force was sunk.

The port has been 100% damamged for at least 2 weeks .

The navy took little damage, it was the landing that was crushed by the guns and after 2 days the counterattack caused all forces to surrender.

If a larger force is used, how long will it take to unload on the beaches, I see the same result with no matter how many troops aganist a level 9 fortification!

G

[Mike Solli]

You had 2 divisions surrender?[X(]

[tanksone]

Hi, also make sure your LCUs are preped to 100. The less you prep your LCUs the more damage you will take. And as everyone else has said you need to provide plenty of screening forces for your landing group/s.

[denisonh]

Do what Nimitz did: bypass Kwajelien

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: MrGrooves

Thank you for the reply!

The island has been cut-off for over a month, no naval activity since an AK force was sunk.

The port has been 100% damamged for at least 2 weeks .

The navy took little damage, it was the landing that was crushed by the guns and after 2 days the counterattack caused all forces to surrender.

If a larger force is used, how long will it take to unload on the beaches, I see the same result with no matter how many troops aganist a level 9 fortification!

G

Ok, good info, lots of stuff here...

1. If your playing the AI on some levels of difficulty it generates supplies magically at bases, so you can't starve them out.

2. You are having problems with guns, not just coastal guns firing during the landing. These guns are not affected by port attacks. They are the guns that exist in the divisions and base forces that are defending the island. To disrupt these guns you have to attack the units directely, i.e. Ground attack. I bet you impacted them seriously with your naval bombardment missions, but you also would need to use bombers set on ground attack.

3. Level 9 forts are HUGE. Did your combat engineers coming ashore reduce the fort levels at all?

4. I stay away from mass invasions on this scale so I don't have a lot of experience with landing multiple divisions on an atoll, though I have done it. Basically, though, since WitP does not have stacking limitation rules, you have no limit of how many units you can land on a beach on day one. You are only limited by the number of transports you have available. If you want everyone to hit the beach day one, you need to load your division that needs 20,000 AP points to load onto a TF with 40,000 AP available, or something like that. Each ship will unload X amount on each unloading phase so the more ships you have the faster everyone unloads.

5. This is critical: what was your supply situation on day 1 of the invasion? If you loaded supply on the same ships you loaded troops on, you won't have enough supply for the first days invasion. The troops will unload from a ship first and then supply. I always have a seperate TF or 2 that carries just supplies that also unloads with the initial wave of the invasion. What probably happened was that your guys hit the beach and didn't have the supplies to attack or defend themselves from counter attack.

6. For an operation like this just about your only hope is to make sure that the defenders are severly enough disrupted that even if your initial shock attack fails, which it will against level 9 forts. They enemy is too weak to make an effective counter-attack. This is basically securing a decent beachhead.

7. IMO, you need at least a 3:1 advantage to take an atoll. If the defender had the equivalent of a division there, including all base forces, engineers, SNLF, CD units, etc. You are way under-strength on your attack. Add on top of that the level 9 forts.

[niceguy2005]

After further thought, if you are set on taking this island. I would start with an invasion force about the size you had, but organized into TFs with supply as discribed above. To that force I would add ART and an amphibious HQ (not to be unloaded). Then behind that I would have a second wave of 2 divisions, art, and armor. Behind that I would have a reserve of 1 or 2 divisions.

What happens to the first wave is that you may take 30% to 60% casualties just landing, depending on the strength of the defense, but if well supplied they will hold the beach. The next wave will take significantly fewer casualties because the defenders have taken serious losses themselves and are disrupted. The second wave is your actual force to attack with and should have your combat engineers to reduce the forts. YOu should also have armor and artillery in that wave to keep the enemy disrupted. You may need to land the third wave as the second will be largely used up reducing the fortifications.

Or you could just go around the island.

[Zubnik]

Thanks to everyone for the assistance, will try one more time with and bypass if not successful!

G

[ny59giants]

The info you got already is correct. The only thing to possibly add is the use of LBA or CV/CVE's, is to launch ground attacks for a few days before and through the actual invasion as the more disruption you add to the defenders, the less likely their counterattacks will be successful.
You are in Class 101 - successful invasions against a fortified atoll[:(][:(] The learning curve is high for an Allied player as the Japanese rarely face this during a game, AI or PBEM. [&o]

[Stvitus2002]

It seems that air and naval bombardment of bases does little to impact fortifications and/or Coastal Artillery.

Yes, coastal guns can cause a lot of problems. In 3+ weeks, the CD guns on Saipan have sunk 7 of my DD's, 6 LST's, 7 LCI(G)'s, as well as damaging more than 2 dozen other ships(cruisers & battleships included). My initial invasion wave was the hardest hit. In spite of 7 divisions,1 corps headquarters, 3 corps artillery groups, + a tank battalion, i have yet to capture the place.

Setting up an advance base at pagan island has helped: i can send in a bombardment TF every day, with escorts set not to bombard. After several days of this, i'm starting to wear them down. Even so, the 5.5" & 8" CD guns can really hammer the smaller ships.






Joe D.

[saj42]

ORIGINAL: MrGrooves

It seems that air and naval bombardment of bases does little to impact fortifications and/or Coastal Artillery.

What am I doing wrong?

G

Naval and air bombardment does NOT damage fortifications - a situation I hope is reconsidered in any future patch / WITP II

[Kapten Q]

With level 9 forts bombardements and airstrikes are not that effective, sure lots of disruption but not much equipment disabled. You have to repeat the attacks over several weeks to get the desired results.

Q