Attack transport damage

[Paul Goodman]

The damage taken by amphibious assault transports against well defended targets seems odd, almost as though the transports were modeled as going right on the beach. I've seen the Japanese transport on the reef at Wake, so that certainly did happen, but generally I think transports anchor well out of shore battery range and the assault troops utilized landing craft of an increasingly well designed nature.

On a recent attack on Shortlands, well defended with coastal defense batteries, four minesweepers sank going in, along with a DMS and 9 transports were really beat up, presumably by coastal defense artillery.

Personally, I think the whole bombardment setup is very poor. In any event, I set up a reasonable bombardment using Munda as a base and bombarding the Shortlands with two task forces. This accomplished virtually nothing other than requiring a lot of repair on my part once I got the place. Bombardments seem to have no effect on anything but airfields and ports. They do little, if anything, to shore batteries and LCU's. Frankly, I think the whole bombardment model is formated to support an effective model of the Japanes bombardment of Hendersen Field, to the extent that is all it really does well, or even rationally, for that matter.

If we want to simulate the effect of a considerable quantity of coastal defense artillery that has not been neutralized by bombardment, then the assault forces should have casualties assessed. Shooting up the transports doesn't make sense.

Conversely, if we want to model this (and we obviously do), then the bombardment forces should have a reasonable effect on the shore based artillery. Large, fixed shore batteries are relatively easy to detect and could then be destroyed by bombardment or by dive bombers. Field artillery could certainly be well hidden, but is very ineffective against moving ships due to limited fields of fire and the difficulty of training a field piece on a moving target.

None of the above is going to happen if the bombardment force is going to fire one mission and boogie for home. It seems that should have been fixed, as this has been a problem from day one. It works for the Japanese, not for the U.S.

Paul

[mikel]

I had a similar experience. While invading Shortland in May 1943 my minesweepers and troop transports took such a beating that I had to withdraw in spite of extensive pre-invasion bombardment. Not wanting to waste any more troop transports, the only solution I could think of was to isolate and bypass Shortland. After months of periodic bombing, I retried in November 1943 and found that almost all LCU’s (including shore batteries) had withered away to insignificance and so the landing was virtually unopposed.

The current bombardment mission is clearly geared towards hitting an airfield/port at night and returning home at max speed. Maybe we need two types of bombardment missions. One (Night Bombardment) would follow the current model. Retirement Allowed - hit airfields/ports at night and withdraw. The other one (Day Bombardment) would require Do Not Retire and would hit bases during the day. It would increase LCU disruption and would include duels with any shore batteries where both sides could take damage based on their relative strengths.

[Black Cat]

Have you seen succesive US Bombardment TF`s reduce the shore batteries effectiveness in any way ?

( ..it`s hard to tell with the FOW reports..)

I tend to avoid landing troops in the base hex if I can help it to avoid shock attacks so haven`t tried too many Bombardment TF`s..but the one I have run in , 2 BB`s 4 CA`s + DD`s also seemed to do very little.

This was really so powerful for the US in PW I wonder if it has been toned down in UV, In PW I used to run 4-8 in before an opposed landing and to support the ongoing attack on the base.

[mikel]

For the July 1943 landing I bombarded Shortland daily with a TF led by 2 BB's for an entire week before landing (plus ground attacks by level bombers about twice a week for over a month). The shore battery fire was still ferocious resulting in numerous minesweeper and troop transport losses. It crippled Allied invasion capability for months.

[denisonh]

Shore bombardment is great at damaging things that can't be fortfied (like aircraft and runways), but shore batteries that are dug in are another matter. The effectiveness of early war bombardment as preparation for landings was poor until after the experiences at Tarawa.

When they pounded Betio for a couple of days, and then went ashore to find that the sand covered and sand baggged coconut log bunkers survived extremely well against bombardment. After that, the US made some adjustements in terms of delayed fuses and the like to help penetrate fortfied positions.

So realistically, I think that it will take a lot of sustained effort to effect shore batteries.

And as for the Minesweepers getting hit, where do you think the mines protecting the beaches are? Mines covered with fire are a great defence technique (works on land pretty good too).

[Paul Goodman]

Your points are valid, re bombardment vs. shore batteries, except I already pointed out that I believe transports cleverly don't anchor in range of shore batteries (They must teach that at Annapolis, or something). At Betio, casualties were heavy in the assault troops and landing craft, which is exactly what I suggest should be the model and primarily from machine gun and mortar fire, which as I suggested, can be hidden from bombarding forces.

Minesweepers generally don't operate right up to the beach, which would put them in range of smaller shore batteries. They do have a tendency to run aground. Furthermore, we must differentiate between moored mines and beach obstacles, which might include mines. We really don't have much of a record of moored mines in amphibious assault target areas (the subject of another lengthy thread). However, beach obstacles were either a real problem or recognized as a potential problem, for which the UDT were formed in 1944. Logically, a minesweeping operation conducted inshore would be closely supported by destroyers or even light cruisers. A shore battery revealing itself to fire on a minesweeper would get a real blast in reply.

In any event, the heavy damage inflicted by shore batteries on invasion forces are not realistic, at all. If we agree that during this time frame, bombardment techniques were not adequately developed, then the results should result in heavy casualties in the assault force, not the transports.

Paul

[denisonh]

I didn't mention the transports, but how far did they stage off shore?

If the shore batteries contained 5" naval guns (which the bigger detachments did) the max range for a 5" gun is something like 18,000 yards. (10+ miles) .

Now the effective range wil be something less (target had to be visible since most shore batteries at the time didn't have fire control radar).

But in any case, I believe that 5" or better shore batteries would be more than capable of damaging ships operating within 7-8 miles of shore.

[Paul Goodman]

You are quite right. However, a five inch gun requires a rather substantial installation such as a poured concrete base (that is what the Marine 6" guns on Wake Island had). In order to hit a ship, it must have a reasonable field of fire with significant ability to traverse and elevate. This makes it easy to detect and hard to relocate. When the battery opens fire, against a reasonably sized bombardment group (to say nothing of dive bombers overhead), the weapon and, particularly, the crew aren't long for this world. What can survive because it can be hidden are army field artillery pieces and mortars. These pieces lack adequate traverse adjustment to be suitable for artillery duels with warships. Conceivably, a transport might pick a bad spot where it just happens to be looking down the barrel of a 150mm field piece. Similar things occured. The transport just moved. It didn't sit there waiting for the field piece to range in.

Since Betio is a good example of a poor bombardment, let's look at it. The assembly point (ie anchorage) for the attack force was five miles off the beach. IIRC, Betio had some fairly large artillery which had been removed from Fortress Singapore. Minesweepers cleared a channel to the reef (I don't know if there were actually any mines) and were accompanied by two destroyers. These destroyers remained inshore to provide close support. When Maryland launched her spotter aircraft, all hell broke loose. The transports WERE too close and had to reanchor further out! This threw the timing off for the whole attack. The result was very heavy casualties for the landing force. No minesweepers were hit. No transports were hit. Battleship counter battery fire easily silenced the larger land batteries. The real killing was done by mortars and machine guns.

Paul

[denisonh]

So it may be as simple as looking at the effects of losses and disruption on Coastal defence units.

At least in regards to damage to the ships as they are debarking.

As I haven't had too many experiences of the like in UV, can't speak from experience. If it is that tough of a nut to crack, I just bypass it.