spence
Posts: 5400
Joined: 4/20/2003
From: Vancouver, Washington
Status: offline
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Hello to any and all;
I've just gotten into the PBEM thing starting two games as the USN in scenario 19. In both cases I've committed the Yorktown and Lexington to battle in the Coral Sea in early May.
In the first game, the Battle of the Coral Sea resulted in a one for one trade in sunken carriers: Yorktown for Zuikaku (though Zuikaku had to be finished off in the harbor at Gili Gili by LBA from Port Moresby). The Yorktown's escorts thereafter converted to a surface action group and tore into the invasion fleet as it commenced landing at Port Moresby. Since I'd withdrawn the Lexington from the Coral Sea I pretty much figured that those cruisers were in for a pretty hot time the next day but as it turned out the best the remaining IJN carriers could muster for an air strike was about a dozen Vals. The cruisers sank a bunch of PGs and MSWs in separate actions before they actually got into the transports so they broke off due to ammo depletetion (I think) before the whole 144th regiment had to hold swim call. Anyway I'd snuck in the 18th and 21st Brigades before the Japanese landing and I ordered a Shock Attack on the landing force on the first couple of days after the landing(s). The first shock attack caused all the engineer/garrison type troops to retreat to Lae Lae (though they apparently had little difficulty taking all their guns and equipment with them). The butt of the 144th held on though and was steadily reinforced over the next 20 days or so until at last the gallant defenders of Port Moresby were overwhelmed. Contributing to their ultimate demise was my worthy opponents' use of LRCAP to shut down the air supply shuttle from Cooktown. Initially this was done with the fighters off of Shokaku and Shoho. Therein I perceived an opportunity so after returning to Australia and replenishing its airgroup Lexington snuck back into the Coral Sea and planted a 1000 lb bomb each on Shokaku and Shoho. It coulda been better but in the AM phase when Lexington hadn't even been sighted it ended up under a rain cloud and couldn't launch a strike. The afternoon strike by 30 SBDs and 10 TBDs (with bombs) was kind of a disappointment with just the aforementioned 2 hits but I was greatly relieved when the Japanese counterattack came and was composed of a mere 10 Vals and 4 Kates (or so) and CAP and Flak pretty much stopped them cold. Both thereafter left the Coral Sea but after only 1-2 days of air supply the Japanese reestablished their LRCAP over Port Moresby from their new airbase at Buna (captured on the May 2 or so). Shoho which had been hurt bad apparently holed up in Lae but has since disappeared after taking some additional (claimed) 500 lb bomb hits from B-17s hitting the port there. It's nice to think it's been sunk but I suspect it just managed to give my subs the slip and head back to Truk. In any case the Shoho was replaced by a "real" carrier or maybe two and the battle for New Guinea is now over with the focus of operations being over in the Solomons (for the time being anyway). I got my airgroups out of Port Moresby before the end and combined with the arrival of the 3rd Australian Division (and others) and the significant loss of Japanese transport that occurred in the Coral Sea during the Port Moresby battle Australia does not seem insecure.
So much for the Coral Sea battle in Game 1. In Game 2 it isn't over yet. It's been going for 3 days so far and the known results are as follows: 4 large Japanese transports sunk, assorted others damaged badly, the Shoho and Shokaku damaged badly and apparently unable to conduct flight ops (Shoho - 3 1000 lb bomb hits with accompanying Fuel Explosion, Shokaku - 6 1000 lb bomb hits and an Ammo Explosion along with 1 torpedo) vs the Lexington sunk, the Australia and a DD damaged severely. For two days the Japanese carriers were stuck under rain clouds while the American carriers struck the invasion TFs. On the third day the weather cleared and the two sides traded airstrikes. Most of the damage to both sides occurred in the morning strikes. The American strikes were all at the Shoho/Shokaku groupand consisted of 3 waves: a squadron of SBDs and a bunch of LBA from Port Moresby in the 1st, the whole Lexington airgroup in the 2nd and the other SBD squadron and the TBDs from Yorktown in the 3rd. The Japanese went after the Lexington with 70 +/- bombers in one big wave. They lost a lot of planes to flak (the strike came through the CAP without too much damage) apparently because there were only about 20 bombers in the afternoon strikes at Yorktown and although they got some bomb hits the Yorktown is still in business. Port Moresby was under a rain cloud in the afternoon so the American strike was pretty small (like 20 bombers total) and all they managed were a few near misses on Zuikaku. As yet no Japanese troops have landed at Port Moresby. The next turn is in the mail so I won't discuss the 4th day of the battle other than to say there almost certainly will be a 4th day of the battle.
Some observations/conclusions/questions:
Judging by the state of my airgroups and the pretty weak strikes the Japanese have managed to mount after the first exchange it seems flak is pretty deadly in this first battle. In my prior experience against the AI I never noticed this though since I kinda just kept plugging along over the course of two or three long campaign games and might have simply forgotten. I do know the Japanese have never suffered any great loss to my CAP in these battles of the Coral Sea so whatever loss they've suffered is principally due to flak. In the first game the Japanese couldn't even mount a decent antishipping strike a week-10 days after that first slugfest and it wasn't because they loaded up their surviving carriers with fighters either (to mount their LRCAP campaign). Their own CAP wasn't that daunting while they were closing Port Moresby's field to transport planes cause even the low morale/ low experience LBA was able to mount an occasional strike (with no results) against the carriers. They obviously just had only a few bombers left. Guess that bodes pretty ill for the IJN when the US ships get their flak upgrades.
Would any of you folks out there who've played the IJN and gotten into a fight early on in the Coral Sea care to discuss how your air groups fared and/or recovered?
Anybody out there have any hard facts as to the effect of an Ammo or Fuel Explosion in terms of fire/flotation/systems damage?
Taking a crack at the Port Moresby invasion and its supporting carriers hasn't proved to be disasterous to me in either game (as yet).
As long as tactically you handle your small fleet reasonably well it seems like a good opportunity to twist the IJNs tail while the odds are as good as they're gonna get for a pretty long while. If you can take out a Shokaku or Zuikaku the IJN will only have 3 large carriers left. Not meaning to denigrate Hiryu, Soryu, Junyo and Hiyo unjustly it has been my experience in games against the AI anyway that 2x1000 lbers will render any of them pretty much hors de combat whereas the two "Kakus", Akagi and Kaga seem to need to be pounded beneath the waves like your typical American carrier and have a comparable chance of making port even after getting clobbered pretty badly.
Well anyway, I've rattled on long enough. Hope this epistle generates some commentary.
"Semper Paratus"
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Fighting it out in the Coral Sea - 
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