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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Uncommon Valor - Campaign for the South Pacific >> Oz Military Aerodrome Question

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Oz Military Aerodrome Question - 7/5/2003 7:13:47 PM

ADavidB

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Here's a couple of related questions for those folks who are knowledgeable in Australian military history details - were the Australian military airfields during the period covered by UV close to the ocean? What sorts of distances were the airfields from the ocean?

The reason I'm asking is because of the effectiveness of bombardment TFs against airfields in Australian towns and cities . I'm guessing that the bombardment model in UV is based upon what happened at Guadalcanal, where the airfield was fairly close to the ocean and it was relatively easy for bombardment TFs to come close enough to shore to cause significant damage.

But was the same thing true in towns and cities in Australia? Could a Japanese bombardment TF actually get in close enough to be able to hit inland targets?

As an auxilary question - didn't Australian coastal cities and towns have their own land-based, fixed anti-ship coastal defense guns other than those semi-mobile CD units that exist in UV?

Finally, for those folks involved with WitP, does WitP model the significant fixed land-based coastal defense installations in places like Manila, Singapore, etc ?

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

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- 7/6/2003 3:00:52 AM

Snigbert

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[B]Finally, for those folks involved with WitP, does WitP model the significant fixed land-based coastal defense installations in places like Manila, Singapore, etc ?[/B]

Yes, good luck to anyone who tries to attack Singapore from the Sea :)

[B]What sorts of distances were the airfields from the ocean?[/B]

I recently read Bill Bryson's 'In a Sunburnt Country', which is basically a novel about his time spent touring around Australia. At one point in the book he talks about an old (practically abandoned) highway which runs from a town at the tip of that Northern Peninsula southwards in the direction of Cooktown. He said that the only thing of interest on that huge length of highway is that for hundreds of miles it is lined with abandoned US airfields from WWII, many of which the Americans/Australians just walked away from when the war ended in that area and left the planes to rot on the runway. Over the decades collectors have come and picked them over more or less, but he was impressed by the massive amount of materiel and men that must have supported them in such a remote location, and that when we didnt need it anymore we just left it to rot. He said he passed at least 50 airfields, I dont know if each represented an air group or what size formation, but I thought it was interesting...and that would suggest that they were a couple of hundred miles inland at least.

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- 7/6/2003 11:34:14 AM

Drongo

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Posted by ADavidB
[QUOTE]Here's a couple of related questions for those folks who are knowledgeable in Australian military history details - were the Australian military airfields during the period covered by UV close to the ocean? What sorts of distances were the airfields from the ocean?[/QUOTE]

This is a bit of mil-history lite.

In relation to UV, the major North Queensland airfields used in coastal locations (Brisbane, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns and Cooktown) were all sited within 25km from the coast.

In theory then, they were close enough to be bombarded by large calibre naval guns.

In reality, none of them mirrored the almost perfect target that Henderson Field presented for the Japanese naval bombardments.

On top of that, most of these Queensland ports had protected harbours as well as multiple airfields. Then you had the Great Barrier Reef which could only be crossed at certain points.

[QUOTE]As an auxilary question - didn't Australian coastal cities and towns have their own land-based, fixed anti-ship coastal defense guns other than those semi-mobile CD units that exist in UV?[/QUOTE]

Re UV again:
Brisbane and Townsville both had 19th century "Forts" that were augmented in WWII. IIRC, Brisbane had 6", 4.7" and US 155mm guns while Townsville had 4.7" and US 155mm guns. Searchlights, radar and AA were also added in WWII.

Cairns and Cooktown's shore defences were all set up from scratch in WWII and normally consisted of US 155mm guns + AA and searchlights/radar. I've never seen what Rockhampton had but I assume it would be similar.

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- 7/6/2003 12:26:11 PM

ADavidB

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Drongo
[B]Posted by ADavidB

This is a bit of mil-history lite.

In relation to UV, the major North Queensland airfields used in coastal locations (Brisbane, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns and Cooktown) were all sited within 25km from the coast.

In theory then, they were close enough to be bombarded by large calibre naval guns.

In reality, none of them mirrored the almost perfect target that Henderson Field presented for the Japanese naval bombardments.

On top of that, most of these Queensland ports had protected harbours as well as multiple airfields. Then you had the Great Barrier Reef which could only be crossed at certain points.

Re UV again:
Brisbane and Townsville both had 19th century "Forts" that were augmented in WWII. IIRC, Brisbane had 6", 4.7" and US 155mm guns while Townsville had 4.7" and US 155mm guns. Searchlights, radar and AA were also added in WWII.

Cairns and Cooktown's shore defences were all set up from scratch in WWII and normally consisted of US 155mm guns + AA and searchlights/radar. I've never seen what Rockhampton had but I assume it would be similar. [/B][/QUOTE]

Okay, so in theory a Japanese battle squadren could come close enough in to shore to lob a few shells at the airfields, but it is more likely that they would have difficulty getting close enough in to actually hit anything. So the UV tactic of knocking out airbases with bombardments would likely not be realistic at all.

Thanks for the info.

Dave Baranyi

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- 7/6/2003 5:39:43 PM

Reg

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First of all, you must realise that Uncommon Valor has greatly simplified reality to keep the game playable. I have a book that identifies 194 airfields in use during WWII in Queensland alone. The majority of these were active or under construction during the period of UV and before the war moved north.

Take Brisbane for instance. The major airfield of Eagle Farm (still in use and close to the new Brisbane International airport) is close to the coast and would have been subject to naval interdiction. However, Archerfield which was a MAJOR aircraft maintenance depot was located a short distance inland and has now been encroached upon by the southern suburbs of Brisbane. This airfield is located about 22km from the coast (bombarding ships would need to stand off further than that). Beyond that was Amberley which was located west of Ipswich which is about 50km from the coast. As a risk mitigation strategy, a second tier of airfields such as Leyburn (near Toowoomba), Cecil Plains, Jondaryan and Condomine were built more 100km from the coast for the USAAF heavy bomber force. All of the above fields were capable of (and did) handle B-17/B-24 aircraft in numbers. This does not include the many smaller fields such as Oakey, Lowood, Toogoolawah, Goolman to name just a few.

Townsville was similar. Garbutt (the current airport) and Stockroute (a maintenance depot now Dalrymple Road) were right on the coast but are located behind Magnetic Island and the island's coastal defences have been mentioned elsewhere. As with Brisbane these airfields were only part of a larger network consisting of Antil Plains, Bohle River (now the Townsville drag strip), Ross River, Aitkenvale, Woodstock (41km inland) and Reid River. These were all operational in 1942 and it would have been very difficult to close them all down at once.

I think that Rockhampton is overrated in UV is it was just a standard airfield who's only claim to fame was it was at the halfway point between Brisbane and Townsville (did you realise that this distance is about the same as Brisbane to Melbourne???). Rockhampton was only ever used as a staging base and never had permanent occupants during the war.

The biggest omission I think in the game are the three runways of Iron Range. This airstrip was literally cut out of the jungle at Portland Roads, an isolated gold mine north of Cooktown which needed to be supplied from the sea. As best as I can make it, Iron Range was about 9 miles from the Portland Roads Jetty by road. Despite this 22BG (B-26) 43BG (B-17E) and 90BG (B-24D) all operated from this strip in the latter half of 1942. Direct raids on Rabaul were launched from here which required a midnight take off from a primitive jungle strip lined with waiting aircraft. Some tragic operational losses were recorded under these conditions.

As for the coastal defences, Australia was very unprepared for the war in the Pacific. A few turn of the century forts (hurriedly bolstered by the Department of Works and the US Army Engineer Corps) armed with old guns of medium caliber would not have been very effective. The arrival of the US Army coastal artillery (4 by 155mm guns in the case of Townsville) provided a huge increase in defensive capability.

If you are interested in the subject, I would suggest you have a look at the following link. [URL=http://members.dodo.com.au/qaww2/index.html]Queensland Airfields WW2 - 50 Years On[/URL]. Unfortunately this book is out of print but you may be able to get a 2nd hand copy somewhere.

Another very good site on this subject is [URL=http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/]Australia @ War[/URL]

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Reg.

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- 7/6/2003 6:44:54 PM

ADavidB

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Reg
[B]First of all, you must realise that Uncommon Valor has greatly simplified reality to keep the game playable. I have a book that identifies 194 airfields in use during WWII in Queensland alone. The majority of these were active or under construction during the period of UV and before the war moved north.

( clipping great information )

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Reg. [/B][/QUOTE]

Reg -

Thanks a lot for all that detail. Wow - 194 airfields! Imagine having 10% of them modeled in the game - the Allied air ability would go up even more than people complain about now.

I keep on feeling, never-the-less, that bombardment effectiveness in the game needs to have some sort of adjustment factors, such as being inversely proportional to base and fortification size. This way larger bases could model the situation where many airbases and more sophisticated defenses were built.

Thanks again -

Dave Baranyi

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- 7/6/2003 7:00:05 PM

HMSWarspite

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by ADavidB
[B]Reg -

Thanks a lot for all that detail. Wow - 194 airfields! Imagine having 10% of them modeled in the game - the Allied air ability would go up even more than people complain about now.

I keep on feeling, never-the-less, that bombardment effectiveness in the game needs to have some sort of adjustment factors, such as being inversely proportional to base and fortification size. This way larger bases could model the situation where many airbases and more sophisticated defenses were built.

Thanks again -

Dave Baranyi [/B][/QUOTE]

Regarding airfields, you have to bear something in mind: an airfield capable of operating a US BG of say 30 odd aircraft is a serious facility. Any field that operates 30 bombers or say 50 fighters is about as big as they get. So a size 9 UV airbase, operating 450 a/c actually represents 10 or more separate strips. Thus the airbase count in OZ is pretty good, and the only issue is they cluster at the main towns. I do not know how realistic this is, but IMHO doesn't affect play much if at all.

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- 7/6/2003 7:32:50 PM

LargeSlowTarget

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by ADavidB
[B]I keep on feeling, never-the-less, that bombardment effectiveness in the game needs to have some sort of adjustment factors, such as being inversely proportional to base and fortification size. This way larger bases could model the situation where many airbases and more sophisticated defenses were built.
[/B][/QUOTE]

It's my impression that this is already modeled in UV. In my current game against the AI I try to capture Noumea (I already own everything in the SoPac except Noumea). I've conducted multiple bombardment missions with up to four BBs, eight CAs and lots of small fries per TF and although runway damage is extensive (100+ hits per bombardment run, unfortunately quickly repaired by the scores of Eng units at Noumea), there are never more than 4-5 five planes destroyed on the ground. I attribute this to the sophisticated system (which I would expect at a size 9 air base) of planes dispersed over multiple strips and protected by revetments. I've seen more planes destroyed by bombardment on less developed bases.

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- 7/6/2003 10:44:19 PM

ADavidB

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by HMSWarspite
[B]Regarding airfields, you have to bear something in mind: an airfield capable of operating a US BG of say 30 odd aircraft is a serious facility. Any field that operates 30 bombers or say 50 fighters is about as big as they get. So a size 9 UV airbase, operating 450 a/c actually represents 10 or more separate strips. Thus the airbase count in OZ is pretty good, and the only issue is they cluster at the main towns. I do not know how realistic this is, but IMHO doesn't affect play much if at all. [/B][/QUOTE]

I still get the feeling that it is too easy for a bombardment TF to close down an airbase in one or two trips. This just doesn't seem to jive with the idea you mentioned of larger sized airbases representing separate air strips. I just don't believe that the Guadalcanal model is applicable to other larger centers - Australia in particular. Sure, on other small islands, atolls and so on, the "Guadalcanal effect" ought to hold, but not for mainland bases.

I can "live with" this in UV, but I'd hate to see the same simple-minded approach continue in WitP.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

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- 7/6/2003 10:48:05 PM

ADavidB

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by LargeSlowTarget
[B]It's my impression that this is already modeled in UV. In my current game against the AI I try to capture Noumea (I already own everything in the SoPac except Noumea). I've conducted multiple bombardment missions with up to four BBs, eight CAs and lots of small fries per TF and although runway damage is extensive (100+ hits per bombardment run, unfortunately quickly repaired by the scores of Eng units at Noumea), there are never more than 4-5 five planes destroyed on the ground. I attribute this to the sophisticated system (which I would expect at a size 9 air base) of planes dispersed over multiple strips and protected by revetments. I've seen more planes destroyed by bombardment on less developed bases. [/B][/QUOTE]

I think that is part of the "Noumea Effect" in the game - due to infinite resources available to the base. I suspect the same thing would happen at Brisbane or Truk. But try bombardments at large-sized airbases elsewhere, particularly in malarial zones, and the bombardment effect is huge in comparison.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave Baranyi

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