segorn
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Scenario 19/Allies/Hard AI
May, 1943
The Descision:
Admiral Spruance looked out from the bridge of the carrier Saratoga. Around him clustered the greatest carrier air fleet in the history of warfare, a full six fleet carriers and six of the boxy escort carriers steamed in formation.
His carriers had been on station for three days now, covering the anticipated invasion of Buin. Heavy bombing from Port Mosbey and the recently recaptured airfields at Lae had suppressed Raboul's formidable air force, but the Japanese had still managed to sneak a pair of strikes past his air patrols and sink a torpedo into Lexington's strudy hide.
To the east, shortland island still remained in Japanese control, and as far as Spruance was concerned they were welcome to it. The island, after a monthlong pounding from the massive allied airbase at Guadalcanal was a battered moonscape, inhabited by some sixty thousand Japanese defenders living in caves and the vast underground defensive complexes their engineers had built.
There had been talk after the successful Lunga operation of invading shortland proper, but the logistics of such a move had proved impractical. Staff studies had shown at least 120,000 troops would have to be landed to assure victory, and Spruance simply didn't have the shipping to manage that sort of a landing, nor, for that matter, did he have that many disposable troops.
So the descision had been made to neutralize and bypass shortland to set up an advanced base on the island of Buin, on the Northwest tip of Bouganville. It was hoped that aircraft operating from such a base could disrupt Japenese supply runs into Raboul and support the next stage in operation Cartwheel, the descent on Kavening.
Sprunance privately had his doubts about operation Cartwheel, it seemed, to him too optimistic. With the war in China going their way, and the Russian threat neutralized by a combination of surpringly agile Japanese diplomacy and a Russian need to commit all its troops in the west, the Japenese had moved enourmous quantities of troops and equipment into the south pacific.
Cartwheel was predicated on the assumption that major Japanese fleet bases like Kavenig of Lae could be taken by amphibious assault. It might had worked, if the Japanese had been weaker on the ground, but practically every Japanese base in the south pacific had tens of thousands of combat troops on it. Raboul itself was garrisoned by two divisions, Kavening by one, Shortland by no less than three.
Against those sorts of numbers, Spruance privately predicted an attritional grind in the South Pacific. He could make progress only by bombing a base for months before moving his troops onto it. There had been a time for the bold carrier raid, or the the lunging move at an exposed base, but that had ended the the fall of 1942 when both sides defensive perimeters had stabilized.
Since then, Spruance had moved forward by inches. His capture of Lunga, even proceeded as it had been by a full four weeks of bombing from Irau, Neva and Luganville, had been a brutal and expensive affair. It was a battle he realized he full well might have lost, but for the near miraculous victory in the North Soloman sea where six Japanese carriers had tangled with six American.
By rights, the Battle of the North Soloman Sea should have been a draw. Spruance had had no information advantage. In fact, he had been reacting out of necessity; he didn't want a battle with the Japanese carriers within the air envelope of their base at Lunga, but he needed to cover his transports, so he'd steamed north of the slot, daring his Japanese counterpart to battle, in a move he privately likened to waving a red cape in front of a bull.
Spruance was not a religious man, but whenever he thought of the North Solomans, he questioned his own lack of faith, for surely the hand of god had been at work. Six Japanese carriers had steamed south to meet his force, and by the time the battle was over, two days later, five of them were sunk, and one crippled, at the cost of a single casualty in his own carrier fleet, and significant, though repairable, damage to two others.
The admiral was roused from his reprieve by the arrival of his intelligence chief, clutching a manilla folder.
"What is it?" The admiral asked.
"You need to see this sir."
His intelligence officer opened the folder and passed him a photograpgh of barracks; empty barracks.
"These are the latest recon photo's we got off Raboul." He explained. "We're running daily flights over to check the status of the airfield, but this particular pass ran over the barracks complex that used to hold the 35 and 36 IJN divisions."
The admiral looked up from the photograph.
"Where are they?" He asked. "Did they rush them into Buin when we weren't looking?"
"No sir." His intel officer replied. "As far as we can tell, they pulled them out yesterday to reinforce the defense of Firshaffen in New Guinea. It looks like the Aussies are giving them fits down there."
"They pulled them out? What's that leave in Raboul?" The admiral asked.
"Three naval garrison battalions and about fifty thousand support troops."
"Jesus." Spruance said.
"Yessir."
Sprunance looked turned away and stared out the window again. It was late afternoon, and the invasion of Buin was scheduled to start in less than six hours. The transports were already at sea, holding the first and second marine divisions, Spruance's most powerful amphibious strike force.
That he could take Buin was a foregone conclusion. The single weak Japanese regiment stationed there couldn't hope to stand against Spruance's two full divisions, but he had to ask, what would taking Buin gain him next to the far more tantalizing prize of Raboul itself.
To take Raboul in a raid like this could end the war in the south pacific. Without it, not just Shortland, but the whole of the Japanese position in the South Pacific would be isolated and unravel, but to fail would be catastrophic.
If Spruance ran his carriers into range of Raboul and they managed to get the airfield working again, he could lose dozens of ships. Mightly as his force was, it was still vulnerable to concerted attack by land based air, and then there was the question of the landing itself.
What if the intelligence was wrong? What if those two Japanese divisions were hiding in the jungle, trying to goad him into a trap? They'd done it before in Lae, letting the seventh Australian land only to smash it with an overwhelming counterattack earlier in the war.
If Spruance were to lose his Marine divisions or his carriers, his offensive in the South Pacific would be delayed for months, maybe a year while fresh building stateside made good his losses.
But the prize was worth it. He'd never get a chance like this again. If he entrenched in Buin, the Japanese would never leave Raboul uncovered again.
"I need to send a signal to Admiral Fletcher." Spruance said.
"Sir?" his communications officer asked.
"The invasion of Buin is off." Spruance said. "We're retargetting on Raboul."
"Sir!" His operations officer objected. "We don't have a staff study on the invasion! We haven't even mapped out likely beached or reconned the minefield."
"Well get busy then." Spruance said, his descision made. "Raboul or bust."
Epilogue:
The invasion of Raboul was a messy affair, as befitting a multi-division amphibious operation that was, quite literally, thrown together over the course of twenty nine hours while all the troops were already at sea.
The 2nd Marine division took heavy casualties when its transports ran into a minefield, but the survivors struggled ashore to find their invasion beach heavily fortified, but only lightly held.
The 1st Marine's accompanying minesweepers managed to clear a path through the mines in their operational area, but their landings found Raboul's only fully formed combat battalions, attached to the 22nd Naval Garrison. After a brutal and disorganized fight along the waterline, the marines ultimately had to call in massed airstrikes from Spruance's carriers to push their way off the beach.
But push their way off the beach they did. The two marine divisions joined hands and pushed inland towards their key objectives, the port and airfield complex of Raboul. They found the area to be a fortress, a virtually deserted fortress. There were virtually no combat troops to be found.
A fanatical charge by tens of thousand of Japanese engineers and support personel was cut down by marine rifle and machine-gun fire at the edge of the Raboul Airfield, and with that charge, Japenese resistance virtually ceased.
The battle of Raboul had taken three days. It would take the Allies another month to consolidate their gains, but when they were finished, Raboul would host some four hundred aircraft and dozens of Patrol Boats. From it, the Allies strangled Japenese supply efforts throughout the south pacific.
The battle of the south pacific didn't end with the capture of Raboul, but it was decided here.
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