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The Battle of Ohio--Buckeye5 (Allies) vs. Marcgto (IJN) - Scen 17

 
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The Battle of Ohio--Buckeye5 (Allies) vs. Marcgto (IJN)... - 2/7/2004 2:34:42 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		Alright, it looks like some (unprintable obscenity) managed to wipe out every AAR thread started within the last several months--including mine. Fortunately, I have all of my posts for the AAR archived as a Word document, so I'll be reposting them over the next few hours. Unfortunately, it appears as if all the highly valuable feedback comments left by readers of the thread have been lost, as they weren't part of the archive I kept. In any event, thanks to everyone who commented before, and for those of you who were reading this thread, you can probably skip the next several posts in this thread, as I'll just be putting back in everything that was lost.....

***

First attempt at an AAR. I'm trying to fill in the events of the first 7 or 8 days from memory, so I may be a bit off, but I think it's more or less accurate. Once I get the AAR caught up to the present turn, I'll try to start posting the combat reports--hopefully this will make more sense then.

Anyway, here goes....

Buckeye5 (Allied) vs. Marc gto (IJN)
Scenario 17, USN Commitment 100%, IJN Commitment 140%
Weather Effects ON, Fog of War ON, Japanese sub doctrine OFF, Allied Damage Control ON

This is the first PBEM attempt for both of us, so we struggled with a few file-exchange problems in the early turns, but everything has worked itself out. This is great fun! I’m taking on the challenge of stemming the Japanese push into the South Pacific. My initial strategy is to concentrate on keeping Australia secure in the west, and holding at Noumea, Efate, and Luganville in the east. I’ll try to make him pay for Port Moresby, but I’m not going to seriously try to hold it. I don’t think I have the available resources to keep him out if he really wants to grab the place. Ditto Lunga/Tulagi. If he wants to put troops there, I’ll let him do so, then plaster him with LBA once my long-range bomber numbers have built up.

May 1, 1942

As dawn breaks on May 1st, orders are issued to the area commanders. The weather is horrible today (thunderstorms), so most air groups throughout the theatre are ordered to stand down in order to reduce fatigue and allow base crews to repair damaged aircraft. PBY squadrons are ordered to conduct minimal naval search flights, although I don’t really expect to spot anything just yet.

Much task force shuffling is undertaken in SOPAC. The carriers Lexington and Yorktown, along with their screen, will be headed for Brisbane—note to self: order court-martial for the idiot who sent them to sea with half-strength fighter squadrons. The destroyer Sims is added to the carrier screen (she had been escorting the Neosho, but I’m out of range of Japanese air assets right now, and if a sub wants to take a potshot at her, one DD isn’t going to be much help). The Neosho is ordered to start shuttling fuel north to Luganville. The three PGs in port at Noumea are ordered to Luganville—once they arrive, I’ll just send them shuttling to Wunpuko and back to build up some experience. Similarly, the sub chasers at Noumea are formed into a surface combat task force, and will be sent on day runs to Kuomac to boost their experience. Lastly, the four DMS at Noumea are launched on an FT run to Luganville with supplies. I’ll need to get Luganville stocked fast, because as soon as the weather clears, every aircraft in SOPAC (a whopping three squadrons—CINCPAC must hate me) is being sent there.

To the west, the surface combat squadron is being sent to Townsville—maybe I can use them to FT supplies into PM. The Brisbane-based PGs and sub chasers head north to patrol the ports at Cairns and Rockhampton. Four transport task forces (two AP and two AK) are formed at Brisbane. One AK task force will be set on routine supply runs to Townsville, the other will load supplies and run the gauntlet to Port Moresby. One AP task force will move a brigade of the 7th Division, an AA unit, and some engineers to Cairns, the other will serve as a floating reserve, ready to load and move units wherever needed.

On New Guinea, Kanga Force is ordered to take Marilinan. This is primarily an annoyance attack--once they get there, I’ll fly in some base support and a squadron of C-47s and then evacuate everything to Port Moresby.

Lastly, submarines in-theatre are sent to lurk along the main Japanese shipping routes, with the exception of one S-boat, which will lay mines at Port Moresby. I’d have liked to have been able to rearrange my LBA assets in Australia, but I don’t want to risk the ops losses in miserable weather. Ah, well, it’ll wait until tomorrow.

No shots fired on the 1st, as the fleets are too far apart, and bad weather grounds most aircraft.

May 2, 1942

The weather improves slightly, which allows the reshuffling of air assets throughout the theatre. In Australia, all the twin-engine bomber squadrons are relocated to Cooktown, and the B-17 squadrons are sent to Cairns. The C-47 groups go to Charter Towers, with the exception of a single group, which is sent north to Port Moresby. I move the P-40 squadron at Port Moresby to Cooktown (it’s too small to protect PM right now, so I send them to Oz to build their numbers), along with the PM-based Hudsons. One P-39 squadron also departs PM for Cairns.

On the other side of the board, all SOPAC aircraft relocated to Luganville, doing so with no operational losses. The PBYs are ordered onto Naval Search, while the P-39s are ordered to train. I seem to have more than 50 pilots assigned to a squadron that cannot operate more than 24 aircraft. Is this somebody’s idea of a joke? If so, I will have words with the aspiring comedians in Personnel.

Lexington and Yorktown head southwest from Noumea, bound for Brisbane. The surface combat TF from Brisbane is one day out of Townsville. Australia is at 3 SYS damage already. I know the weather was bad, but she was hugging the coast! What’d she do, hit every reef between Brisbane and Rockhampton? Her skipper will be sacked—if, that is, he can manage to get to Townsville without sinking her. It’s just so hard to find good help these days.

Today sees the first exchange of fire. Around 10 Betties and 15 Nells, with Zero cover, attack PM from the base at Rabaul. No CAP is present—I’ve got only 1 squadron of P-39s available, and the Zeros would butcher them, so they don’t fly. Flak brings down 2 Nells and a Betty, in exchange for one A-24 destroyed on the ground and minor damage to the airfield. I can live with those numbers. Elsewhere in theatre, one of the inbound C-47s fails to make it from Oz to PM, and radio intercepts report the crash of a Mavis flying boat.

May 3, 1942

The calm before the storm continues. No shots are fired today, with the only movement occurring at sea, where the various task forces continue toward their destinations. Throughout Australia, damaged aircraft continue to be repaired before flying off to catch up to their parent units. I’m still probably 3-4 days from having all the base reassignments sorted out, but progress is being made.

< Message edited by Buckeye5 -- 2/6/2004 8:06:37 PM >
Post #: 1
May 4-7, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:35:58 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 4, 1942

Lexington and Yorktown are now within hours of Brisbane. The four SOPAC DMS are returning from Luganville after dropping off supplies. Chicago, Australia, and their consorts reach Townsville, then head further north to Cairns. Once there, they’ll rest and refuel, then load supplies for a fast transport run to PM. The AK convoy bound for PM is now three days out. Hopefully, they’ll be able to get in quickly, offload, and get out before getting blown to bits by airstrikes from Rabaul.

Speaking of the devil, the Rabaul air force makes its return to Port Moresby—and the flak gunners make them pay. A Betty and two Nells are downed, with four more Nells damaged—but all of the cripples crash on the way home. That’s eight Nells downed, and it’s still early May. Given the rate at which those birds get replaced, I suspect the Japanese are going to have to be a bit more circumspect about using them, at least for a while. PM takes several port hits, but damage and casualties are light.

In the meantime, the second P-39 squadron from Port Moresby departs for Cairns. They are replaced by the Lightning recon squadron from Cairns, and Chicago’s Seagull wing. A lot of people bag on the USN Seagulls, but I love sticking a couple of wings of them at PM. They provide a decent naval search capability, and they’re also completely expendable. Most of my submarines are settling into their final patrol locations. Not so much as a sniff of IJN shipping, though.

May 5, 1942

Another day, another court-martial to arrange. This time the target will be the commander of the SOPAC FT task force. Evidently, the DMS commander failed to top off his fuel tanks while unloading at Luganville, and so they’ve run nearly dry sixty miles short of Noumea on the return hop. After a succession of curse words, the sub chaser squadron is sent to rendezvous with them to get them back into port. I’m going to be doing more purging than Stalin in the ‘30s.

Lexington and Yorktown have arrived at Brisbane, but their fighter groups remain understrength. What time do the reinforcements start showing up, anyway?

There are Japanese ships at Tulagi. S-47 attempts to mount an attack, but is spotted and forced to abort. A recon plane at Port Moresby spots a Japanese sub approaching from the southeast. With a supply convoy a little over a day out, this could be problematic……

I fly in both Kittyhawk squadrons from Australia to cover the task force while it unloads. They’re still understrength, but they’re the only fighters (apart from the F4F-3s on the distant carriers) I have that can hope to fight through the Zeros of the Rabaul groups.

May 6, 1942

Hmmmm….things start to get interesting. There are now IJN ships at both Lunga and Tulagi. This time, S-47 succeeds in putting a torpedo into a transport near Tulagi. Unfortunately, she only scores one hit, and this looks like one of the bigger Marus, so I doubt it’s going to sink, but at the very least it should be limping home. Maybe one of my other boats can finish the job.

Still no replacement fighters for Lexington and Yorktown…growl. Oh, well, May wasn’t that kind to them historically, anyway.

The supply convoy is just a few hexes from PM now. With luck, they’ll be in and out before they attract too much unwanted attention.

May 7, 1942

Kanga Force finally arrives at Marilinan. They are ordered to deliberate attack this turn. I don’t think anyone’s home, so we should take it. C-47s are standing by in PM to fly in a portion of the baseforce to Marilinan—I’ll need the aviation support to repair Dakotas damaged during the evacuation.

My wayward DMS squadron has returned to Noumea. I’m sending them on another FT run—I’ll just have to watch them a bit more carefully this time. Neosho has arrived in Luganville and is unloading fuel.

The IJN makes its presence felt this turn. That sub I spotted sneaking toward Port Moresby torpedoes one of the supply convoy’s AKs. The damage doesn’t appear fatal, although the fire damage is higher than I’d like it to be. I’ll port her at PM once she finishes unloading, and hope she lives long enough to get rid of the floatation damage and run for home.

I’m not sure how I got this lucky, but the Rabaul airgroups don’t fly today. Good—that’ll give the rest of the convoy a chance to get a good chunk of its cargo unloaded overnight.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 2
May 8-10, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:37:11 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 8, 1942

It’s a good thing I identified myself as a newbie earlier in this AAR, because I’m certainly doing my best to live up to the name. The AK that was torpedoed at PM yesterday, of course, detached from the rest of the task force. No surprise, there—badly hit ships always do. But I forgot to set her home port to PM so she would stick around to finish unloading and then go into port, so her idiot skipper is trying to drive her back to Cairns with heavy flotation damage and fires raging. I redirect him to take the ship back to PM, but that’s going to mean at least one more day of vulnerability for her. Blast!

I take heart in two consolations—first, the remainder of the convoy has nearly completed unloading, and should be able to run for Australia tomorrow. They’ve delivered enough supplies to sustain PM for several months, if only the Japanese would refrain from blowing up my depots. I somehow doubt they’ll be that considerate. Second, the Japanese airgroups at Rabaul again take the day off—my Kittyhawks heave a sigh of relief.

I decide to give the Japanese a small taste of their own medicine, and unleash my long-range LBA from Australia at Lae. He has fighters on CAP—a small group of Claudes—but they’re not much of an obstacle, and Hudsons from Cooktown and B-17s from Cairns hit the airfield. The ground casualty numbers are somewhat encouraging, but the actual damage to the base is quite minimal—I’m sure it’ll be repaired in no time. One Hudson is lost to flak, and one B-17 fails to make it home. Not a bad raid, but I can’t do this on a regular basis, especially since I don’t start getting B-17 replacements until August.

My submarines are unable to locate targets this turn, but it wasn’t because they weren’t there to be found. IJN troops seize both Tulagi and Lunga. Oh, well, it was only a matter of time. Kanga Force gains a measure of revenge by taking Marilinan. The Port Moresby C-47s will fly in base force troops today, then begin conducting evacuation operations tomorrow.

May 9, 1942

Yes! My sub skippers finally get into the act today. S-38 is driven off before she can launch an attack at Rabaul, and S-47 misses a shot at one of the IJN transports unloading at Tulagi. But persistence pays off. S-47’s skipper dives deep, comes in for another approach, and fires three torpedoes into the Koei Maru. From the casualty counts, the transport was loaded, and she’ll almost certainly sink—this is one of the smaller Marus. I’ve seen them go under from just one hit—three should be a bit of overkill. S-47 dodges the vengeful escorts and, torpedoes expended, sets course for Luganville. Two of her consorts will arrive on site at Lunga and Tulagi tomorrow to take her place.

With the supply convoy now unloaded and running for home (with the exception of the wayward Rhesus, which is now within one hex of PM), I send the Kittyhawk squadrons on a sweep mission to Lae in an attempt to thin out the Claudes, but they fail to make contact, even though the combat report shows Claudes in the air. How irritating.

Base support troops have been transported to Marilinan. The C-47 squadron is transferred to Marilinan, and given orders to bring Kanga Force back to PM. When that’s done, I’ll stand the squadron down until its planes are repaired, then fly the base force troops back to PM. I may not be able to completely evacuate Port Moresby, but having Kanga Force there may force the Japanese to commit at least one more brigade to take the place.

I’m tired of Lexington and Yorktown sitting in Brisbane, so they’re going up to Townsville. Maybe I’ll get a chance to snipe at the enemy at Gili Gili or thereabouts. My surface group begins loading supplies at Cairns for an FT run to PM. Operations losses are starting to creep up on my airgroups. I’ve now lost two C-47s and a couple of PBYs. Can’t really rest them, though—I need the eyes. So they keep flying, for now.


May 10, 1942

Ouch! Today is a very good day for the Rising Sun. IJN submarines put two Allied ships under the waves. The first is the crippled Rhesus. She pulls back into Port Moresby harbor, and is promptly blasted out of the water by three torpedoes from the sub that had damaged her previously. This is moderately annoying, but acceptable.
However, on the other side of the map, Attack Condor’s comments are now proving grimly prophetic. Neosho is torpedoed in Luganville harbor, as she is unloading, with friendly ASW aircraft overhead and patrol boats nearby.

Alright. I’m cranky, but live and learn. I won’t be making that particular mistake again—I’ll have to invent some new ones.

The evacuation of Kanga Force from Marilinan has begun, but it’s going more slowly than I’d like. At this rate, it’ll take about three more days to get them out, and then I’ll still have to fly out the support troops.

The Claudes from Lae attempt to return the favor from yesterday, flying a sweep over Port Moresby, but both Kittyhawk squadrons have been sent back to Cairns, so there’s nothing for them to find. The Rabaul bombers return, as well—32 Nells and 22 Betties, with Zero cover. They’re bombing from higher up, now, so my flak is ineffective, but on the upside the increased altitudes seems to have spoiled their aim, and damage is minimal.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 3
May 11-12, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:38:30 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 11, 1942

After quite a bit of action, things settle down a bit today. The Claudes are again flying sweeps over Port Moresby. Once again, no one is home.

Another Kanga Force contingent is flown to PM. About two more days to finish transporting the unit, and they’ll all be out of danger…for now.

The Rabaul air force pounds Port Moresby again. They’re bombing from 11,000 feet, and frankly aren’t doing that much damage—one airbase hit, two runway hits. My flak is again pretty ineffective, downing only a single Betty. But then the ops losses set in. Fully NINE of his bombers—four Betties, five Nells—crash into the drink on the flight home. Wow! Their fatigue levels must have been very high, because the weather wasn’t that bad. I think Marc caught a real piece of bad luck here, but I’ll take what I can get (it’s also a little gamey that I can get accurate ops losses information from the report screens, but hey, if it’s there, I’ll use it—chalk it up to sigint reports or something).

Neither of us has any luck with submarine warfare this turn. One of my S-boats is the only sub to attempt an attack, and she is spotted and driven off by escorts before she can reach attack position.

One ominous sign appears. My submarines off the eastern tip of New Guinea are being spotted—by Vals. That means his carriers must be lurking somewhere in the vicinity, and my surface group is poised for a night dash into PM to drop off supplies. I think I’m going to roll the dice and send them in. I don’t think he’ll bring his ships down south of New Guinea without accurate information on where my CVs are, and he hasn’t been scouting them. By the time morning comes, my surface ships should be well on their way back to Australia. Here’s hoping…

May 12, 1942

I got away with it. The FT mission is in and out of PM, and about one night move from safety in Townsville. My carriers will also arrive in Townsville this turn.

The IJN Claudes from Lae have changed tactics—they’re now flying sweeps over Marilinan. If he starts LRCAPing Marilinan instead of just flying sweeps, my Dakotas could be in some trouble.

One of my search Seagulls at Port Moresby spots a small transport convoy north of New Guinea. It’s possible she’s just running supplies to Lae, but this could also be an invasion convoy headed for Buna. I’m going to assume it’s the latter. I’m moving a submarine to Buna to try to intercept the convoy. I’ve also flown two bomber squadrons (1 A-24, 1 Hudson) into Port Moresby and put them on naval attack. If he’s headed for Lae, he should still be within strike range—if he’s heading for Buna, my boys won’t even earn frequent bomber miles. I also fly in a squadron of Kittyhawks to provide an escort in case he’s LRCAPing the landing zone. The forecast is for clear weather, so tomorrow could be an interesting day. I’ll be waiting on pins and needles for the combat report.

My submarines east of New Guinea are still seeing Vals overhead. This could be an issue. The only concern I really have about PM is losing large numbers of aircraft if the place gets shut down by bombing. I’ve just flown a substantial number of planes onto the base, trying to nail the convoy to the north. If he launches an all-out strike from his carriers, supported by every bomber in Rabaul, it might be enough to shut down the airbase. If that happens, I’ll have to bring my carriers north to drive his task force away. I’d rather not repeat the Battle of the Coral Sea this early, but if I have to do it, I will.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 4
May 13-14, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:39:55 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 13, 1942

Things are definitely starting to speed up now.

One of his subs takes a nocturnal pop at one of my patrol boats near Noumea. The torpedoes miss, but the PGs fail to locate the sub. Their night experience levels are just pathetic right now, but if they can survive a few more attacks, maybe they’ll be able to start shooting back. On the other side of the ledger, S-40 fires a spread of torpedoes at a transport near Lunga, but her luck is no better, and she’s forced to dive deep to avoid a vigorous depth-charging by IJN destroyers.

The Claudes are still flying sweeps over Marilinan, and still finding nothing. There’s so little left on the ground that strafing is almost pointless, but I suppose they are gaining experience. The C-47s have now flown all of Kanga Force to Port Moresby, and they’re really bushed. But, for reasons outlined below, I decide to keep them flying for one more turn to try to get some of the base force troops back to PM.

The transport task force I spotted last turn was heading toward northern New Guinea—but their target was Dobadura, not Buna. They start unloading this turn, and my Port Moresby airforce gets its licks in:

Air attack on TF, near Dobadura at 13,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 10
P-40E Kittyhawk x 16
A-24 Dauntless x 14

Allied aircraft losses
Hudson x 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
PC Ch 10
AP Nana Maru
MSW Wa 1, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AP Chihaya Maru
AP Heiwa Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire
AP Unkai Maru #3
AP Oigawa Maru

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 51

All three of those bomb hits were thousand-pounders from the A-24s.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Dobadura at 13,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 10
P-40E Kittyhawk x 16
A-24 Dauntless x 14

Allied aircraft losses
Hudson x 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
AP Yamakuni Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
AP Shinkoku Maru
MSW Wa 1, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AP Keizan Maru
AP Heiwa Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 30

Again, it’s the A-24s doing most of the damage. The hit on the damaged minesweeper is a 250-pounder from one of the Hudsons, but the three hits on the transports are all Dauntless bombs.
Obviously, I haven’t hit him hard enough to abort his landing (in fact, there are now five enemy units on the ground at Dobadura—2 infantry, 1 HQ, 1 engineer, and 1 CD), but I hit some of the transports pretty hard. Heiwa Maru, in particular, got blasted—four 1000-pounders—and may not survive.

One of my spotter planes reports a very interesting sighting—what is reported as a lone heavy cruiser about eight hexes northeast of Buna. I very much doubt that ship is sailing alone, and if it really is a CA, than that is almost certainly the location of his carrier taskforce. This prompts some quick readjustments on my part:

--I’d planned on resting the C-47s at Marilinan once they lifted out Kanga Force, but one carrier strike could shut Marilinan down for good, and I don’t want all that aviation support getting trapped at a nowhere base. So the evacuation will continue for one more day, which should be enough to get most of them out.

--Most of the P-40s at Port Moresby are taken off escort duty and assigned as CAP. I’ll stack them up at 15,000 feet, and see what they can do. Probably not much—there just aren’t enough of them.

--Three other C-47 squadrons (which I shuttled up to Cooktown from Charter towers a couple of days ago) are ordered to fly supplies into Port Moresby. If heavy naval forces are inbound, this might be my last chance to get some new stockpiles into the place.

--My carriers are refueled at Townsville and ordered to proceed north toward New Guinea, although they won’t get far today. If what I’ve spotted isn’t his carriers, then maybe I can hit that transport task force while it’s stuck doing the hideously slow over-the-beach unloading at Buna. But if that is his carriers, I’ve got to get my ships north to protect Port Moresby. Ideally, I can sneak north undetected and hit him with fresh aircrews after his groups have been hitting PM for a couple of days. We’ll see how it turns out.

Reinforcements are starting to appear on the horizon. The first of the Marine fighter squadrons arrives at Noumea tomorrow, and about six days after that new ships will start arriving in theatre. I can most assuredly use them.

May 14, 1942

Speeding up was a major understatement—things are now starting to rumble out of control! The Japanese ground units landed last turn launch a shock attack and take Dobadura, which was undefended. The task force that dropped them off has apparently headed north—the crippled Heiwa Maru sinks one hex northeast of the beach. But another transport task force is on the way in, and again my Port Moresby flyers strike. The first attack (by 3 Hudsons, whose pilots evidently forgot to pee before takeoff and therefore couldn’t wait for the rest of their squadron to launch before going in) results in 2 damaged bombers for no hits scored. The second is more productive:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF at 14,37

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 7
P-40E Kittyhawk x 4
A-24 Dauntless x 13

Allied aircraft losses
A-24 Dauntless x 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
AP Meiten Maru
AP Nana Maru
AP Oigawa Maru
AP Chihaya Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
AP Enju Maru, Bomb hits 3, on fire

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 42

As was the case yesterday, the A-24s are responsible for the damage, accounting for all four hits.


Now for the bad news. That “lone CA” I spotted yesterday was, as I feared, his carriers. They’re now parked at Dobadura, and one of his CVs launches a strike at Port Moresby. My outnumbered Kittyhawks give a pretty good account of themselves, downing two Zeroes and a Kate in exchange for one P-40, but they can’t keep the bombers from getting through. The airbase takes a pasting, and is now closed down—if he gets serious about sustaining attacks, it may be a while before I can get it open again.

Fortunately, the C-47 lift from Marilinan got most of the aviation support back to PM before it closed, so I should at least be able to repair the numerous damaged aircraft I’ve accumulated over the past two days. I transfer the C-47 squadron from Marilinan to Charter Towers to rest and recuperate. I’ll worry about extracting the remnants of the base force unit from Marilinan later—I’ve got bigger issues to deal with right now.

There may be an opportunity here. My carriers are about four hexes north of Townsville, and have NOT been spotted yet. After vacillating between the smart course of action (hiding) and the Halsey course of action (steaming north at full speed to kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs), I choose the waffle course. I will try to sneak the task force a few hexes further northwest, which will put me one sprint run from the south coast of New Guinea. I’m hoping to remain unspotted for one more day while his flight groups build up more fatigue (and hopefully lose planes) flying against Port Moresby. Then I’ll dash north, and hopefully be able to unleash my fully-rested flyers against his worn-out ones. To this end, I’m standing down ALL my carrier aircraft this turn—my fatigue levels are very low now, and one day of rest should drop them to practically nothing. I’ll LRCAP the carriers with P-39s from Cooktown and P-40s from Cairns—this shouldn’t really be necessary, as I doubt I’m in attack range, but I’ll sleep better anyway.

Most likely I won’t be able to remain unspotted for one more day, given that good weather is forecast for tomorrow, and Japanese naval search is too good for my liking. But that might be almost as good an outcome for me. If he spies my fresh carriers steaming north from Australia, while his are worn out from hitting PM, he may choose to withdraw rather than risk losing his early edge in CVs. If he does, maybe I can get a shot at that second transport task force heading for New Guinea. If one squadron of fatigued A-24s can get good results, four squadrons of well-rested SBDs should be able to do at least as well.

Things are much quieter in the east. The first Marine fighter squadron arrives at Noumea, and is sent up to Luganville. If he’s building up the airfield at Lunga, I may need decent fighters there to protect the base. Six days remain until the arrival of the first ship reinforcements, including the CVE Long Island.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 5
May 15-16, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:41:18 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 15, 1942

Hardware problems with Marc’s computer forced a brief halt to our game, but we’re back in business now, and the 15th proves to be another very interesting day…

The night passes quickly. IJN submarine I-22 takes a shot at one of my subchasers at Luganville. He misses, but as long as he attacks at night, he can conduct these attacks with impunity—my subchasers’ night experience levels are just hopeless right now. They couldn’t locate a sub if it was illuminating them with a searchlight, let alone attacking from underwater. At least they’re gaining experience while serving as target practice.

The day is much more eventful. I screwed up my LRCAP assignments yesterday—badly, in fact. When my carriers completed their movement, they were in fact beyond the range of the P-40 squadron at Cairns that was supposed to be covering them, and must’ve been at extreme range for the P-39s at Cooktown. To top this off, my task force is spotted by a Japanese scout plane early in the day, and it turns out that I was, in fact, within strike range of his carriers—with all my F4Fs on stand down orders! Yikes!!!! Three Japanese strikes are launched during the day, attempting to take advantage of my stupidity.

The first strike, a group of unescorted Kates, gets lost and doesn’t find my task force. The second, consisting of 9 Vals (again without escort) bores in and attacks. The two (yes, TWO!) Airacobras on LRCAP shoot down one Val, and six more are downed by flak, but one of the two survivors plants a single 250-kg bomb on Yorktown. She’s not hurt that badly (SYS 12, with some small fires burning), but the smoke serves as a beacon for the third strike—ten Zeroes escorting nine Kates. The Kates are actually carrying bombs, not torpedoes (thank God I was at long range), and their pilots are evidently unused to attacking at altitude, as they come up empty. One Kate falls victim to flak, and several others are damaged.

The final tally (adding operational losses) stands at 10 aircraft destroyed—1 Zero, 7 Vals, 2 Kates—in exchange for the one hit to Yorktown. I was unquestionably very, very lucky.

Now….what to do? The smart thing to do would be to turn tail and head for Cairns. I could make it easily, and there’s no way he’d follow me into range of Australia-based LBA. But where’s the fun in that?

So I bite the bullet, and follow through with the original plan—to battle! My carriers and their screen are ordered to steam to the southern coast of New Guinea, one hex southeast of Port Moresby. My bombers are very well rested, and every SBD and TBF in the task force is set to attack. The two F4F squadrons will provide escort. I also take a few other steps aimed at stacking the deck in my favor a bit.

Port Moresby was spared air attack for a day, and the base engineers have gotten the airfield back in operation. The Hudson squadron is withdrawn to Cooktown, and replaced by the P-40s from Cairns. Both P-40 squadrons will be ordered to LRCAP my carrier task force tomorrow—this should allow me to send a decent escort with my strikes and still retain strong fighter cover over my CVs. The A-24s at Port Moresby, two B-25 squadrons at Cooktown, and two B-17 squadrons at Cairns are all set to Naval Attack. I don’t really expect them to hit anything (the level bombers are all set at high altitudes, and the A-24s will be going in unescorted), but I want to tax his CAP a bit. By tomorrow morning, four submarines will be in position in and around Dobadura—hopefully they can serve as a bit of an added irritant.

There is another complication—there’s a decent-sized transport TF in the Dobadura hex along with his carriers—doubtless unloading troops and supplies for an attack upon Buna. Hopefully my flyboys paid attention in ship recognition class, and can tell the difference between a transport and an aircraft carrier.

I’m not sure if this upcoming fight will turn out well for me—if my carrier task force comes under serious attack, Yorktown will almost certainly be a goner. However, there is reason for optimism. Over the past two days, I’ve destroyed 13 of his carrier planes, and it’s likely that at least a few more are damaged and unavailable to fight tomorrow. My aircrews, by contrast, are completely fresh (no squadron has a fatigue level higher than 2, most are at 0). In the event my carriers are knocked out, their planes can easily divert to Port Moresby.

If my strikes get off, I should be able to inflict damage on his flattops. Additionally, by thickening my F4F CAP with the two P-40 squadrons from PM, I should be able to inflict significant casualties on his carrier aircraft. And along with the planes, he’ll be losing those 90+ experience pilots……

…and in case all this sounds like rationalization on my part, that’s exactly what it is! I’m extremely nervous about what I’ve done. But the turn’s been sent, and now all I can do is sit back and see how it plays out.

May 16, 1942

The Battle of the Coral Sea has taken place, with both sides absorbing heavy damage. Of the five carriers who entered battle on the morning of the 16th, only Zuikaku likely remains combat effective.

The night begins with S-44 putting two torpedoes into a Japanese transport at Dobadura. The transport was loaded with men, and is doubtless badly damaged, but her escorts subject S-44 to a vicious depth-charging that leaves her heavily damaged. She is ordered to sail for Port Moresby. If I can get her floatation damage under control, she’ll survive—the system damage isn’t that bad. But she’ll definitely be out of commission for a while.

Patches of bad weather prevent morning strikes by both carrier groups, but they find one another as the clouds lift in the early afternoon. The IJN task force is sitting at Dobadura, my ships are one hex SE of Port Moresby. With a distance of only 120 miles separating the two carrier groups, an afternoon of carnage ensues.

I only get one raid in from my carriers, but it’s a big one—21 Wildcats escort 68 Dauntlesses and 27 Devastators against the Japanese. His CAP is unusually light—only 11 Zeroes, and 1 Claude. The Wildcats do a good job of keeping them off my bomber squadrons, and the majority of my planes break through to attack his carriers. Unfortunately, the results are disappointing.

If the AAR is to be believed, the Zuikaku escapes unscathed (for some reason, in every UV game I’ve ever played, I always find her to be a much more difficult target than her sister—I have no idea why this is). Shokaku is less fortunate, taking a single bomb hit and a torpedo. This may be enough to keep her from operating aircraft—in any event, she’ll probably need at trip to Tokyo. The Shoho performs her role as a decoy admirably, absorbing the bulk of the punishment from my strike. She takes two bombs from the Dauntlesses and a pair of torpedoes from the Devastators. Crippled, she settles low in the water and sinks late in the afternoon. One Wildcat, two Dauntlesses, and five Devastators are destroyed in the strike, with several other bombers falling victim to flak damage later in the day. Two B-17 strikes from Cairns (both very small) arrive over the target, but fail to add to the damage total. For some reason, the A-24s from Port Moresby don’t fly at all.

The IJN revenge is not long in coming. A first strike of 19 Zeroes, 11 Vals, and 17 Kates bores in on my task force, which is covered by 17 Wildcats and 26 Kittyhawks from Port Moresby (thank goodness for LRCAP—it’s the only thing that MAY have saved my bacon). The CAP takes a heavy toll on the attackers, and flak adds to the damage, but 1 flight of Kates breaks through and scores two torpedo hits on Lexington.

The second strike is far more successful. Ten Zeroes, 15 Vals, and 18 Kates (his carriers must have sent their strikes in individually). Only 13 Wildcats and 17 Kittyhawks remain on CAP, and this time most of his bombers break through to attack the task force. Both carriers are hit repeatedly—Yorktown takes four bombs (on top of the one hit she’d taken the day before), while Lexington takes two more torpedoes and two bombs. Ouch!

While both carriers remain afloat, they’re both out of action for air ops. To make matters worse, a localized storm over Port Moresby results in most of my carrier aircraft diverting to Buna! There are tons of Japanese troops on the ground at Dobadura, one hex over, and Buna is completely unoccupied at the moment. This could prove disastrous.

I set about saving what I can, and trying to salvage the situation. There are two pieces of good news. The first is that both of my carriers are still afloat, and should reach Port Moresby this turn. When they do, they’ll go into port until their floatation damage is under control, then run for Cairns. They’ll both need to go to Pearl Harbor eventually, but I’ve got to make sure they live long enough to get the chance. The second is that the IJN naval airgroups took a real beating this turn. His total carrier plane losses now stand at 23 Zeroes, 18 Vals, and 32 Kates.

First, all of the operational carrier planes at Buna are sent to relative safety at Port Moresby. They’ll fly naval attack missions again today—Shokaku and Zuikaku are still sitting at Dobadura, and I’d like to put some more holes in them before they can leave the area. The Wildcat and Kittyhawk squadrons will provide escort for the bombers and CAP for PM, as I expect a visit from every surviving IJN carrier plane. If I were in his shoes, I’d also be sending everything with wings down from Rabaul tomorrow, so I’m guessing the CAP will get quite a workout.

A C-47 squadron is flown from Charter Towers to Marilinan and ordered to fly the fragments of the base support unit to Buna. It’s a small enough unit that they’re nicely expendable, but they’ll give me some aviation support to get some of the cripples repaired (there are more than 30 damaged carrier planes at Buna right now, and I want to save as many as possible).

The carrier’s screening units are reassigned as a surface combat task force, and sent on a run around the eastern tip of New Guinea. I can’t catch his carrier force if they leave today, but I might be able to catch one of his transport task forces at Dobadura. Even if I don’t catch anything, their presence should at leave give the enemy something else to worry about, and might draw some unwelcome attention away from my crippled carriers.

Back to the drawing board. Enterprise and Hornet are five days out of Pearl Harbor, and will likely be released as soon as sufficient escorts are available to cover them. Saratoga is about eight days behind them. Help’s coming—I just have to hold out until it gets here.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 6
May 17-18, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:44:00 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 17, 1942

The best-laid plans just never seem to pan out the way you hope, but at least you sometimes get consolation prizes.

I-22 is still active in Luganville harbor. This time, her nocturnal torpedo attack nails SC 638, which rolls over and sinks in a matter of minutes. Again, the surviving subchasers can’t locate their attacker. At least the little buggers are only worth one point each.

Sunrise sees my surviving carrier aircraft, now based at Port Moresby, up and looking for targets. The IJN carriers have disappeared without a trace, probably headed for Rabaul. This is irritating, as it means they slipped through my submarine net without so much as a sniff. It probably does spare me some significant aircraft losses this turn, though.

With no carriers to be found, my pilots are left looking for anything to take their frustrations out upon—and lo and behold, that nice, juicy transport task force is still unloading at Dobadura. They’re not carriers, but they’ll do…..

Air attack on TF, near Dobadura at 13,38

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 18
SBD Dauntless x 35
TBD Devastator x 5
P-40E Kittyhawk x 13
A-24 Dauntless x 13

Allied aircraft losses
SBD Dauntless x 4 damaged
TBD Devastator x 3 damaged

Japanese Ships
AP Shinkoku Maru, Bomb hits 5, on fire, heavy damage
AP Meiten Maru, Bomb hits 7, on fire, heavy damage
AP Ryotaku Maru
AP Unkai Maru #3, Bomb hits 8, on fire, heavy damage
AP Keizan Maru
AP Enju Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage

The clustering of the bomb hits on a few freighters is due to the fact that the Dauntlesses were all set to high altitude—I was setting up to hit carriers, and wanted the bigger attack groups. A lot of these bomb hits are probably wasted on transports that were already mortally wounded. Enju Maru had been hit a couple of days ago on the way into Dobadura—maybe we finished her off this time around.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Dobadura at 13,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 12
B-25D Mitchell x 23

no losses

Japanese Ships
AP Unkai Maru #3, on fire, heavy damage
AP Asahisan Maru
AP Ryotaku Maru
AP Keizan Maru
AP Oigawa Maru, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
AP Enju Maru, on fire, heavy damage
PC Ch 10, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
PC Tama Maru #8

The B-25s and Hudsons from Cooktown join the party.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Port Moresby at 10,40

Japanese aircraft
A5M4 Claude x 8
A6M2-N Rufe x 3
A6M2 Zero x 16
D3A Val x 6

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 12
P-40E Kittyhawk x 13

Japanese aircraft losses
A5M4 Claude x 3 destroyed
A5M4 Claude x 1 damaged
A6M2 Zero x 1 damaged
D3A Val x 1 destroyed
D3A Val x 5 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-3 Wildcat x 1 destroyed
F4F-3 Wildcat x 1 damaged
P-40E Kittyhawk x 1 destroyed
P-40E Kittyhawk x 1 damaged

PO1 G.Asada of EIII-1 Daitai is credited with kill number 2

Allied Ships
CV Lexington, on fire, heavy damage
CV Yorktown, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage

These planes are coming from Lae, which has been reinforced by a squadron of Rufes. I’m guessing that the Zeroes and Vals are Shokaku’s planes—it’s too early for the Japanese to have gotten any land-based Vals, and Shoho doesn’t carry any, either. If true, that confirms what I suspected—Shokaku is likely headed for Rabaul, and then Tokyo. This strike doesn’t do all that much—the bomb hits on Yorktown are both 60-kg flight deck hits, and neither one penetrates. Her system damage is god-awful right now, but both carriers are actually shedding floatation damage already, and their fires should be out by tomorrow. I may save them both yet…..

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Port Moresby at 10,40

Japanese aircraft
G3M Nell x 17
G4M1 Betty x 6

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 11
P-40E Kittyhawk x 5

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell x 2 destroyed
G3M Nell x 6 damaged
G4M1 Betty x 1 damaged

Allied Ships
DD Sims

As I feared, the Rabaul gang comes calling, but they do so without escort, and my CAP chases most of them off—the ones that do attack are actually strafing—they may have been set at the wrong altitude. If that’s the case, Marc is going to be really bent—this was his best shot at finishing off my CVs. They’ll go into port this turn, and he won’t be able to hit them with torpedoes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Port Moresby , at 10,40

Japanese aircraft
A6M2-N Rufe x 7
G3M Nell x 2
G4M1 Betty x 5

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 11
P-40E Kittyhawk x 11

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell x 1 damaged
G4M1 Betty x 2 destroyed


FLT T.Baker of No. 75 Sqn RAAF is credited with kill number 4

Another small strike comes in—my CAP forces them to abort without even beginning bombing runs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Dobadura at 13,38

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 11
SBD Dauntless x 24
P-40E Kittyhawk x 17
A-24 Dauntless x 13

Allied aircraft losses
A-24 Dauntless x 1 damaged

Japanese Ships
AP Nana Maru, Bomb hits 8, on fire, heavy damage
PC Ch 10, on fire, heavy damage
AP Keizan Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire
AP Ryotaku Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AP Asahisan Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 65

Still plenty of daylight left for the afternoon strikes…..and they hit a loaded ship this time….

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Dobadura at 13,38

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 5
B-25D Mitchell x 24

no losses

Japanese Ships
AP Nana Maru, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
AP Yamakuni Maru, Bomb hits 5, on fire, heavy damage
AP Meiten Maru, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
AP Tarushima Maru
AP Ryotaku Maru, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
AP Asahisan Maru, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage

…and the LBA gets one last strike in, as well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Port Moresby at 10,40

Japanese aircraft
G3M Nell x 10
G4M1 Betty x 14

Allied aircraft
F4F-3 Wildcat x 11
P-40E Kittyhawk x 11

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell x 3 destroyed
G3M Nell x 2 damaged
G4M1 Betty x 3 damaged

FLT J.Cochrane of No. 76 Sqn RAAF is credited with kill number 2

Allied Ships
DD Sims
CV Yorktown, on fire, heavy damage
CV Lexington, on fire, heavy damage

Again, these guys are strafing, not bombing or torpedoing. Somebody’s gonna fall on a sword when they get back to Rabaul.

In the end phase, two of the APs and the damaged PC are confirmed sunk. Both of the transports are little ones. I was hoping for more confirmations. However, I may not have to wait that long. My CA/DD force is rounding the eastern tip of New Guinea, and I order them to steam for Dobadura. If the transports are still there tomorrow, they’re going to have a real, real bad day. I take a bit of a risk and turn reaction ON for the task force—if they get close, I want to let them chase targets.

They’ll be pretty exposed to air attack up there, but unless Zuikaku comes steaming back south tomorrow, I don’t think I’ve got much to worry about. There don’t appear to be enough bombers at Lae to do much damage, and his Rabaul bombers have been chewed up pretty good, too. Besides, if they come after my cruisers next turn, it’ll give my poor, abused flattops a badly-needed break.

May 18, 1942

The IJN’s submarine force is still lurking around my bases. I-27 takes a nighttime shot at PG Kiwi near Noumea. The torpedoes miss, but he’s not discouraged, and a second attack later in the day puts two torpedoes into her sister ship Moa, which quickly sinks. This is starting to get really irritating, and prompts some long-overdue countermeasures on my part. Three B-26 Marauder squadrons, who have been in Townsville picking their noses all month, will be redeployed to Noumea and Luganville and put on ASW search. I doubt they’ll actually sink anything, but maybe they can at least drive the subs under.

Greenling tries to return the favor for me, encountering what I think is his carrier group withdrawing toward Rabaul, but her captain, predictably, picks out a heavy cruiser and promptly misses. [this initial assumption on who these guys were was wrong—see below]

Back in the New Guinea area, my carrier planes at Port Moresby find the long-suffering transport TF from Dobadura withdrawing to the north, and decide it hasn’t suffered quite enough yet. A morning SBD strike plants five hits on one transport, three on another, and two on one of the escorting PCs. A follow-up strike in the afternoon hits the same two transports with a total of five more bombs. The PC and one transport are reported sunk, and I’m quite sure the other transport sank as well.

Their decision to pull out of Dobadura means that my surface group finds the place empty. While searching for targets, they are targeted by three separate air strikes. Three Vals from Lae make the first attack—again, I suspect, orphans from Shokaku. They are all shot down without scoring any hits.

The second raid (from Rabaul) is the largest—4 Nells and 17 Betties, with fighter cover. They manage to put a single torpedo into the heavy cruiser Chester, in exchange for four Betties downed and damage to most of the surviving aircraft. Unless she takes further damage Chester probably won’t sink, but she may require a trip home to Pearl Harbor. The final strike, again from Rabaul, includes 7 Nells with very heavy fighter cover—I’m glad I didn’t LRCAP this turn, as my fighters would undoubtedly have taken a beating. The Nells’ fatigue levels are starting to show—they are mauled by flak and don’t hit anything.

In other news, the reliable S-47 has reloaded her tubes and resumed hunting in the Solomons. She announces her return to action by torpedoing a Japanese transport at Lunga, and once again dodging the escorts. I really like this boat—it has made four attacks thus far, and scored hits with three of them. If they finish this patrol successfully, there will be a unit citation awaiting them in Luganville.

One of my scout planes sights a large surface combat task force heading south from Rabaul. This is the group that Greenling attacked. It’s not his carrier force heading north—it’s his carriers’ screen doing the same thing mine is doing—looking for trouble. My scout reports 6 heavy and 2 light cruisers, plus 2 destroyers. The “CL” sightings are probably destroyers, but I still don’t want to tangle with them right now, not with Chester damaged and ammunition for my ships’ secondary batteries running low. My surface group is ordered to begin withdrawing to Cairns. They’ll hug the coast of New Guinea to try and avoid contact. My submarines around Dobadura will screen their movements. I’d like to keep the SBDs at Port Moresby on Naval Attack for one more turn, just in case the Japanese cruisers get too close, but their fatigue levels won’t permit it. They’ve been flying combat missions for three days, and are pretty much shot, so they’ll stand down tomorrow.

The more blown of the two Kittyhawk squadrons at PM (morale 39) is sent back to Cairns to recover. The C-47s have moved the base force troops from Marilinan to Buna, where they can hopefully start fixing some of the crippled carrier planes. To buy them some time, I set the B-17s at Cairns and the Hudsons at Cooktown to attack Dobadura. A little disruption of the units may keep them out of Buna for an extra day or two.

The C-47s are transferred from Marilinan to Charter Towers to rest. Apart from a pair of damaged Dakotas, Marilinan has been completely evacuated. Lexington and Yorktown made good use of the day to repair flooding damage. In 2-3 days, I’ll probably be able to put them to sea for the dash south to Cairns. Hopefully nothing bad will happen to them before then.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 7
May 19-21, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:45:08 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 19, 1942

Today is relatively calm, as both sides lick their wounds after the past few days. S-47 attempts to add to its tally near Lunga, but misses a shot at a nice, fat tanker. I also send my Hudsons and B-17s from Australia against the Japanese at Dobadura (trying to keep their heads down, so they don’t get any ideas about marching to Buna. Two Hudsons and one B-17 are lost to flak, in exchange for about 50 casualties on the ground. Can’t keep up that exchange rate. Finally, one of my SBDs attacks a sub in Port Moresby harbor (there just had to be one there, didn’t there?), but no hit is reported.

Aside from this, I’m pretty much just shuffling units around within the theatre. I have a supply convoy two or three days from Port Moresby, and they’re very badly needed—all those carrier planes at PM are really sucking down the supplies. My surface combat TF is now out of the danger zone—well south of New Guinea, they should make port at Cairns tomorrow. Chester is lagging a few hexes behind them, but should reach Cairns about one day behind everyone else. The fires and flood damage should both be completely repaired by the time they reach port, but they system damage is high enough that I’ll have to send her home to Pearl Harbor to get patched up (SYS 38 from one torpedo hit!).

Naval reinforcements have begun to arrive at Noumea—the Long Island and three destroyers, plus five AVs and six more subchasers. The seaplane tenders and destroyer minesweepers are formed into a fast transport task force, and ordered to pick up the engineer unit at Basse-Poya. I’m going to send them up to Luganville to speed up the base expansion there. Two DDs and a couple of subchasers are formed into a hunter-killer group in case there are still IJN subs in the area. The subchasers from Luganville will sail to Noumea and join this group. The PGs at Noumea grab four of the new subchasers, and head for Luganville (I’m basically swapping ASW squadrons at the two ports). Long Island will sit in port at Noumea until I can figure out something useful to do with her.

The B-26 squadrons complete the transfer from Rockhampton to Noumea (I had to stage them through Rockhampton, since they can’t quite make it from Townsville to Noumea in one hop) without losing a single plane. They’ll stand down today, and start ASW flights tomorrow or the next day, whenever their fatigue drops low enough.

Lousy weather is forecast for today and tomorrow, so I’m going to take a chance and stand down all my fighters at Port Moresby. Their fatigue levels are dangerously high, and they could really use a day or two off. I think Marc’s air squadrons are in even worse shape than mine, and I hope he won’t risk the operational losses he’d probably take flying in bad weather.


Aside—I’ve noticed an annoying quirk. The F4F-3 squadrons from Lexington and Yorktown have both been transferred to Port Moresby, but every turn the two carriers are in port at PM, the fighters transfer back aboard. I can manually put them back on land, so they’re not trapped on the CVs, but I don’t want this happening if I order the carriers to put to sea. Is there any way to keep this from happening? There are fractional squadrons aboard both CVs (which have, of course, upgraded to F4F-4s, so I can’t reunite them with the main squadrons—grrrrrr)—could this be why I’m having a problem?

May 20, 1942

Another very quiet day, as the weather remains foul. S-41, arriving at Lunga to replace S-47 (redeployed to another hunting site) takes a shot at the same tanker, and misses again. This is the only action for the day.

Elsewhere, assets continue to be shuffled around throughout SOPAC and SWPAC. My supply convoy will pull into Port Moresby tomorrow—I hope the weather continues to be bad, maybe it’ll keep the bombers at Rabaul on the ground. It had better—my fighters are standing down for one more day to finish their recovery. One F4F squadron is sent down to Townsville—I want to see if I can get them to upgrade to F4F-4s. The forecast is for more thunderstorms, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

The engineers at Buna are doing sterling work—only 27 planes left on the ground. There are now Japanese aircraft at Dobadura—they have to be seaplanes, he hasn’t even finished building a base there, yet. My Seagull squadron at PM is told to recon Dobadura to confirm this.

Tomorrow, I receive five very badly-needed transports at Noumea. They’ll greatly speed up the process of moving the engineer units from Basse-Poya and Koumac to Luganville and Efate Port Villa, respectively. I also want to run at least one RCT from the Americal Division up to Luganville—I need to get some combat troops up there just in case the Japanese decide to get cute and grab the place.

Enterprise and Hornet are one day out of Pearl Harbor, Saratoga is 13 days out. Hope they get released soon….

May 21, 1942

Still calm in the south Pacific today. The only shots fired are at Noumea, where a Japanese sub takes a shot at the destroyer Worden, and misses. This is my HK group, and if the sub sticks around to try again tomorrow, his job will be a lot more dangerous—five more subchasers (the experienced ones from up at Luganville) will be joining this squadron.

My transports arrive at Noumea, and I form two task forces, each of one AP and a destroyer, to lift the engineer units from Basse-Poya and Koumac. The FT task force with the first portion of the Basse-Poya unit is about three hexes south of Luganville.

My supply convoy has made it into Port Moresby, apparently undetected. That’s good, as they should be able to get a lot of cargo unloaded overnight, before they can be attacked. A second, bigger convoy is loading supplies in Brisbane, and will also make the run up to PM.

My aviation support troops at Buna are working wonders—only 20 planes left on the ground. Man, they’re sure gonna be bent when they finish the job and I tell them they’ve got to hike the whole length of the Kokoda Trail to return to Port Moresby. Maybe I’ll be nice and send some C-47s to lift them out instead….

I’m expecting the Rabaul gang to come calling today, so I set the PM fighters to high CAP levels—and #$()*!!!! That Wildcat squadron does it AGAIN—they go back aboard Lexington (never mind that she’s a burned-out hulk), and I have to manually transfer them off—adding 10 to their fatigue level in the process!! This is REALLY ANNOYING!!!! Alright, screw it. I’ll send them back to Australia tomorrow and replace them with Kittyhawks. I don’t want to deal with this mess anymore.

Enterprise and Hornet have been released! They will arrive at Noumea in 19 days. Their screen is a bit on the weak side (1 CA, 1 CL, 4 DD), but I’ve got plenty of cruisers and destroyers in Australia, so that’s not really a big deal. Now I just need to find a good place to hide them for a few months.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 8
May 22-24, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:46:10 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 22, 1942

Another quiet, but very productive day. No shots fired anywhere, despite good weather—I guess both sides are still catching their breath.

My supply convoy got into PM and unloaded most of its cargo. It’ll finish offloading tonight, then run for home….except for the four ships I split off into a separate task force with “Do Not Retire” orders. I’m going to order them to load Kanga Force and one of the AA units and take them back to Cairns. In spite of my early successes, it’s still only a matter of time before Port Moresby goes under, and if I can pull a few units out of town before that happens, it’ll make it that much harder for the Japanese to attack Australia. I’m also rotating all of my SOPAC submarines back to Port Moresby to refuel and rearm while the calm lasts. One has just finished rearming, one will arrive at PM this turn, and two more are about 3 days out.

One of the Navy Dauntless squadrons and the last of the Wildcats are sent to Australia as well, replaced by a squadron of P-39s from Cooktown. I’d have preferred to have brought up the Kittyhawks of No. 76 Squadron—these guys are real killers—but their morale is still crappy, so they’ll stay in Cairns for another day or two. The P-39s and No. 75 squadron’s Kittyhawks are put on heavy CAP at PM to cover the taskforce, while the Seagull squadron is put on ASW duty.

Throughout Australia, I go about piecing together fractional carrier plane squadrons. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, as some of the fractional Wildcat units have upgraded to F4F-4s, and can’t reunite with their parent units. I’m glad they upgraded, but I wish they would’ve put it off for a few days. I think I’m going to really appreciate the hinted-at WiTP feature that’ll let the player control aircraft upgrades.

The evacuation from Buna continues. Only 15 damaged planes left there—I’ve gotten more than half of the cripples out, and still no sign of a Japanese advance. On the other side of the map, my transport task forces have arrived at Basse-Poya and Koumac, and begun to load the engineer units there. My FT task force has dropped off most of the Basse-Poya unit at Luganville, and is now en route back to Noumea. I want to put these guys into port for a while, as several of these ships have piled up an unhealthy amount of system damage.

My patrolling ASW aircraft spot submarines lurking at both Luganville and Noumea. They don’t attack them, but no attacks take place, either, so maybe the planes drove them into hiding.

May 23, 1942

So much for calm—today is much more eventful than the last few days. First, submarine I-24, looking for targets at Noumea, is spotted by my squadron of 7 subchasers—and SC 647 connects with two mousetrap projectiles and no less than THREE depth charges! I-24, hull crushed like an empty soda can, settles to the bottom of Noumea harbor with the loss of all hands. SC 647’s captain is ordered ashore for a medal ceremony—casual dress, cocktails and light refreshments to be served poolside. One of my PBY’s also attacks a Japanese sub at Luganville, but misses.

Unfortunately, it looks like I spoke too soon yesterday, when I mentioned that the Japanese had yet to move against Buna. A transport task force pulls into harbor and unloads at least one unit—crap! But I wasn’t taken completely by surprise, and the one Navy Dauntless squadron still based at Port Moresby gets two strikes in during the day…with surprising results.

The first strike scores three hits, one on a minesweeper and two on a minelayer—nice hits, those! In the message he sent with the turn, Marc said he thought he’d made a big mistake, and I think he may be referring to including the ML with this task force. In his defense, he’s never played as the IJN before, and having recently started a SC 17 game as the Japanese against the AI, it’s a VERY different game—and a harder one, IMHO. The second strike misses a destroyer, but plants three more hits on the minelayer—I don’t get confirmation of a sinking, but I suspect that Okonishima is in BIG trouble.

In any event, this landing may not prove to be nearly as much of a mistake as Marc thinks it is—I’ve been praying he wouldn’t try to move on Buna just yet. There are just six damaged planes left on the ground (all Dauntlesses)—another three days and I think I could’ve had every man and aircraft out of there. I’m not even going to pretend that the handful of support troops at Buna can hold against an attack—even a weak one will roll right over them.

So I’ve got to prevent that attack from happening for as long as I can. Every land-based bomber in Australia with range to reach Buna is ordered to ground attack at low altitude—he’s only got one small infantry unit there, probably a Garrison or SNLF unit, so I don’t much need to worry about flak. I’ve got to try to suppress those guys and keep them from attacking for a couple of days. I thought about trying to fly in some infantry from Australia via PBY, but I suspect that would be throwing good resources after bad, so I’m not going to do it. Everything is riding on the aerial bombardment.

May 24, 1942

The Japanese assault on the South Pacific recommences today. Early in the morning, as my transport convoy prepares to load troops for evacuation, submarine I-29 slams three torpedoes into the AK Murada. She’s one of the 1,500-capacity AKs, and quickly succumbs to her wounds.

My bombers fly against the Japanese troops at Buna, but despite two strikes (one by Hudsons and Mitchells, the other by B-17s from Cairns), the 84th Naval Garrison Unit assaults and takes Buna. My engineers are forced to begin the long, brutal retreat along the Kokoda trail. Four Navy SBDs are sabotaged by my troops before they are forced to abandon the base. It’s too bad the place fell, but it would’ve been much worse for me if this had happened a week earlier. I can take losing four planes on the ground—losing 30 would’ve hurt bad. I just hope my engineers can manage to hoof their way to Port Moresby—after all the miracle repair job they did at Buna, it’d be a real shame to lose them.

I send some of the Northern Command units at Brisbane marching north to Rockhampton. I’m going to shift the New Guinea Force units to cover Cooktown and Cairns (this will take some time). The Aussie 7th Division will be moved to Townsville, and the 3rd Division—most of which has already arrived—will be retained to defend Brisbane.

In the east, I continue to accumulate merchant shipping faster than I can find uses for it. The last of the engineer unit at Basse-Poya has been loaded and is bound for Luganville, and I send an FT task force to Koumac to haul part of the other engineer unit to Efate. Yet another transport task force is formed at Noumea, and ordered to load a brigade of the Americal Division bound for Luganville. Several oilers are formed into a replenishment task force and sent west toward Brisbane—I’ll use them to run fuel up the coast to Townsville and Cairns as necessary.

I’m rapidly running out of escort ships to cover these task forces, so I order the PG/SC squadron up at Luganville to sail down to Noumea. When they arrive, I’ll disband them and use the ships as escorts for merchant convoys.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 9
May 25-28, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:47:30 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 25, 1942

Today is busy, even though not much combat occurs. In fact, the only action of the day is a nuisance raid on Port Moresby from Lae. Shokaku’s orphans come calling again—3 Vals and 7 Kates, covered by 3 Claudes. The forecast for today was thunderstorms, so my CAP is resting, and they’re able to find a weather window and attack. They manage one port hit in exchange for damage to several aircraft—unfortunately, none were actually destroyed.

To the east, the damaged Chester finally arrives at Noumea and is sent home to Pearl Harbor. Transports continue to redeploy the engineer units from Basse-Poya and Koumac to their new homes. One of the Americal Division RCTs heads for Luganville. Another will be sent to Efate when the transport convoy returns. A major supply convoy is assembled to run bullets, bombs, and clean underwear to Luganville.

Some air group shuffling occurs in the west. Two C-47 squadrons are flown to Port Moresby to help lift troops back to Australia. This is going to be a long, slow process, and I’m starting late, so it’ll be interesting to see how many of the men at Port Moresby I’ll actually be able to extricate. Bets, anyone?

May 26, 1942

The Japanese get a bit sneaky today. Hoping (correctly) that the Allied commander has gotten slack with rear-area security, the bombers at Rabaul launch a long-range escorted strike…at Cairns! I wasn’t aware that Zeroes could make it all the way from Rabaul to Australia, and it’s a very unpleasant discovery. The squadron of Airacobras flying CAP gets mauled. Five P-39s are downed in exchange for only a single Nell. However, operations losses claim two Zeroes and another Nell on the flight home. The bombing raid itself is ineffective—the planes were set to port attack, not naval attack (which is good, because there was a BIG convoy of cargo ships unloading at the time, and Betty torpedoes would’ve hurt a LOT), and they manage only one port hit, which is quickly repaired.

This is the day’s only combat. More shuffling of ships and airgroups takes place in Australia. Several Northern Command units are ordered to concentrate at Rockhampton, marching from Townsville and Brisbane. Tomorrow two empty supply convoys will return to Brisbane, and they’ll be combined into a single TF and ordered to transport two of the 7th Division RCTs to Townsville. The Aussie 3rd Division will remain in Brisbane to protect it.

The C-47s at PM turn in their first day’s work, lifting most of the PM combat engineer battalion to Cairns. That’s one unit completely out of New Guinea. Just six to go…..

I decide to try to do something about those annoying carrier planes parked at Lae. I’ve consolidated the original four B-17 squadrons down to two, and they are both switched to night operations and ordered to conduct an airfield attack on Lae. Let’s see if we can bag some planes on the ground—I know he won’t be flying night CAP.

To the east, a squadron of RNZAF Hudsons arrives and is put on ASW duty near Noumea—that makes five level bomber squadrons on patrol, so any sub in the neighborhood should at the very least be spotted.

Luganville has now received all of the EAB from Basse-Poya, and the FT task force has loaded the unit at Koumac and is nearing Efate Port Villa. They’ll arrive and offload next turn.

Finally, a new fleet submarine arrives at Noumea, and is sent north to go hunting.

May 27, 1942

Skirmishing continues across the South Pacific, although none of these skirmishes amounts to much. S-47 pushes her luck and takes another shot at the tanker laying near Lunga, but misses again, and had to head for Luganville to re-arm. This tanker has dodged at least four attacks from my subs over the past week-and-a-half, and I’d really like to end its charmed existence. No soup for me today, though.

My nocturnal B-17 strike hits Lae with less than spectacular results—a single airbase supply hit. Whooptee-doo. Only six Fortresses participated in the raid, and two of them failed to come home. O.K., don’t think I’m going to do THAT again anytime soon.

The Rabaul gang decides that Port Moresby has lived the good life for too long, and returns in force—4 Rufes, 35 Zeroes, 15 Nells and 17 Betties. To my surprise, only 11 Kittyhawks are on CAP (I could’ve sworn their CAP levels were set higher), but the ones who do fly put in a very good show, downing three Zeroes and a Betty in exchange for two P-40s. These Aussies are turning into very formidable fighter pilots. The bombers must be quite fatigued, as most of the Betties abort without bombing. The ones who do drop their loads manage only a pair of runway hits—again, they’re bombing from 10,000 feet to minimize flak casualties, but it really screws with their aim. AA fire downs one Nell, and another Nell and a Betty crash on the way home. Not a bad day at the office.

My C-47 pilots are the world’s biggest daisies—one day of airlifting, and they’re completely shot, so I’ve got to let them rest their exhausted fannies in PM for another day. These are the guys who will be responsible for evacuating nearly 10,000 load points worth of troops? Oy, vey…

To try to speed up the process, I create another FT task force from some of my carriers’ screening vessels at Townsville. They’re given a home port of Cairns, and ordered to pick up Kanga Force from Port Moresby. Between this group and the other FT TF (now one sprint out of PM) I should be able to get all of Kanga force back to Cairns. One portion of Kanga Force and a chunk of the combat engineer brigade from PM arrive in Cairns on a transport TF this turn and start unloading.

Not much is happening in the east. The fast transport TF dumps the engineers at Efate and heads for Noumea. I form two supply convoys at Noumea as well. The first, composed mostly of AKs with a screen of destroyer-minesweepers will start a routine supply run to Luganville. The second, five oilers with escort, will begin the time-consuming job of filling Luganville’s fuel bunkers. This takes forever, but I’m not drawing down on the stocks there very quickly, so whatever I can transport up there should last quite a while. Hornet, Enterprise, and their screen are now about 13 days out of Noumea, Saratoga is about a dozen days from Pearl Harbor.

May 28, 1942

The Allies win a major victory today without firing a single shot—confirmation is received that the heavily-damaged Shokaku, bound for Truk in heavy weather, foundered and sank 90 miles short of its destination. Even better, the aircraft loss figures indicate she took 27 IJN planes to the bottom of the ocean with her.

I’m both surprised and delighted by this news. I didn’t think Shokaku was hit that bad (Marc’s e-mail indicated she was at 54 SYS damage), since as far as I knew, she’d only taken one bomb and one torpedo. Either my flyboys scored a couple of hits that I didn’t see in the combat report, or they hit really vital areas.

However, this serves as a warning for me as well. Lexington and Yorktown are STILL parked at PM, with their floatation damage levels yo-yoing from day to day. Just when I think they’re getting the flooding under control, it gets worse again, and the odds are if I tried to sail either of them south to safety, they’d share Shokaku’s fate. Even if I can get them back to Pearl Harbor, they’re probably both out of commission for the duration of the game.

I give very few orders today. The C-47 groups seem to have recovered, so they’re ordered to fly the New Guinea Force HQ to Cairns. My first FT task force has been in and out of PM, and lifted a big chunk of Kanga Force out. The second FT task force should lift the rest out tonight (only about 280 load points left to grab). That’ll make two units out of harm’s way. Five to go.

I also form a transport task force at Noumea. They’ll be loading the HQ and Engineer units of the Americal Division and taking them to Luganville.

Very little else is going on right now, and with rainy weather forecast for tomorrow, this brief respite may continue.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 10
May 29-30, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:49:17 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 29, 1942

Well, the rain didn’t completely squelch activity. Japanese aircraft from Lae and Dobadura attack Port Moresby. If I’m interpreting the combat save correctly, he’s moved at least one Nell squadron to Lae. The strike consists of 4 Claudes, 4 Rufes, 13 Zeroes, and 14 Nells. Fifteen Kittyhawks are on CAP, and the experience they’ve built up over the last month is starting to show. The P-40s down a Claude, 2 Rufes, and a Nell in exchange for damage to two Kittyhawks (both pilots get their planes down safely). Another Nell fails to survive the flight home.

The surviving Nells plant three hits on the PM airbase, two on the airbase supplies, and three on the runway—from 10,000 feet! That’s a LOT of hits to score from that high up—it looks like those Nell jockeys are improving, too. The base engineers manage to get most of the damage repaired by morning, but if Marc’s bombers can repeat that type of performance on a regular basis, I’ve got problems.

This is the day’s only combat. My troop shuffle continues. The Americal HQ and engineers are on their way to Luganville, and the 132nd RCT is one day out of Efate.

A merchant convoy that finished offloading at Townsville is being sent to Cooktown. They’re going to load two of the engineer units stationed there and haul them down to Cairns to assist in building up the base.

My C-47s, for once, turn in an honest day’s work. Most of the New Guinea Force HQ has now been flown to Cairns (only about 220 load points of the unit left at PM), so the Dakota squadrons get the day off to recuperate.

My first FT task force has dropped off most of Kanga Force at Cairns, and is ordered to steam back to Port Moresby to lift out one of the AA units. A second FT task force, carrying the final piece of Kanga, is four hexes out of Cairns and will get them back to Australia by tomorrow.

Finally, I’ve got a small AK convoy a few hexes out of Port Moresby. I’m going to try to sneak them in, grab a chunk of the infantry brigade stationed there, and bug out for Cairns before the weather clears. Hopefully they can get there by tomorrow.

May 30, 1942

No combat today, as thunderstorms have the entire theatre pretty much closed in, and my submarines are being rotated. So we’re just doing troops movements today.

Kanga Force has now been completely offloaded at Cairns. Two units out of Port Moresby, five to go. My fast transport task force has pulled into PM, and is in the process of loading the first of the two anti-aircraft units. There’s more than enough carrying capacity in that task force to get the whole batch out in one go, which is nice—I hate dealing with fractional units. The C-47s at PM haven’t completely recovered yet (fatigue in the mid-20s), but I order them back into action. One squadron will complete the evacuation of the New Guinea Force HQ, the other will start lifting the infantry unit out. This effort will completely wipe them out, so I plan to send both squadrons back to Charter Towers for some prolonged R & R tomorrow.

Flying out some of the infantry will hopefully decrease the window of vulnerability for the AK task force, which is still one hex out of PM (they didn’t make it in today—blast!). I’m going to take a bit of a gamble and leave the P-40 squadrons on only 20% CAP today—it’s thunderstorms again, and I still think his land-based bomber force is pretty much spent. If I get lucky today, I’ll crank up the CAP levels tomorrow while the task force loads. If he wants to tangle with 35-40 Kittyhawks flown by my best pilots, I’ll be happy to play.

To the east, the Americal HQ and Engineers will reach Luganville and begin unloading tonight. The 132nd RCT has arrived at Efate, but is only beginning to unload. A replenishment task force is also depositing 20,000 badly-needed fuel units at Luganville, which I plan to build up as my primary advance base for an attack upon the Solomons.

Enterprise and Hornet are 10 days from Noumea, Saratoga is 9 days from Pearl Harbor. I need these carriers badly—Yorktown will probably have to be scuttled, and the storms of the past few days have been doing really bad things to Lexington’s floatation damage levels.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 11
May 31-June 1, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:50:46 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		May 31, 1942

Well, that was really unpleasant. Marc deftly applies a super-atomic wedgie to my plans today, grabbing my shorts and yanking them up over my head with a combination of submarines and land-based bombers.

First, the IJN sub I-28 slips a torpedo into the transport George F. Elliot, which is unloading at Luganville. Nineteen men are lost to the strike, although it doesn’t look like the ship is in danger of sinking.

S-40 tries to return the favor, attacking the heavy cruiser Kako in the Gili Gili Straits (more on this later), but misses.

But the IJN isn’t done with me yet. I-21, still lurking in PM harbor, torpedoes the AK Mildura as she pulls into the harbor. She’s burning with heavy damage, and at a minimum will have to go into port for a while to put out fires and reduce flood damage. I-21 dodges depth charges from the destroyer Sims and slips back into deep water to resume lurking.

As the sun rises, the Japanese air force gets into the act. The first strike is launched at the cargo ships at Port Moresby. Six Betties and six Nells, escorted by 3 Claudes, fly in from Lae. This bunch gets mauled—the base radar must’ve provided a warning, because no fewer than 27 Kittyhawks rise to defend the task force. Two Claudes and four Betties are shot out of the sky, and every surviving bomber suffers damage—one P-40 is damaged as well. FLT T. Baker of No. 75 Squadron picks up kill number 5, becoming my first confirmed ace. The surviving bombers make torpedo runs at the Sims, which is escorting the AK convoy, but score no hits.

So far so good, but the Japanese are just getting warmed up. A second strike is launched from Rabaul against the transports at Cooktown—who aren’t CAPed (forgot to set the CAP because it was supposed to be lousy weather—that was ****ing stupid of me)! Fortunately, the strike isn’t that big—only six Nells and five Betties, with eight Zeroes flying cover. They put in a very impressive showing, though—the minesweeper Toowoomba is torpedoed twice and sunk, and the transport Westralia takes a torpedo hit as well. One Betty is downed by flak, with two more damaged.

The final strike comes at Port Moresby, and is easily the most damaging. Six Nells and three Betties, covered by three Claudes and eight Zeroes, attack my ships at sunset. The earlier attack must have forced many of my Kittyhawks to land for refueling, and only 18 P-40s intercept this strike. The Japanese fighters take some punishment, losing a Claude and two Zeroes while damaging a single P-40, but they keep my fighters away from the bombers long enough for them to drop their torpedoes—with deadly results. The luck of the Sims runs out, and she’s hit hard by one torpedo, and the AK Barwon takes two hits and is heavily damaged. Flak and fighters damage six Nells and one Betty during the attack.

Ouch! That hurt. Only Toowoomba has actually sunk, but I’ll almost certainly have to scuttle Barwon, and I’m not thrilled about Mildura’s prospects, either. The only consolation is that Marc’s land-based air forces took another beating today. He lost 14 aircraft today, including 3 Nells and 5 Betties. I’ve accounted for 30 Nells and 19 Betties in the first month of the campaign, so at a minimum he’s going to have trouble filling out his squadrons from the replacement pools—especially the Nells.

One of my recon Lightnings flying from Cooktown reports a task force of Japanese surface ships in the central Coral Sea, about a third of the way between New Guinea and Australia. Also, one of my transport task forces flashes the infamous “retreating from enemy carriers 3,200 nautical miles away” message, so I suspect that what my pilot spotted was Zuikaku and her escorts heading south to make trouble. This was probably the group that S-40 attacked in the Gili Straits.

This is interesting, and potentially problematic. I can’t have merchant convoys running around within range of a carrier strike. Fortunately, most of my merchant convoys in SOPAC are either in port hexes or far enough south that they should be out of harm’s way. I disband the task force and Cooktown and put it into port, and do the same for the FT ships at Cairns (with the exception of one CA that hadn’t finished offloading troops yet). Every medium bomber at Cooktown—two squadrons of Mitchells and one of Hudsons—is set to Naval Attack at 3,000 feet. The A-24s at Cooktown, and the Lexington’s carrier wing at Cairns are also ordered to naval attack, and every fighter wing in northeast Australia is given escort orders. I even order the B-17s at Cairns to go on Naval Attack orders at 15,000 feet—in the unlikely event one of the other airgroups manages to cripple something, maybe the Forts can finish it off. The two P-40 squadrons at Port Moresby are set to 80% CAP in case Zuikaku decides to head north.

Okay—if he’s really only got one carrier in that task force, I think I’m ready. If he’s got more than one, things could get ugly.

Elsewhere, life is calmer. The Americal Division HQ has finished offloading at Luganville, and only a handful of the Americal’s combat engineers remain to unload (they were the ones riding on the transport that got torpedoed). They’ll finish offloading overnight, and their convoy will head back to Noumea—the Elliott isn’t hit badly, and should be able to make the return voyage. The 132nd RCT has begun unloading at Efate, though it’ll likely be at least one more day before they’re all ashore. I send one of the B-26 squadrons from Noumea up to Luganville to fly ASW patrol. Maybe I can hit that sneaky bugger lurking in the harbor.

The C-47 squadrons finished lifting the New Guinea HQ to Cairns this turn, but only got a tiny piece of the 30th Aussie Brigade lifted. They’re completely shot now, so I send both squadrons back to Charter Towers to recuperate. Four units remain in Port Moresby—the base force, the 30th Brigade, and the two AA units. The only aircraft left at PM are the P-40 squadrons and five C-47s that were left behind for repairs when their parent units flew out. It’s only a matter of time before Marc tumbles to the fact that I’m pulling out of PM (if he hasn’t already), but hopefully he won’t be in a position to interfere with it for another couple of weeks.

June 1, 1942

Today is relatively quiet, as bad weather closes down most of the airfields. The only combat takes place in the Gili Straits, where S-38 succeeds in torpedoing the destroyer Yuzuki. I don’t think it’ll sink, as only one fish hit, but at least it should be laid up for quite a while. I’m pretty sure the DD was part of an FT convoy, and not part of the “carrier group” I spotted yesterday.

I order the transports and cargo ships that ducked into port at Cooktown yesterday to reform as a transport task force and load two of the engineer units stationed there. They’ll move down to Cairns to speed up the base expansion. The final two brigades of the Aussie 7th Division should arrive at Townsville tonight via transport convoy.

I send two more C-47 squadrons north to Port Moresby, replacing the two I rotated out. I still need more lift capacity to get my men out. I also reform the FT task force at Cairns, and order it to PM to finish lifting out the first of the anti-aircraft units. I’ll leave the second one until the very end, just in case the Japanese decide to keep sending bombers over New Guinea. Better weather is forecast for tomorrow, and I am desperately hoping to re-acquire the location of his carrier squadron. It could be lurking anywhere in the Coral Sea right now, and this makes me quite nervous.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 12
June 2-3, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:52:44 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 2, 1942

These little strikes from Lae are nickel-and-diming me to death! I believe I’m seeing the appearance of what I’ve seen referred to on this forum as the “FT bug.” My fast transport task force made it into Port Moresby, but didn’t pull out before dawn, and serves as a target for another of Marc’s pinprick raids. This time there are 15 planes in the strike—3 Zeroes and 3 Claudes covering for 3 Nells, 3 Betties, and 3 Kates. Nineteen Kittyhawks are flying CAP, but they’re too high to catch most of the bombers. One Kittyhawk is downed by a Zero, but the survivors kill one Betty and force the other two to abort.

The Kates and Nells focus their attentions on the heavy cruisers Minneapolis and New Orleans. The gunners on the Minny succeed in damaging all three Nells, and she combs the wakes of the attackers’ torpedoes. New Orleans isn’t as fortunate. Her gunners splash two of the Kates and damage the third, but she takes a pair of torpedo hits on her starboard side. I’m forced to split her out of the task force and put her into the port at PM to repair floatation damage. She’ll be headed for Pearl Harbor as soon as I get the flooding under control.

To the east, S-41 attempts an attack on IJN shipping at Lunga, but she is spotted and driven off by escort vessels. Not to worry—S-47 is about 3 days out of Lunga. She’ll have to show the S-41 how it’s supposed to be done.

I do a bit of air squadron shuffling today. Lexington’s F4F-3 squadron is flown from Cairns to Rockhampton. One of the P-40 squadrons from Port Moresby is then flown to Cairns to rest for a few days. The two C-47 squadrons at PM will rest for one more day, then start flying the 30th Aussie Brigade to Cairns.

The intact ships from the FT task force at Port Moresby finish loading the first of the two AA units, and will depart for Cairns at nightfall. That makes four units evacuated, three to go.

One of my recon planes has spotted a Japanese submarine in Townsville harbor. It hasn’t attacked anything, but I don’t want it there, as a big transport task force carrying two brigades of the 7th Division has just arrived, and I don’t want that sub blasting a transport while it’s unloading. Fortunately, Townsville is crawling with displaced carrier aircraft, so I assign three SBD squadrons and one TBF squadron to 100% ASW Patrol at 1000 feet. At a minimum, they should be able to spot the little bugger, and if I’m lucky, maybe one of my Navy boys can put a nice hole in its conning tower.

The two engineer units from Cooktown have been loaded and are now two hexes out of Cairns. With a little luck, they’ll be able to completely offload by tomorrow. That’s good—I want to get the airfield and port facilities at Cairns up to level 9 as soon as possible, since it’s going to be my major forward staging base in North Australia.

Good weather forecast for tomorrow—here’s hoping my sub-hunters can do their jobs effectively!

June 3, 1942

The return of good weather does not bring about a lot of action. Only one sub attack takes place today, with S-41 taking another shot at a Japanese transport near Lunga and coming up empty. My SBDs on ASW patrol at Townsville spot the Japanese sub in the harbor again, but don’t attack. Fortunately, the sub doesn’t attack anything, either.

My FT task force has returned to Cairns with the first of the PM anti-aircraft units. They’ll offload tonight, and I may give them orders for a return run to PM tomorrow. I’ll have to be a bit more careful about how I do it, if I’m going to have to contend with the FT bug for the rest of the game. The C-47s at PM have rested enough to get their fatigue down to the low teens, so both squadrons are ordered to start lifting the 30th Brigade to Cairns. This is easily the biggest unit left in New Guinea, and getting them out by ship would take a lot of lift capacity, so anything I can evacuate by air is a bonus.

I’ve ordered all five AVs from Noumea to make the dash to Cairns, escorted by the destroyer Worden. They’re fast enough to make good FT ships, and have pretty decent cargo capacity. I may be able to use them to supplement the Port Moresby evacuation. The Japanese either haven’t yet realized what I’m up to, or have chosen not to seriously interfere with it. They may be choosing not to bomb the base so they don’t have as much of a mess to clean up after the fact.

The engineer units from Cooktown have nearly finished offloading at Cairns, and only a handful of the troops of the 7th Division remain on their transports at Townsville, so I’m making good progress on the troop relocations.

Very little activity is taking place in the east right now. Enterprise and Hornet are six days from Noumea, a nice surface combat squadron (1 CA, 2 CL, 4 DD) is four days behind them, and Saratoga is four days from Pearl Harbor. My commitment level is high, so she should be released as soon as sufficient escort vessels are available.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 13
June 4-6, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:53:49 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 4, 1942

Another day in the South Pacific, and another nuisance raid comes in from Lae. This one is tiny, only 3 Claudes and 3 Nells, and since there are no ships present for them to hit, the Nells attack the airfield—from 10,000 feet. I’m not quite sure what this was supposed to accomplish. Two of the Nells take damage from flak, but unfortunately they’re able to make it home. My CAP wasn’t even flying—the weather was bad and I wanted to give my pilots a day to rest.

That IJN sub is still lurking at Townsville. It’s spotted by a B-17 flying naval search, and then attacked by an SBD, but no hit is reported. An IJN Jake also takes a shot at Greenling, which has been lurking in Truk harbor for the last week or so, trying to pick off any cripples headed for Tokyo. She escapes damage, but I order her to relocate south a couple of hexes to get back into deep water.

The C-47s begin the Herculean task of moving the 30th Aussie Brigade to Cairns. At this rate, it’ll take them at least two weeks to do it, so I’m going to have to get them some help.

My troop convoys have finished unloading at Townsville and Cairns…for now. There’s another convoy bound for Townsville with an engineer battalion from Brisbane. Aside from the Port Moresby evacuation, this is the last major troop movement I’ll be carrying out until my reinforcements start arriving.

S-47 slides into the waters off Tulagi, and is ordered to proceed to Lunga. I’m going to give her another shot at the IJN ships I know are there.

I’m itching to cause a bit of trouble somewhere, so I decide to order a strike against the airfield at Dobadura. It’s only a level 1 field, so it shouldn’t take too many hits to close it down, and I don’t see any engineers at the base, so if it’s closed, it might stay that way for a while. I know he’s got a squadron of Rufes there—does shutting down a field do anything to impair float planes, or not? If he’s not flying CAP, I might get a couple on the ground (or is it in the harbor?). Five squadrons are assigned to the attack—two each of B-25s and Hudsons, flying from Cooktown, and one squadron of B-17s from Cairns. I also order the F-5A squadron at Cooktown to Recon the base at Dobadura—hopefully they can give me a better idea of exactly what Marc has there.

June 5, 1942

Today is another day with lots of action, but little of it is decisive. My Australian LBA opens the day with two strikes at Dobadura. The first, conducted by 29 Hudsons and 30 Mitchells, results in moderate damage to the airfield (1 airbase hit, 6 runway hits), in exchange for two damaged bombers, both of which make it home safely. Most of the B-17s assigned to hit Dobadura get lost and can’t find the base, but 3 of their squadron mates manage to add 1 more runway hit, as well as killing off a few ground troops. One Fortress is damaged by flak, but manages to get home in one piece. Subsequent recon also confirms the presence of two engineer units at Dobadura, so I imagine the damage was repaired even before my planes had landed.

Marc counters with a sweep mission over Port Moresby by eight Zeroes from Lae. Sixteen Kittyhawks are flying CAP, but they’re too high to intercept. The Japanese planes strafe the base, and several of them take flak damage, but these guys are good, and they all manage to get back to Lae in one piece.

In Townsville harbor, the I-1 makes its presence felt, torpedoing the AK Mungana as that ship begins offloading an engineer unit. The hit is pretty severe, and 27 men from the engineer unit are killed in the strike, but the ship should remain afloat while the unit finishes unloading.

Finally, my favorite S-boat is at it again. S-47 returns to the waters off Lunga and promptly puts a torpedo into a nice, fat Japanese oiler. The damage isn’t reported as severe, but it does appear that it was carrying fuel, and the way these things burn, it could be in some trouble.

I don’t really issue too many orders today, other than standing down the bomber groups. My C-47s at Port Moresby have lifted out another chunk of the 30th Brigade, and their fatigue isn’t too bad, so I’m keeping them at it for another turn. The first group of AVs from Noumea has reached Cairns, and I order them to PM to pick up more of the Aussies.

After two weeks in port, it looks like the crews of Lexington and Yorktown are finally getting the upper hand on the massive flooding both ships suffered. If she keeps shedding damage, I think I’m going to order Lexington to run for Cairns in about three days. Yorktown is going to need longer, but the additional time should allow me to run a couple of additional escorts up to PM to help protect her against subs. She’ll need the protection, because she’s going to be REAL slow. The Kido Butai was not kind to her in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

June 6, 1942

Thunderstorms return to the South Pacific, and pretty much shut down any attempt by the combatants to flail away at one another—not that I was trying much of that, anyway. Aside from a succession of abortive air attacks upon I-1 in Townsville harbor (including one by an F-5A—how exactly are they attacking the sub, low-level spitwad runs? “Dive, you b*****d, or we’re gonna take your picture AGAIN!”), no hostilities take place today.

The engineer regiment at Townsville is about 2/3 unloaded from the transport—they’ll finish overnight, and then I’ll have to put the ship into port to keep it from sinking. The C-47s have extricated more of the 30th Aussie brigade (nearly half the unit has been lifted out), and their fatigue seems to have plateaued in the mid-40s, so I keep them at it.

Checking my ship reinforcements list, I note that the likelihood of ship release has been downgraded to Moderate—and this with Saratoga one day out of Pearl, too! Rats! The reason for this appears to be that a very large group of surface vessels has sailed from Pearl Harbor for the South Pacific—four heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and ten destroyers. To try to give my commitment level a boost back to high, I order every CA and DD in need of an AA upgrade to steam for Noumea. Hopefully, sending eight or ten warships back to Pearl Harbor will convince Nimitz to send me more toys (a couple of battleships, maybe?).

I also form two routine transport convoys to start running supplies from Noumea to Luganville and Efate. I had pulled most of my ships back into Noumea harbor for about a week to give them a chance to repair system damage, but it’s time to start the resupply runs again.

The first of the two AV fast transport task forces is poised to sweep into Port Moresby tonight to load troops. I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll be gone when the sun comes up, because the Kittyhawk squadron has built up an unhealthy level of fatigue, and really needs a day off. If the Japanese air force comes calling tomorrow, they won’t have to fight through CAP to hit my ships. Cross your fingers for me…..

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 14
June 7-9, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:56:18 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 7, 1942

Flags are flying at half-mast throughout the South Pacific today. The gallant S-47 has been lost with all hands, sunk near Lunga. Commander Davis launched a night attack on the Oiler Naruto, but missed his target. Attempting to launch a second attack later in the day, S-47 was spotted by the oiler’s escorts and attacked. At least two depth charges found the range, sending the unfortunate sub to the bottom.

My Navy pilots earn a measure of revenge. The I-1 is spotted in Townsville harbor by a patrolling SBD, whose pilot claims to have hit the IJN boat with a bomb. The map is still showing a Japanese sub in the Townsville hex, so I don’t think I-1 has sunk, but hopefully the SBD took a piece out of it. The damaged Mungana is still offloading the engineer unit from Brisbane at Townsville, but only three squads remain onboard, so her three escorts (two patrol gunboats and a single subchaser) are formed into a surface combat task force and sent hunting. If the I-1’s skipper decides to stick around, maybe these guys can finish him off.

The 30th Aussie Brigade has now been almost completely evacuated from Port Moresby. The fast transport task force consisting of the DD Worden and three seaplane tenders darts into PM, loads several hundred men, and runs south for Cairns. The C-47 squadrons succeed in hauling still more of the Aussies to the mainland. So little of this unit is left that I order the second inbound fast transport task force to turn around and head back to Cairns. The damaged New Orleans, which has finished repairing the floatation damage suffered a couple of days ago, is formed into a FT task force with the Minesweeper Lismore, and ordered to load the last few squads of the 30th Brigade and drop them off at Cairns en route to Noumea. One C-47 squadron is rotated from Port Moresby to Charter Towers for R & R, the other is ordered to start lifting out the men of the 94th Coastal AA Regiment. This is a fairly small unit, and the Dakotas may be able to get them all out in a single day. Once they’re lifted, the PM base force will be the only Allied unit left on New Guinea.

Several task forces of cripples and surface warships are now heading east from the Australian mainland toward Noumea, and then Pearl Harbor. My pleas to CINCPAC appear to have been heeded. Immediately upon arrival at Pearl Harbor, the Saratoga and her screen (2 CAs, 1 CL, 1 CLAA, and 8 DDs) are given orders to sail for Noumea. Two S-boats have also been released.

With thunderstorms forecast for today and tomorrow, I decide to delay Lexington’s departure from Port Moresby by another day or two. Her floatation damage is still being repaired, but I want to have her run for Cairns in bad weather, if possible, to provide her with some cover from marauding aircraft and subs.

June 8, 1942

After a breather over the last week, the Japanese appear to be taking the offensive again. The only combat today is a failed attack by the Tautog on a Japanese tanker north of the Solomons. However, the move on Port Moresby is beginning. There is at least one Japanese infantry unit marching over the Owen Stanleys from Buna. This is probably just the vanguard of the oncoming tidal wave.

However, the day is not without good news. The few battered air service squads of the PM base force who were responsible for saving so many of the damaged aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown finally complete the harrowing march from Buna. The entire remaining garrison stands at attention and salutes as these brave men return and reunite with their parent unit.

I’m nearly prepared for this—which is to say, Port Moresby is nearly evacuated. About one-third of the 94th Coast AA Regiment was airlifted to Cairns today, and the last men of the Aussie 30th are making the same trip aboard the damaged New Orleans, and should arrive home either late today or early tomorrow. The one remaining Dakota squadron at PM will hopefully fly out the last of the AA regiment today, then head back to Australia. They’ve done very well, carrying out daily airlifts for the last week. I also form the five seaplane tenders at Cairns into a FT task force, again escorted by the Worden, and order them to dash to PM to start lifting out the base force.

I also decide to prepare a proper welcome for the Japanese troops strung out along the Kokoda Trail. They don’t appear to have AA support, and as a result should be very vulnerable to air attack. Four level bomber squadrons at Cooktown (2 B-25, 2 Hudson) and the B-17s at Cairns are ordered to carpet-bomb the Trail. Additionally, the P-40 squadron at Port Moresby is given orders to fly sweeps at 100 feet. Our scientific advisers have suggested that Japanese infantrymen do not stand up well to .50-caliber machine gun fire, and my pilots are eager to put this theory to the test.

Most of the cruisers and destroyers of the carrier screen are nearing Noumea. They should reach port tomorrow, at which time they’ll be sent home for AA refits and system damage repair. They’ll be replaced by Enterprise and Hornet, who are expected in-theater tomorrow morning.

June 9, 1942

The bombers from Australia hit the 84th Naval Garrison Unit on the Kokoda Trail, but casualties appear to be minimal—hopefully I’m at least causing some disruption. The Kittyhawk strafing runs don’t seem to accomplish much, either. I suffer four ops casualties (two Mitchells, two Hudsons), so I decide to stand down the bombers for a couple of days. I’ll be able to bomb his units a lot more easily when they reach Port Moresby.

Four heavy cruisers and five destroyers reach Noumea and are sent on to Pearl Harbor. Several damaged transports and one S-boat are also making the run from Australia to New Caledonia, and will be headed for Hawaii.

The FT task force from Cairns is poised to sweep into Port Moresby to start evacuating the base force. The lone C-47 squadron at PM is finally evacuated to Charter Towers. I also decide that it’s time for the Lexington to run for it. She’s formed into an air combat task force along with the damaged Sims and sent toward Cairns. The P-40 squadron at PM will provide LRCAP this turn, but for at least a few days I’m just going to have to hope she doesn’t get spotted, because I can’t fill the “CAP gap” between New Guinea and northern Australia.

I’ve gotten a couple more ground units at Brisbane, so I decide to form one more transport task force to carry a base force and an engineer battalion to Townsville—again, these guys will be very useful for speeding up the base expansion.

My base buildups are progressing nicely. At this rate, all the Australian bases with the exception of Cooktown should be fully built up by around the end of September. The eastern bases will take longer, as I have fewer engineering units available, but they’re making progress, too.

Finally, the carriers Hornet and Enterprise have arrived at Noumea. I form them into an air combat task force, but they’re not going anywhere right now (I’ve half a mind to drop their airgroups at Noumea and send them home, but I won’t do that…yet).

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 15
June 10-12, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:57:52 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 10, 1942

Today features clear weather throughout the theater, but despite this, very little contact takes place. Intelligence reports continue to arrive, though. There are many Japanese ships present around Lunga (mostly destroyers and support vessels, with the occasional cruiser sighting reported by a coastwatcher). I-1 must not have been hurt very badly by that SBD a couple of days ago, because it’s still parked at Townsville—another SBD takes a shot at it, but misses. The surface escorts at Townsville are ordered to redouble their efforts—I don’t need that sub blasting another transport full of troops.

Lexington has begun the desperate dash for safety (well, “urgent crawl” might be more like it). She’s about 120 miles south of Port Moresby en route for Cairns, and so far, so good…except the skipper of the Sims decided to leave her behind for some reason. Ah, well, what’s one more court martial in the grand scheme of things? At her current speed, Lexington should reach Cairns in about four days. I’d have preferred to wait until her floatation damage was completely repaired, but the writing is on the wall at Port Moresby, and it was time for her to go.

I also instruct one of the damaged cargo ships at PM to load the remnants of the 94th Coast AA Regiment and sail for Australia. The FT task force has come and gone, lifting out about 45% of the base force troops. They should arrive at Cairns tomorrow. I also order the last aircraft at Port Moresby to leave—the P-40 squadron flies to Cairns, the Seagulls to Cooktown. Only one damaged P-40 remains at PM, and it should fly out tomorrow.

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with the evacuation effort. I started quite late, but it looks like I’ll be able to extract pretty much all the New Guinea troops. I’ll have to leave quite a bit of supplies and fuel behind, but I can probably bomb a lot of that if I have to. I’ve caught a bit of a break, though, as the Japanese haven’t really been pressing me too hard as I try to complete the withdrawal. Again, I’m not sure if Marc wants to try to take the base intact, or if he’s simply incapable of pushing forward at this time. His reinforcements should have started to show up in large numbers by now, but I think I put a pretty severe dent in his starting units, particularly his air squadrons. It’s possible he didn’t attack because he couldn’t. When this is over, I’ll have to ask him what his intentions were.

There’s really very little else going on—my three principal tasks at the moment are the completion of the New Guinea evacuation, the redistribution of men and supplies throughout my bases, and building up the base facilities themselves. I’m not going to be capable of anything other than the occasional nuisance raid for several months, anyway, so I’m not going to push my luck.

***

One question for UV veterans—as I’ve said before, I’ll likely have to scuttle Yorktown, as I don’t think she would survive the passage back to Australia, and even if she did, she’d never get repaired by the end of the game. If I am forced to scuttle her, will this possibly have any positive effect on my commitment level?

June 11, 1942

Thunderstorms settle in over most of the theater, limiting contact between the combatants. I-1 is still prowling around Townsville, but a patrolling escort vessel forces the submarine to dive before it can launch an attack.

Lexington is still heading for Cairns. The thunderstorms have made her flooding damage worse, and she’s not moving at her maximum possible speed. Come on, old gal! This is your life we’re talking about—move! Nevertheless, she is slowly cutting down the distance between herself and relative safety. Three more days should see her in Cairns.

My routine convoys in the east are offloading supplies at Luganville and Efate. There is no sign of hostile activity in the east, so these bases appear to be relatively secure, at least for the moment. The transport convoy from Brisbane with the additional engineer units is one day out of Townsville. I may have to increase the ASW air patrol levels to keep I-1 down…..

My fast transport convoy of seaplane tenders has reached Cairns, and will be offloading the Port Moresby base force troops today. The New Orleans has deposited the last of the Aussie 30th Brigade there as well, and is now steaming for Noumea, and thence to Pearl Harbor for repairs. I’ve managed to get most of the ships in need of AA refits out of harm’s way and off to Hawaii. Hopefully CINCPAC will note how carefully I treated them and give them back to me again once they’re fully refitted.


June 12, 1942

The skies are cloudy today, but the thunderstorms lift. This is a great boon for Lexington, which has managed to crawl a couple of hexes closer to Cairns without accumulating any additional flood damage. In two days, three at most, she’ll make port, and I’ll breathe a great sigh of relief. She’s at least gotten close enough to Australia that I can provide a bit of an escort—a squadron of P-39s at Cooktown is ordered to fly LRCAP over her this turn.

If I can save her, even if she’s damaged, than I think I came out a winner in the Battle of the Coral Sea. I’ve mentally written off Yorktown at this point, but losing her in exchange for Shokaku and Shoho is definitely a net win for me, even before you figure in the aircraft losses, which were very one-sided in my favor.

I STILL can’t do anything about I-1—today it launches a night attack on the PG Swan. The torpedoes miss, but Swan and its consorts can’t locate the sub, either. This could’ve been worse—as long as the sub is firing at gunboats, it’s NOT plinking away at the convoy of fully-loaded troopships that just arrived in Townsville harbor. I’ll willingly trade a couple of one-point escorts for the opportunity to safely offload those engineers.

There are numerous Japanese ships at Lae—probably a supply convoy. I order S-38 and S-40, patrolling the Coral Sea, to move into position to intercept the convoy as it departs for Rabaul (at least, I assume they’ll be heading for Rabaul).

The FT convoy has finished offloading the first half of the 111th Base Force, and is ordered to head back to Port Moresby to pick up the rest. I think they can lift them all in one go, although there may be a few stragglers left behind. I don’t think it matters, yet—the Japanese units marching overland haven’t even reached the hex adjacent to PM, so I should have more than enough time to complete the evacuation of the base. All of my aircraft are now out of PM, so the only allied assets left on New Guinea are the remaining half of the base force, and the two crippled ships (Yorktown and an AK) in the harbor. I put the cargo ship into a transport task force and order it to load supplies before running for Cairns. This is a bit of a ploy on my part. I don’t expect this ship to survive (its SYS damage is in the 80s, FLT damage in the 60s), but if I can fill it up with supplies before it sinks, that’ll be that much less available to the Japanese when they take the base.

I have lots of reinforcements on the way. A nice cruiser/destroyer group arrives tomorrow, a bigger group is 12 days out, and Saratoga and her screen, along with the first of a pair of new S-boats, will arrive in two weeks. North Carolina is 21 days out of Pearl Harbor, Wasp 24. Time is on my side if I can just stay patient…..

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 16
June 13-15, 1942 - 2/7/2004 2:59:44 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 13, 1942

Today’s weather is overcast, and the only action is a couple of failed attacks by my submarines—S-39 is forced to dive before attacking a target in the Solomons north of Lunga, and Grenadier misses a shot at a damaged oiler in the Slot. Lexington continues her solo foray south—she is now only six hexes out of Cairns, and will make it unless the Japanese stop her. In fact, I briefly considered ordering her to keep heading south as far as Townsville to get her a bit farther away from enemy LBA, but I decided not to do this until I’m certain I-1 has either been dealt with permanently or left the area. Her proximity to Cairns will allow one of the P-40 squadrons based there to provide some additional LRCAP over her tomorrow.

My transport convoy has finished offloading the additional engineers at Townsville, so the base expansion there should get some much-needed help. My fast transport task force also stands poised for one last sprint into Port Moresby to pick up the last of the base force troops. The damaged AK in the harbor has actually managed to repair some floatation damage, so her skipper is ordered to head for Cairns when she finishes loading. I still doubt she’ll make it, but it’s worth a shot.

The first of my cruiser/destroyer reinforcement squadrons arrives and is added to the carrier screen at Noumea. A handful of cripples continue the passage from Australia to New Caledonia. Sims should make Noumea tomorrow, and the New Orleans should be about five days behind her. A newly-arrived S-boat is sent to Luganville for fuel before being sent to stalk to Solomons. A review of the ships sunk list indicates I’ve added another Maru to the total for the campaign, although I don’t think Marc is going to be seriously inconvenienced by this.

One or two more days, and I’ll either scuttle Yorktown or send her running for Cairns.

June 14, 1942

The final allied bastions in New Guinea will soon be in Japanese hands. A coastwatcher today sights two Japanese ships at Gili Gili. They’re probably dropping off an SNLF or garrison unit to take the place. With a little luck, they’ll find the minefield one of my submarines set up several weeks ago. S-39, patrolling the Gili straits, is also ordered to head into Gili Gili to look for targets.

Despite Japanese resistance, the evacuation of Port Moresby has nearly been completed. My FT task force sweeps into the harbor and lifts out every remaining member of the base force unit. This is good—I was worried there might be a few stragglers left behind, and I’d have to send in one more run. The submarine I-21 attempts to disrupt the evacuation, but its torpedo spread at the AV Tangier misses. By daybreak, the task force is well on its way home toward Australia.
Yorktown, sitting alone in PM harbor, is the sole remaining Allied presence on New Guinea.

A rash of bad weather has added significantly to Lexington’s floatation damage, but she’s creeping ever closer to Cairns. She’s less than 150 miles out of port, now, and if her captain can coax a sprint out of her, she’ll be there tomorrow. If not, she’ll arrive the following day. I’m glad I didn’t decide to have her head for Townsville—the added distance might’ve made her situation a bit iffy. I rotate the LRCAP over her, standing down the P-39s and P-40s who flew yesterday, and assigning a fresh Kittyhawk squadron to the task.

I have a strange occurrence to report today. Several of the vessels fleeing Port Moresby were being spotted by Vals—O.K., nothing strange there, it’s probably Shokaku’s planes flying from Lae. But the replay flashed the message “AK Murada is reported HIT!” after one of these sightings. Is this the naval search plane itself carrying out an attack on the observed vessel? Murada doesn’t seem worse for wear (she was in crummy shape, anyway, but I didn’t notice any additional damage).

My aerial scouts spy two Japanese submarines this turn—the omnipresent I-1 at Townsville, and a new arrival one hex north of Noumea. I haven’t got enough free escort vessels at present to put together a good HK group, so I decide to stick a couple of additional air squadrons on ASW patrol and disband the carrier task force at Noumea—no sense letting the sub get a clean shot at a CV. If the sub is spotted here tomorrow, I’ll gather up all the tin cans from the carrier screen and let them go hunting. I’ve had good results with this tactic in games against the AI. Hey, if you’ve got ten DDs hunting for a sub, it doesn’t matter if they’ve got crap ASW skill—one of them is bound to get lucky.

The battered Sims reaches Noumea and is sent back to Pearl Harbor. That leaves just two damaged ships en route from Australia-—the New Orleans and one of my S-boats.

My next major surface group is ten days from Noumea, and Saratoga and her screen are twelve days out.

June 15, 1942

All Hades breaks loose today in and around New Guinea. After a relatively tranquil evening (marked only by an abortive attack by Greenling upon an IJN destroyer south of Truk) dawn brings a major Japanese onslaught. Not even thunderstorms throughout the region can keep a lid on the day’s action.

The Japanese ships that darted into Gili Gili yesterday have now deposited at least one infantry unit. Marc, being no fool, remembered to bring minesweepers, and my sub-laid minefield is detected and breached. However, I have active defenses in place, too. S-37 is lurking in the weeds, and plants two torpedoes on the transport Nichibi Maru, leaving it on fire and heavily damaged. S –37 spends the remainder of the day dodging vengeful escorts, seaplanes, and carrier ASW patrols.

That’s right, I said carrier ASW patrols. A strong IJN task force containing at least three carriers has sailed through the Gili straits and is now cruising along the south coast of New Guinea about 120 miles east of Port Moresby. In the afternoon, a massive strike finds the cargo ship Murada struggling south toward Cairns, and sends her under with a flurry of bomb hits.

The presence of these ships validates my decision to have Lexington run for it when she did. She’s not home free yet—she’s still two hexes out of Cairns. But she’s probably far enough south to be out of harm’s way—I don’t think the Japanese will risk their carriers inside LBA range of Australia. However, there’s no harm in a little insurance, so I bolster Cairns’ fighter defenses with a squadron of F4Fs (Yorktown’s planes, I think). Between the ‘Cats and the P-40s, I think I can keep Cairns safe from marauding Japanese naval aviators.

It also prompts me to make a decision I’ve been putting off for a long time. With three IJN flattops less than 150 miles away, Yorktown is a goner no matter what, so I decide to pull the plug. Scuttling charges are fired, and she settles to the bottom of Port Moresby harbor. The handful of volunteer crew members who remained behind to carry out this vital task gather some supplies from the PM stockpiles and then head up into the hills to supplement the New Guinea coastwatcher system.

The Hudsons and Mitchells from Cooktown launch an afternoon attack on the fast transport task force at Gili Gili, but their experience really hasn’t yet reached the level where they can hit warships. Their bombs throw up a lot of pretty spray, but don’t do any damage. One Hudson is hit by flak, but the Kiwi pilot manages to bring his bird home intact.

I get confirmed signings of IJN subs at Townsville and Noumea. I can’t do much about the one at Townsville, aside from continued air ASW patrols, but Noumea is a different story. I form a 14-ship hunter-killer task force using just about every ASW-capable warship I have in port—four subchasers, two patrol gunboats, and no less than eight destroyers.

The final elements of the second Port Moresby AA unit have been offloaded at Cairns, and the damaged transport that carried them home is put into port. My FT convoy with the last of the base force has made it into Cairns, but hasn’t yet offloaded. When they’re empty, I’ll either port them or send them running south, depending on what my intelligence reports about Japanese movements.

I don’t really like admitting this, but I’m going to have to be in a reactive mode for at least a couple of days. I can’t challenge the IJN carriers at sea right now, so I need to concentrate on the defense of Australia. I think I have enough tools to do this job, but it’ll still be nerve-racking.

Or do I have some offensive options? If the IJN’s carriers are lurking south of New Guinea, that means they’re not in the Solomons. I know Marc has been shuttling merchant shipping in and out of Lunga. Perhaps Hornet and Enterprise can be put to use sooner than I intended? I’ll have to ponder this…..

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 17
June 16-18, 1942 - 2/7/2004 3:01:00 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 16, 1942

Sub combat is the order of the day today. In the evening, Tautog takes a shot at a damaged IJN oiler in the slot, but misses. This is grating, as this is the same oiler Grenadier missed a couple of days ago, and I’d moved Tautog into position further up the Slot to try to nail it. However, in the end it doesn’t matter, as the oiler breaks up and sinks without any assistance from me. I’m pretty sure this is the one the S-47 nailed a couple of weeks ago, so I guess I can log this as the gallant S-boat's last contribution to the war effort.

My sub hunters at Noumea get a bite in their first day of duty. One of them spots the IJN sub (identified as I-27), and the group swarms in to attack. Most of them can’t find the sub, but the destroyer Hull manages to get one depth charge on target. I don’t think the sub’s badly hurt, but it’s a start. We’ll hope to finish the job tomorrow.

Across the map, the Japanese unit that unloaded at Gili Gili yesterday launches a shock attack and takes the base.

After a harrowing passage from New Guinea, Lexington has finally made the port at Cairns. She’s immediately docked—the past three days’ weather has done NASTY things to her floatation damage levels, but Cairns is a level 6 port, so the repair facilities are much better than those available at Port Moresby. The fast transport task force has finished offloading the last of the New Guinea base force troops at Cairns as well, and most of the ships in the task force are ordered back to Noumea. Two slower seaplane tenders are sent to Brisbane instead.

I can let them do this now because intelligence and recon planes report the Japanese carriers are withdrawing north of New Guinea. A patrolling PBY identifies one of the flattops as the Soryu, so it looks like the Midway carriers are here.

I’ve been neglecting my subs’ fuel levels, and several of my Coral Sea boats are sucking fumes. They’re ordered to run to Cairns for fuel and additional torpedoes. With luck I’ll be able to get them back on station by the time he starts trying to run troops and supplies to Port Moresby.

Eight days remain until the arrival of my next surface combat squadron…Saratoga is ten days out.

June 17, 1942

I get a lot of sighting reports today, but no combat occurs. The IJN carrier fleet has again sailed around the eastern tip of New Guinea (my scout planes report that this fleet contains at least one battleship in addition to the three carriers—I’m not sure whether or not to believe this). The Japanese contingent at Gili Gili now includes a pair of minelayers, in addition to the previously spotted minesweepers. I need to remember that—it’s going to be necessary to bring sweepers of my own when I move north to retake the place.

I also receive a coastwatcher report of Japanese cruisers in Port Moresby harbor. I don’t see any troops on the ground yet, and the F-5A Lightning squadron I ordered to recon PM this turn didn’t fly, so I’ll have to wait another day for confirmation. I did not receive any reports of mine hits, though, so if they did come calling, they’ve likely got a minesweeper along as well.

I-27 still appears to be hanging around at Noumea, so Hull must not have damaged it too badly. My ASW surface group is refueled at the port and ordered to resume hunting. A couple of routine resupply convoys and a replenishment task force will be returning to Noumea over the next three or four days, so I’d like this little nuisance dealt with promptly.

My cripples continue to slowly cut down the distance to Noumea. I’ve got a couple of transports in Australian ports who will need to make the same trip once they’ve gotten rid of flood damage. Lexington, of course, will also need to make this voyage. The FT ships responsible for the evacuation of Port Moresby are well on their way to their respective destination, and should be safely clear of Japanese attacks regardless of which way those carriers decide to go.

I also do a bit of shuffling of my Australian air assets. The F4F squadrons at Townsville and Cairns change places, as I bring the more capable F4F-4s to Cairns, where the danger appears to be greater. My long- and medium-range bombers are ordered on to naval search to help supplement the efforts of the PBYs and F-5As. You can never have too many search planes up, after all, and the weather for the next couple of days is supposed to be good.

A new squadron of B-17s will arrive at Noumea in four days. I haven’t decided whether I want to use them to harass Lunga from Luganville, or fly them to Cairns to join the two Fort squadrons there. I’ll probably wind up sending them west—it appears that B-17s are more effective when you can use them in greater numbers. They just pulverize airfields, and I suspect I’m going to need that capability in the upcoming months.

Lastly, my P-400 squadron at Luganville has upgraded to P-39Ds, which dumped enough P-400s into the pool to fill out the two squadrons stationed in Australia. Yes, the P-400s are mostly useless, but at least I have more useless aircraft to play with now.

June 18, 1942

The superiority of Allied ASW, even this early in the war, is starting to show. My hunter killer task force at Noumea draws a night attack from I-27. The sub puts a torpedo into the PG Tui, but Tui’s consorts close in with murder in their eyes. The destroyer Cushing exacts some quick revenge for her smaller companion, blasting I-27 with a pair of depth charges and sending the sub to the bottom of Noumea harbor. Score one for me!

The icing on the cake is that Tui didn’t actually sink—her damage levels were horrible, but since she was sitting in the Noumea port hex, I simply ordered her into port and then immediately sent her on to Pearl Harbor. This is the second sub I’ve killed in the Noumea hex, and I hope it will make Marc a bit more circumspect about sending more subs so far south.

My airmen, unfortunately, can’t match the performance of their naval counterparts. The annoying I-1, STILL sitting in Townsville harbor, is attacked no less than five times by patrolling PBYs and Dauntlesses—but every attack misses! There aren’t any ships at Townsville right now, so that sub isn’t going to hurt anything, but boy, is it annoying the crap out of me!

I don’t have to issue too many orders today. I redeploy a couple of the B-26 squadrons at Noumea, sending one to Luganville and one to Efate Port Villa. I’ll be using them to fly ASW patrols to help make life safer for the resupply convoys shuttling back and forth from Noumea.

New Orleans is now about three days west of Noumea, and my damaged S-boat is about two days behind her. Lexington appears to be responding well to the attentions of the yard hands at Cairns, and should be able to set sail for Noumea herself in about two weeks. Cairns is also home to a damaged transport, which should be repaired enough to head west in a day or two.

Not much changes in the west. I’m content for the moment to let my Australian bases build up, tend to my walls, and conduct massive air searches to make sure I spot any attempt by the IJN to move further south.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 18
June 19-21, 1942 - 2/7/2004 3:02:18 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 19, 1942

Another quite day in the South Pacific allows me to consolidate my position just a bit more. Yesterday’s sinking of I-27 evidently hasn’t had the deterrent effect I’d hoped it would, as a patrolling Marauder spots another IJN sub in Luganville harbor. There’s a supply convoy offloading at Luganville right now, and its escort is a bit thin. I consider ordering it to stop offloading and run for Noumea, but quickly dismiss the idea—there’s not much left on the ships anyway, and the sub will either attack them or it won’t. I want those supplies delivered.

I’ve also got a replenishment task force loading fuel at Noumea for a run to Luganville, so I decide to try to kill two birds (and one sub) with one stone. I will be sending the task force to Luganville to deliver fuel, but every subchaser and patrol boat in the SOPAC area of operations will screen it. If they can deter the sub from attacking, good. If they can sink it, better still.

Putting on an unexpected burst of speed, the skipper of the New Orleans brings her safely into Noumea harbor, where she is immediately sent back to Pearl Harbor. This is good—she was the last cruiser in need of an AA refit, and she’ll get it while the dockhands are patching the torpedo holes in her hull. My FT ships en route home from Australia will make Noumea in one or two days, and my damaged S-boat is three days out. The two AVs I ordered to split off from the convoy arrive in Brisbane and are put into port to repair system damage. Finally, a damaged cargo ship at Cairns has finished patching floatation damage and is ordered to head for Noumea.

Not much is happening in and around Australia right now. I’m running replenishment and supply convoys from Brisbane to Rockhampton, but that process is pretty uneventful. I also set my two Mitchell squadrons at Cooktown on naval attack orders in the hope that they’ll drop a few bombs on the Japanese ships unloading at Gili Gili. I was going to order the Hudsons to accompany them, but their morale is dreadful right now, and the 250-pound bombs they carry just don’t do much unless they hit transports. Most of the IJN ships at GG are warships, which tend to shrug off the 250-pounders. Finally, the Hudsons’ relative fragility makes them highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. So it’s Naval Search missions for them for a while.

June 20, 1942

With thunderstorms looming on the horizon, my Mitchell squadrons launch a pair of raids at the transport task forces unloading at Gili Gili, with devastating results—for my squadrons. The two raids manage only a single bomb hit on a transport, in exchange for seven B-25s lost—six to flak, one lost operationally. Needless to say, I’m standing down the squadrons today.

In the brighter side, I receive confirmation that the Nichibi Maru, torpedoed by S-37 several days ago, has sunk near Basilaki Island, probably while trying to sail back to Rabaul. I receive very few sighting reports of Japanese ships today—my coastwatchers and search planes have almost nothing to report.

My FT task force makes it back to Noumea and is sent into port. Their accompanying destroyer, the Worden, is sent home to Pearl Harbor for AA refit and system damage repair—those FT runs really rack up the SYS damage in a hurry. The Long Island is ordered to accompany the Worden back to Pearl. That’s a good job done—the only ship left in theater that still needs AA refits is the Lexington, and she’ll be sent on her way home in good time.

My routine supply convoy from Efate has returned to Noumea, and I assign several of the subchasers that had been escorting this convoy to cover the replenishment task force of oilers that will soon be heading north for Luganville. I’m guessing that IJN sub is still waiting for me at Luganville, and I want lots of ASW escorts to run it to ground.

CINCPAC has decided to release some additional resources to me—a tanker, an APD, and a trio of destroyer-minelayers are now bound for Noumea from Pearl Harbor. Alright, they’re not going to have the IJN shaking in its boots, but I can certainly put them to good use, particularly the DMs. I want to start seeding my eastern bases with mines to augment the land-based air defenses. I’m not sure if Marc is going to try for an auto-victory base, but if he does, a nice big minefield could be a really useful defensive asset.

June 21, 1942

After a succession of dull days, today is much more interesting. During the night, an IJN bombardment task force attacks Port Moresby. From my perspective, this is a good thing—the base is abandoned, and any damage the Japanese inflict will be damage they have to fix later. Checking the damage report shows the port at 16 damage, air service damage at 17, and runway damage at 2. The only downer here is that the bombarding ships manage to avoid my minefields, but that’s really hoping for a bit much.

It’s also obvious that the Japanese are building up the airbase at Lunga, because today they launch two strikes at Luganville. The first strike, four unescorted Nells, can’t find their target. A second strike of 9 Nells, with 8 Zeroes flying cover, locates Luganville and attacks. They encounter a CAP of 2 Wildcats and 15 P-39s. The Zeroes down a single Wildcat, but the P-39s break through to hit the bombers. Three Nells fall to the Airacobras (all three kills were made by the same pilot—I’ve got to figure out what he had for breakfast and feed it to his squadron mates), and a fourth is downed by the surviving F4F. The five surviving bombers dump their loads from 10,000 feet, but fail to hit anything. Two of the strike’s escorting Zeroes fail to return to Lunga—operations losses accounted for six Japanese aircraft this turn, the two Zeroes and four recon planes.

There are Japanese ships at Lunga, but S-46 cannot attack, as it is subjected to one aerial attack after another. Her skipper manages to dodge the attacks, but the area has become too hot, and the captain is ordered to head for deeper water further up the Slot.

A patrolling PBY again spots an IJN sub at Townsville, prompting a couple of actions on my part. The two SBD squadrons there, which I had set to Naval Attack to counter the IJN carrier threat, are put back on ASW duties. I also decide to move a hunter killer group to Townsville. I have a supply convoy unloading at Rockhampton, and a replenishment task force one day out of the same port. I’m going to strip the two convoys of their escort vessels (2 destroyers, 2 PGs, and six subchasers) and send them up to Townsville to deal with the sub. I don’t think I need to worry much about covering the merchant ships from the convoys—they just need to make the quick dash down to Brisbane and they’ll be safe, and it’s a risk I’m willing to run if it’ll let me bag that sub.

The two seaplane tenders at Brisbane are ordered to form an FT task force and return to Noumea. They’re the older ones that still carry .50 cal M2s instead of 20mm Oerlikons, and I might as well send them back to Pearl Harbor to get their guns upgraded, since I’m not doing much with them now. I create another FT task force at Noumea, comprised of two AVs and a pair of tin cans. They’re ordered to load the one anti-aircraft unit based at Noumea and run it up to Luganville—if the Japanese are going to start bombing the base, I might as well give them some flak to worry about.

My first squadron of B-17 reinforcements arrives at Noumea. Several of them are damaged, so they’re ordered to stand down until the air service troops can get them all working, at which point they’ll be sent to Cairns to augment the two squadrons already there.

My surface combat squadron is now three days out of Noumea, and Saratoga’s group will arrive in five days. North Carolina is 12 days from Pearl Harbor, and Wasp will arrive there in 15 days. Plenty of escorts are available, and with a little luck both heavies will be released to me.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 19
June 22-23, 1942 - 2/7/2004 3:03:20 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 22, 1942

The Lunga air force evidently didn’t need a day to recuperate, as they take another shot at Luganville. The strike is small—only six Nells—but they manage to avoid the 11 Airacobras on CAP and attack the airfield. They only manage three runway hits, but a stray bomb also totals one of my Marauders on the ground. Bugger.

My opponent has also been pulling a fast one on me. Those subs I’ve been stalking in Noumea harbor haven’t been hunting shipping…or at least, that isn’t all they’ve been up to. They’ve been laying mines as well, a fact discovered by a resupply convoy returning home from Luganville. Fortunately, fortune favors the foolish, and the convoy’s escort happens to include a pair of destroyer minesweepers. They detect the minefield and begin clearing operations, but it’s a good wakeup call for me. I split the 2 DMS into a separate mine warfare task force and order them to continue clearing the Noumea port hex, while the cargo ships are put into port to repair system damage. Another pair of DMS’s escorting a supply convoy at Efate or ordered to return to Noumea to assist with mine clearance. This makes me wonder if that sub I spotted at Luganville a couple of days back wasn’t doing the same thing. Maybe I’ll have to have the sweepers visit Luganville when they finish up at Noumea.

The damaged S-44 arrives at Noumea today and is sent home to Pearl Harbor. My FT task force from Noumea has arrived at Luganville with the 70th Coast AA Regiment in tow. They’ll offload overnight, so if the Japanese want to try bombing again tomorrow, my gunners should be waiting for them.

My supply convoy from Rockhampton has nearly made it back to Brisbane without incident, and the replenishment task force has begun offloading fuel at Rockhampton. My hunter-killer task force is now assembled, and they’re ordered to steam up to Townsville—they should arrive in about a day and a half. If I-1 is still there, perhaps I can convince it to take a permanent vacation on the bottom of the ocean. At the very least, I’d like to confirm that the sub is no longer in the neighborhood.

June 23, 1942

Today is a good day for the Japanese—but also, in a curious way, for me. The bad news is that the IJN sub I spotted at Luganville a couple of days ago (now identified as the I-28) is still there, and it puts a torpedo into the oiler Kankakee, which is forced to retire toward Efate with heavy damage and fires burning. The dozen ASW escorts in the convoy search like mad, but can’t locate their elusive underwater nemesis.

In a surprising but welcome note, the IJN sends a SECOND bombardment task force to shoot up Port Moresby. They obligingly plaster the port and airfield, adding considerably to the damage that will need to be fixed when they take the place. I really thought the cat was going to be out of the bag after the first bombardment run, when the combat report indicated no casualties. Evidently not, because the Japanese also send a pair of fighter sweeps over PM, and the Zeroes and Claudes strafe the abandoned base. The Port Moresby damage levels are now at Port 46, Air Service 18, Runway 26. If he does manage to bring in aircraft, I’m not going to need to add many hits to close the base down.

The day’s action concludes with another air strike on Luganville, this time 9 Nells covered by 8 Zeroes. Again, the strike and my CAP are ships in the night, so the bombers get a clean look at the target. This time, however, they need to contend with AA fire, which downs one Nell and damages another. The bombers manage a single runway hit before turning for home. Needless to say, the damage is completely repaired by daybreak.

To the west a patrolling Dauntless again spots I-1 in Townsville harbor. This is good—I was afraid it might’ve left to stalk game elsewhere. My ASW task force should arrive at Townsville around midday tomorrow, and the games will begin.

There’s bad weather forecast for tomorrow, but I can’t let that get in the way—it’s sub hunting time! I assemble all available destroyers at Noumea and put them in a surface combat task force with Patrol/Do Not Retire orders, and tell them to steam to Luganville. The oilers from the replenishment convoy are ordered into port, where they can offload safe from sub attack, and the escorts are formed as a surface combat task force. That’ll make two HK task forces hunting I-28 at Luganville. Hopefully, they’ll be able to nail him soon. The Marauder squadrons at Luganville and Efate are ordered on to increased ASW patrols, as are the SBDs at Townsville.

My destroyer minesweepers appear to have cleared the field laid at Noumea, so I put them into port to repair damage.

The seaplane tenders from Brisbane are now about two days from Noumea. The transport convoy from Rockhampton returns to Brisbane and is put into port, while a convoy of oilers has begun offloading fuel at Rockhampton. I’ve also received another squadron of P-400s at Brisbane. I’ll have them stand down until all their planes are repaired, then they’ll be sent north to Townsville.

Message to all ASW commanders in theater: ensure that all sonar stations are manned by your best men, and stand by the depth charges!

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 20
June 24-25, 1942 - 2/7/2004 3:05:49 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 24, 1942

Holy smokes! We’ve got trouble in paradise! Or at least as close to paradise as an underdeveloped, hot, humid, fetid malaria pit of a South Pacific island can get.

Today is actually pretty uneventful in terms of actual combat. The only action is a sweep over Port Moresby by the Rufes from Dobadura, who, amazingly, don’t do any damage (since there’s nothing for them to hit). But the sighting reports indicate that there’s plenty of action on tap for tomorrow.

First, I-1 is still hanging around at Townsville. My hunter killer group is now on station, but doesn’t get any action today. They’ll have a full day tomorrow to try to draw an attack.

A coastwatcher reports sighting a couple of IJN carriers at Shortland Island. That makes sense given their last known position. It’s also a key piece of intelligence I need to keep in the back of my head, because….

…one of my PBYs spots an IJN surface task force about 180 miles north of Luganville. The initial report indicated a battleship and at least three destroyers, however, on the map it’s showing as 5 CAs, 1 CL, and 3 DDs.

Given the focus of the Lunga air force’s recent attentions, I’m guessing that what I’m seeing is a bombardment task force en route to Luganville. This prompts a flurry of reactions on my part.

First, the oilers in port at Luganville are ordered to haul anchor, and then haul a$$ for Efate. I don’t need IJN cruisers lobbing shells at a port filled with giant floating bombs. The destroyer squadron heading for Luganville from Noumea is ordered to follow the oilers to Efate. I briefly thought about sending them in to Luganville to oppose the bombardment, but they’d just get maimed, and all I could hope for would be a couple of lucky torpedo hits. So I’ll get them out of harm’s way, instead. My smaller escorts are already heading for Noumea because when I split them out of the replenishment task force, I stupidly forgot to set them to Patrol/Do Not React. However, their impromptu retirement at least gets them out of the combat zone.

Next, every airplane at Luganville except the P-39s is relocated to Efate, which is also reinforced by an A-20 squadron flown up from Noumea. The PBYs are set on 100% Naval Search, the Marauders and Havocs are set to Naval Attack at 3,000 feet, and the Wildcats are ordered to stand down (several planes were damaged during the transfer). The P-39s are set to Naval Attack at 100 feet. I’m hoping that the airfield will still be operable tomorrow and the P-39s can strafe any ships attempting to leave the area.

As it happens, I also have two S-boats parked at Luganville repairing system damage. This is convenient. They’re both ordered to put to sea. One will stay in the Luganville port hex, the other will move one hex west. This should get the boat into position to intercept the raiders as they come in, and at the very least it’ll be able to take a parting shot at them as they go.

Finally, my self-imposed vow to keep my carriers out of harm’s way lasts all of one crisis. Hornet and Enterprise are formed into an air combat task force, covered by every available cruiser and destroyer (thank goodness that surface group showed up today—I needed those ships badly!), and sent screaming north from Noumea. Raymond Spruance is at the controls, and I throw caution completely to the wind and turn react on for the task force. All Dauntlesses and Devastators are set to naval attack, and the Dauntlesses are ordered to high altitude—I want to inflict maximum damage on the ships my boys target. I’ll be holding a very heavy CAP over the carriers, so if there’s a flattop in that group that I didn’t spot, my bombers are going to get it in the neck.

Now, I’m willing to be a little stupid, but not totally so. This is a one-day foray only. Whatever damage my pilots inflict tomorrow will have to do. If the Japanese retreat, realizing they’ve been spotted, I’m not going to chase them. And I’m going to repeat this 500 times just in case it doesn’t sink in the first time. It’s a pity the Japanese couldn’t have waited two days longer—I could’ve used Saratoga along for the ride—and for a little added peace of mind.

Routine life does go on today. My seaplane tenders make it back to Noumea and are sent back to Pearl Harbor. Lexington’s floatation damage is now under 20 for the first time since the Coral Sea engagement, and dropping fast. In one or two days, tops, her float damage should be completely gone.

Keeping my fingers crossed while waiting for the next turn……

June 25, 1942

Well, I’m not sure what to think now. The Japanese task force I sighted north of Luganville yesterday has disappeared without a trace. Maybe they realized they’d been spotted and feared sailing into a trap, or maybe my PBY pilot spotted a ghost.

I’m not sending my CVs north to look for them. They’re ordered to fall back on Noumea, and the replenishment task force (now escorted by the destroyers at Efate) will head back to Luganville. I’ll keep up a heavy air search for a couple more days until I’m sure the threat has passed.

The Japanese are still flying fighter sweeps over Port Moresby and Marilinan. Few square yards of these abandoned bases are now free of bullet holes from these relentless hawks. Small animal life throughout New Guinea trembles at the sound of their approach. My troops, however, don’t, as they’re all sunning themselves in Australia.

My sub hunters at Townsville succeed in drawing an attack from I-1. It launches a torpedo spread at subchaser 517. The torpedoes miss, but my hunters are unable to locate the sub, so it escapes from harm….

…until a couple of hours later, when a patrolling Dauntless drops a 500-pound bomb directly onto its conning tower as her captain frantically orders a crash dive! It’s too late, and the I-1, bane of my existence for more than two weeks, finally sleeps with the fishes. That’s the second sub I’ve killed in the last week, and the first one to have fallen victim to air attack.

I-1’s timely demise frees up my warships for other tasks. The destroyers and PGs are ordered to Cairns, where they’ll be escorting Lexington (whose floatation damage is now down into single digits—yes!) when she leaves port in a couple of days. The subchasers are directed to return to Brisbane via Rockhampton for convoy escort duties.

That’s it for today—just trying to unwind after yesterday’s panic. I’m still curious to see whether those Japanese ships I (perhaps) spotted yesterday decide to turn around and head south again. This is why PBEM is so much more fun than playing the AI…the computer just can’t replicate the unpredictability of a human opponent.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 21
June 26-27, 1942 - 2/7/2004 3:08:02 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 26, 1942

The return of the replenishment task force to Luganville brings another IJN submarine attack. This time the victim is the oiler Cimarron, forced to go into port with heavy damage after taking a single torpedo strike. The destroyers screening the oilers search vigorously—the Dale and the Mugford each fire depth charges, in fact—but no hits on the I-28 are reported. I again order the oilers into port to finish offloading, while the destroyers are formed into a surface combat task force and ordered to hunt subs in and around Luganville. They’re going to be busy—a patrolling PBY drops depth charges on a sub identified as the I-22, so it appears there may in fact be a pair of Japanese boats in the area. Is the second one there to lay a minefield, perhaps?

The Japanese high command must not yet recognize that Port Moresby is empty, as the Rufes from Dobadura launch yet another sweep mission. His pilots may be gaining experience, but don’t you think sooner or later one of the pilots might point out to his commander that they haven’t spotted a single person on the ground during any of these raids?

Near the end of the day, the Japanese air force makes yet another raid upon Luganville. A strike of 12 Nells and 19 Betties, with 20 Zeroes flying cover, scores two hits on the airbase, one on the airbase supplies, and four hits on the runway from 10,000 feet. A single Betty is hit by flak, but manages to make it home. This is easily the biggest raid on Luganville yet, but as long as they’re staying high to avoid flak, the damage should continue to be minimal.

Saratoga and her escorts have arrived in the theater, along with a new S-boat, which is promptly ordered north. The Sara will remain in Noumea harbor, awaiting the return of Hornet and Enterprise (about 60 miles to the north).

In Australia, Lexington’s floatation damage has finally been repaired, and escorts have reached her location. The destroyer Anderson is ordered to accompany her as she begins to move south for Rockhampton. It’ll be a long trip, but I’m confident she’ll make it. Once she’s had a chance to rest in Rockhampton for a bit, I’ll send her on the run to Noumea.

About the only other thing I do this turn is order some of the aircraft that had relocated to Efate to return to Luganville. I quickly put a stop to this, though, as the first squadron to make the transfer (one of my PBY patrol squadrons) loses an aircraft in bad weather during transit, and I don’t want to risk losing more planes by ordering additional squadrons to make the move.

June 27, 1942

Goodness! Just when you think the situation’s stabilizing, something happens to upset the apple cart again.

Today opens with another raid by the Lunga air force—but today’s target is Efate Port Vila, not Luganville. Nine Nells and 19 Betties drop bombs on the base from 10,000 feet. Again my grounded Marauders are the target—one is destroyed and another damaged. The airbase and runway are also hit three times each, although this damage is quickly repaired. At least today the Japanese pay the price for flying in thunderstorms, as three of the strike’s bombers (1 Nell, 2 Betties) fail to return to Lunga

Of far more interest, however, is a pair of sightings made by my spotter planes to the north of Australia. Another IJN submarine is heading for the coast of Australia. This is a bit annoying, but to be expected. However, hot on the heels of the submarine is a surface task force of IJN destroyers! My spotter planes count at least ten DDs in this group. This may be an attempt to finish off Lexington before she can get too far south. However, to do that, the Japanese have to enter LBA range of Australia, and strikes from Cooktown and Cairns go out to meet them.

The first strike, 15 Beauforts and 14 A-24 Dauntlesses escorted by 13 P-39s, flies from Cooktown. They absorb a severe beating from IJN flak—six Beauforts and an A-24 are shot down, with most of the survivors damaged. The Dauntlesses are a disappointment, scoring no hits. The Beauforts do better. In their first combat sortie of the war, they score torpedo hits on the destroyers Shiokaze and Asakaze. Both ships are reportedly left on fire, with the Asakaze reportedly heavily damaged as well.

Now the naval aviators stationed at Cairns take their turn. Twenty-seven Dauntlesses, orphans from Lexington, fly out to attack, covered by 10 Wildcats and 20 P-40s. Again, the Japanese flak proves distressingly effective, knocking three Dauntlesses from the sky and damaging several others. Not all of the bombers are stopped, however. The destroyer Shikinami takes a single 1,000-pound bomb hit, and her consort Ariake is hit twice. Both ships are spotted burning as the Navy fliers turn around to return to Cairns.

Alright…that was an expensive day. I lost seventeen aircraft today, about 2/3 to flak from the destroyers and the rest operational losses incurred flying in lousy weather. I also have a lot of damaged aircraft in the squadrons that flew yesterday’s missions, so those groups are ordered to stand down for tomorrow.

Fortunately, there’s a lot more left where those came from. The Beauforts and A-24s at Cooktown can’t fly tomorrow, so I’ll give the Mitchells and Hudsons a shot. I also order the P-39 squadron onto Naval Attack orders at 100 feet. They don’t carry heavy bombs, but against ships as thin-skinned as destroyers, that shouldn’t matter.

The TBDs at Cairns didn’t fly, probably because they weren’t in range—man, these porkers have short legs. However, Cairns is reinforced with a second TBD squadron and a fresh squadron of Dauntlesses from Townsville. If the Japanese get any closer, I’ll be able to send two fresh TBD squadrons, another squadron of Dauntlesses, and a squadron of P-39s (again at 100 feet) against them. I also order the B-17s onto naval attack at 10,000 feet. Now I know they stink at hitting ships, but the thinking is that if my other strikes can cripple a few of the Japs enough to slow them down, the Forts can deliver the knockout punch.

In a bit of bad timing, Lexington forayed from Cairns yesterday. She didn’t get very far, but there’s no way she can outrun IJN destroyers, and she’s only got a single DD of mine along for an escort, so I order her to turn around and run back toward Cairns. I had a trio of S-boats repairing system damage at Cairns, so they’re all sent out with orders to sit on the three hexes leading into Cairns through the gap in the barrier reef. Finally, I order my few remaining surface vessels in the west (Australia, Hobart, and a trio of Sims-class destroyers) to put to sea from Brisbane and steam north for Townsville. They’ll rendezvous with the destroyer Walke on the way north, and then I’ll station them as a quick-reaction force at Townsville. Brisbane, while safer, is too far from the action to be really useful.

To the east, the Hornet/Enterprise task force has returned to Noumea. Several submarines are approaching Luganville to rearm before heading back to the Solomons. Finally, I order my air squadrons at Efate Port Vila to return to Luganville. This time, I set both the P-39 and F4F squadrons to higher CAP percentages. If the Japanese return to Luganville, I plan to be ready. If they want to keep bombing Efate, that’s fine, too. There’s nothing of real value there, and the added flight distance increases the likelihood of more operations losses for Marc’s bomber force.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 22
June 28-30, 1942 - 2/7/2004 3:09:27 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		June 28, 1942

As it turns out, those destroyers coming down from the north weren’t chasing Lexington—they were a bombardment task force headed for Cairns! This was also the destination for the sub I spotted—which means my orders for Lexington to reverse course placed her squarely in harm’s way!

Fortunately, she wasn’t alone. S-38 tried to take a shot at the raiders as they sailed into the Cairns port hex, but was driven off before she could fire torpedoes. The IJN destroyers then launched a bombardment of the airbase at Cairns, scoring 12 hits on the airbase, 2 on the airbase supplies, and 9 on the runways. However, this was far from the amount of harm that would’ve been necessary to shut down the base—Cairns is a size 9 airfield, and the planes were safely dispersed and avoided the shellfire. The base engineers quickly repaired the damage, and all planes would be up and flying during the following day. Better still, as the raiders attempted to flee the scene of the crime, the IJN Ayanami hit a mine. This evidently inflicted enough damage to slow the ship significantly—with unfortunate consequences for her crew.

In the midst of this chaos, Lexington and her escort sail back into Cairns and straight into the sights of the I-21. This is the same boat that was staking out Port Moresby several weeks ago, and was responsible for several hits on merchant ships there. I-21 looses a full spread of torpedoes at Lexington, but the big ship’s luck holds…the torpedoes miss. I-21 vanishes under the water to look for another victim.

Daybreak brings another air raid on Efate from Lunga. Eleven Nells and 15 Betties, fly over and drop a few bombs. I’ve moved the planes off the base at Efate, so there’s really nothing for them to hit. They manage to crater the runway once, and then head for home, losing a Betty to operational causes on the return flight.

The bulk of the IJN raider task force has escaped the effective range of my airpower. They’re spotted by a patrolling bomber, already most of the way back to New Guinea—wow, that’s fast! A couple of small groups of medium- and long-range bombers attempt to intercept them, but all fail to locate the destroyers in the expanse of the Coral Sea. However, Ayanami, slowed by the mine hit, is not so fortunate, and a PBY from Cairns spots her struggling north early in the afternoon.

In short order, a strike of 14 B-17s, 24 P-39 Airacobras, and 16 Navy Dauntlesses descends on the lone raider. The Fortresses, bombing from 10,000 feet, can’t find the range, even with their target slowed by the mine damage. It doesn’t matter. An entire squadron of Airacobras riddles the tin can’s superstructure with machine gun and 37mm cannon rounds. Three of the Airacobras also manage to plant 250-pound bombs on the ship. The Dauntlesses finish the job with a quintet of 1,000-pound bombs. The last of the attack planes to depart the scene reports the Ayanami going down by the bow in deep water 150 miles off the coast of Australia.

Well, the day could’ve certainly been worse. At least my aircraft managed to survive the bombardment of Cairns and were able to hit back, although it would’ve been nicer if I could’ve gotten more than one ship. Lexington is ordered back into port at Cairns—she’ll be safe there until I’ve dealt with the sub. My surface combat group is now north of Rockhampton and has rendezvoused with the destroyer Walke, which is added to the task force. They’ll proceed north to Townsville this turn, and I’ve ordered Anderson (Lexington’s escort) to meet them there. This will give me a decent sized task force to use for sub-hunting at Cairns—I can use the cruisers as bait for sub attacks, then hope the destroyers can finish the job.

I’m also reorganizing a lot of my Australian air groups. Several of the 2-engine level bomber squadrons are put on ASW patrol, the B-17s are put on Naval Search, and my more fatigued groups stand down.

My aircraft at Luganville are similarly reorganized. The PBYs will continue their naval searches (they’re better than the Marauders at ASW work, but the Marauders just don’t have the range to be really effective naval search planes, at least not here, where everything is more spread out). My carriers are formed into a task force and ordered to escort a troop convoy to Luganville. I’m moving a New Zealand coast defense unit into position in case the Japanese decide to actually attempt a bombardment run on the place. I also form a surface combat task force of five light cruisers and five destroyers at Noumea. I’m going to wait a day or two to assess the relative threats facing my eastern and western bases. Then I’ll either send them to Australia to reinforce my small surface combat TF there, or stay in the east to help provide an additional screen for my carrier task force.

June 29, 1942

After lots of action during the past couple of days, today is completely quite—not a shot fired anywhere. My coastwatchers and aerial spotters are very active, though. Reports from both sources indicate that there’s a LOT of Japanese shipping building up at Lunga, including a task force reported to contain several battleships. Man, I’d be happy just to have one right now…what do they need a bunch of them for?

Still, I can’t let that mess up my plans. After all, those things are fuel hogs, and if he wants to come south to play, that means there’ll be vulnerable tankers somewhere in the neighborhood.

My troop transport TF is nearing Luganville, and I order the covering carrier task force to divert to Efate. This is an attempt at sneakiness on my part. The Japanese didn’t hit Efate today, which means they might well do so tomorrow—their squadrons may have been standing down for a day to recover fatigue. If they return, they’ll encounter three squadrons of carrier F4Fs set to high altitude…maybe I can ruin their day. If the target is Luganville, and not Efate, my fighter CAP will be weaker, but still substantial—a squadron of Marine F4Fs and the Army P-39 squadron.

To the west, my Australian surface combat task force has now arrived at Townsville, where the destroyer Anderson reinforced it. The whole group (Australia, Hobart, and now 5 DDs) is ordered to steam to Cairns. I’m going to try to use them as cover while I once again attempt to get Lexington out of the area.

I also spot ships in port at Gili Gili. I can’t tell exactly what they are, but I’m guessing it’s some of the destroyers I damaged in the air strike a couple of days ago. It would be nice to be able to add to their problems, so I order my Mitchell and Hudson squadrons at Cooktown to fly a port attack mission. If they find targets worth hitting, I may have the Fortresses make a similar attack tomorrow.

Another squadron of P-39s has arrived at Brisbane. They’ll stand down until they’ve filled out their numbers (plenty of P-39s in the replacement pool, I just need to wait a couple of days), then head up to Townsville to supplement the defenses there.

June 30, 1942

Today is a day of mixed results. It starts off on a bad note—the submarine Grenadier, patrolling the Solomons west of Lunga, spots a surface combat task force and fires torpedoes at one of the destroyers. They miss, and two IJN destroyers find the mark with depth charges. Grenadier may live, but she’s badly crippled. I order her to head for Tassafaronga in an attempt to keep the boat from sinking.

My port strike on Gili Gili comes off a little better. 24 Hudsons and 28 Mitchells make the flight from Cooktown and drop bombs from 15,000 feet. They manage a pair of port hits, kill off about a hundred of the Japanese manning the base, and manage to plant a single bomb on the destroyer Asakaze—this was the more seriously damaged of the two Beaufort victims from the other day. The ship’s already in port, so it won’t likely sink, but I suspect at a minimum it is very badly crippled by now.

My carriers at Efate don’t get any business from the Japanese air force at Lunga, so I order them to head home to Noumea to get them out of harm’s way. The surface combat group I formed at Noumea two days ago is ordered to head for Cairns. They’ll serve as reinforcements for the group built around Australia and Hobart.

My two crippled oilers continue to languish in port—Kankakee is recuperating nicely at Efate, but Cimarron’s floatation damage has continued to get worse, and I may need to consider scuttling her. Even if she’s saved, she’ll need a trip to Pearl Harbor for repairs.

Finally, Lexington again departs from Cairns, headed for Noumea. She’s being escorted by the destroyer Hammann, and the surface group built around Australia is given orders to follow the Lexington task force—hopefully they’ll be able to attract any hostile attention the Japanese care to turn toward the area.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 23
July 1-3, 1942 -- NEW STUFF HERE - 2/7/2004 5:26:37 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		O.K., I think this is where I start posting stuff that I hadn't put up on the forum before in crashed. Please feel free to let me know if I was wrong. My memory isn't what it used to be.

***

July 1, 1942

Thunderstorms descend on the South Pacific again, dropping a wet blanket over all attempts at hostilities. I don’t even get a lot of spotting reports. The one interesting one, however, is a report of a Jake spotting my cruiser/destroyer group bound for Townsville. This is interesting, as that’s a LONG way south of the Solomons for a small plane like a Jake. Is there a task force out there somewhere in the empty middle of the ocean? Are the Japanese attempting a raid on Noumea?

If they are, there’s not much I can do about it except try to ambush them as they come in. My own carriers had nearly made it back to Noumea, and they’re ordered to move through Noumea and station themselves about 60 miles to the west. If there’s a raid coming in, maybe they can intercept it. I also order my land-based aircraft in the east Pacific to increase naval search activities in the hope of getting a sniff of the enemy. The CL/DD group is diverted toward Rockhampton to get them further south in case there are enemy carriers in the vicinity—I still want them to head to Australia, but I’d like them to get there in one piece, if possible.

My only other order in the east is given to my patrol boats and subchasers. They’re all formed into a surface combat task force and ordered north to Luganville, their new home. I want them to stake out the harbor just in case that annoying IJN sub is still parked there. If it is, they’ll hopefully be able to do something about it—preferably something fatal.

Lexington has departed Cairns, but the sighting report prompts me to give her a new destination. Instead of heading directly for Noumea, I order her to Rockhampton—it’s the closest Australian port to Noumea, and appears to be one of the safer bases I have at the moment.

It’s not often that I’m disappointed to see that I’ll be getting reinforcements, but I am just that today. CINCPAC has ordered a surface group of two heavy cruisers (refitted vessels I’d sent home to Pearl Harbor a few weeks back), one light cruiser, and ten destroyers to sail to Noumea. What’s the problem? They’re leaving too soon! If they’d waited two more days, North Carolina would’ve been available, and probably would’ve been released—if they’d waited five more days, Wasp likely would’ve come along as well. Now I’ll probably have to wait for more escorts to arrive at Pearl before they’ll authorize the departure of the two heavies. Rats!!!

My ground forces situation is not good at present—Australia is fairly secure, but I’m stretched quite thin in the east—but will be improving shortly. Combat engineer and coast defense units will arrive at Noumea within the next four days, and the first elements of the 1st Marine Division are a week out. The bulk of the division is slated to arrive within the next 15 days. Once they’re in place, I’ll feel quite confident about my ability to protect Noumea against a quick land-grab attempt by the Japanese.

July 2, 1942

As was the case yesterday, rain puts a damper on most activity throughout the region. One noteworthy development does occur, however—Japanese ships are finally unloading troops at Port Moresby. I’m surprised it’s taken this long. At least one minesweeper is present, and is engaged in clearing the fields laid by my subs earlier in the game.

Intelligence reports at least one enemy infantry unit ashore, and I expect Port Moresby will fall tomorrow—possibly the day after, if the IJA launches a bombardment attack tomorrow to confirm they’re unopposed. In an attempt to give them a little something to think about, I set my Mitchells and Hudsons at Cooktown to Naval Attack orders at 3,000 feet. They won’t stop the landing, but might at least be able to put a bomb or two into a transport. My lone submarine at sea near New Guinea, the Tautog, is ordered southwest to lurk along the convoy’s likely retirement route, and I order one of the Cairns-based S-boats north to stake out PM itself.

A review of the intelligence reports notes that yet another IJN transport has been added to the sunk ships list, although I can’t really tell which one (I don’t track the names of all the transports I’ve sunk—I probably should). This was the 22nd IJN ship sunk thus far in the campaign.

The heavily damaged Grenadier has reached Tassafaronga without sinking, and is ordered to retire on Luganville. It’ll be a long, slow journey, but the boat should make it, which means I’ll be able to send it back to Pearl Harbor for repairs. The damaged AK Barwon reaches Noumea today after a long trip from Australia, and is also ordered back to PH. Additionally, a new S-boat (S-43) arrives in Noumea and is sent to join the cordon of subs picketing the Solomons.

I don’t get any additional reports of Japanese activity in the South Pacific today, which leads me to think that if yesterday’s Jake spotting did represent a probe south, they’ve backed off. On this assumption, my carriers are ordered to return to Noumea, where they’ll be stood down, and my cruiser/destroyer group bound for Australia is redirected to Townsville, its original destination.

Lexington has cleared the barrier reef and is now headed south along the Australian coast. She hasn’t been spotted, and her covering force, the Australia/Hobart group, is cut loose and sent home to Townsville. Lexington’s best defense at this point is probably anonymity—a two-ship task force is a hard target to find, let alone attack, so I’ll let her sail on her way and hope she can hide in the vastness of the open ocean.

July 3, 1942

Port Moresby has fallen! A Japanese Naval Garrison Unit storms ashore from its transports, launches itself against the fortifications….and discovers that no one’s home, since my entire garrison has long since been evacuated to Australia.

My bombers fly from Cooktown in an attempt to disrupt the transports unloading in the harbor, but meet with minimal success. Two strikes flown during the day result in three damaged bombers, and only a single 250-pound bomb hit on a transport. This isn’t a very encouraging return, and fatigue levels in the bomber squadrons will prohibit a follow-up strike tomorrow. In an attempt to do something about the situation, I order the three B-17 squadrons at Cairns to Naval Attack at 10,000 feet. Maybe they’ll get lucky. Probably not, but maybe.

The only other action on the day is an aborted attempt by S-46 to attack a Japanese vessel near the Solomons. Three IJN APDs search for the sub, but fail to find it.

There aren’t a lot of other orders to give today. My cruiser/destroyer task force continues to sail toward Townsville—they should arrive in about two days. I also create a carrier task force built around the Saratoga at Noumea. Her group will have the responsibility of escorting Lexington as it covers the long stretch from Australia to New Caledonia. Since this will likely take some time, I also form a replenishment task force consisting of a single oiler and a destroyer, and order it to follow the Saratoga group. This will allow the escorting ships to top off their tanks and remain at sea for the necessary period of time, and leave them enough fuel to maneuver if they need to do so.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 24
July 4-6, 1942 - 2/7/2004 5:27:55 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		July 4, 1942

The Independence Day holiday sees very little in the way of combat, the only incident being an attack by Tautog upon a Japanese transport departing Port Moresby. Unfortunately, it’s one of the little ones, and Tautog’s skipper misjudges the range—all the torpedoes miss, and the transport sails blithely on its way.

Despite the calm, my spotter planes report some disturbing news—sightings of not one, but two IJN subs parked in the Cairns port hex. This is disturbing because a supply convoy from Brisbane will pull into Cairns at about daybreak tomorrow. Its escort is fairly hefty—2 PGs and six subchasers—but I’m not confident in the experience levels of the ASW vessels. In an attempt to make their job easier, I assign seven of the air squadrons at Cooktown and Cairns to ASW patrol work—2 SBD, 2 TBD, 2 Hudson, and 1 Beaufort. If we can’t sink the subs, perhaps I can at least drive them down.

If the little ASW escorts can’t hit subs, perhaps destroyers can. My cruiser/destroyer squadron from Noumea should reach Townsville tomorrow. Once they arrive, I’ll have 8 DDs at Townsville, and they’d make a very nice ASW squadron. If those subs start causing problems, the destroyers will be going hunting.

I also consider the possibility that those subs are laying mines at Cairns. To counteract this potential threat, I order four of the coastal minesweepers from Brisbane to relocate north to Townville. I don’t want to send them all the way to Cairns—too much danger from air attack to risk them unnecessarily. But this way, if I do detect mines, they’ll be near enough to the problem to respond quickly.

I also take steps to attempt to protect the supply convoy against a repeat of what happened the last time I brought merchant shipping this far north. Both of the Kittyhawk squadrons, Yorktown’s F4Fs, and a single squadron of Airacobras are put on CAP over Cairns. I can’t stop the Betties and Nells from flying south from Rabaul to attack my convoys, but I can make sure that if they do, the experience will be a very unpleasant one.

July 5, 1942

The process of turning up the heat on Port Moresby has begun. The first turn of the screw is applied by 25 B-17s flying from Cairns. There is a CAP of 8 Rufes over PM—flying from Dobadura, no doubt—but the Japanese flyers are understandably reluctant to challenge the Forts’ guns, and the bombers are allowed to drop their payloads unmolested. The port strikes isn’t bad—2 hits on the port itself, three on the port fuel stocks, and two on the port supplies. The B-17s also score one direct hit on a transport docked at the port—the same ship damaged by the Hudson strike two days ago. Ryotako Maru survives the hit, but it is burning and badly damaged as the strike departs for home. One B-17 is lost operationally during the raid.

Saratoga and her squadron are sailing west. They should rendezvous with Lexington in about three days. The replenishment oiler who will be following her is still loading fuel at Noumea and won’t be able to sail for another day or two, but should be able to catch up. Lexington isn’t moving very fast, so once Saratoga arrives on station, she’s going to be marking time.

I’ve also ordered a resupply effort for Efate, where I’m trying to build up a large supply stockpile. Every available cargo ship has been packed to capacity and is steaming toward Efate from Noumea. Once they’re offloaded, I should have well over 60,000 tons of supplies at Efate, and I’ll then have to repeat the process for Luganville.

My little minesweeper squadron is about two days out of Townsville. The Japanese subs at Cairns don’t attack anything today, although one of them is forced to crash dive by a patrolling B-25. The air patrols give my supply convoy an opportunity to begin offloading cargo in peace.

My own subs in the Solomons are reporting a LOT of aircraft attacks. None of them have been hit, but I may be forced to order all of them out into deep water hexes to give them a better shot at avoiding the search planes. Coastwatchers have reported at least one seaplane cruiser and a pair of Japanese seaplane tenders at Lunga, so this probably explains where all those patrol aircraft are coming from.
Finally, my cruiser/destroyer group didn’t quite make it to Townville as I’d thought they would—they’re still two hexes out, and will make port overnight. It took longer than I wanted, but at least they made the run from New Caledonia unmolested.

July 6, 1942

The 6th of July is pretty uneventful. No combat occurs today, although again I get lots of ship sighting reports from scout planes and (mostly) coastwatchers. There appears to still be a massive concentration of IJN shipping at Shortland Island—carriers, battleships, cruisers, transports, the works. This could be a concern later, but as long as they stay parked there, they can’t hurt me.

Word is received from CINCPAC that the USS Wasp, along with a screen of one CLAA and eight destroyers, has been released with orders to sail to Noumea. She will arrive in 19 days, which should be just about the same time Lexington arrives at Noumea to begin the voyage back to Pearl Harbor. Getting Wasp will be most welcome, and I shouldn’t chafe at the prospect of getting more ships to play with, but I was very much hoping North Carolina would be released as well.

My supply convoys at Efate and Cairns have nearly finished offloading, and both should run for the open ocean early tonight. The oiler Kankakee, damaged in a submarine attack several days ago, has also sailed from Efate, and should reach Noumea tomorrow. She’ll need a trip back to Pearl Harbor, but at least the ship survived.

It appears that the Japanese transport damaged in the attacks on Port Moresby is still parked in the harbor, so I decide to try to finish her off. One squadron of Mitchells and one of Hudsons are ordered to launch a port attack on Port Moresby from Cooktown. If I can hit that ship one or two more times, Marc will likely scuttle her, as there’s no way a crippled transport could hope to run my submarine gauntlet all the way home to Rabaul.

The coastal minesweepers heading north from Brisbane have nearly reached Townsville—they should arrive tomorrow. I plan to send them on a quick run up to Cairns on Patrol/Do Not Retire orders to attempt to determine whether or not there’s a minefield present. If there is, then they’ll stay there to clear it, if not they’ll run home to Townsville. I’m a bit worried about their exposure to air attack, but they won’t be there that long, and I can CAP them heavily with the fighter squadrons from the base, so they shouldn’t be in too much danger.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 25
July 7-9, 1942 - 2/7/2004 5:29:06 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		July 7, 1942

The relative lull in combat continues. Only a couple of minor incidents occur today, the first being an attempted attack by S-42 on a Japanese convoy north of Lunga that is foiled by an alert escort vessel.

The Mitchells and Hudsons hit Port Moresby, but the strike isn’t terribly effective. Eight Rufes are flying CAP, but they refuse to engage, allowing the bombers to attack. However, the bomb strikes go wide, inflicting only a single port fuel hit. All of the attacking aircraft return safely to Cooktown.

My supply runs to Efate and Cairns have been carried out successfully, and both convoys are retiring to their home bases. The damaged Kankakee has returned to Noumea, and is sent on to Pearl Harbor for repairs. Her sister ship Cimarron appears to have turned the corner as well—she’s still parked in Luganville harbor, but her floatation damage is dropping steadily now. The base expansion has helped out a lot, I think—Luganville is now a level six port, and level six ports seem able to repair even seemingly catastrophic flood damage.

My many task forces throughout the South Pacific continue to carry out their missions. The Engineer brigade attached to the Aussie 7th Division has finally arrived at Brisbane, so I order them to board a transport and join the rest of the 7th at Townsville. Another engineer unit is due at Brisbane tomorrow, and I’ll be sending them in a transport to Townville, picking up escort vessels there, and then heading north to Cooktown, which is lagging well behind the other Australian bases in construction activity, the base force being the only engineer unit currently stationed there.

North Carolina has still not been released, but I have high hopes. Several of the cruisers I sent back to Pearl Harbor will become available again within the next week, and when there are enough of them to escort the battlewagon, I hope to see her sailing my way.

July 8, 1942

Today is another tranquil day in the South Pacific—clear weather, but no combat. In fact, very little of anything happens today—I think I issued about six orders for the whole turn. The convoy carrying the Aussie 7th Division engineers is en route to Townsville, and the engineer battalion that arrived at Brisbane is being loaded on its own transport, and will head north later today.

Saratoga’s group is approaching Rockhampton and should arrive tomorrow, while the replenishment oiler is about two days to the east. Lexington continues its slow passage down the Australian coast, with the watchful Hamann in close company. My search planes and submarines continue to stake out the Solomons and New Guinea, but no reports or attacks take place today. Even my ASW air patrols come up empty—the submarines I’ve been spotting at Cairns are nowhere to be seen today. This doesn’t concern me too much—I can really use the respite, and it’s giving me a chance to build up bases and get some more experience for my airgroups.

Wasp’s task group is now about 17 days from Noumea. Her arrival will give me four fleet carriers in theater—not enough to openly challenge the Japanese fleet, but certainly enough to pose a major threat to any exposed base or supply convoy.

July 9, 1942

Thunderstorms return to the South Pacific region today, closing down most air missions. Patrolling SBDs take a couple of shots at a Japanese submarine (identified as I-162) at Cairns, but they miss.

Saratoga’s task force is now parked in the harbor at Rockhampton. They’ll refuel and rest there for a couple of days, then set sail to escort Lexington on the run from Australia to New Caledonia. The replenishment oiler sent to follow Saratoga keeps trying to turn around and run back to Noumea (it’s not reacting to a threat, it’s just turning around). Maybe a Patrol/Do Not Retire order will straighten things out.

The Engineer battalion and one RCT of the 1st Marine Division have arrived at Noumea. The bulk of the 1st Marines will arrive within the next ten days, and the next three weeks will see the arrival of the 32nd and 41st U.S. Army divisions at Brisbane. The arrival of these three powerful ground formations should give me sufficient combat power to prevent any Japanese attempt at an auto-victory, if I can support them intelligently with naval and air assets.

CINCPAC has decided to release some additional ships to me—the refitted Long Island, some destroyers, and some APDs. That’s great. Evidently the powers that be think that I have more use for a slow, undersized, under-gunned aircraft ferry than I do for a state-of-the-art fast battleship. Sure, makes perfect sense to me. Thanks, Chet. No, really….thanks.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 26
July 10-11, 1942 - 2/7/2004 5:31:02 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		July 10, 1942

The bad weather doesn’t appear to be deterring Japanese ground operations—IJN units are spotted today at both Wau and Marilinan. I assume they’ll launch attacks tomorrow and take both bases, which will eliminate the last Allied bases on New Guinea. Losing Marilinan will also cost me a pair of crippled C-47s, which have been sitting there for the last month (they were left behind when the last of the aviation support squads were flown to Buna to save the planes from Lexington and Yorktown). Since the effort succeeded in saving 30+ carrier planes, I guess I can’t complain too much about losing a pair of Dakotas.

Tomorrow Lexington will complete the crawl south down the Australian coast, and will be poised to run east for Noumea. She should require about two weeks to make the trip. Saratoga’s squadron will be providing close support, and when the convoy gets closer to Noumea, Enterprise and Hornet (and Wasp, if she’s arrived) will also sortie to provide additional cover. I really want to save the points for Lexington, and it’d be a real shame to lose her after she’s come this far.

I receive some welcome reinforcements at Noumea in the form of three destroyer-minelayers. They’re immediately ordered to set sail for Luganville to lay down a defensive field. When that’s done, they’ll be repeating the process at Efate, Wunpuko, Koumac, and Basse-Poya. This is one more key component of turning these bases into impregnable staging bases for my planned counterattack against the hated IJN.

July 11, 1942

Wau and Marilinan fall to Japanese ground assaults today—naval garrison units, evidently sent overland from Salamua, fall upon and take both bases. Additionally, a single Japanese infantry unit—probably the one that hiked over the Kokoda trail in pursuit of my retreating engineers—has arrived at Lea Lea. Evidently the Japanese are bent on leaving not even a single beach hex in allied hands.

I-162 hasn’t left Cairns yet, either. A patrolling B-25 takes a shot at it, but misses. In an attempt to deal with this unwanted visitor, I form a surface combat task force of light cruisers and destroyers from the ships at Townsville and order them to Cairns on Patrol/Do Not React orders. The light cruisers are the bait—hopefully, the sub will take a shot at one of them, allowing the destroyers to pounce for the kill.

My F-5A recon planes are still reporting a number of destroyers parked in the harbor at Gili Gili—there are four of them, and I assume these are the four that were damaged during the foray down to Cairns. They’re probably getting rid of floatation damage. In an attempt to compound their misery, I order the three B-17 squadrons at Cairns to launch a port attack tomorrow. If I can drop a couple of 500-pounders onto those destroyers, I might be able to force them to scuttle.

I also get a very welcome intelligence report. The Okinoshima, the minelayer bombed off Dobadura over a month ago, has been added to the sunk ships list. This is my 25th confirmed ship kill, and a very welcome one—I hate those minelayers!

To the east, I’ve been accumulating a number of base force units at Noumea—far more than I need, given that most of the planes in SOPAC have been sent to the northern bases. I need to bulk up the aviation support capabilities at Luganville and Efate, so I create another transport to haul one of the base force units to Efate. I’ll take another force to Luganville as soon as I get one that is equipped with radar.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 27
July 12-13, 1942 - 2/8/2004 6:42:16 PM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		July 12, 1942

On the morning of the 12th, a Japanese Naval Garrison Unit storms Lea Lea beach. Every tropical bird, hermit crab, and sea turtle on the beach is rounded up and marched into captivity by the implacable enemy. Few are ever seen again.

More seriously, I-162 is still parked at Cairns—it dodges another B-25 attack successfully. Additionally, an A-20 flying from Noumea spots another Japanese sub about 150 miles to the west of Noumea harbor. I may have taught the Japanese to keep out of Noumea itself, but staking out the sea routes from Australia is just as dangerous to me, and potentially harder to counter. Nevertheless, I’m going to try. An eight-destroyer task force is sent on a run toward the last reported location of the sub.
The engineer unit headed for Cooktown from Brisbane is about one day out of Townsville now. I’ll order it to rendezvous with some escort vessels there, then steam to Cooktown. They’re badly needed—the one base force unit there is totally unsuited to the task of base expansion.

The B-17s tasked to hit Gili Gili didn’t fly yesterday, so I leave them on port attack orders for tomorrow. I also notice that the Japanese have moved aircraft into Port Moresby (recon flights indicate a small squadron of fighters and a squadron of auxiliaries—probably Topsys or float planes like Emilys). I can’t just let them sit there in peace, so the Hudson and Mitchell squadrons are ordered to mount an airfield attack. There still appears to be just one unit on the ground, so I don’t think I need to worry about AA fire, and if he hasn’t got aviation support, any planes I damage will be stuck on the ground.

To the west, Saratoga’s squadron has rendezvoused with Lexington, and both carriers are now heading east for Noumea. Their replenishment task force should reach their position in another 1-2 days.

July 13, 1942

I should’ve known that the quiet of the past two weeks was too good to last. All hell has broken loose today, and it looks like the IJN is making a serious play for Luganville.

The day’s action begins in the west. My sub hunter task force fulfills its role as designated target a little too well. I-162 slams a pair of torpedoes into the Ralph Talbot, breaking the destroyer’s back. The sub’s triumph is short-lived, however, as the Talbot’s consorts Morris and Balch pound their submerged foe with no less than four depth charges. The shattered hull of I-162 quickly joins its victim on the bottom of the harbor.

My Australia-based bombers launch a pair of strikes at New Guinea today. In the first, 29 Hudsons and 28 Mitchells hit the airfield at Port Moresby. The six Rufes on CAP manage to down one Hudson, but the surviving bombers hit the airfield hard—9 hits on the airbase, one on the airbase supplies, and 35 hits on the runway.

Twenty B-17s from Cairns fly north to hit the port at Gili Gili, targeting the four IJN destroyers still laid up there. This strike is very successful—the badly damaged Shikinami is hit twice more, her consort Asakaze takes a hit (both DDs are reported on fire with heavy damage), and the raid also scores twice on the port itself and once on the port supplies. Inevitably, one Fortress is lost to operational causes on the flight home to Cairns.

Unfortunately for me, today the Japanese decide to counterpunch, and do so with authority. The first blow comes from Lunga—a powerful anti-shipping strike of 36 Zeroes, 6 Nells, and 21 Betties raiding a collection of shipping clustered at Luganville. They are engaged by a CAP of 6 Marine Wildcats and 15 Army Airacobras. A vicious dogfight over the harbor results in Japanese losses of one Zero and five Betties in exchange for a single Wildcat, with two more F4Fs and a pair of Airacobras damaged. The surviving bombers streak in to attack a resupply convoy unloading in the harbor. The AK Mercury takes a pair of torpedo strikes and is badly damaged, but the other ships in her convoy escape unscathed—for the moment. Two Nells and a dozen Betties take damage from flak during their low-level torpedo runs.

Unfortunately, just moments after the last aircraft from the first strike vanishes from sight, a massive wave of IJN carrier planes swarms over Luganville—50 A6M2 and 21 A6M3 Zeroes, 59 Vals, and 67 Kates. Again, my CAP engages them—this time 5 Wildcats and 15 Airacobras. The dogfighting is brutal—seven Zeroes, three Wildcats, six Airacobras and a Kate are shot out of the sky. The surviving bombers ignore the merchant convoy in favor of my ASW surface combat group, and the results speak for themselves:

Allied Ships
SC 644, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
SC 640, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
PG Kiwi, Bomb hits 3, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
SC 648, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
SC 639, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
SC 645, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
SC 642, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
SC 641, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
SC 646, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
SC 637, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
SC 643, Torpedo hits 4, on fire, heavy damage

It goes without saying that every one of these ships sinks. OUCH! The only silver lining is that while I lost a lot of ships, these are all 1- or 2-point ASW escorts, and it’s probably costing Marc more points in aircraft to sink them than they’re worth. And, of course, while he’s plinking subchasers, he’s not blasting merchant ships.

But the day is still young. The carrier planes refuel, rearm, and take another shot at my merchant ships—this time it’s 40 A6M2s, 20 A6M3s, 24 Vals and 26 Kates. Six Wildcats and 13 Airacobras rise to meet them, but their fatigue is starting to show. The covering Zeroes down three F4Fs and three P-39s in exchange for one Zero and a Kate. The bombers don’t perform all that well this time, though. The cargo ships Almaack and Formalhaut each take single bomb hits, and the AK Titania is hit by a torpedo, but that’s it. It certainly could’ve been a lot worse.

The medium bombers from Luganville take one more crack at my ships as well. This time it’s 31 Zeroes covering 4 Nells and 6 Betties (evidently a lot of the planes damaged in the morning couldn’t fly in the afternoon). Only 3 Wildcats and 9 Airacobras are left on CAP. They’re clearly a spent force now, as they manage to down only a single Zero and a Betty, while all 3 Wildcats and two of the Airacobras are gunned down by the Zeroes. The bombers again dive on the transports, scoring a single torpedo hit on the damaged Almaack.

Reconnaissance flights reveal a grim picture. There are at least six IJN task forces within 200 miles of Luganville. One is a huge carrier task force, reportedly including no less than five CVs and one CVL. Two others are heavy surface combat groups, each including multiple battleships. Two of them appear to be auxiliary support task forces (oilers and tankers, with escorts), and the last may be an invasion task force (at least a couple of transports are reported).

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish! Great job by my naval search boys—the entire Combined Fleet is sailing down from the Solomons, and I don’t spot them until they’re 150 miles out. Note to self—next time PBY squadron leader assures me that his spotter, Hugo the Wonder Dog, is the best in the business, treat the report with skepticism.

My options for dealing with this crisis are really pretty limited. Even if Saratoga were present at Noumea, ordering my carriers to go out and take on that armada would be suicide. Besides, my destroyers are currently stalking a sub off to the west of Noumea. So all I can really do is order Hornet and Enterprise to get out of harm’s way. They and their cruisers are formed into an air combat task force and orders south from Noumea. The destroyers, in turn, are ordered to rendezvous with the carriers. Saratoga and her task force are ordered to steam east at full speed to reinforce Enterprise and Hornet.

My merchant shipping in and around Luganville is ordered to cut and run. Most of them are ordered to Efate, which they may be able to make in a day—two at most. Many of them won’t make it if the Japanese choose to press their attacks, but I’ve got to save what I can. One subchaser that somehow avoided notice (the decorated SC 647) is ordered to run straight for Noumea. Every sub in port at Luganville is put to sea to sit on likely approach hexes. The silver lining here is that my destroyer minelayers ran in and out of Luganville overnight without being noticed, so there’s now a nice, big minefield sitting there waiting for any bombardment task force that chooses to come calling.

I order every functional aircraft at Luganville to leave—the PBYs and Wildcats go to Noumea, the Marauders and Airacobras fly to Efate. The latter are all placed on naval attack orders, the B-26s at 2,000 feet, the P-39s at 100. I’m hoping that they’ll go after soft-skinned targets, as if they go after warships they’re going to get slaughtered by flak. But I’m not seeing very many transports out there, and if I can inflict damage on a couple of them my ground forces at Luganville may be strong enough to beat off an attack. We’ll see how it goes.

I also decide to take advantage of the absence of his carriers (and almost all of his airpower) in the west. Australia and four light cruisers form a bombardment task force and head north. Tomorrow they’ll rendezvous with the sub-hunter group from Cairns, and then the united force will run up to pound on Port Moresby. It looks like Marc is flying in an engineer unit to begin repairing the base, but it doesn’t look he’s got many of them there yet, and I think I can inflict a lot more damage on the base than he’s going to be able to repair. In fact, if it looks like he’s not serious about reinforcing the base, I might even toy with the idea of sending a couple of RCTs from the 3rd Aussie Division up there to see if I can grab the base back. It looks like he’s still got just a single SNLF at Port Moresby (he hasn’t sent in more reinforcements by ship—I’d have spotted the convoys, at least), plus a small piece of an engineer unit. Two RCTs ought to be able to roll over that if they can get unloaded cleanly. I probably won’t do it, but if he doesn’t reinforce, I’m definitely keeping that operation on the back burner.

There’s not a lot else I can do right now except duck, and see how back this hurts when it’s all over.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 28
July 14-15, 1942 - 2/9/2004 4:06:31 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		July 14, 1942

Well, it’s not all over yet, but it still hurts. Air raids from Lunga and from the IJN carriers continue to hit home throughout SOPAC. The Zeroes from Lunga fly a pair of low-level sweeps over Luganville. This, at least, is a mistake. There are no planes left for them to destroy on the ground, and all this does is give my AA gunners a chance to shoot up the Zeroes. They kill one and damage over a dozen others, several of whom crash on the flight home.

My Marauders and Airacobras launch several strikes on the wall of Japanese shipping approaching Efate, but my luck is poor, and they target surface combat task forces and not merchant ships. The first couple of strikes result in nothing but a bunch of shot-up Marauders, but the third does a little better. Airacobras strafe the light cruisers Tenryu and Abukuma, scoring multiple shell hits on both, although likely doing little damage. This time, the Marauders also plant bombs on the heavy cruiser Aoba and the destroyer Ushio. A final strike, on a task force containing the battleships Hiei and Kirishima, puts a single bomb into the heavy cruiser Ashigara. All told, ten Marauders are lost during these strikes, with many others damaged.

Then it’s the IJN’s turn. A Nell/Betty strike from Lunga at shipping near Efate puts two torpedoes into the AP President Adams, leaving the ship badly damaged. One Betty is lost to flak, with two more Betties and three Nells succumbing to battle damage later in the day.

The big blow comes from the carriers, though. A massive strike of 58 Zeroes, 94 Vals and 91 Kates descends on my big cargo convoy near Efate. The damaged President Adams is blown out of the water, and many other ships are heavily damaged. The combat report indicated that the destroyer Gwin and the APD Colhoun were also sunk, but it turned out that the Japanese flyers were exaggerating their claims. Gwin had only moderate damage (Sys and Flt in the low 30s), and Colhoun had hardly been scratched (Sys 6).

Still and all, that was bad enough. I’ve got a ton of cripples to shepherd home now, and precious few escorts to do it. I order all of the damaged vessels to run for Noumea, except for a pair who are so horribly shot up they’d never make it—these two go into port at Efate. I know there’s a bombardment task force on the way, but they’re dead anyhow, so I may as well hope they can ride out the bombardment in the port. I also break some of my bigger convoys into multiple smaller task forces—this should increase the odds of at least some of them making it out alive.

Enterprise and Hornet will continue to steam west to rendezvous with Saratoga. I order them to angle their course to the southwest to steer them out of harm’s way in the event the IJN carrier task force decides to head south. I’d briefly considered trying to sneak Saratoga behind the IJN to hit the supply/tanker convoys, which had been well behind the combatant ships yesterday. I’m glad I didn’t, as they’re now tucked safely away in the same hex as his uber-carrier task force.

To the west, my bombardment task force has now formed up, and is one sprint south of Port Moresby. They should hit the place tonight. There won’t be any ships in port for them to hit, as intelligence reveals that the damaged Ryutako Maru has succumbed to her wounds. Maybe they can at least perforate some of the Japanese troops on the ground.

July 15, 1942

I’ve read that during World War II, Admiral Ernest King never truly trusted Chester Nimitz, despite the latter’s demonstrated competence. King, in true paranoid CNO form, viewed Nimitz as the man who could “lose the war in an afternoon.” Well, I’m beginning to understand King’s fear, as I may well have just lost the war in an afternoon.

To make a long and disgusting story short, I appear to have made a critical error in my task force assignments yesterday—that is to say, I accidentally left the Enterprise/Hornet task force with React ON (and Saratoga’s group, of course, was following them). On top of this, I had stood down their aircraft, as the course I intended for them to sail would’ve taken them 300 miles to the southwest and well out of harm’s way.

With React ON, however, they went charging off toward the IJN carriers, who were, in fact, heading south on react orders of their own. The end result of this little adventure was that the two CV forces wound up one hex away from one another, with my ships at Koumac, and the IJN ships one hex to the northeast. The difference, of course, is that in addition to having a massive numerical superiority, the Japanese also had planes that actually flew.

The bloody aftermath of this is that Enterprise and Hornet, and their entire complements, have been blown to bits, along with the Aussie CA Canberra and the destroyer Meredith. Another CA and a DD are heavily damaged. Saratoga, by virtue of having been in a different task force, escaped unscathed, but I know the IJN carriers know she’s there, so she’s going to be dog meat tomorrow. I will be accepting my crown as King Dweebo, Lord High Overseer of the Dumba***s later this evening in a special (in the short bus sense of the word “special”) ceremony.

[Side note: Absolutely, positively, under no circumstances DO NOT make critical PBEM turns while tired. Don’t rush the turn—it really is important, as I’m finding out. Screw up, and a human player will make you pay in ways the computer probably won’t].

To make matters worse, a huge IJN bombardment task force sailed into Efate Port Vila and proceeded to blast the bejeezus out of a whole bunch of merchant shipping. Again, I’m a bit perplexed, as at least one of the task forces they hit shouldn’t have been there, but this is a relatively minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things.

O.K. I am now well and truly screwed. But I try to beat back the feelings of despair—I’ve seen other Allied players recover from situations worse than this. Since Saratoga is doomed anyway, I decide to try to make her death count for something. She’s left mother-naked in a task force with only two other ships—the crippled CA and DD mentioned above. All of her strike planes are set to Naval Attack, and her fighters are assigned to 100% escort duty. Maybe a few of her attack planes can get through that way. Besides, once she’s sunk, they can easily divert to Koumac, Basse-Poya, or Noumea, so I should at least save her squadrons. She’s ordered to head along the north coast of New Caledonia.

Every surviving escort vessel capable of making 32 knots or more is grouped into a surface combat task force and ordered to rush the IJN carriers. It’s a very long shot, of course, but the IJN CVs are only one hex away, and if my spotting reports are accurate, their screen isn’t that impressive. If my cruisers can succeed in closing the range, I might—MIGHT—be able to salvage something from this mess. This is probably throwing good ships after bad, but I’m so close to the Japanese fleet that even if my ships run, I can’t get far enough away to keep from getting wasted by air strikes tomorrow. So I order them to sail what I believe will be the most likely IJN course—back toward the surface flotillas—and cross my fingers that I’ll be able to overtake them. React is on, and Frank Fletcher is at the controls. Hey, he made his name as a cruiser skipper, didn’t he?

My bombardment task force has cratered Port Moresby and is now heading south. I’m still seeing those IJN destroyers at Gili Gili, and his main fleet and air power seems to be concentrated far away, so I redirect the task force to bombard Gili Gili before heading for home. I’d like to at least finish off those lousy DDs if I can.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 29
July 16-17, 1942 - 2/13/2004 4:51:39 AM   
Buckeye5

 

Posts: 77
Joined: 10/21/2003
From: Findlay, Ohio, USA
Status: offline 		July 16, 1942

Well, that’s a bit more like it. I still get it in the neck today, but at least I manage to hand out some abuse in return.

My cruiser/destroyer screen, unsurprisingly, fails to catch the IJN carriers (they went west, I imagine because they thought I’d be retreating that way), but when they do, they steam all the way to Efate, and smack into a huge IJN supply/transport task force. The two forces fight a pair of savage short-range night actions. Though hideously outgunned, the Japanese escort vessels put up fierce resistance. The heavy cruiser Indianapolis takes a pair of Long Lance hits, and the CLAA Atlanta takes one. The Indianapolis is also peppered with nearly a dozen 5- and 3-inch gun hits, although her armor belt stops most of these. The heavy cruisers Northampton and Vincennes and the destroyer Swanson also take hits, although none are serious.

The IJN escorts, in turn, pay a very heavy price for their gallantry. The destroyers Shigure and Inazuma are blown out of the water by 8-inch rounds from the American cruisers in the initial encounters, and the Yugure, the last destroyer in the convoy, takes 60 shell hits (!) and is reduced to a burning, sinking hulk. During the two battles, the minesweeper Fumi Maru #2 and about a half-dozen smaller escort vessels (PGs and PCs) are also sunk. However, they do succeed in keeping Fletcher’s ships off of their charges, as only a single tanker is sunk, and another damaged. While I’m pleased with the damage inflicted, this is still a missed opportunity, as there were at least ten tankers in that task force. Getting a few more of them could’ve put a real crimp in the IJN’s fleet operations, since the IJN capital ships are such gas hogs. But Fletcher can’t stick around to finish the job—his ships are out of ammunition and need to retire toward Noumea.

My Australian LBA is working today, too. The B-17s from Cairns hit Gili Gili, scoring another hit on the damaged DD Shiokaze, three hits on the port, and three on the port supplies. Meanwhile, the Hudsons and Mitchells from Cooktown hit the 4th Naval Garrison Unit at Port Moresby. They reportedly kill 81 men, but I’m guessing these figures are a tad inflated. It’ll probably build up their disruption a bit, though.

Finally, Saratoga and the planes based at Noumea take their shots at a number of Japanese surface combat task forces around Noumea. In a series of raids, Airacobras and Dauntlesses score bomb hits on several Japanese vessels:

DD Minekaze – 2 1,000-pound bombs (on fire, heavy damage)
CA Takao – 4 shell hits (bounced off the armor)
CA Nachi – 1 500-pound bomb (no serious damage reported)
CA Haguro – 2 1,000-pound bombs (on fire, heavy damage)
CA Suzuya – 2 1,000-pound bombs (on fire, heavy damage)
BB Kirishima – 2 1,000-pound bombs (no serious damage reported)
BB Haruna – 4 1,000-pound bombs (on fire)
BB Kongo – 1 1,000-pound bomb (on fire)

I doubt any of these monsters is hit bad enough to be in danger of sinking, except possibly Minekaze, but at a minimum they’re likely to need some extensive yard time, and a couple will probably need to go back to Tokyo. Haruna reportedly lost one of her main turrets, so that’s a nice hit.

All things considered, Saratoga’s fliers dished out quite a bit of punishment, but now she pays the price. I’d assigned her fighters entirely to escort duty, assuming I’d be attacking carriers (I wanted to try to get a few of the bombers through, and I figured the IJN carriers could throw more than enough attack planes to swamp any CAP she could put up). As it happens, the escorts were unnecessary, as I was attacking un-CAPed targets. Two waves of Vals and Kates from the IJN carriers lash Saratoga, but because the IJN CVs had sailed so far west, they’re flying at extreme range, so the Kates are carrying bombs, not torpedoes. This alone saves Saratoga—at least for now. She’s badly damaged, and incapable of operating aircraft, but she’s still alive, and still capable of a decent turn of speed—it should be enough to get her to Noumea in one day if she’s unmolested by the Japanese.

To close out the day’s action, nine Betties from Lunga launch a nuisance raid on Luganville. They score two runway hits, but don’t hit anything vital.

All right—here’s the situation at the end of the day. Both the IJN and USN have shipping scattered across a thousand square miles of ocean. The IJN carriers are about 350 miles west of Noumea (which prompts me to order Lexington to turn south—she’s getting a bit too close to them for my liking). There are two IJN cruiser groups northwest of New Caledonia, a battleship task force about 90 miles northeast of Noumea, a single (presumably damaged) heavy cruiser about 30 miles northeast of them. Finally, a pair of minesweepers are parked at Luganville, and three replenishment/fast transport/transport task forces are at Efate (these are the ships Fletcher hit last night), which have just deposited five IJN ground units (four infantry, one engineer).

I have the damaged Saratoga about 120 miles northwest of Noumea, heading home, Fletcher’s cruisers just out of Noumea, with their cripples straggling home in their wake, hoping to avoid the IJN heavies. There are also a half-dozen task forces of single or paired merchies trying hard not to be noticed. Three USN subs are boring in toward Luganville and Efate, trying to pick off targets of opportunity. Saratoga’s air wing, unable to return to her, diverted to Noumea (which is the best thing they could have done). Most of her planes are damaged, but the ones that aren’t are ordered to fly again tomorrow—maybe I can pick off a cripple or two.

I consider ordering the troops at Efate Port Vila to launch a shock attack, hoping to wipe out the Japanese troops on the beach, but I think better of it. Instead, the two PBY squadrons at Noumea are ordered to start lifting the last of the Americal Division RCTs to Efate. With two RCTs in place, I’m pretty sure I can hold off the units already landed. If there turn out to be more en route, then I may have to consider trying to evacuate what I can.

July 17, 1942

Well, today is another really, really unpleasant day, as massive Japanese surface forces continue to pick off isolated cripples as they try to struggle into port.

The day opens with a pair of sub attacks. The IJN sub I-172 misses a shot at the oiler Platte north of Noumea. S-41 takes a shot at a Japanese transport at Efate, but its luck is no better.

The night sees a massive IJN bombardment task force including no less than SIX battleships (Kongo, Haruna, Hiei, Kirishima, Mutsu, and Yamato) engage in six separate surface battles against damaged USN ships in and around Noumea. These engagements cost me the DDs Swanson and Mahan, the AKs Betelgeuse and Alchiba, the heavy cruiser Salt Lake City, and the CLAA Atlanta. The only saving grace is that the IJN ships expend so much ammunition wiping out my cripples that the ensuing bombardment of Noumea is pretty half-hearted, and doesn’t do much damage (1 airbase hit, 11 runway hits, 1 port hit—the base is completely repaired by morning).

It’s then my turn to bombard, as my cruiser/destroyer squadron in the west hits Gili Gili. They manage to plant two more hits on the damaged Shiokaze (still parked in port), and do a pretty good job of shooting up the airfield and port. Japanese coast defense guns inflict a pair of hits on the destroyer Russell, which is moderately damaged (SYS damage in the low teens).

The morning begins with a successful attack by S-38 upon a Japanese transport in the Gili straits. The Keizan Maru takes a pair of hits, and S-38 avoids her escorts. The transport appears to be loaded with men, so this might mean a reinforcement convoy headed for Port Moresby (more on this later).

My B-26s from Noumea fly a series of strikes against the Japanese transports unloading at Efate, but they’re both inexperienced and tired, and they fail to score any hits. The flier of the Kido Butai are far more successful. A massive wave of Vals and Kates finds the crippled Saratoga 60 miles short of Noumea and administers the coup de grace.
Another massive wave of carrier planes (48 A6M2 and 18 A6M3 Zeroes, 16 Vals, and 72 Kates) finds my main surface combat squadron at Noumea. At least this time there’s a heavy CAP waiting—39 Wildcats and 7 Airacobras. The ensuing attack costs me the destroyer Bagley, 14 Wildcats, 2 Airacobras, and bomb or torpedo hits on four other destroyers and the cruiser San Francisco. The Japanese lose 5 Zeroes, 3 Vals, and 21 Kates, with damage to most of the surviving bombers.

To close out the day’s activity, my troops on Efate Port Vila launch a shock attack on the newly-landed Japanese units—crap! I thought I’d ordered them back onto the defensive. The attack doesn’t fare well (0 to 1 odds, with the Allies losing 230 men to around 130 Japanese killed), but the information I gain is useful. If the numbers are accurate, the Japanese don’t yet have the 2:1 odds they’ll need to beat me, even if they can reduce the fortifications to level 0.

This prompts a flurry of activity on my part. The two PBY squadrons at Noumea have lifted about 400 load points worth of the 164th RCT of the Americal Division to Efate to reinforce the 132nd RCT. A third PBY squadron has arrived at Noumea today, and will assist the other two in moving troops. I also form a three-ship fast transport task force (one APD, one DD, one DMS) to move more men.

My main surface combat squadron is disbanded at Noumea. The most heavily-damaged ships (five destroyers and about an equal number of transports) are sent back to Pearl Harbor. The remaining combat-effective ships—four heavy cruisers and about nine destroyers—are formed into a surface combat task force and sent on a run to Efate. There is still a heavy concentration of Japanese merchant ships there, and I’d like to score some more kills if I can—maybe I can even disrupt the landings a bit. The medium-range bombers at Noumea are put on Ground Attack orders and told to target the Japanese troops on Efate—from the combat reports, it looks like he’s got about a reinforced division on the ground. My submarines are ordered to continue to patrol the area in search of cripples.

Far to the west, I’ve also launched an aggressive—perhaps foolhardy—counterattack. Since the IJN’s attention seems to be firmly riveted to the east, I’m going to attack in the west—at Port Moresby! The entire Australian 3rd Division has loaded onto transports and is sailing north from Brisbane. A separate transport convoy is also headed north, loaded with thousands of tons of supplies to restock the base. I’m quite sure a full division will be able to roll right over the forces present at PM, even if that small convoy spotted off Gili Gili is carrying reinforcements. With most of his transports and available troops attacking in the east, I’m not sure he’ll be able to respond effectively. If I take the base, I’ll fly in aviation support troops, then fighters and bombers.

Hey, I may have screwed up very badly a few days ago, and I may be going down hard—but if I am, I’m going down swinging.

(in reply to Buckeye5)
Post #: 30
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