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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> War In The Pacific - Struggle Against Japan 1941 - 1945 >> Bombardment TF Suicide

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Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 8:10:21 AM

Buck Beach

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From: Upland,CA,USA
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Well I thought I would take someone here on the boards advice to try and beat down Rangoon with bombardment runs. I have been giving it daily B-17 bombings on and off for 2 weeks here in late Feb 1942. First tried a bombardment run around the first part of Feb that was somewhat successful but lost the BB and the BC, that I salvaged from Singapore, to the AC there and Tavoy (along with several other ships beat up pretty bad). Got some new ships from the Brits including two BBs and tried another run. Ouch, first salvo was typical 51 hits on an AP and another bunch on a DD. Then the s--t hit the fan I beat up the base while their CDs fired 200 shots and got 63 or more hits spread out over the 12 ship TF (not all on one or two like my rounds). Then the AC took there licks with more heavy damage to the group. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Moral of the story. Don't even try to go directly against the Japanese until late 1942 or later. the cubes are stacked against you. I am finding (like in UV, PacWar and Carrier Wars (not sure of the last title but it was a GG game) there is a definate agenda that is tough to go against. I will just bide my time in future games. Less daring and exciting but since I also like the logistics of the game I still will have fun. So I will fight a strictly defensive battle going forward, and in future games, sinking APs and Subs.

Post #: 1

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:07:17 AM

Xargun

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From: Near Columbus, Ohio
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CD guns at any time are rough to take out.. Was your raid at night or during the day ? I have seen vastly different results depending on when you bombard..

Xargun

(in reply to Buck Beach)

Post #: 2

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:18:08 AM

Ron Saueracker

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Xargun

CD guns at any time are rough to take out.. Was your raid at night or during the day ? I have seen vastly different results depending on when you bombard..

Xargun

Well, CD guns are definitely rough in the game.

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Post #: 3

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:19:58 AM

Tankerace

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Last time I tried it, I lost 3 tin cans.... I'm not gonna try that again anytime soon.

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Post #: 4

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:23:53 AM

Ron Saueracker

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I personally think CD guns, or LCU artillery which doubles as such, is muchtoo effective. HOWEVER, it is toning down the endless bombardment missions players employ so I think it has a place.

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Post #: 5

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:25:56 AM

Tankerace

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From: Stillwater, OK, United States
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Yeah. Course I rarely used bombardment, but I rarely will again. One good invasion and my BBs are out of the war for 2 months. Guess my one and only invasion will have to be Tokyo itself!

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Post #: 6

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:30:13 AM

Xargun

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Yeah. Course I rarely used bombardment, but I rarely will again. One good invasion and my BBs are out of the war for 2 months. Guess my one and only invasion will have to be Tokyo itself!

Its kinda random, but it also depends on what CD guns are there.. I've seen some guns bounce off capital ships.. but a few CD units have some good guns that will dent a BB... But a lot of it is luck too... I want to say I have seen less CD hits at night and wonder if anyone else has seen this as well ?

Xargun

(in reply to Tankerace)

Post #: 7

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:31:48 AM

Ron Saueracker

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Yeah. Course I rarely used bombardment, but I rarely will again. One good invasion and my BBs are out of the war for 2 months. Guess my one and only invasion will have to be Tokyo itself!

You get damage to CAs and BBs alot? I usually plaster the place with air missions, a BB bombardment, then move in with APs with cruisers. Hate the fact that DDs get hit so often though, they should at least be more difficult to hit but better yet would be if they stood off to the BB range, or the range of the largest ships weapons.

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Post #: 8

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:39:49 AM

Tankerace

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Well, actually I did this as a "diversion", around March of '42. Sent in 4 BBs (all repaired PH vets), a couple of cruisers, and tin cans. I lost 3 tin cans out right, and the BBs took a lot of shell hits. Nothing serious, but I had a lot of 5"/51s and 5"/25s to replace. Damn open mounted bastards.

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Post #: 9

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 10:31:12 AM

Sneer

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You will not loose your ships raiding Rangoon when :
ships are based in Chandapur ( running across ocean from ceylen is suicide )
if you have developed Akyab you can provide good air cover (AVG+Bufflo rescued from singapore - it is wise to leave these aircraft not upgraded as they have 5 hex range) so you can assign sth about 100 fighters to cover bombardment forces.
detach DDs a day before they reach target - attach returning - otherwise CD will eat them
detech BB & BC - too low possibility of evading torpedos
couple of CAs and CLs should go unharmed

More finesse strategy is using 2 TFs
first as described consisting of cruisers , second of fast BB BC + 1-2 CLs
after attack on rangoon airfield second TF run on weakend enemy.
You need to switch air cover and coordinate runs well but it worked for me fine.
I operated RN aggressively and this helped a lot in taking Rangoon.

(in reply to Buck Beach)

Post #: 10

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 3:39:58 PM

Caranorn

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One simple rule, don't raid Japanese bases outside your aircover if you even think the enemy (IJN mostly) has LBA in the area. Or wait for very bad weather in the area. Sometimes you don't know whether their base has good bombers or not, then you have to take a risk. In one such case I had two of my three cruisers (Cornwall and Exeter) crippled and the third slightly damaged (Glasgow iirc, certainly a Town) in a very similar raid (on Tavoy, Rangoon I tend to hold a while longer then that). As I was using a double TF raid I managed to order Revenge and her old cruisers back the next time before they came under the Japanese air umbrella. Certainly don't go sending out bombardment forces for no or little reason (in this case it was to delay the Japanese assault on Rangoon by removing their ground support and airfield attack capacities).

On the other hand, I have rarelly had capital ships damaged by CD guns in bombarding forces yet. My destroyers often take a hit or two that's about it (exception, Japanese at wake, but then that's a historical outcome, be happy there are no shore based torpedo batteries).

And yes, it's not at all unrealistic for destroyers to go in close to shore for bombardment missions, after all this also represents ground support where smaller ships and craft excelled. Though I'm not sure their maneuverability is entirely accounted for in such situations.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: Major invasions take a lot of preparation, if your battleshipstake damage it shoudl not matter if they levelled the field for the landing force behind. By the next major invasion they should be repaired or replaced by your reserve ships (POW seems like a waste in a bombardment force too, it's the most modern ship in the Pacific in early 1942 if you manage to pull her out of Singapore intact, only risk her if the outcome is worth the loss (she was lost in such a case as breaking up the Japanese invasion off Malaya would have been a huge blow to the Japanese plans)).

P.P.S.: I won't go into the details of why POW was lost as that's another topic entirely.

(in reply to Sneer)

Post #: 11

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 3:44:40 PM

Pier5

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I have babbled on about this on several threads. The whole amphibious model is wrong, in my opinion. However, I think the bombardment part of it is easy to fix. Nothing smaller than 240mm should be able to fire on BB (and perhaps CA) which are engaging in a bombardment mission. I have also had severe losses to CD fire where destroyers have intercepted barge traffic in an enemy base hex. Surface warfare task forces probably should not be fired on by CD artillery. They could not, I think, engage docked ships. Even at this, destroyers would still be unrealistically disadvantaged by CD artillery, because its not really CD artillery. Field artillery, which apparently counts when task forces are engaged from a base, lacks the sophisticated fire control systems to engage moving ships.

The whole deal is very, very poor and I have no idea how it made it past the beta testers. It seems to me that very little attention was spent on this most important aspect of the Pacific war.

Pier5

(in reply to Tankerace)

Post #: 12

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 4:15:04 PM

Caranorn

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Field guns were historically used against ships. But this obviously should only be effective if the units in question are thoroughly dug in (fort level). Unfortunatelly currently a unit immediately gains the maximal fort level of a hex when it enters so fixing the problem that way might not work.

Marc aka Caran...

P.S.: I'm not expert on the issue, but in the Normandy landing, many of the so called CD guns were in fact immobilised field guns in many cases belonging to garrison divisions (716 Infantry had all it's artillery dug in for that role, though they were obviously only useable against the beaches themselves, not capital ships offshore). I haven't had field guns cause much damage to ships larger then destroyer in WitP yet.

P.P.S.: I'd say 6" for CD guns being able to fire on capital ships, certainly not 240 mm (as 8" naval guns usually don't have shorter range). But then their also are narrow waters where even a battleship might have to come closer to shore and be somewhat vulnerable to lesser calliber (not the ideal term when it comes to naval guns) guns.

(in reply to Pier5)

Post #: 13

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 4:27:16 PM

Ron Saueracker

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From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Pier5

The whole deal is very, very poor and I have no idea how it made it past the beta testers. It seems to me that very little attention was spent on this most important aspect of the Pacific war.

Pier5

Testers do just that, test. They also make recommendations. They don't make design decisions.

_____________________________

Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan

(in reply to Pier5)

Post #: 14

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 5:25:14 PM

Buck Beach

Posts: 1973
Joined: 6/25/2000
From: Upland,CA,USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sneer

You will not loose your ships raiding Rangoon when :
ships are based in Chandapur ( running across ocean from ceylen is suicide )
if you have developed Akyab you can provide good air cover (AVG+Bufflo rescued from singapore - it is wise to leave these aircraft not upgraded as they have 5 hex range) so you can assign sth about 100 fighters to cover bombardment forces.
detach DDs a day before they reach target - attach returning - otherwise CD will eat them
detech BB & BC - too low possibility of evading torpedos
couple of CAs and CLs should go unharmed

More finesse strategy is using 2 TFs
first as described consisting of cruisers , second of fast BB BC + 1-2 CLs
after attack on rangoon airfield second TF run on weakend enemy.
You need to switch air cover and coordinate runs well but it worked for me fine.
I operated RN aggressively and this helped a lot in taking Rangoon.

Sneer,

I have just re-ran the turn breaking the original TF into 3 separate (the original was 17 ship not 12 I first reported). I have no air cover.

TF# 1- 3BBsc,CA, 2 CLs Salvo #1: sunk 1 AP and they had 1944 casualties; Salvo #2: 8 AC destroyed & 2 damaged; 2376 casualties; 11 guns; 3 air base hits; 6 runway; 1 port ; 3 port fuel; and 4 port supply hits.
Return fire from 62 guns produced 6 CA hit and 10 hits on each CL. MINAMAL DAMAGE FROM THEIR HITS.

TF# 2- 5 DDs 1 AC destroyed and 2 damaged with 5 runway hits; 45 casualties and 5 runway hits. Return fire from 40 guns hit 3 DDs with 8,5,&4 hits CAUSING MAJOR DAMAGE.

TF# 3 -6 DDs 2 AC destroyed and 2 damaged; 54 casualties and 4 air base; 2 runway; 1 port and 1 port fuel hits.
NO RETURN FIRE.

There were also no AC attacks on any of the TFs.

Hmm, I think I'll keep this game going and not the original !! What the hell just playing around and learning anyway until the next patch.

Anyway, thanks for the advice and some lessons learned.

Buck

(in reply to Sneer)

Post #: 15

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 6:07:39 PM

Mr.Frag

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Bunk, just a note back to your original post ... how were you hitting the place with your B-17's?

Airfield attack do not damage CD units ... need to use Port Attack to soften them up.

(in reply to Buck Beach)

Post #: 16

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 8:11:39 PM

Buck Beach

Posts: 1973
Joined: 6/25/2000
From: Upland,CA,USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Bunk, just a note back to your original post ... how were you hitting the place with your B-17's?

Airfield attack do not damage CD units ... need to use Port Attack to soften them up.

At the time I wasn't aware of the kind of damage the CD could do, so I was trying to take out AC that could hit me on the way home.

(in reply to Mr.Frag)

Post #: 17

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/9/2004 9:38:22 PM

Xargun

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From: Near Columbus, Ohio
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In general CD units lay waste to attacking ships... But then thats why there are not that many of them in the game... But beware assaulting the islands that have permanent CD guns... they will wipe out capital ships too..

Xargun

(in reply to Buck Beach)

Post #: 18

RE: Bombardment TF Suicide - 9/10/2004 12:59:18 AM

Larz6235

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Joined: 3/13/2004
Status: offline

That's for sure. With Island assults I like to isolate the island, Port bomb, naval bombard and then invade with CA's in my troop transport TF.

You will still take some damage but not like you would without all the prep work.

Just plan ahead. Get the right assets close and jump off.

(in reply to Xargun)

Post #: 19