Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

Gentlemen,

Of course, the D-days also have a second meaning… Aztez keeps unloading… and unloading… and unloading… which makes me think that maybe the TF composition was oriented on a situation where the Japanese invasion bonus was still on…

What I liked especially is that he used xAK that carry fuel for the invasion. A single CD gun hit inevitably starts heavy fires.

Thanks for your interest

Hartwig

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace
With a little bit of planning, these issues are easy to avoid for the JFBs. He has plenty of transports, however, one needs to do the calculations for offload, put heavy equipment only on the AKs or LSDs, and never, never use the large fuel and supply carrying transports for amphib operations...This is true for AFBs too; don't use the large Liberty ships, or you will load fuel with the supplies. I have not tested what happens if you chose load troops only. Does the game engine only load the minimal amount of supplies required for amphib and not load any fuel? I suspect this would work, however; these ships are unneccessarily large for amphib ops. Both classes, allied and japanese, are best used moving strategic stocks between large ports.

quote:

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

Wirraway_Ace,

thanks for posting. It is most welcome, as I am hoping for a turn tonight - got no turns from Monday till today- and keeps me from checking my mail every 10 minutes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace
With a little bit of planning, these issues are easy to avoid for the JFBs. He has plenty of transports, however, one needs to do the calculations for offload, put heavy equipment only on the AKs or LSDs, and never, never use the large fuel and supply carrying transports for amphib operations...This is true for AFBs too; don't use the large Liberty ships, or you will load fuel with the supplies. I have not tested what happens if you chose load troops only. Does the game engine only load the minimal amount of supplies required for amphib and not load any fuel? I suspect this would work, however; these ships are unneccessarily large for amphib ops. Both classes, allied and japanese, are best used moving strategic stocks between large ports.

in general, I agree that this may be avoidable. However, there is one other possible explanation: in this scenario the ship distribution on day 1 is "special", as shipping is concentrated in very few ports. It might be that my opponent used what was available in order to pull off an early move.

Frankly, I was also a bit confused about the TF composition. There is a Japanese SCTF at PM, so he could have moved a cruiser or two into his amphibious TF which I would have assumed to be beneficial. Still, he seems not to have done so.

Thanks for your interest

Hartwig

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace
Hartwig,

you are certainly right about what drove his composition of the amphibious TF. I would still have avoided using the big xAKs to carry supplies for the beachhead because they will load fuel too.

Mike

quote:

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

Gentlemen,

as I had some time available and no turn to do, I tried to trace what might have induced the use of these cargo ships for the invasion.

I believe that the key aspect was that aztez was looking for speed. I guess he wanted to have a convoy capable of doing 4 hex at cruise speed, which seems to lead inevitably to ships that can also carry fuel.

Hartwig

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

Interesting. He has plenty of small, 18 knot xAPs and a few AKs that he could have used, but they must have been too far away at the start of this scenario (or committed to other operations).

quote:

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

Interesting. He has plenty of small, 18 knot xAPs and a few AKs that he could have used, but they must have been too far away at the start of this scenario (or committed to other operations).

Well, he had virtually freedom of choice - the ships he used start at Osaka, so do the AKs (which, however, may be considered to be more important for operations where quick unloading is more essential).

Re. xAPs - which class do you refer to ? I thought 18kt xAP = Buenos Aires Maru class, but I think there are only 2 of these. Or did you intend to type 17kt xAP (which are capable of doing 4 hex on cruise speed and seem to be available in large numbers) ?

Another potentially relevant factor may be fuel availability, which may favor use of few high endurance ships. Anyway, we will see where and when the alternatives are about to be used.

Thanks for your interest

Hartwig

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ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

... For now, please keep your fingers crossed that I receive another turn tonight ...


Hartwig

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

Me thinks someone still doesn't want to do the mowing tomorrow morning.

Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

Gentlemen,

sorry about the silence in the club... well, unless you count snoring, that is - only yesterday evening did the turn arrived. We are currently proceeding at 1 turn/week , I guess I'll ask aztez how much longer his job frenzy will last.

In spite of the rabid interest of some of our most senior club members in my home and gardening activities, I refrained from posting reports after these actions. Now, there would have been lots of stuff to report - 4 piled metres of wood were processed to firewood and moved into the shack (still need to stack half of it), 4 120 litre bags of fallen leaves removed from the driveway (you just don't want to have it under snow, and we had the first snow on Wednesday), and -to greyjoy's grief if he reads this thread- some bushes really needed to be cut back.

Anyway, whereas as usual the top priority is to get the turn back to aztez, hoping he has nothing else to do tonight and thus the action reporting is delayed for now, I want to try to stir up some discussion. As the thoughts on deep battle (which may reemerge at some point of time in my shallow strategic ramblings in this thread), it has to do with transferability of concepts onto AE.

I guess all of us armchair strategists are well aware of the general concept that flanking attacks on an enemy thrust, preferably at the basis of a salient are supposedly advisable (frantically arranging salt and pepper shakers).

What I have started to do with the onset of the Japanese PM action is exerting pressure on Rabaul with surface assets. You know about Astoria's heroic action, this turn Phoenix paid a visit, next turn there should be the next raid - assets are in position already. There are numerous reasons why I think this approach is useful which I will list in a later post, but first I am interested in your views

a) whether putting pressure on Rabaul is a reasonable thing to do (the visible changes to base infrastructure relative to the beginning of the scenario are that he reinforced Lae, probably Shortlands, took Tulagi and invaded PM, I have had no reports from Lae, Shortlands and Tulagi on successful AF expansion) and

b) whether this can be considered to be an example of a valid transfer from a principle from ground combat to the virtual reality of AE.

Thank you for your views !

Hartwig

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

hartwig,

a) Conceptually, I am not a fan of this form of spoiling attack. Given the near parity of forces in May 42 between the two sides, a defense in depth strategy intended to draw in enemy reserves to a debilitating battle in PNG while a counterstroke is prepared to attack and sieze key objectives that will unhinge is defense seems the better plan. Your surface forces would seemingly be best employed to strike at his amphibious convoys as they close on their objectives and then retreat to the relative safety of Allied air cover and nearby friendly ports.

b) I do not feel this is a valid transfer from the principles of deep battle to combat in the Pacific Theater. The weapon system, the cruiser, is not well suited to the tactical situation it faces conducting deep attack in an enemy tactical and operational depth adequately covered by enemy airpower. DDs with adequate range are better suited because of their better ability to avoid air attack; however, each successive iteration of the attack is more susceptable to simple countermeasures. I suspect minelayers are enroute to his staging areas already as are increased air patrols.

Mike

quote:

ORIGINAL: hartwig.modrow

Thanks a lot for posting your point of view. It is always helpful to get a look at things through the eyes of somebody else. Here’s my view:

1) If you familiarized yourself already with the scenario we play, my first remark is perhaps useless, but maybe not all of the club members got a chance to look at it in detail, so I'll make it after all:

One important change is that in this scenario, your Mid 1942 Allied units are not the units you have at your disposal in the GC at this point of time. You do not have LBA squadrons that honed their skills for a few months, you do not have surface units that have acquired some much needed experience, and your LCUs (specifically the Australian and Indian LCUs) are not improved either.

For this reason I am not sure I agree to the assumption there is a near parity of forces at this point of time and specifically do not think it is present locally (where I face at least 4 IJN fleet carriers, maybe 6 of them). The "relative safety" of Allied air power is quite relative if your fighters sport 50ish air skill and 45ish exp, and the surface ships need experience boosts in order to be able to go toe to toe (specifically at night, which is advisable in view of the superior numbers and superior quality of the air force aztez can project with KB) with a Japanese SAG.

2) In addition, both sides have not had the chance to pile up a lot of fuel and supplies to support an intense battle and to build up base infrastructure in an appropriate way so far. As a matter of fact, the number of surface combatants I commit in the region right now and the scope of their action are limited by the available fuel (and the fact that I think I cannot switch off fuel consumption of Australia’s HI in the version we play (last official patch) does not make things better).

Re. base infrastructure, specifically, Rabaul is a Lvl 5 AF (the only Japanese AF >2 in the vicinity) and a Lvl3 port. The next Lvl 3 port is Kendari, twice as far away from PM as Rabaul.

3) In view of 1) and 2), what are currently my aims by raiding?
a) improving experience of surface units
b) diluting the enemy effort by inducing countermeasures. I do want the obvious countermeasures to occur (preferably including the obvious countermeasure against my troop concentrations at the Burmese-Indian border, the Chittagong invasion).

I shared results of raids on Rangoon, Kjawalein and Rabaul with you (there were more less spectacular actions), so they occur in different regions on the map. I am totally fine with paying a CA or a CL if that provides an incentive for my opponent to cover everything with naval bombers, spreading them out rather than using them in a concentrated way.

I am happy to have a bunch of Betties on naval attack in Rangoon, it’s better than having them perform ground support action at PM. Actually, I am also quite content if the current staging bases are mined defensively, because they are not likely to be the target of invasions any time soon, thus I prefer the limited number of available mines put at those locations (as a matter of fact, aztez did a fair amount of offensive mining as well).

c) dephasing enemy operations. E.g., I believe that it is likely that the CLs and DDs I encountered at Rabaul were there for a reason – like escorting a follow up invasion or a “second Echelon”. Not sure what was supposed to happen at Kjawalein, but I hope to have spoiled plans there as well.

d) attempting to weaken Rabauls capability of supporting repair of retiring Japanese ships – so far, if in no other way, by increasing the number of candidate ships needing support. A number of Japanese xAP and xAK were damaged at PM, and once the Japanese SAGs have shot their bolt, I might consider an attempted intercept on their way home.

e) create a misconception on my style of play.

4) Note that I did not intend to characterize the pressure I put on Rabaul as an example for deep battle, but rather as a general example for a transfer of a principle from ground combat to AE.

5) Last not least: What IS the surface asset of choice to penetrate into operational depth if not the cruiser? Aye, there are a few DD with 8k endurance at my disposal, but they are lacking firepower. The carrier is a strategic asset, the BB is even more vulnerable to AC armed with torpedoes. Whereas I am willing to concede that long ranged naval bombers have increased the risk tremendously, I do not see a real alternative…

Just my thoughts – feel free to correct me.

Thanks for your interest

Hartwig

edited for grammar etc.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace
Yes, the cruiser was the classic naval unit for independant operations. That being said, I can't think of any good examples of when they were used during WW2 in the way you have described. Others may be able to draw upon a deeper knowledge of naval operations during the war for examples. If you are set on this tactic, I might look at using the Porter class DDs and the Detroit class CLs instead.

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While I am not familiar with the details of the May 42 start, The strategic situation in the Pacific Theater should be one of approaching balance of forces and any Japanese operations to expand the "Barrier" of throw the "Javelin" as part of Phase II operations should be employing a preponderance of force.

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Looking at it from the enemies perspective, Rangoon, Rabaul and Kwaj are not locations to stage ground forces nor the associated naval transport assets for Phase II offensive operations.

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Rangoon is too exposed to 4E attack from India.

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Rabaul is in the malaria zone and, until significantly built up, not immune.

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Kwaj is easily raided and there are other, less predicatable staging areas in the Marshalls so the IJN players with whom I am familiar quickly move out of Kwaj.

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I would normally expect to find DDs and TBs rearming and refueling at these forward bases only, not major shipping or troop concentrations. Obviouisly, if the front lines were pushed further outward, any or all these bases could become a more major player.

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Protecting his bases in the tactical and operational zone from raids is not going to be a significant diversion of resources. That is what you are supposed to do. He can easily remind you of the same need...

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Like bomber aircrews in the game, the crew should have to make a morale check before actually making the run in. Of course, in the case of Phoenix, you simply saved her from a one-sided encounter with Conqueror 40 years later...

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I am still at a bit of a loss when you note, " I did not intend to characterize the pressure I put on Rabaul as an example for deep battle, but rather as a general example for a transfer of a principle from ground combat to AE." Under what doctrinal framework and set of principles of ground combat? I chose deep battle because it is the most detailed doctinal framework of modern ground combat, but indeed, not the only one...