obvert
Posts: 14050
Joined: 1/17/2011 From: PDX (and now) London, UK Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Wargmr quote:
ORIGINAL: obvert quote:
ORIGINAL: Wargmr NJP sends a strike in against my landing force at Tarawa. It is heartbreaking to watch troop ships burn!! Luckily the embedded Portland puts some punishing rounds into the Furutaka and leaves it heavily burning. I know it's early, and there are limited options, but I'd consider not using the 12 knot ships in the same TF with the AP/AK which are faster. Also, if that is all one TF it's pretty big. A lot of Allied players tend to go over 15 ships but I've tried not to do that for two reasons; one you have less ability to coordinate escort against subs, AA and suffer more collisions, and two, you risk ALL being caught by one SCTF or CV TF. I've seen escort perform better in smaller TFs too, but here it's likely it wouldn't matter against those CAs. Not at all sure the situation here but if the AP/AK unload faster they also might get out before the rest, thus not getting hit at all. I only learned this because Jocke was very good at quick one day amphibious ops where unless i predicted and took a chance at it, he would be gone before I could react. What is the final talley after the several battles here? Agreed about the ships but that was what was available for such a large convoy. I tend to break off unloaded ships and either just put them in port or head them back for further operations. Maybe several smaller task forces would have been better but I didnt have enough DD's to cover each individual force then. The CA's were never on the radar so I did not see them coming. It is very likely that he lost a cruiser and 2 destroyers. Another cruiser is severely wounded/on fire and may or may not survive the contact. Nothing has shown up on the sunk ship list but he entered the combat with 6 ships and when it was over he had a TF of 1 ship (a CA) which I believe was the cruiser that broke off at the first encounter and was likely escorted by a destroyer that was also crippled. That or the destroyer just wasnt picked up in FOW. The other TF was 2 ships and the one CA never suffered significant damage so that would definitely be that TF. On my side I definitely lost 4 nice AP's. The total could be 5-6 AP's. On the flip side only about 120 troops were lost, the remaining troop ships were driven back to Tabituea where they are unloading the remainder of the units. I got over 400AV unloaded on Tarawa which was not defended. Airfields are at 36% to level 1 there. At Tabituea which was never in japanese hands the airfield is 60%. Many other troop transports are inbound with advanced air bases, construction troops, etc. Also, many of these waves will be hitting near Pago Pago and other smaller islands within the next week or so. Lets see what NJP decides to do. My plan is to continue to push into the Pacific until it gets too dangerous. Well, losing CAs is never good for Japan, so could be to your benefit. At least you're doing something while he's over-extended.
< Message edited by obvert -- 4/26/2015 7:18:36 PM >
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"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
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