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ORIGINAL: Randy Stead
Campaign update:
I am now 138 turns into the Guadalcanal scenario as Allies vs AI. It seems I am now completely dominating the map. In spite of the IJN still having some carriers, such as Junyo and the smaller ones still in the game after I sank Shokaku and Zuikaku, they do not want to come out and play. I've spotted them several times and sent carriers toward them but they do not advance. Once my carriers are spotted they disappear into port. Out of frustration, boredom and as an experiment I sent a 3 carrier port strike against Rabaul. I enjoyed some success but I paid for it, losing 10 Wildcats and about the same in dive bombers. I did get multiple hits on a CA and 2 CL in port but I think this was a waste of precious resources as I can more efficiently kill or damage those ships at sea. If they remain in port to stay safe, mission accomplished in the sense of denying them access to sea.
Indeed, raids on ports are very dangerous for the early US carrier planes, you really don’t have that many spare planes to sacrifice.
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I've finally got Wasp within a couple of days of full repair at Sydney. I repaired all of her systems damage at Noumea before sending her to Sydney for repair of the major flotation damage of 27 or so. I've still got South Dakota and Washington at Sydney for major flotation damage repair. Washington is now finally in the shipyard berth and beginning repair of 33 major flotation damage. South Dakota has 12 systems damage and 32 major flotation damage. She is pierside repairing the systems damage. After that is down to 0 I plan to put her into the shipyard as soon as South Dakota comes out. I also have Achilles with 17 major flotation and a few other vessels with low major damage points, but as they are less needed at the moment they can wait for the big girls to get purtied up.
This scenario has been a very good schoolmaster for teaching me land combat, LOGISTICS [can I emphasize that word enough?] and long term air operations. At some point I realize I had completely neglected doing any upgrades to air units. I was having so much fun upgrading ships and subs I completely forgot my poor aviators. After several turns of things not upgrading I went under the hood and figured that out. Some of them had to do with being too far from an HQ so I moved them closer, and of course supply figures into the upgrade routines. I am now becoming more adept at managing that.
Yes, as it’s being discussed in several threads at the moment, logistics is the master word of the game.
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A word to my fellow newbs concerning ship repairs and upgrades. Don't go all out as soon as ships are eligible for upgrades. The ones that upgrade in place with no requirement for shipyard access, sure, go ahead and upgrade them. I threw a huge sabot into the works at Sydney by pulling in large numbers of vessels that needed a shipyard of at least size 5 to begin upgrades. This interrupted repair of CV Wasp and other ship repairs underway. Another large mistake was moving the SW PAC HQ up to Townsville so it could "influence" LCUs on New Guinea. Yeah, it sounded like a great idea when somebody said do it. Then when I was crying the blues about those tardy Aussie shipyard workers I began to look around for units with embedded naval support. And there was SW PAC with well over 200 stuck up in Townsville frolicking with local tarts when their skills were needed in Sydney. Right, get your hairy arr-sezz on that train on boogie on down to Sydney. Once they got down there and unpacked their bags and went to work there was a noticeable increase in the pace of repair in the yards. Lesson learned; do not be so hasty to relocate support units when they may be needed elsewhere. As Sydney is the only shipyard in the Guadalcanal scenario [of which I am aware] concentrate your naval support there. Yes, I know they can be helpful elsewhere for speeding up unloading of ships in certain ports, but you must decide what is most important: stevedoring or repairing. Tough decision, but that's why you get paid the big $ as the Grand Kahoona, chief.
You can usually move upgrading ships back to pier side repair, but one has indeed to watch carefully the upgrades to come. Be it for ground, air or naval units, I usually keep all upgrade options off, and only turn them on (or do it manually for planes) when I’ve taken them to the rear, and when I deem I have enough devices (for LCU’s) or enough other ships to hold the line.
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In New Guinea I have just expelled the Hori Group of units from Kokoda Trail. Two or three rounds of deliberate attack, supported by air strikes and they are now on the run to Buna. I have been strangling Buna for many weeks; subs outside the port and every time he tries to ship in supplies I hit them hard. Last time they tried to bring in about 7-8 Marus and escorts. My carriers moved up to the southward side of New Guinea and clobbered them. I've done this several times over the course of the campaign and I believe I have sunk so many cargo vessels and transports that he has a severe supply problem in many locations. I'd love to clobber Rabaul once and for all but that is a long term goal and I don't think I even have to do that in this scenario. I've got so many points at present that the intel screen shows major victory. All I have to do is maintain what I have to win. However, as this is a learning scenario, I wish to try a few landings so that I may learn how to handle those lovely new LCI and LST vessels that are accumulating at Noumea. I have still not used any of the CVEs that have shown up; the first ones such as Long Island came in empty, but a few arrived several turns ago with planes already aboard. Those air units are now ashore doing training. If circumstances permit, I will see what I can do with them. At this point there are many ships I could do without, but I am not giving any back to Uncle Chester at Pearl.
You must have only one or two months left in the scenario, by this point, so don’t wait too much - you’ll be surprised to see how long it takes to organize an amphibious assault.
For the cargoes, that’s the AI’s problem : it follows scripts and a basic programmation, but fails to properly take into consideration the tactical and strategic situation. It’s part of the reason playing against the AI requires some restrain - if you don’t, you end up sinking the whole IJN before the end of ‘42.
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On Guadalcanal I have moved units into the Tassafaronga hex. I've had a couple of deliberate attacks which have shown that the LCUs there are not yet ready for the plucking, but I did hurt them at some cost to myself. I am rotating bombardment groups through in succession, with the odd air strike and lots of recon. I've got detection levels up to around 8-9/12, which help the bombardments. They inflict much heavier losses when the DL is high. A number of my LCUs at Lunga were reaimed from Lunga to Tassafaronga. At or near 100 I have moved them overland and they now co-occupy the base hex. With a sea and air cordon not much supply, if any is getting through to them. i am uncertain exactly what low supply does to LCUs in this game, but I know in real life it is a very bad state of affairs. Think of von Paulus and 6th Armee at Stalingrad after 1-2 months of inadequate supply. But instead of snow, throw in malaria. Not good for the Japanese LCUs there. Some of the bombardments inflict quite severe casualties, so I am sure I am wearing down both their numbers and increasing their disruption. The only thing keeping them protected to some degree is the fortification level. I've learned from enough turns that combat engineers are good at reducing fortification levels. Once I've got them down, it is simply a matter of numbers, which appear to be on my side. As is time.
Low supply gives a big malus on the combat performance of LCU’s, and once completely lacking supplies, units are destroyed more easily. Without supply, no replacements either.
Damage on LCU’s is really in multiple forms :
- devices get disabled, then destroyed
- the whole unit suffers disruption
- fatigue applies to the whole unit too
All this reduces the effectiveness of units, and the combined effect of all together is even more potent. Continuous bombardment, by ground, air or naval assets, is key to whittle down a unit besieged in a good terrain hex, like the Jungle or Jungle Rough, Moutains, Urban, etc.
Fortifications get reduced by combat engineers (not by regular engineers), and may also be reduced by deliberate and shock attacks. And the higher the fort levels, the less damage the unit takes, and the more effective its own firepower is on the defense. The first step in a successful siege is to ensure the fort levels don’t increase (bomb the port & AF to prevent the engineers in the hex from working on the forts), and then to actually reduce them.
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Any suggestions for offensive action should I take Buna and Tassafaronga? I have been told that Buna is a side show, but I need to get practice at offensive action. Given enough time and cordoning off of Buna I should be able to take it from landward, so I have been told. I fear taking it be sea, having a supply fleet sitting there for several turns and having air units and those big IJN BBs showing up in the dark and screaming Boo! So, landward approach seems the circumspect choice. I've got a P-38 photo recon group snapping photos of Buna every turn. I may sneak in some surface groups for quick bombardments and run out again. The bomber situation seems to be will n hand; the Bettys come over in small batches of 3-9 now and pay for it every time they appear. I do have Lilys making runs at Port Moresby. They pay for it by the flak but my fighters do nothing. I suddenly realize they may be running night raids. I have to check the combat reports to see why they are not intercepted. Last raid was clear skies and I have radar there, so it must be night raids.
The key part of an operation is to identify the bases you will be able to develop to further protect your advances. The SPS is a big factor to check, as you can build the port or AF three levels above the SPS. So, be on the look out for Port SPS of 2 or 3, and AF SPS of 4 or 5. Down in SoPac, those are really great bases.
Mind the dot bases too, quite a few are interesting, and with the number of Seabees and EABs you get, you can pretty much develop any base from scratch (Japan is way different, for that matter).
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So much more to learn, but I am having fun.
Glad to hear it.
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RE: Guadalcanal scenario: took Lunga & Tulagi, what now? - 
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