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IF YOU ARE IN THE JAPANESE SIDE, PLEASE LEAVE THIS THREAD NOW! This is American Thread for the Pacific War Team Game. Current Scenario: Battle of the Coral Sea Scenario Current Roster: Tevery, Lichtenstein Assingments: Task Force 1: Lichtenstein Task Force 2: Tevery Links: Tekopo fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Feb 1, 2023 |
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Jan 31, 2023 21:30
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 05:43 |
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Unit Breakdown Force 1 in Port Moresby holds:  The L0 air unit only has 3 hits left (6-3)m while the infantry is at full strength. There is also a 3-1-6 base here. Force 17 in Townsville holds:  There is also a 3-1-6 base here. Force 16 in New Calodonia holds:  Both Air units have 5 hits left. There is also a 3-1-6 base here. Naval Units Gunnery  Task Forces Task Force 1 will hold every single unit in New Caledonia. The Admiral that controls this Task Force can also reposition their LRA in New Caledonia if they wish. Task Force 2 will hold the Kent and Northampton. The Admiral that controls this Task Force will also control all the ground air units in Townsville and Port Moresby. Please split the above Task Forces between yourself.
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Jan 31, 2023 22:06
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Seems taking TF 2 wil be my only chance to spare you from dealing with the chair force, Tev.
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Jan 31, 2023 22:55
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You mean TF1. TF1 has "every single unit in North Caledonia," meaning the CVs and planes. TF2 has the cruisers Kent and Northampton.
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Jan 31, 2023 23:17
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I will note that if you control the Cruisers, the air units you control are basically clay pigeons/pop up targets. All your air units are incredibly bad.
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Jan 31, 2023 23:21
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Tevery Best posted:You mean TF1. TF1 has "every single unit in North Caledonia," meaning the CVs and planes. TF2 has the cruisers Kent and Northampton. And all those green land air units! The kind that doesn't even touch the glorious naval vessels. But yeah, upon further inspection their numbers do appear to be rather trash. I suppose a singular focus of punching your way through with those two cruisers would indeed be quite guns & steel.
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Jan 31, 2023 23:31
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With the assignments done, let's get to the meat of the game. Please note that hit tracking in the Vassal mod is done by tiny little explosive dots. Current Map  Contact Phase No combat is allowed during this phase. If you want to move into a space with enemy forces, you will need to end the phase. You do not have to move if you do not want. After two squares of movement from the Japanese, you can potentially end their movement. Keep in mind that your Task Forces will only be able to move a number of hexes equal to the ones moved by the Japanese. Tasks - Tell me how many movements you will allow the Japanese to make (maximum).
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Feb 1, 2023 21:20
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The only task forces we really ever need to think about are TF16 and TF 46, the rest are piddly enough they're more flavor pieces than anything operationally meaningful. TF46 - the real muscle our opponents have - can beat us to either victory hex. However, if we call for up to 10 hexes, we could hope to 1v1 TF46 at either destination, with the closest fleet. It's probably not all that advantageous, but it's where we can possibly cut in. This is only taking the botes into consideration. If I understand this right, what we probably want to do is cut the movement phase a little short of reaching either target and pummel them with fighters. I'll try running some calculations on what this means, but perhaps a couple hexes could be shaved off by having the planes return from their mission to a rando nearby island instead. Tek: what happens when an enemy fleet just rolls into an airport space? Can either fleets or ground units gently caress poo poo up, or is it assumed the air force will GTFO from a looming invasion (like just air move before ground combat phase, lmao)? Need to understand spiciness involved here. This is mostly me thinking out loud to make sure I'm grokking things, but it looks like the call here should really depend solely on the timing for my planes - Tev's green planes have a million hex range anyway and his ships can move up to 5 hexes [to 1225] being fully non-commital as to their destination. Actually, if I don't find figure out something specific wrt to the air assault, those 5 hexes might be a good baseline call - as we can both close in to both destinations equally, see how things develop and only then be forced to make a meaningfull choice.
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Feb 2, 2023 00:49
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If your mobile ground unit is forced to retreat from the Port Moresby hex, the base in Port Moresby will be overrun and lost. If you have any air units in there, they will be eliminated. You can move them out before then, but keep in mind that the combat phase is between the advantage and disadvantage phases, so potentially you might not get a turn to get them out. One thing to mention: I will be stopping movement of the Japanese TFs every time they are detected, to give you a chance to make decisions. Some information about searches that you might find useful: Searching Your LRAs can spot enemy TFs up to 8 hexes away, both at night and during the day, with decreased chances as the range increases. Your F/T/B Air Units can spot enemy TFs up to 5 hexes away, only during the day. Your spotter planes (from Naval Units that have them) can spot enemies up to 4 hexes away, only during the day. The Japanese have better F/T/B and spotter planes, being able to search up to 6 hexes away with both, and at 2-1 hexes at night.
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Feb 2, 2023 01:14
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I meant it in the sense of, say, doing an air battle over Guadalcanal and then have the planes land in (empty) New Georgia (for fuel/max range reasons). Could the Japan then just move into there next turn (let's say it falls within their guaranteed two hex movement) and instagib the planes? As I understand, the answer is a coin toss on Advantage if the opponents manage to schlep a ground unit in there. Really just figuring out whether I should treat those planes as essentially having range 3 or are there airport shenanigans to be had.
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Feb 2, 2023 01:32
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You wouldn't be able to land in New Georgia, because you don't have a base there. The airfield/port icons on the map only denote the possibility of building an airbase/port there, not the actual presence of one. Building new airbases/ports is outside the scope of this scenario, and I have instructed the Japanese thread that, for this specific scenario, the only hexes available to land units are Guadalcanal and Port Moresby. Although essentially your carrier-based air units have 3 hex range if you want to send them back to the carriers, you can send them out from your carriers and, for example, make them land at Port Moresby, or anywhere else where you have a base.
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Feb 2, 2023 08:09
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Got it. Then I think a non-commital 5 hexes, with me going to 0632 and Tev to 1125. Then hopefully Port Moresby crew manages to see if TF46 is going towards it and if not, we'll assume Guadalcanal being targeted instead.
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Feb 2, 2023 11:18
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Is the main thread closed off to us now?
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Feb 2, 2023 19:37
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Just the Japanese thread, feel free to shitpost on main.
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Feb 2, 2023 19:40
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Yeah main is not closed off because it has a bunch of rule explanations there.
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Feb 2, 2023 19:48
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Great. So, here's what I'm thinking strategy-wise. Historically, the American side succeeded in defending Port Moresby and delaying the landing at Guadalcanal for long enough that they could land troops in both areas, but had suffered far heavier losses in ships, losing Lexington and taking so much damage to Yorktown that the Japanese believed her to be sunk as well (with the miraculously fast turnaround in the shipyard then allowing the "ghost ship" to surprise the Japanese at Midway), while only destroying Shoho and damaging Shokaku. However, the American successes came in large part thanks to the fact that they had signals intelligence that allowed them advance knowledge of Japanese intentions, while the IJN had no idea there were two US fleet carriers in the area (they thought maybe one could possibly be operating in the SW Pacific, but even that was merely a supposition). We don't have that advantage here. The enemy has perfect information of our order of battle and starting positions. The other advantages of the Allies were due to greater success in spotting Japanese ships than the other way around, but even that was almost entirely dumb luck. Their strategy was almost entirely reactive, focusing at stopping the Japanese at the restricted waters of the Jomard Passage and reacting to their actions in the Solomons chain. What I'm saying is that historically Coral Sea was an extremely confused affair and there isn't much we can do to change that. We have to react instead of taking initiative, and we need to cooperate to concentrate our forces for an advantageous engagement. There's pretty much nothing more to it.
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Feb 2, 2023 21:04
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Tevery Best posted:The other advantages of the Allies were due to greater success in spotting Japanese ships than the other way around, but even that was almost entirely dumb luck. Their strategy was almost entirely reactive, focusing at stopping the Japanese at the restricted waters of the Jomard Passage and reacting to their actions in the Solomons chain. I'm kinda thinking your ground LRA might be the secret sauce here. If we cautiously assume that Port Moresby is Danger Zone and we cannot feel confident about protecting it from a zerg rush, the seemingly useless air base at the Torres Strait is a pretty drat convenient listening post for those 8 hexes of detection range, while also being neatly cordoned off be the landmass of New Guinea so that it's pretty safe from possible invasion plans. [edit] If we focused on securing Port Moresby, feeling confident about its security, and then worried about Guadalcanal later, then I could also bring my LRA there and generally have a very nice and convenient base for airborne operations. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Feb 2, 2023 |
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Feb 2, 2023 21:18
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Enemies Detected! Day: 1 of 21  A kingfisher, one of the main scout planes used throughout the war. Enemy marked as TF2 has been spotted heading out of Rabaual. Scouts report the following information: - 3 Non-capital ships. 1 Capital ship. At least one Carrier.  Since they have not move more than 2 hexes, you cannot end their movement yet. Action Revise when you will stop them. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Feb 4, 2023 |
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Feb 4, 2023 09:26
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This sure looks like heading towards Port Moresby, and there's no reason to expect any splitting of forces took place. Following the current plan would leave your forces in the range of your planes as they beat us to destination anyway, which is not great. But then again dealing with that task force will take some grinding against the odds no matter what we do. Given how I'm painfully slow to join the fray (best case scenario is I move at least 8 hexes, send the planes straight to Moresby that I don't expect to fall immediately for some reason, do a battle along the shortest route), it seems to me we should probably pummel them with suicide runs of our green pidgeon airforce. If we cannot really keep Moresby from falling, they might as well go out fighting and maybe hopefully grind down a few steps. If so, we probably want to stop them at every chance - every two hexes. It already allows us to bring all your planes to the combat (if the Townsville boys end up landing in Moresby). If not, the fighters can always be evacuated to Torres Strair airbase where they can keep supporting the glorious reconquest of Moresby. In that case, we'd probably want the fighters to pummel the LRAs of the 02 group, just to blind our opponents. Tekopo: given no F/T/B designation or numbers in general, are LRAs treated as just long-range detection tools that don't really participate in air ops?
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Feb 4, 2023 11:46
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Just to forestall further discussion, please note that they have 3 task forces, so split of Rabaul forces has happened.
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Feb 4, 2023 12:10
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Also in terms of some of the other questions, the Contact phase only happens once. After that, we go to the Battle Cycle movement which is limited to 2 hexes per turn, and you can't stop them like you can with the Contact Phase. LRAs are only used in scouting and nothing else, they do not have combat values and cannot participate in combat or air missions,
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Feb 4, 2023 12:12
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I'm gonna say you're a bit bearish on Port Moresby. We have a strong ground unit in there, it shouldn't just fold. What we are looking at is the Covering Force with the Shoho (...or the seaplane tender Kamikawa Maru, which would be... bold, since it cannot actually carry combat aircraft). If they have a carrier in there, they cannot carry troops. This is not an invasion force. I presume Japanese-Yellow and Allied-Green aircraft are not carrier capable? In that case, they likely have two air units in there, both down to 2 HP. Still enough to cut our fighters to ribbons. Following the above, there are only two possible goals of their operation: a) bait in our planes so that they can then operate their amphibious assault freely, or b) a sweep of our air force in Port Moresby. I'll get around to rereading the rules again and figure out realistically what can we do about that and what are our odds.
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Feb 4, 2023 14:23
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Tevery Best posted:What we are looking at is the Covering Force with the Shoho (...or the seaplane tender Kamikawa Maru, which would be... bold, since it cannot actually carry combat aircraft). If they have a carrier in there, they cannot carry troops. This is not an invasion force. Japanese-Yellow and Allied-Green are not carrier capable. The maximum number of planes that the Shoho can carry is 2 steps (so really, only one unit of two steps).
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Feb 4, 2023 16:04
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Tekopo posted:What makes you think the former by the way? It is possible for the TF to be carrying troops. You said it has at least one carrier, I misunderstood and thought amphibious forces can only go into the Core.
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Feb 4, 2023 23:08
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They can only go in the core, but they aren't capital ships. The one capital ship is the CV.
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Feb 5, 2023 00:08
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I cleared up the search rules in the main thread. You have until monday to make a decision. Otherwise I will do the following: - Stop the Contact Phase once the Japanese move 2 spaces (total).
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Feb 5, 2023 01:43
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Contact Phase Movement Movement has been ended for Japanese players after 2 hexes.  Please note that the Japanese TF2 will remain detected until the end of the first Battle Cycle. Current Orders - Move your TFs a maximum of two hexes.
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Feb 5, 2023 23:39
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0334 for me.
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Feb 6, 2023 00:00
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Reminder that you can also move air units once, but only installation to installation, and they can't move within 2 hexes of opponent air.
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Feb 6, 2023 00:31
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Deadline is end of Wednesday for this, otherwise I will make moves with my best judgement (or lack thereof).
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Feb 7, 2023 13:46
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Send everything from Townsville to Cairns. I don't want to move the LBAs too far forward until we need them there.
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Feb 7, 2023 15:39
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is that the TF as well?
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Feb 7, 2023 16:56
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Yeah.
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Feb 7, 2023 18:50
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1st Battle Cycle Day 1/21 of Operation.  I have rolled for Advantage. Allied Roll = 7. Japanese Roll = 1. Allied Advantage. Current Light Condition: Night. No Air Missions possible. Reduced Search Range. Current Advantage: Allies Current Orders - Move Task Forces 0, 1 or 2 hexes.
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Feb 7, 2023 21:18
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Choo, choo, full steam ahead to 0533.
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Feb 7, 2023 21:24
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Do we know how long darkness will last?
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Feb 7, 2023 21:55
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I'll post in the communal board how Lightning works, but it will not be dark in the next BCM.
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Feb 7, 2023 22:00
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TF02 to 1123 then.
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Feb 7, 2023 22:11
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Search Aichi E13A, called "Jake" Japanese Scout Plane out of Shortland has spotted TF1.  No air mission possible due to Night condition. Current Orders - Wait for Japanese to move.
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Feb 7, 2023 22:25
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 05:43 |
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Japanese Movement Japanese Task Force 2, still detected, moves to 1229. End of Battle Cycle Days advance by two: Day 3 of 21 All detection lost. Lighting Phase It is now Day AM. Normal air operations can be conducted. Advantage Determination Allies roll a 2, Japanese roll a 4, Japanese have Advantage. Current Map  (Transparent TF2 is the last known location of Japanese TF2). Current Orders - Wait for Japanese Movement and Search Results.
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Feb 9, 2023 21:59
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