Heres a snippet from one of my AARs (after action reports) from WiTP (War in the Pacific)
The Banda Sea has more overnight action. This time a surface action task force made up of CL Naka and DDs Suzukaze, Shinonome, Tachikaze and Fuyo under the command of Cpt Tahara, Y. on board Naka, sweep the sea around Kai Island. APD Dent, which had been roughed up the night before is located and dispatched by 2 torpedo hits along with reports of 25 casualties and 1. Tahara forges on and locates APDs Colhoun, Kane, Overton and Dickerson. Kane is hit by 6 shells and Dickerson is reported to have been hit by 3 shells. Overton is hit by 4 shells and 3 torpedoes and sinks. 52 casualties and 3 vehicles are reported lost in this action. In their turn Naka is hit by 2 shells, Fuyo by 1 shell. Suzakaze is hit by 1 rather effective shell which causes a 6 fire and system damage of 9. Undeterred Tahara remains and locates APDs Waters, Little and McKean. Little suffers 2 shell hits whilst McKean (hit by 2 shells the night before) is hit by 7 shells and 1 torpedo and sinks. 42 casualties and 2 vehicles are reported lost. Naka takes 2 shell hits and Fuyo 1 hit. Well satisfied with the nights work and down on torpedoes Tahara sets course for Kendari and hightails it from the scene of the action. After this action Naka has system damage of 3 and Fuyo 4. Not a bad return for minimal damage although Suzakaze is off to the repair yard. So far not a bad showing from some of the older ships of the IJN. A few days later and with her fires well doused Suzakaze is at Kendari and having her 15 sys dam well fussed over.
In a postscript to the night action the next day 38 D4Y Judy and 6B5N Kate based at Amboina locate APDs Little and Waters. Little was reported to have been hit by 5 bombs. 2 Judy and 1 Kate were lost to 6 P-38J Lightning which were based on Kai Island. After rearming at Amboina the bombers set off again (this time 32 Judy and 5 Kate), again locate the two ships and put 1 further bomb into Little. The CAP of 6 Lightning was again on hand and accounted for 3 more Judy. Little turned up on the sunk ships list so she must have succumbed. Costly in terms of planes lost for 1 APD that was already well beat up.
This little adventure is sure to be a bother for Todd. His comment about Hosogaya’s raid from the night before was Sneaky IJN DDs lurking around my new base at night. I'm going to have to turn on the lights and sleep with an eye opened. Seems the lights may have to be turned up a little brighter and less sleep by the guards. I doubt he will let this go on and I know he has carriers around plus battlewagons in the area. I suspect it is the RN as a BB plus at BC came up from recon a few turns ago so I suspect Todd has found a job for Prince of Wales and Repulse along with his armoured carriers.
South of Rabaul a convoy returning from a supply run to Gili Gili is located by SS Wahoo. AP Nitiran Maru is hit by 2 torpedoes causing fatal damage of 96 94 24 and she is scuttled. There are 6 destroyers in the escort and for a nice change they report a good number of hits (8). This is the most hit I have seen against an allied sub in months and I can’t even guess at the last time an Allied sub was sunk. This was a particularly gratifying result as Wahoo has cropped up on a regular basis giving grief to my shipping.
Now for the disappointing result for the day. About one week ago US forces stormed ashore and captured Eniwetok. The USN has been busy unloading all sorts and I wanted to see if I could sneak in a carrier attack as it appeared that the carrier escort was a bit thin on the ground. Well things almost worked out well and would have gone to plan if I had not of set my planes to fly their full distance of 5 hexes. If I had of gone for 3 they would have had a chance to hit the transports at the island but as it turned out they found the US carriers at range 5 and of course had to give it a go with the expected carnage.
In the first raid 8 Zekes and 16 Zeros escorted 19 Judy, 6 Kate and 18 Jill against 110 Hellcats. All the Zekes and Zeros, Kates and Jills were shot down. 4 Judy bombers made it back to the decks of their carriers. A mere 4 Hellcats were reported shot down. Undeterred by this debacle 8 Zekes set out to escort 9 Jill against the American fleet. It was no surprise to see every plane shot down by the CAP of 96 Hellcats. Still thinking there must be a change of achieving some result 8 Judy and 6 Jill set out with an escort of 8 Zeke and 9 Zero in the afternoon. They found the Americans with a CAP up of 66 Hellcat. A solitary Judy made it back and a lone Hellcat was reported as downed.
All in all quite a disaster and one I put down to my rather poor understanding of how far a task force will travel at any speed. In this case I had the carriers on full speed and the task force actually ended up closer to the island than I expected it too. Hopefully the silver lining will be that Todd will think that this attack came from the remnants of KB as he has been in the dark on where my carriers have been for some time now. The reconstituted KB is in fact haring down to the Banda Sea to see if they can become the decisive element in that battle. The ships I used in this encounter were Shoho, Zuiho, Ryuho and Ryujo. They have made an about face and are tearing away from Eniwetok and hoping the US carriers aren’t interested in a long chase. The only other good news out of this is the bail out and rescue of ENS Kawamura L. Of EIII-1 Daitai and CPO Fujimatsu J. of CII-1 Datiai. Other than that Todd is having a great time celebrating many new Allied aces.
Edited by KraftySOT, 10 March 2015 - 11:21 AM.
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dimachaerus, on 10 March 2015 - 09:58 AM, said:
