WiTP:AE - Guadalcanal. Egan(J) v CCIP(A). BANZAI!
 

Banzai indeed, gentlefolk, banzai indeed.

Well, since my big match up against Happy Times had gone west back at Easter time I'd been itching to get back into the saddle and play another PBEM, except as the Japanese this time.

This time my worthy opponent is the esteemed CCIP. He is sophisticated, debonair, intelligent and a good Shock Force player as the remnants of my British mech unit will soon be testifying to on Syrian television..I, on the other hand am venal, petty minded and snarky....so I have the advantage! :D

Having come over to the dark side by buying WiTP:AE, we are playing scenario 4: Guadalcanal. This is one of the smaller scenarios that the stock game ships with and is usually considered a tutorial of sorts. It runs from the start of August '42 through to about April '43 and covers Operation Watchtower and subsequent events. We might not play the whole way through as we are mainly playing so that CCIP can get used to how the PBEM system and game mechanics work and I can see what the Japanese are all about without having to worry about the economic side of the game. At some point we will hopefully move on to the full campaign.

So, without further ado, I extend the traditional offer for CCIP to say a few words before I lock him out the thread.

So, over to you big guy!

Looking forward to it! I'm a bit intimidated since I've only been a WiTP owner for the last week, but I think the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor coming up is a great reason to get into it. I suppose playing with a good opponent is the best learning experience you can get.

Not terribly confident about this one, but we'll see how it goes - the game IS full of surprises, and if there's one thing I mostly mastered so far, that's carrier warfare. So, I'm ready to fill up Ironbottom Sound - we'll see with whose ships :D

I may make another thread with news reports from the front. Figure it might be cool for people to see both sides!

Another WITP game? Woohoo! I'll be watching this thread closely :)

Cheers, Might take a couple of days for this to get going between one thing and another but we'll be sinking each others carriers soon enough. I think I might have caught CCIP somewhat on the hop with starting this one - perhaps somewhat fitting given this weeks anniversary.

Anyway, the thread is now locked to CCIP! On with the plotting. Later on I'll post my thoughts and initial moves. It might be a small scenario but there is plenty to do. I plan on concentrating a little less on the actual mechanics this time around but there will be plenty to talk about nevertheless (I hope.)

Yay! I really enjoyed your last WitP AAR with Happy Times and was eagerly awaiting the conclusion of that one. Hopefully this marks the start of a few long enjoyable games vs CCIP.

Good luck to you both!

Hopefully CCIP will do one from his side too, which should be interesting. I'm sure he'll pick it up in no time. If he plays anything like he does at SF, he'll be pretty decisive on the attack.

SF?

Shock Force, I believe.

Ah thanks.

Also, Egan, what are your overall strategic plans as Japan in the Guadalcanal campaign? Naval blockade? Decisive battle?

Good opponent? I'll make him take that back! :D

Err....


OK, let's get down to business. First up a map of the immediate area of operations.

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4562/guadalcut.jpg


Situation
Despite all the real estate in Imperial hands, Japan's position is not too strong. Troops are scattered through the Solomons with the biggest concentrations of infantry at Lunga (About 80 AV), Shortlands (120 AV), and on the Kokoda trail east of Port Moresby. Tulagi is very much understrength with most of the troops present being engineers. Likewise, Rabaul has no great infantry power either but that doesn't matter for the time being.

Air power is also lacking. I have a wing of Betties at Rabaul with a couple of squadrons of Zeros for available for their defence. I also have a detachment of Zeros at Lae. That is pretty much the extent of it, and that isn't good.

Even worse, I have no carriers available and won't for nearly two weeks. Although I have several cruisers on map, escorts are non existent - I have a solitary destroyer. The good news is there are a number of Patrol boats available for tasking and a few subs so I won't be completely toothless.

My numbers will increase over the next few weeks but it will be a while before I am in a position to challenge any early Allied aggression too much.

CCIP will be aiming to take Guadalcanal and Tulagi as soon as possible followed by a move up the Slot towards Shortlands, which will put him in range of Rabaul. It will be interesting to see how much attention he pays to Moresby. If it wasn't for the victory points value it would be a lot less strategically important in this scenario than it would be in the full campaign.

Aims and Plans

Simple enough on paper: defend the Solomon islands and Rabaul from Allied attack and take Port Moresby. I don't have to do everything at once, thankfully, but if I linger too long I will allow CCIP to consolidate his early gains and put my position at risk.

Thoughts.

Following the battle for the Coral sea and the Midway fiasco I don't have anything as useful as the full Kido Butai available for use. I will get my hands on the Shokaku and the Zuikaku in 12 days with the Hiyo and Junyo before the end of the year. I will also receive several light and escort carriers too so things look bright enough on that front. Better news is that I will start to receive a number of destroyers, cruisers and battleships within the next few days and once I do I will be aiming to seriously impede CCIP's movements in both the Coral Sea and the Slot. The heart beat of any amphibious operation are the supply ships. Kill them and I kill his offensives.

I will use subs to strike at his big capital ships and force him to expend energy of securing his supply routes. I also hope to use Betties to knock out some of his troop ships before they reach the beach-head. Once I have the manpower I will move onto counter attacks but it will be a while before I can do that. In the meantime I will try to build up the airfield and fortification at Shortlands, using it as a forward base to launch fighter sweeps and bombing raids. Like wise for Buna on PNG. I need to take out any aircraft he tries to move into Moresby. I do not know what he gets in the way of big bombers but I do not want any B-17s using that as a jumping off point for neutralizing Rabaul. Once I have a few more subs I will picket the approaches to Moresby. The one real advantage I have at this time of the war is that my torpedoes work. :yeah:

My ability to hit his shipping is mitigated slightly by the presence of Australian ship yards at Sydney. Although not huge they allow him to fix up less serious damage without having to send them off map. I don't have that luxury and any serious damage my ships take will pretty much remove them from the battle as they will have to head to Japan. As soon as I have the numbers, subs will be sent to patrol the Australian coast. Hopefully, if I damage any of his ships, I can finish them off before they get to port. Noumea, also, will be watched.

I will also have to watch that he doesn't manage to close off Truk with his own subs. This is my main entry point for Aircraft, manpower and shipping so it is vitally important I don't let him get the upper hand in local waters.

First Turn

I've spent supplies at Rabaul to arm my Betties with torpedoes and ordered them to naval strikes. The Zeros have been set to escort and given drop tanks. Search aircraft at Tulagi have been ordered to patrol east and south in the hope of intercepting his invasion force when it starts moving. All other Search aircraft have been mostly set to ASW around Rabaul and Truk.

CCIP should have Enterprise, Saratoga (I think,) and Wasp available to him at game start and I imagine he also has several battleships, cruisers and lots of destroyers. There is little I can do to halt any invasion of Guadalcanal in the first week and my best bet will probably be to pull back to the Northwest of the island once he gets his troops attacking. From there I can fight for time as I bring in reinforcements. Hopefully the Betties can do some damage but, considering how lightweight they actually are, I'll have to be careful with how often I use them; they are likely to end up quite depleted once his Wildcats and P-40s get into them.

Subs have been tasked with patrol zones around Guadalcanal and Tulagi. Hopefully they'll get in amongst the carriers and get lucky. All available Patrol Boats have been tasked with ASW patrols around Rabaul and Truk, I won't bother with anything more offensive until my ships start arriving. Cruisers without escorts won't live long in sub infested waters. He will have a number of S class boats and they do have torps that work.



Krauter, SF = Shock Force. CCIP and myself have been playing a bunch of PBEM games over the last few months. He's pretty good. Our last game was...well, let's not talk about that....:nope::DL


OK, first turn went yesterday and caught our boy off-guard. I'm away to London for a few days on Wednesday (RAF Hendon! Hurray!) but I'm hoping we'll get a couple of turns in before then.

Right, I'm off to get shot down yet again in Rise of Flight. I bought a set of rudder pedals thinking it would help but all that's happened is my knee hurts and I'm even worse at flying. Who knew?

Oh, I forgot to say: game wise we're running the last official patch and the recent beta patch from 27th of November. We aren't using any house rules. I don't think they are as important in the smaller scenarios as they are in the full campaign but I'm sure if any issue come up we can sort something out.

Settings wise, all is standard with one day turns and that sort of malarkey. Again, a lot of them are more important in the big kahuna than in this game.

Awsome to see another one Egan, looking forward to watching this campaign develop

With such confined waters, would it be feasible to force, or drive, his capital ships into predetermined ambush positions with submarines or capital surface ships?

Good thinking Krauter, not long finished reading an 'alternate' history where the US task force is herded into coastal waters and ambushed.
Enjoy London Egan, RAF Hendon is fantastic, I didn't get a chance to go there last time I was down, sadly, but it's well worth a trip, there's a Ki-1001b there, so you can practice attack runs with it. Just bandage your knee up ;)

Generally speaking, I doubt he could lure CCIPs CVs into this kind of ambush, but if he can gradually wittle down the number of CLs, CAs and possibly BBs that CCIP has access to, it becomes a whole new ball game.