The Solomons Campaign 2017

[paulr]

To mark the 75^th anniversary of the actual campaign we are re-fighting the naval campaign in the Solomons focused on Guadalcanal.

The campaign began with the capture of Henderson airfield on Guadalcanal by US Marines on 8 August 1942 and lasted until 9 February 1943 when the Americans realised the last  Japanese had evacuated Guadalcanal two nights before.

We are using Old Dominion Games "The Solomons Campaign" but are using General Quarters I/II as for the battles as we prefer them to the more complex GQ III.


http://www.odgw.com/products/generalquarters3/gq3tsc.html

We first played this campaign in 2013 http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10531.0.html when I umpired and Pierre the Shy commanded the Allies.

This time around Pierre the Shy is kindly umpiring, I am commanding the Allies and Roy, our regular Saturday host, is commanding the Japanese.

We started the campaign on 10 August 1942 after the battle of Savo Island and made the decisions for the first turn last night. The first game will take place next Saturday

We are now nervously waiting to find out what that battle will be... 

[paulr]

Pierre the Shy has performed his umpiring duties and the first game will be a night action near Lunga Point deep in Savo Sound (soon to be renamed Iron Bottom Sound if our campaign is anything like history)

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Sounds a lot of fun! Good luck all!

[DFlynSqrl]

It does sound very cool.

[sunjester]

Have fun!

[Womble67]

Yep have fun

Take care

Andy

[pierre the shy]

Yep have fun

Have fun!

No worries on that score - I am

and its only the first turn 

[paulr]

Good to know the umpire is having fun

The players are more nervous 

[paulr]

The umpire dropped a little surprise on me yesterday

He pointed out that only some of the US destroyers had radar. I had assumed, WRONGLY, that they all did

This has lead to a historically accurate disregard for radar when assigning roles to the various US Destroyer Squadrons

I hope the two SC surface warning radars in my key destroyer squadron are working tonight
The other six destroyers in that squadron have no radar

All the destroyers in the other Destroyer Squadron that may be involved tonight of course have radar

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Good luck!

[paulr]

Thanks Lemmey, both radars worked

It was an 'interesting' game, a very calm night with heavy fog and visibility of 3-5,000 yards

The Americans with good radar detected 3 large and 7 small Japanese ships approaching Lunga Point from the north west and warned the remaining ships by TBS

This was about the maximum number the American force was willing to engage but the limited visibility would mean any engagements would be at almost suicidal ranges

Some of the American ships moved west towards Lunga Point while the remainder continued to patrol between Lunga Point and Koli Point (to the east), visibility if anything worsened

The Japanese were aware of the presence of American ships, hearing the TBS radio transmissions. They opened fire at long range in the general direction of Henderson Field and after 20 minutes or so withdrew to the north west

[paulr]

That 'engagement' brought the month of August to an end

There had been no actual contact between naval or air forces during the month

Both the Allies and the Japanese had bombarded the enemy on Guadalcanal twice during the month and may have also managed to deliver some supplies, can't say too much

So we made our decisions for next month and Pierre the Shy will work out what we are fighting next week

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Sounds like fun.

[Ithoriel]

I look forward to the progress of the campaign.

As an erstwhile "admiral in the Imperial Japanese fleet" who lost the battlecruisers Kirishima and Hiei, the heavy cruiser Takao, the light cruiser Nagara and the destroyer Yayoi in exchange for a single US destroyer in the opening battle of our Guadalcanal campaign I commend the caution of both sides!

[paulr]

Sounds like fun.

It actually was quite tense wondering:

• what the Japanese had, those large ships could be anything from a light Cruiser to the Yamato
• if the fog would clear

It is interesting how different a campaign feels from a one off game

I look forward to the progress of the campaign.

As an erstwhile "admiral in the Imperial Japanese fleet" who lost the battlecruisers Kirishima and Hiei, the heavy cruiser Takao, the light cruiser Nagara and the destroyer Yayoi in exchange for a single US destroyer in the opening battle of our Guadalcanal campaign I commend the caution of both sides!

Ouch, that didn't go well for the IJN

It looks like September might be a more active month... 

[paulr]

Definitely a more active month, a carrier action this Saturday

Based on our experience last time we ran the campaign this could get very messy very quickly

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Ohhh... good luck

[kipt]

We played this campaign at the beginning of the year. Allied win as the Japanese could not get a Henderson assault to go in. The weather never let the Japanese use their superior spotting to launch the Long Lance torps.

We called it quits in month 5 I think.   Frustrating weather conditions; fog and squalls passing through all the time.

Losses were:
BB - Allied 2 sunk, 1 damaged; IJN 1 sunk, 1 crippled, 1 damaged
CV - Allied 1 sunk; IJN 1 sunk, 1 damaged
AVP - Allied 1 crippled; IJN 1 sunk
CA - Allied 2 sunk, 3 crippled, 8 damaged; IJN 11 sunk, 1 damaged
CL - Allied 2 sunk, 3 damaged; IJN 6 sunk, 1 crippled, 3 damaged
DD - Allied 21 sunk, 2 crippled, 7 damaged; IJN 29 sunk, 6 crippled, 2 damaged
Subs - Allied 1 sunk; IJN 1 sunk, 1 damaged
AP's - Allied 5 sunk, 1 crippled; IJN 3 sunk
PT's - Allied 6 sunk
Aircraft - Allied 26 flights lost; IJN 20 flights lost.

We used GQIII.

[paulr]

Shame about the weather

Pretty heavy loses, lots of short range actions I guess

It will be interesting to see how tonight's carrier battle goes

[paulr]

Earlier this week I received the following from Pierre the Shy, who is kindly umpiring our Solomons campaign.

0830 Somewhere just North of the Solomons XX September 1942

The weather is Mostly Clear (50%) with 2 could layers from 8000' upwards Moderate wind (Force 4) from S.

Adm Fletcher receives 2 messages:

1. sighting report from a SBD search flight:
"Japanese Carriers sighted......100nm East of your position Speed 24 Course SE.
Estimate force to contain 3 CV, 1 CVL, 6 CA, 12 DD. CAP flying overhead"

2. "CIC reports lone bogey detected to East of our position, contact faded before interception possible"

You can either launch a strike with up to 80% of your available flights or wait till the next "round".

You cannot use your assigned CAP in the first strike or launch additional CAP unless an inbound enemy strike is detected.

Orders please.

This lead to the carrier battle we fought last night. As both the Japanese and Americans had decided to launch immediate strikes we diced and the Americans got to play out their attack first. The Japanese reply will happen in a couple of weeks.

The lead aircraft of the American strike arrived to find that the initial report had been inaccurate. The Japanese force consisted of 2 CV, 2 BB, 4 CA and about 8 DD with almost 40 Zeros circling overhead.

The strike had become somewhat disorganised and the initial wave consisted of 6 Wildcats, 14 Dauntless and 12 Avengers from one carrier and another 12 Avengers from the other carrier.

The Wildcats were immediately engaged by one flight of Zeros while the remaining Zeros attacked the Dauntless and Avengers. The remaining 12 Dauntless from the first carrier then arrived and were set upon by those Zeros that still had ammunition.

Four Avengers, that had survived the Zeros, attacked the lead Japanese carrier from the port and starboard bows. The Japanese AA gunners managed to bring down the two on the port side but one of the torpedoes from the starboard side struck home. The two surviving Avengers flew at wave top height avoiding AA fire from the supporting Japanese destroyers as they made good their escape.

At the same time the two Avengers that had managed to get through from the other carrier launched an attack from astern the second Japanese carrier, both torpedoes ... missed.

Of the 26 Dauntless that attacked only six got past the Zeros and four of those were shot down or damaged by AA fire. The two survivors managed to hit the second Japanese carrier with a 1,000lb bomb forward.

As the Japanese were sorting themselves out another wave of Americans arrived, 8 Wildcats and 28 Dauntless from the second US carrier. With the Zeros all out of ammunition the Wildcats moved in to suppress the AA guns on the lead Japanese carrier while half the Dauntless attacked scoring 2 hits with 1,000lb bombs. The remaining Dauntless attacked the second Japanese carrier but without support from Wildcats suffered more casualties and managed only near misses.

Overall the lead Japanese carrier had suffered one torpedo and two 1,000lb bomb hits while the second had suffered one 1,000lb bomb hit. About 20 out of the 40 Zeros had been destroyed or damaged. The lead carrier is probably crippled and will be out of action for at least two months

The cost in American aircraft and crews had been high. The first carrier had 24 aircraft destroyed and 16 damaged out of a strike of 44 aircraft. Only 4 returned undamaged.

The second carrier had fared better as most of its aircraft had arrived after the Zeros had run out of ammunition. They still had 14 aircraft destroyed and 6 damaged out of a strike of 48 aircraft. 28 returned undamaged.

We will find out what the American aircraft return to in a couple of weeks when we fight out the Japanese strike on the American carriers.