Malay Barrier campaign - December 1941 – March 1942

[paulr]

Ominous hummmmmmmmmmm of engines...

The hummmmmmmmmmm got much louder yesterday afternoon

Action 1

The undamaged ships of WESGROUP sortied again from Singapore. With the loss of Exeter and all of the modern British destroyers damaged the force was reduced to 2 D class light cruisers, 4 Admiralty S class destroyers and 3 American Clemson class destroyers.

As they steamed north at 24 knots lookouts reported aircraft approaching from the southwest. It looked like it might be a small raid, only 5 Zeros and 5 Nells.

The Japanese aircraft passed astern, preparing to attack from the starboard side. This was screened by the American destroyers with their very limited AA. The Allies turned to port hoping to delay the enemy attack.

At this point lookouts reported more aircraft approaching from the southwest; 7 more Nells and 16 Bettys!

As the Allies continued to maneuver the newly arrived Nells moved to join the other Nells and Zeros. The Bettys moved to attack from port. The leading 6 Bettys managed to straddle Durban but scored no hits and lost an aircraft.



The 3 American destroyers had fallen behind as they were on the outside of the turn. This opened the way for the 5 original Nells with 3 Zeros strafing Durban. Durban managed to down one of the Zeros but with little AA to disturb them the Nells managed to hit Durban with a 500lb bomb. The blast from this damaged much of her armament but fortunately did not affect her machinery spaces.



The second group of 7 Nells then attacked the Durban with the 2 remaining Zeros strafing her. The leading American destroyer, Parrot, had managed to work into a better position and shot down one Nell and damaged another as they approached Durban.

The remaining 10 Bettys attacked Durban while the Zeros strafed Durban and the leading British destroyer, Thanet. Fire from the remaining destroyers damaged one Betty as it broke off. Durban was straddled repeatedly and a 500lb bomb penetrated the machinery space halving her speed and further reducing her firepower.

Rear Admiral Arthur Palliser's flagship had survived this time but was crippled. He transferred his flag to Dragon and considered his options with his much reduced force. The Japanese had 1 Zero, 1 Nell and 1 Betty shot down and 1 Nell and 1 Betty damaged.

[paulr]

Action 2

Rear Admiral William Glassford again sortied his US ships from Surabaya, this time reinforced by Marblehead and John Paul Jones. Destroyer Division 59, however, was detached for other duties.

As they headed north at 24 knots look outs reported bombers approaching from the west. They were soon identified as 16 Nells and 13 Bettys. The Nells passed astern of the US ships and moved to attack from starboard where there were only 2 US destroyers. The Bettys circled as the Nells moved into position.

The US ships turned to port to make it harder for the Nells to reach their attack position. Another 20 aircraft were spotted approaching from the west, Zeros.

The Zeros moved to support their bombers with 9 joining the Bettys and 11 the Nells.



The first wave of 6 Bettys attacked the Houston with Zeros strafing her and the supporting destroyers. Houston damaged two Zeros and shot one down. She was straddled by 500lb bombs but undamaged. The second wave of 7 Bettys attacked the more exposed Marblehead with Zeros strafing her and the supporting destroyers. She was straddled repeatedly but was undamaged. The AA crews of Marblehead and John Paul Jones both claimed the Zero that was shot down.

As the Bettys withdrew the Zeros that had been supporting them joined the Nells.



The Nells attacked all 3 cruisers; 6 against Houston, 6 against Boise and 4 against Marblehead. The Zeros strafed the cruisers and supporting destroyers. Houston and Boise were both straddled but managed to escape any damage. Houston and Marblehead both damaged Zeros and Boise shot one down.

The Japanese had lost 2 Zeros and a Betty, 4 Zeros had been damaged. The Americans had managed to survive undamaged.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Sounds like the Allied forces got lucky!

[paulr]

Historically Marblehead was heavily damaged by air attack and withdrew to New York for major repairs, via Ceylon, South Africa and Brazil (over 16,000 miles or 26,000 km)

Houston was hit by the same air attack disabling Turret 3 (or Y Turret depending on which side of the Atlantic you're from). She was later sunk at the Battle of Sunda Strait.

[pierre the shy]

Having run the gauntlet of the IJN's land based 21st and 22nd Air Flotilla's and survived largely intact its now time to try and inflict a bit of damage on some more Japanese invasion convoys. 3 have been sighted and will be engaged, though the severely deplied West Force (1 old CL and 7 old DD's) has the only daylight engagement so they might have to beat a hasty retreat if they sight anything larger than a CL, though I am keen to try and stop that sighting as they are now south of Singapore, which is not good. The other two are night actions but we have some decent ships to use there.....not saying which ones as loose lips sinks ships. The Japanese at night under GQ rules at this time are very capable so we will need to be on top of our game actually get amongst the transports, or even try and scare them off, but its now or never as unless I am very lucky ABDA does not see any more reinforcements......still waiting for those Dutch Type 1042 battlecruisers to show up but the umpire just laughs.....maybe next time       

[Rhys]

I'd suggest that you will do OK as long as you don't let Paul anywhere near your dice....

[paulr]

      

[pierre the shy]

Well we finally played one of the night actions last Saturday after being delayed for various reasons over the past few weeks.......first up was the USN vs a Japanese Invasion force at Balikpapan which did not end well for the USN thanks mainly to the Long Lance torpedoes that the Japanese were able to put into the water.

With the sheer number of number of torpedoes fired I guess the odds were they would hit something, just not as often as they actually managed....

You can find the USN after-action report here: https://betweenthelines10mm.blogspot.com/2022/03/torpedoes-in-water-disaster-at.html

I did manage to sink one transport and damage another, thus making the transport force take a force morale test. If they fail then the invasion will be unsucessful, but however you look at it any success came at a very high price.

[Steve J]

Blimey, that did not go well for the USN!!! Let's hope the Japanese fail their morale tests, for what would be a Pyrrhic victory of sorts.

[paulr]

Pierre the Shy continued to play in his normal friendly manner, despite both his and his opponents the dice rolling against him on almost every opportunity. His couple of expressions of opinion on his luck were entirely understandable and fairly restrained

The signs were not promising from the opening Japanese salvo, amongst the many 5" shells that slammed into the Houston one hit the bridge, killing Rear Admiral Glassford and most of the bridge crew

The Japanese managed to launch about 60 Long Lance torpedoes all at less than 6,000 yards

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Ouch. That's a painful encounter.

[pierre the shy]

Things went a lot better last night, with the ANZAC cruiser squadron facing off against a smaller Japanese convoy anchored off Mendao, Celebes. It another night action but some of the 6 cruisers have radar and the weather was better, giving us better visiblilty.

Acting in 3 parallel divisions each of 2 ships the allied cruisers were able to deploy into line and quickly sink a Japanese destroyer as well as leave the force flagship, identifed as a Mogami class heavy cruiser, in such a damaged condition that she had to be scuttled by the small number of remaining crew members. The RAN flagship took a couple of 8" hits from the IJN heavy cruiser, but no major damage was caused.

I was looking forward to getting in amongst the 4 anchored japanese tranports with some more USN DD's to gain a bit of revenge, but the Japanese commanders decided that being quite heavily outnumbered that the invasion would be cancelled and the remaining ships would retreat northwards at high speed.   

With no other ships in sight we did not play any pursuit turns, but intelligence suggests that at least one Japanese transport was not quick enough to up anchor and was sunk as it attempted to escape from the ANZAC force.

[paulr]

The Japanese transports were on half an hours notice for steam. Seeing multiple explosions the length the Japanese flag ship within 12 minutes of the first report of the enemy encouraged three of the four transport crews to perform minor engineering miracles. They managed to slip out of Menado Bay around the headland to the north following in the wake of the rapidly departing remainder of their escort. The fourth was not so lucky and was sunk by 6" and 4" gunfire.

It was certainly the shortest naval game we have played, two turns!

[paulr]

After just over a month's hiatus, due to real world factors, we managed to get back to our Malay Barrier campaign on Saturday night

Turn 4 1-14 February 1942

This campaign turn generated 3 actions.

1. Sumatra
A Japanese convoy, of 8 transports escorted by no less than 6 cruisers and 11 destroyers, was reported heading south towards the east coast of Sumatra. The RAF managed to send 9 Blenheim IVs to intercept. As the Blenheims approached from astern the escorts closed in and formed a tight ring around the transports.

Six Blenheims came in at 20,000 feet to attack the rearmost transport of the starboard column. Two Japanese destroyers and the transport opened fire with all available AA and missed! To the surprise of all, three of the Blenheims managed to straddle the transport. Two of them actually managed to hit the transport with a 250lb bomb causing major damage to the ships holds. As the Blenheims continued over the convoy one was shot down by the destroyers on the port side of the convoy. The bombs in the hold had started fires and set off the artillery ammunition carried there. The resulting explosions tore the ship apart.

The remaining three Blenheim attempted to repeat the feat against the rear ship of the port column but two were shot down and the third was damaged and driven off by the now thoroughly alert Japanese AA crews. The morale of the convoy held and the commander of the Palembang group of the 38th Infantry Division now had to work out how to complete his mission with only half his planned artillery

2. Java Sea
The Dutch sortied from Java with all their ships, three cruisers and seven destroyers. As they headed north they were attacked by 8 Nell & 6 Betty bombers escorted by 10 Zero fighters.

The Zeros strafed the lead and rear cruisers to distract the AA gunners while the Nells and Bettys made their attack runs at 10,000 feet. One Zero was damaged and driven off but no bomb hits were achieved.

Worsening weather meant the Dutch were unable to locate any Japanese convoys that may have been operating in their search area.

3. Kendari, Celebes
At noon a Japanese convoy of 4 transports, escorted by one heavy and one light cruiser, a seaplane carrier and four destroyers was on the south east leg of its zig-zag course. The starboard destroyers spotted three ANZAC cruisers in line abreast approaching from the south west at over 20 knots.

The convoy worked up to its maximum speed of 16 knots and the two destroyers that had been screening the port side moved to the starboard side of the convoy. As it did so the ANZAC cruisers were rapidly working up to their maximum speed of 32 knots. The ANZACs also altered course to starboard to intercept the convoy. This revealed that it was in fact three pairs of ANZAC cruisers supported by four American destroyers.

The Japanese commander, Rear Admiral Shoji Nishimura, was faced with a dilemma. Outnumbered 6 to 2 in cruisers there was no way he was going to win this action or even inflict major damage on the enemy. But there was no way his transports could escape the much faster Allied cruisers and destroyers.

He decided to save his valuable warships and abandoned the transports to their fate, along with the 1^st and 2^nd Sasebo Special Landing Forces they carried.

Much to our surprise we had managed to fight all three actions in less than two hours, including a tea break after the two air attacks. This did mean that no photos were taken.

The jubilation on the ANZAC cruisers was stifled as news that Singapore had fallen passed through the ships.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Still going well nice AAR

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

That's certainly upper the anti!
Great reports!

[Rhys]

Wow, sucks to be the army doesn't it.

[paulr]

1^st and 2^nd Sasebo Special Landing Forces are naval infantry, at least the Navy can keep it quiet and not tell the Army

[fred.]

Three interesting little engagements - that I assume have impacts on the campaign. And the type of engagement that would rarely be played outside of a campaign.

[paulr]

One of the things I really love about campaigns