Malay Barrier campaign - December 1941 – March 1942

[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

[paulr]

Turn 5 15-28 February 1942

The Dutch sortied from Batavia with all their ships; 3 light cruisers and 7 destroyers. They were supported by a British light cruiser and 3 destroyers and 2 US destroyers. They were intercepted by 16 Nell and 7 Betty bombers supported by 6 Zeros. The Dutch light cruiser Java managed to shoot down 2 strafing Zeros and damage 2 more while the remainder of the force managed to damage one of the high flying Nells. The Japanese failed to even straddle any of the ships.

The force then intercepted a Japanese convoy heading for Batavia! As more and more Japanese ships appeared Rear Admiral Doorman's dilemma became more acute. Did he attack the convoy or let them pass and capture the capital of the Dutch East Indies and his home port. As more lookout reports came in it became clear that the Japanese had 7 heavy cruisers! supported by 15 destroyers! To attack would be suicidal so reluctantly Doorman gave the order to withdraw east to Surabaya. [This was handled by a couple of brief discussions between the umpire and the players, no ships were placed on the table. We had time for a DBMM game instead.]

On capturing Batavia the Japanese found the following warships that had been unable to escape scuttled in the harbour. The light cruiser HMS Danae and the destroyers USS Barker, HMS Encounter, HMS Stronghold.

In the east things had been strangely quiet. Japanese land based aircraft and a Carrier Division had searched in vain for targets. The carrier aircraft instead attacked Darwin disrupting repairs to Allied ships there. Three convoys reached their targets unopposed.

[toxicpixie]

Really good stuff. Cracking read!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Ominous...

[Steve J]

Good stuff there!

[paulr]

Turn 6 1-15 March 1942

And so we come to the last turn of the campaign...

The Japanese Western Attack Force had already captured all of their objectives and were moving to consolidate their hold on Malaya, Sumatra and western Java. They had even transferred 3 Destroyer Divisions to the Eastern Attack Force.

The Japanese Eastern Attack Force continued their advance south opposed by the Dutch and ANZAC squadrons, with a few British and American survivors, based at Surabaya, eastern Java. The Dutch, reinforced with an additional light cruiser and destroyer, and the ANZACs sortied again to try and stem the Japanese advance.

The Dutch were again intercepted by Japanese land based aircraft. The Japanese focused on the Dutch light cruiser Java, seeking revenge for the Zeros she had shot down in their last encounter. The first wave of 5 Betty bombers failed to score any hits but lost 2 shot down and one damaged to AA fire from the supporting Dutch destroyers. Java's own AA was preoccupied fighting off the strafing Zeros and failed to shoot any down.

The second wave of 6 Nell bombers lost 1 shot down by the supporting destroyers while the strafing Zeros again escaped loss. One Nell managed to straddle the Java and a 500lb bomb exploded just above the engine room. This took out about half her guns and combined with damage to her steam lines slowed her to 16 knots.

As Java slowed the light cruiser Tromp had to swing to starboard to avoid her. It was at this moment that the third wave of 12 Nells attacked, 8 aiming for Java and 4 at Tromp. Both cruisers failed to shoot down any of the strafing Zeros. The supporting destroyers managed to shoot down two Nells and damage another. The Java was straddle again but fortunately all the bombs missed.

The damaged Java was sent back to Surabaya escorted by a division of Dutch destroyers. The remainder of the squadron continued north towards Borneo. At 0800 the next morning they sighted a Japanese force of 3 heavy and 3 light cruisers and 12 destroyers. Rear Admiral Doorman again decided that he had to withdraw rather than attempt to engage with his much weaker force of 4 light cruisers and 8 destroyers.

And so the campaign ended.