8 replies to this topic

[Cam0sam100]

I come here to share with you the tale of the recapture of Attu and Kiska.
Me and my group (mother wife and friend) have been playing an extended campaign game of GQ3 set in the North Pacific area.
We are all new to GQ3 and wargaming in general but we are well on our way to becoming seasoned naval commanders. We played a practice game set in February 1942.

Practice game setup: The Japanese are attempting to solidify their holdings on Attu and Kiska with the main goal of constructing an airfield on Kiska.
The American Forces are trying to build their own airfield on Adak island as well as building defenses and a stockpile of supplies.

With the fighting around Guadalcanal hot and heavy not much can be spared by either side for this inhospitable theater.


After weeks of searching, skirmishing, and one air raid the campaign is concluded as an overwhelming American victory. The climax of the campaign was a massive night battle between the battered American TF24 and Ad hoc Japanese force of remaining CAs and DDs.

Results and Lessons learned: with the USN in control of the seas the construction of a Kiska airfield is abandoned and with it any hope of holding the islands against an American invasion. The Americans on the other hand turn Adak into a strong position that will, when the time is right be able to support the effort to drive the Japanese off these little bits of US soil.
The lessons learned were many but here are two things: number 1 the weather of the North Pacific is a hinderance to say the least, "we are fighting the weather more than the japs!" Said the American commander after a full day of storms. The whole campaign lasted 3 weeks of game time ( there's not a lot of moves to make when the weather is too rough for air ops most of the time and the DDs have to heave to)
Number 2: Submarines are the bomb to play both as the sub and when performing ASW. We as a group have a love of all things that operate under the ocean and a large factor in choosing GQ3 was to play subs. We were not disappointed in that regard.

As I write this we are on day 3 of operation Landcrab which for us started on May 1st 1943 and the players have come out of the gate swinging. These 3 days have saw shore bombardments, surface actions, air raids, and many submarine/asw attacks. I will attempt to post a record of these events when I have time


Thanks

[Kenny Noe]

Welcome!   Look forward to your post!!  

[healey36]

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around your game group comprised of your mom, your wife, and another friend, lol.

 

It sounds like a terrific campaign involving all components (air, surface, and submarine forces). I look forward to reading more.

 

 

[Cam0sam100]

Thank you for the welcome!My group is very unusual and I am admittedly a little more excited about this game than they are but I thank the lord for them every day. They are good sports, history buffs ,and very competitive.


The Set Up


First the house rules:
1: aircraft range is doubled across the board, my homemade Hex map of the Aleutian's is not perfect and in the test we realized how short ranged the aircraft were. Doubling the range is excessive but easy for the players to do.

2: Home-brew land combat, I found the GQ3 rules inadequate for land combat and I wanted supporting the ground fight to be the focus of the campaign. It's not a pretty rule set, it involves determining combat power (men + supplies) and then rolling on a table based on the ratio of attacker to defender. High rolls are better so NGFS (naval gunfire support) and air support add up to 3 and 2 to the rolls respectively.

3: air search is much more abstracted, plotting a 15 degree air search for all the aircraft involved was too much to keep track of.


The time has come. Forces have been carefully assembled for the recapture of those damn Aleutian Islands.
USA
The US objectives in this campaign are obviously to land and recapture the islands of Attu and Kiska. This must be done in 3 weeks, we can't hold up all these forces in north when they are needed elsewhere. The American commander is also instructed to minimize losses. A main factor for launching this campaign is the morale effect that capturing these islands would have on the home front. That could have the opposite effect if too many losses are incurred. The American commander expressed concerns for her ground troops in the hash conditions of the islands, she was told that additional cold weather gear would take too long to procure and distribute, being quick will, in itself save lives in this battle, the American commander wanted her objection officially recorded.(Note the commanders concern for her men is heartwarming and a theme that effects every decision)

With all that in mind: The Plan
In order to capture the islands on time and as quickly as possible the American commander planned to land on Kiska and Attu at the same time. The reasoning was that the Japanese commander would probably consolidate everything on Kiska leaving Attu open for the taking. And the ComNorPac thought that Kiska would be easier to support because of land based planes from Adak and would therefore need less troops to conquer.
"That's a bold strategy Cotton let's see how it plays out for them."

If only one of the islands is captured and losses are low enough we will consider that a minor US victory.
Japanese Empire
Our Operation Landcrab is a little ahistorical here and by a little I mean a lot. I have a loose justification for this in my head, Yamamoto was not killed in the Solomon Islands, that is a very interesting change to history that is sadly lost on the rest of my group but oh well. Anyway the IJN has allocated a lot of resources to turn the Aleutian campaign into a bloody quagmire for the Americans. Including 3 Fleet carriers!

The Japanese objectives are quite a bit different from the Americans. The Japanese expect to lose the islands but the goal is to bleed the Americans white for their trouble. It's a simple objective but maybe a little too vague in hindsight.
The Japanese commander was told that the islands themselves only matter as a tool to inflict casualties on the incoming US forces. My advice was to focus on mapping out the enemy forces at first and be very selective in their engagements, get as many supplies on the islands as are available. When US boots hit the ground it's time to strike.
However the commander has not really formed a cohesive plan and (I fear that it's because of my vague objectives).
In general the plan is find the Americans and kill them.

That's the set up

[Cam0sam100]

1 May 1943 morning

Air Attack

The Americans were able to begin the campaign with some of their forces deployed forward while the Japanese had to start from the South West corner of the map (except for the Japanese subs that were ordered on patrols north of Kiska and Adak. That Japanese also slipped a AV into Kiska harbor in the months prior and will use it as a float plane base.

Both sides launch scouts and made their moves. The Japanese were flooded with reports, some accurate and some not. Incredibly, despite the poor visibility, they managed to spot almost every major American surface group. Critically they did not spot the landing force departing from Dutch harbor or Batt Div1.
The American scouting reports were few and far between. None of the major forces were spotted and ComNorPac had no clue as to the enemy force. (To represent the USN Intelligence efforts the American commander was given a very accurate description of what forces could be expected, however she does not know if it is accurate or not)

The Japanese commander springs into action and orders a massive air strike on the nearest American force: TF24 comprised of 4 DDs, Indianapolis, Santa Fe, and Honolulu.

The flight decks of the Emperors Carriers were filled with planes as the strike was assembled and launched. In total 12 Kate's, 12 Val's, and 8 flights of Zeros sped towards TF24.

Arriving before the strike and driving off the float plane were two flights of P38s from Adak. When Indy's radar lit up and the FDO team vectored them towards the incoming waves there was no sign of distress in the pilots responses, just a grim acknowledgment of the orders. They would do what they could and it would have to be enough.

The Air Battle:

(We play with the quick campaign rules for air combat not the tactical rules)

The Japanese strike force leader split her forces into two waves and put an equal escort with both waves. The P38s went in together on the torpedo bombers hoping to break through the Zero's and wreak havoc.

As the two forces slammed into each other the lightings made their first kills of the day downing two flights of Zeros before the enemy had a chance to respond. As the escorts fought to bring their planes around the P38s slashed through the Kate's and damaged or destroyed 2 flights a piece before speeding away with the Zeros in hot pursuit.

Bombs Away

TF24 worked up to flank speed and sounded general quarters as the P38s made their run.

It became clear that the dive bombers would hit first followed quickly by the remaining Kate's. 6 went after Indy, 2 went after Benham, and the last 4 went after Honolulu.

Honolulu and her supporting ships knocked out 3 of the 4 flights that approached her with the last one falling to score a hit. An impressive showing by the AA crews.

Benham and Arron Ward fought together but failed to shoot anything down. They did manage to put up enough flak to throw off the enemies aim.

Indy and the rest of TF24 blocked out the cold north sun with little puffs of flak but only damaged 3 flights of attackers. In a show of the superb performance that was to be expected of the IJN, the remaining pilots waited to the last moment to let their bombs fly.
As the Vals battled to keep from slamming into their target 3 bombs slammed into Indy Maru. The bomb hits knocked out all the secondary guns on the starboard side and managed to start a fire in the forward 8 inch magazine that could have turned the Indianapolis into the Arizona II if not for the quick thinking of her crew.

Even before a damage report could be made the Task Force had to turn their attention to the incoming Kate's. (The Japanese commander made a bold decision after the last attack. This time she would split her flights to attack as many targets as possible hoping to keep the enemy ships from supporting each other.)

As the Kate's split up to engage enemy ships Arron Ward found herself without an opponent. After witnessing the pounding Indy had taken she maneuvered to unmask her guns and protect the damaged flagship. Together the two ships put up enough AA to foul the pilots aim. Again and again American AA fire forced the Kate's to make hasty attacks that were easily avoided.
The man targeting Honolulu had nerves of steel however and he made a solid attack that planted a torpedo right in the big cruisers belly.

Aftermath

As the bombers flew home two more p38s joined the fight from nearby TF19. The bombers got away but the four flights of Lightings shot down all but two of the Zeros! While losing none of their own!

The crews of Indy and Honolulu didn't have time to celebrate the air victory. The crews were fighting hard to control the damage and give their captains a clear picture of how bad the hits were.
Indianapolis: lost her starboard secondary guns and with the flooding of her front magazine one of her triple turrets will
not participate in the coming battles, a serious blow to her firepower. The flooding and splinter damage combined to reduce her to 25 knots

Honolulu: the torpedo caused major flooding but careful counter flooding put her on a somewhat even keel. She's down to 20 knots but all her guns are operational.

TF24's commander put it best when she said "when I saw all those planes I thought ' well I've lost the task force but we came out of it alive' it could have been a lot worse". I was very skeptical of the decision attack every ship with only 1 TB in order to keep the ships from concentrating AA fire but it seems to have paid off in the case. Im excited to see how it works in future strikes

[Cam0sam100]

There were 3 notable submarine actions in the afternoon and night of the 1st of May.
(In the campaign I get to take tactical command on both sides from time to time. USS Thresher and Des Div 5 are mine to play anytime they get into combat)

Battle 1: Thresher
Assigned to patrol the routes from Japan Thresher picked up a Hydrophone contact and soon after visual contact on a Japanese AKA traveling alone and making 17 knots with a heading of about 50. (This ship was dispatched to drop supply's on Kiska. The commander believed the ship was fast enough to not need escort and could slip through the blockade.)

Thresher rang up full speed and was able to make 21 knots as they tried to make an end run on the heavily laden AKA. Slowly but surely they got in an attack position and submerged in front of the target. As the AKA steamed ahead Threshers skipper looked through the periscope many times and fed the TDC with all the information it needed, this would be a textbook shot. "Fire 1 fire 2 fire 3 fire 4 fore 5 fire 6!" He yelled. With the damn MK14 torpedoes its all or nothing.

As the seconds ticked off the fish were running hot straight and normal until *clunk*
"Damn it! We clinked em with a clunk again" the captain said in frustration
"It would be funny if it wasn't so sad" the XO added.

As the skipper looked through his scope at about 6,000 tons of shipping happily puttering along he did some figuring. He could swing around and bring his aft tubes into action but the math didn't add up, the target would be long gone be he could even make a from the hip shot.
No if he wanted to sink this bastard he'd have to do it with the deck gun. The decision didn't take long "get my gun crew up here damn! Surface the boat and give me all four mains as quick as you can"

A vicious gun duel ensued. As Threshers 4 inch gun boomed the AKAs 3 inch replied in kind and both scored hits. The battle was over in 10 ferocious minutes and the AKA was broke in two and burning. Thresher was down to 9 knots on the surface! But she had her guns, her scopes and her torpedoes. It was a costly battle and the Captain agonized over his decision but he concluded "I'm not out here to bring back a clean boat I'm here to sink ships"

Battle 2: Attack on TF22 (Night)

The attack on 22 was notable in the fact that the Japanese were able to pull it off at all and that the weather affected our game for the first time in this campaign.

In the morning Japanese scouts reported that TF22 (the CVE force) was heading west from Adak island (they also reported accurately on the ships in the formation). The Japanese commander plotted out two possible courses and vector a submarine to patrol each proposed course. It paid off and TF22 ran right into the waiting arms of the southern sub. If was a slick piece of work.
The weather did not cooperate and the vaunted Japanese torpedoes could not overcome the cold Aleutian wind. After a premature explosion the sub made like a whole in the ocean and the escorting DDs churned up the waters around the force while the big ships made their escape.
It was an anticlimactic battle but one of my favorite parts of this game is watching the players and myself learn. We have all read about ASW warfare and submarines but we are green. Every battle even one like this is a valuable experience for both sides to learn. The after action discussions are some of my favorite parts of the whole game and with each engagement the maneuvers get a little tighter and more bold, new strategies are introduced and discarded, and the battle becomes more about out thinking the opponent than out playing them.

Battle 3: The Creep

At the same time as TF22's action, the radar on USS Raleigh (the flag ship of Des Div 11) hums to life and a pip is reported to the OOD. As the Captain comes up to the bridge USS Duncan confirms the pip is on their radar too. The captain quickly decides they will creep up on what they believe is a surfaced sub using to bad weather to mask their sound and sight.

It was nerve wracking as the radar range clicked down. If felt like the whole ships was tip toeing forward toward the unsuspecting submarine. At 8,000 yards the lookouts spotted the what they thought was the sub. The captain gave the order for Flank speed and the force sprinted forward 3000 yards before he ordered the 6inch guns to open up.

The guns boomed and at least one hit was observed. The hit penetrated the sub and lit her battery's ablaze. The sub skipper ordered all ahead and her DC teams tried desperately to get the fire under control when 2 more 6 inch shells slammed into her. Her forward torpedo room hit and ruptured a bulkhead. Very quickly the sub slipped beneath the waves. As Raleigh maneuvered to get out of the way the DDs began pinging their sonars.

On the sub things were desperate. The flooding was causing them to sink and the battery fire was threatening to choke the crew to death. The skipper chose to focus on the fire even as the boat pass 200 feet. Soon they heard the fire under control but they were now at 300 feet and the hull was creaking and groaning. The captain ordered them to blow everything. This move slowed the descend but they were not a 350 feet and still heading down. The flooded proved almost impossible to contain despite the efforts of the crew and the boat quickly passed 450.

"Sonar on Duncan reports a crunch sir"
"Monaghan confirms they heard it too"

The captain of the Raleigh smiled and ordered the crew to start looking for debris.


All and all it was a bad night for the IJN but it was a great deal of fun.

[healey36]

Dud torpedoes are a dreadful problem for the USN. I recall a game with a run by three DDs at a wounded Shoho...dropped twenty fish and scored just one effective hit on the carrier (fortunately enough to sink her). Those early years were rough.

[Cam0sam100]

Surface action

 

Our test campaign concluded with an intense night action between battered American cruisers and Destroyers vs an equal number of fresh Jap CA's and destroyers and it resulted in an overwhelming American victory.

In the after action discussion we tried to figure out what went right and wrong with both sides. One observation I made was how much factors before the battle had an impact on the outcome. From previous actions the American force was spent, low on ammunition (thus no rapid fire) and no torpedos. However the commander prioritized bringing forward support units to rearm the ships. Lesson learned, a battle can be greatly influenced by prior preparation.

 

Back to the present campaign. TF24 was the Americans primary surface force before the Air attack. ComNorPac wanted to take the undamaged Santa Fe and attach it to TF19 to make a group fast enough to allow it to respond to emergencies. Pretty simple. Here is where it gets good, she knows the Japanese are now certain what is in TF24, with that knowledge she wants to replace Santa Fe with the Battleship Tennessee. Big Tenn won't slow them down anymore than they already are and she might just confuse the Jap scouts, experience has taught her that scouting reports are most of the time wildly inaccurate and she learned to be skeptical when they tell you something wild like there is a Battleship instead of the cruiser you were expecting. She is hoping the japs learned the same lesson.

 

It was a brilliant move. The fact that it was useless in this case does not take away from that. The switch happened at night and the battle happened in the morning before any scout planes could misidentify Big Tenn. 

During the night the Japanese moved Force P (a powerful surface force of 4 CAs and 4 DDs towards the location of TF24 at the time of the air raid)

Meanwhile to the South, American Batt Div 1 (Pennsylvania and Nevada) managed to steam within 60 miles of the Japanese Carrier Force! Neither had any idea but you and I do.

 

The weather in the morning quickly turned for the worst (force 8) as TF24 and Force P stubbled into each other.

 

"The Battle of Near Straight"

 

The American battle plan was straightforward, push the DDs out ahead and try to cut up the battlefield with smoke and throw some torpedoes at the enemy while the heavy ships face off with the enemy cruisers.

 

The Japanese plan was equally simple. Get close and fire off type 93 torpedoes into the enemy ships.

 

As the action began both sides held fire and moved closer to try and compensate for the difficulty of gunnery in the harsh seas. The first to fire was the cruiser Maya who fired at Indianapolis scoring no hits. Tennessee responded and landed a devastating salvo on Maya. In one round of gunfire Maya lost half of her guns, a boiler room, and was burning from multiple fires. "What the hell was that!?" Was the Japanese commander's response.

 

As the exchange continued Indianapolis took most the 8 inch gunfire and was DIW. Tennessee spilt her 14 inch guns between Maya and Aoba. The Japanese destroyer raced towards their American counterparts as the cruisers Tone and Honolulu duked it out. With all ships engaged the Japanese commanders saw that the time was right and a massive torpedo attack was launched. It was a magnificent attack and all three American heavy ships were hit.. or they would have been hit if not for the poor weather rendering them near useless.

TF24 did not have time to celebrate, Indianapolis succumbed to her wounds and she slipped beneath the waves. 

Tennessee avenged the loss by burning Maya to the water line and sending her on a one way trip to the ocean floor.

 

The writing was on the wall at this point for the IJN as Tennessee fired accurate 14 inch shells into their cruisers and their torpedoes exploded prematurely in the rough seas. There was still some excitement to be had however. The American destroyers were fighting like hell in the center; Phelps ,Benham, Arron Ward, and Farenholt found themselves fighting Tone, Shigure, and Shirayuki with occasional help from Honolulu who was having a hard time getting into a firing position. Phelps became the focus of Tone and the 8 inch shells caused massive damage throughout the ship while her own 5 inch fire was ineffective due to the heavy seas. Benham and Farenholt traded blows with the DDs as Arron Ward race towards Tone intended of firing her fish weather be damned. 

In a hilarious but tragic episode Benham ran into the path of Arron Wards torpedos and we were on the edge of our seats as the dive rolled across the table and came up with a one 1. Hit. But there was still hope for Benham and her crew, the Mk 6 exploder. That damn Mk 6 exploder. The thing never works surely it won't go off now.

*boom*

Luckily the torpedo only caused major flooding and the ship was reduced to 20 knots but she was still in the fight.

 

After this Force P's commander ordered a retreat. The destroyers tried to make smoke but again the rough weather thwarted so the Japanese cut their losses and left all of their cruisers burning or sinking.

 

The Americans were left with the choice of towing the poor disable Phelps away or scuttling the ship. The choice was hard but not really a choice at all. She knew that if the weather cleared up this afternoon an air strike would be coming and they would need all the speed they could get.

 

The battle was an overwhelming American victory although the loss of Indianapolis will not look good in the papers and TF24's destroyer force has been badly mauled.

 

The after action discussion for the Japanese was very disheartening. Our conclusion was that battle should not have been joined. The weather was just too bad.

[Cam0sam100]

We are fighting a night engagement this afternoon off of Adak on the 3rd of May (I've got some catching up to do in my reports). We recently got a 3D printer and have made our first models. We've been using topside minis so far and they served us very well as we started out in our war gaming but I'm thrilled to death with how these new models look. Without further ado I give you Destroyer Division 11.

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