Island Hopping

[toxicpixie]

Ah ye, Bobby Shaftoe is the character in the Cryptonomicon isn't he

I enjoyed the first couple of "Killer" McCoy books but when they started recycling entire chapters by about the third book I rather gave up!

[bigjackmac]

All,

It's 0245 on 24 January 1942 and things are not going the Allies' way.  On 11 January 1942 the Imperial Japanese Navy landed troops on the island of Tarakan, only a few miles off the east coast of Borneo, and the Dutch forces were quickly forced to capitulate.  The Japanese then began eyeing Borneo-proper, and so they landed troops near the Dutch city of Balikpapan during the evening of 24 24 January 1942, with its oilfields being secured almost immediately.  American-British-Canadian-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) Command immediately dispatched a division of US destroyers to the area to ambush the Japanese troop transports.

It was too late to affect the landings and fate of Balikpapan, but a naval fight was stirring nonetheless.  The is the first of a series of games I intend on doing in support of my US Marine saga in the Pacific during World War II.  I'm not sure how far I'll go with this, how long it will last, but it enjoy it for now   I had missed Mr David Manley's initial post, but caught it in a re-post by my buddy Jim ("Boggler"); 6 August is "International Naval Wargames Day," and I was sufficiently inspired to give it a shot, actually getting three games in.

There is a new set of rules out and, as always, I'm busy modifying them to suit my purposes.  I'll drop a few hints, let's see if you figure it out   All three games were played with this new mish-mash of rules, though I did change some things in the third game from the first two.


Overview, north is up, with the Japanese force at top left and the ABDA force at bottom right.  The table is 3' x 3' and ugly (I apologize, but it's good enough for my purposes).  That's part of Borneo, with the city of Balikpapan up there at top.  The Japanese force is three patrol boats (former US WW I-era destroyers and five troop transports (there were more transports/merchant ships there in real life, I've only got five so these will have to do), while the ABDA force is four US destroyers.

The Japanese patrol boats are there to protect the troopships, which are still offloading troops and supplies, while the ABDA force is after those transports and merchantmen.  Earlier in the day there were strong Japanese surface forces in the area, but they'd pulled back after Dutch bombers arrived and bombed the task force.  The ABDA ships want to get in, hit the transports, and escape before the Japanese surface force (with lots of heavy and light cruisers) returns.


The USS Pope (top right) steams by the Japanese patrol boat, P-38, which is dead in the water due to gunfire from the Pope and Ford, though torpedoes have just crippled the USS Ford.  To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
http://oldleadbreed.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-naval-battle-of-balikpapan.html

Well, I had a great time, I hope you did too!  I'll be the first to admit I have precious little knowledge of naval warfare or wargaming, but that was a rip-roaring fight from start to finish.  I liked how the command and control/activation system worked, I just need to tighten up some things with torpedoes and damage control, and remember to use the damn morale checks when a buddy/leader sinks or leaves the fight.  Also, I may have movement ranges too long; I'll try it again this way, then make a change for the third game, if I need to.  Happy International Naval Wargames Day!

V/R,
Jack

[fsn]

Interesting game, and effective board.

What struck me was that you haven't based your ships. 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Great report, love the table too.

[Shedman]

Nice thread and very good looking games

[Roy]

Ooh, very nice 

[toxicpixie]

Cracking good fun!

[ronan]

  

[paulr]

An interesting game from a very interesting period of the Pacific war

What scale are your ships? I'm also interested in why you haven't based them

What ships are you using a stand ins for the US DDs, they look to be short a couple of stacks, Fletcher's maybe

No idea what rules you are using but then we use rules from the 70s 

We tend to use cotton for smoke but it does help show what is happening
I might have to think about dyeing some cotton wool a suitable colour for wakes

[petercooman]

What scale are your ships? I'm also interested in why you haven't based them

What ships are you using a stand ins for the US DDs, they look to be short a couple of stacks, Fletcher's maybe

Interesting game, and effective board.

What struck me was that you haven't based your ships.  :-

I'm guessing they are war at sea minis (axis and allies naval miniatures, prepainted)

Correct me if i'm wrong jack 

[bigjackmac]

Wow, thanks for all the replies!  I'm glad you guys liked it, I had a blast, and there are two more to post, and then I plan on playing out a few more for DEI.  Of course I also have my Marine platoon, and I plan on mixing a US Marine fighter squadron in as well, so my WWII in the Pacific saga is growing to be much more than just following a single rifle platoon.

FSN - Effective; yep, that's a good term for my ugly table  For you and PaulR, the ships aren't based because they are Axis and Allies War at Sea, which I understand to be somewhere in the range of 1/1800 scale.  And not only are the ships unbased, they're not even painted!  At least not by me, they come prepainted

But why is having the ships un-based striking you guys as so odd?  I understand basing 1/6000, maybe even 1/3000 ships, but I thought it was pretty common to not base 1/1200 or 1/1800 WWII to modern ships?

PaulR - Yeah, I don't have any early war stuff; don't have much at all, and it will have to pass as what I need simply by class.  I have Japanese and American, with each side having 12 DDs (all of the same class), 6 CLs (all of the same class), one CA, one BB, and two CVs.  Then I have a couple odds and ends; so the Japanese patrol boats in this scenario, which are supposed to be former US WWI-era destroyers, are actually US DEs (Samuel B Roberts-class), while the US DDs are all later war Kidd-class.

The rules are homegrown, still playtesting them.  I think the cotton wool isn't the best solution, but I wanted the ability to show what's happening without editing each and every photo (as I do in my air-to air games), and so it's the best solution that's easy to implement.  Someone mentioned using sand, but I don't want to show the tracks for the whole game, just one turn at a time, and I can't figure an efficient way of picking all the sand up at the end of each turn.  So I'll continue to use cotton wool, and just try and mash it down on the blue sheet to make it appear more flat.

Peter's post just arrived, and he's got me dead to rights!   I'm cheap and lazy, so the Axis and Allies War at Sea stuff is great, mostly.  The big problem I'm having right now is that I need more CAs for both sides (only have one each), and that's not going to cut it for some of the fights I want to have...

V/R,
Jack

[fsn]

FSN - Effective; yep, that's a good term for my ugly table   For you and PaulR, the ships aren't based because they are Axis and Allies War at Sea, which I understand to be somewhere in the range of 1/1800 scale.  And not only are the ships unbased, they're not even painted!  At least not by me, they come prepainted

But why is having the ships un-based striking you guys as so odd?  I understand basing 1/6000, maybe even 1/3000 ships, but I thought it was pretty common to not base 1/1200 or 1/1800 WWII to modern ships?

It's a new world to me and one that I don't need in my head, thank you very much.

I have 1:600 ships and they're based. They are based because I'm a klutz and would probably break, bend or bow something if I picked them up by the model. Also, most ship models you see have the name, class, speed, date, armamemt, name of captain and number and type of pet aboard printed on them. I stick to name, and that's just to differentiate ships of the same class.

Aesthetically, having no base could be seen as an improvement. A lot of bases are very different colours from the cloths they sail over.

[petercooman]

Peter's post just arrived, and he's got me dead to rights!   I'm cheap and lazy, so the Axis and Allies War at Sea stuff is great, mostly.  The big problem I'm having right now is that I need more CAs for both sides (only have one each), and that's not going to cut it for some of the fights I want to have...

V/R,
Jack

I have made some great deals on the axis and allies miniature forum. They have a great marketplace.

http://forumini.boards.net/board/20/marketplace

also if you are looking for minis, use this one, gives you each mini ever made for WAS and you can go looking for specific ships, classes etc...

Makes it easier to see what's available.

http://was.tamgc.net/


I would have helped you out, but i traded away all my IJN and US ships with someone of my game group. He does the pacific and i do european forces and russia, so have nothing left that you could use 

[bigjackmac]

FSN - Gotcha man, but these are hard plastic, even a little rubbery, so no worries about breaking them, and they're big enough for me to be able to tell different classes easily.  Regarding differentiating ships within the same class, I actually took a fine pointed-pen and drew a little hull number on the port bow of each of them.  That and I don't use so many ships per fight that I can easily lose track

Peter - Thanks man, I need to look into that link you provided, I really need some US and Japanese CAs.

V/R,
Jack

[bigjackmac]

All,

It's 2220 on 19 February 1942, and all hands are at their battle stations, ready for surface contact.  On 18 February 1942, the Japanese landed a battalion of infantry on the island of Bali, and immediately set to preparing an airfield for their air forces.  An airfield on Bali would threaten the American-British-Canadian-Dutch-Australian (ABDA) naval base at Surabaya, and so naval surface forces were marshalled and sent to intercept the Japanese fleet.  First up, two ABDA submarines attacked the Japanese, but were easily driven off without causing any damage to the enemy.  Then US bombers attacked, moderately damaging a Japanese troopship.

Following the air attack, the bulk of the Japanese combat ships (a cruiser and three destroyers) departed the area; the two troop transports were still conducting ship to shore operations, but finished up and got underway during the evening of 19 February 1942.  As they began moving out to sea, ABDA surface ships arrived in the area.  The problem was that ABDA command suffered from language barriers, diffused command, interservice- and international rivalry, and being caught off balance, so the ABDA ships dispatched to intercept the Japanese troopships was not only too late to affect the invasion, they were actually split into two separate forces which arrived in the battle area at two separate times.

So the Battle of Badung Strait was fought in two phases, one for each of the arriving groups of ABDA ships, and somehow my little wargames actually followed this pattern, though for a little bit different reasons.


Overview, north is up.  At left (top left, off camera to left, the two abutments at top center, and bottom left) is the island of Bali, with the point at left center being Cape Tafel and the little island just above it being Serangan.  The big island at far right is Besar (which apparently is now called Penida?), the smaller island to its left is Ceningan, and the mid-size island just above it Lembongan.  The Japanese are in two groups, at top left and top center, heading northeast (top right) to open ocean.  The ABDA force is at bottom left, heading north on a bearing of 040.


The Japanese (bottom left) get the drop on the Allies, with the Asashio and Oshio swinging to starboard and launching torpedoes at the Dutch cruisers (top center).  To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
http://oldleadbreed.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-battle-of-badung-strait-i.html

The rules are working like a champ, but I do want to slow things down just a tad.  I'm only playing on a 3' x 3' table (my 8' x 6' table is covered with other stuff right now), and the current move rates are a bit too ambitious, so I'm going to halve them for the next fight and see how that goes.

V/R,
Jack