April 1942 Alternate Indian Ocean
- Thread starter Zheng He
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Day-enu.
If @Zheng He had just given us the first wave but not the second wave, it would have been enough.....
Day, dayenu, day, dayenu.....
formion
Banned
Now we wait to see the Battles' attack.
In the Allied OOB, where any other quadrons or not?
How far away are the Allied cruisers?
1615 Hours, 11 December 1942, 90 Miles South of Ramree Island, Bay of Bengal – The 14 Fairey Battles of No. 7 Squadron of the IAF and the eight escorting P-36s from No. 155 Squadron had taken a course closer to the coast and were almost past the remaining ships of the convoy when the pilots of the two Battles flying on the western edge of the formation noticed ship wakes. They waggled their wings to get their commander’s attention and when he saw what they were looking at he nodded and continued to lead the squadron south for two minutes before executing a wide turn so they could make their attack run from astern. The trailing P-36s began a long climb to gain altitude over their charges.
At 1620 hours an alert Zero pilot spotted the formation of planes descending on the convoy from the south. The combat air patrol over the convoy was now down to 12 fighters – six Zeroes and six newly arrived Oscars from the 50th Sentai, the rest of the fighters having departed with low fuel states, battle damage, or both. The Zero pilots were all exhausted. This was their third engagement and they were all low on ammunition, particularly cannon ammunition but they gamely turned toward the incoming bombers only to be set on by their fighter escort. The escorting Mohawks had an altitude advantage and they used and the unlike most Allied fighter pilots they were not afraid to turn with their nimble adversaries.
The 14 Battles dove in twos at 45 degrees, now the standard tactic for Allied Battle pilots in the theater of operations. A shotai of Oscars managed to get away from the furball and they claimed the trailing pair of bombers but the 12 survivors dropped all 48 of their 250-pound bombs on the troop transport Sapporo Maru. The 250 pounders did not carry as much punch as the standard 500-pound bombs but the unfortunate ship was still hit by 10 of them and suffered at least four near misses. The cumulative damage was added to the damage from an earlier attack by two strafing Hudsons and it was enough to cause the 7000-ton transport to go dead in the water and begin settling at the stern. The two Pete floatplanes flying patrol over the convoy tried to engage the Battles and got more than they bargained for with one shot down by the Indian tail gunners while the second was jumped by an opportunistic P-36 pilot. With damage to all of the warships from the earlier strafing attacks, anti-aircraft fire was negligible and the 12 surviving Battles headed north while climbing for altitude followed by six P-36s, one of which would ditch near Akyab. Shortly after the attacking aircraft departed, the remaining fighters of the combat air patrol, four Zeroes and four Oscars departed for Mingaladon.
Onboard the light cruiser Kiso, Rear Admiral Shima hung his head in defeat. A half hour earlier he had ordered the destroyers Matsukaze and Harukaze jammed with nearly 500 surviving soaking wet soldiers from the 2000 who had been on Shonan Maru and Yushin Maru to return to the seaplane base in the Bassein River Delta. Now he had to attend to the survivors from the Sapporo Maru with his three remaining warships. The troopship was sinking slowly and it seemed they would be able to get most of the men off but there was no way he would be able to deliver them to Ramree Island as combat effective troops.
At 1620 hours an alert Zero pilot spotted the formation of planes descending on the convoy from the south. The combat air patrol over the convoy was now down to 12 fighters – six Zeroes and six newly arrived Oscars from the 50th Sentai, the rest of the fighters having departed with low fuel states, battle damage, or both. The Zero pilots were all exhausted. This was their third engagement and they were all low on ammunition, particularly cannon ammunition but they gamely turned toward the incoming bombers only to be set on by their fighter escort. The escorting Mohawks had an altitude advantage and they used and the unlike most Allied fighter pilots they were not afraid to turn with their nimble adversaries.
The 14 Battles dove in twos at 45 degrees, now the standard tactic for Allied Battle pilots in the theater of operations. A shotai of Oscars managed to get away from the furball and they claimed the trailing pair of bombers but the 12 survivors dropped all 48 of their 250-pound bombs on the troop transport Sapporo Maru. The 250 pounders did not carry as much punch as the standard 500-pound bombs but the unfortunate ship was still hit by 10 of them and suffered at least four near misses. The cumulative damage was added to the damage from an earlier attack by two strafing Hudsons and it was enough to cause the 7000-ton transport to go dead in the water and begin settling at the stern. The two Pete floatplanes flying patrol over the convoy tried to engage the Battles and got more than they bargained for with one shot down by the Indian tail gunners while the second was jumped by an opportunistic P-36 pilot. With damage to all of the warships from the earlier strafing attacks, anti-aircraft fire was negligible and the 12 surviving Battles headed north while climbing for altitude followed by six P-36s, one of which would ditch near Akyab. Shortly after the attacking aircraft departed, the remaining fighters of the combat air patrol, four Zeroes and four Oscars departed for Mingaladon.
Onboard the light cruiser Kiso, Rear Admiral Shima hung his head in defeat. A half hour earlier he had ordered the destroyers Matsukaze and Harukaze jammed with nearly 500 surviving soaking wet soldiers from the 2000 who had been on Shonan Maru and Yushin Maru to return to the seaplane base in the Bassein River Delta. Now he had to attend to the survivors from the Sapporo Maru with his three remaining warships. The troopship was sinking slowly and it seemed they would be able to get most of the men off but there was no way he would be able to deliver them to Ramree Island as combat effective troops.
The consolidated list of the Allied air strike groups (compiled for my own benefit):
===== Annotated with losses =====
From Calcutta:
No. 34 Squadron - 12 RAF Blenheim IVs - trained in skip bombing
No. 60 Squadron - 12 RAF Blenheim IVs - trained in skip bombing (3 lost)
No. 113 Squadron - 12 RAF Blenheim Vs - configured for strafing (1 lost)
No. 353 Squadron - 2 RAF Hudsons - assembly ships
No. 62 Squadron - 12 RAF Hudsons (3 lost)
From HMS Indomitable:
16 FAA Fulmars (4 lost)
From Chittagong:
No. 27 Squadron - 12 Beaufighters (1 lost)
No. 821 Squadron - 8 FAA Albacores - torpedoes (3 lost)
No. 827 Squadron - 8 FAA Albacores - 4 x 500-pound bombs
No. 25 Squadron - 16 RAAF Buffaloes (3 lost)
From Cox’s Bazaar:
No. 7 Squadron - 14 Indian Battles (2 lost)
No. 155 Squadron - 8 P-36s (2 lost)
From Akyab:
No. 5 Squadron - 8 P-36s (1 lost)
140 a/c total: 80 bombers (12 strafers, 12 strafe/bombers, 2 assembly), 60 fighters (12 strafers)
23 a/c lost (12 bombers, 11 fighters)
A decisive Allied victory - but they know they've been in a real fight. Five squadrons lost a quarter or more of their strength.
===== Annotated with losses =====
From Calcutta:
No. 34 Squadron - 12 RAF Blenheim IVs - trained in skip bombing
No. 60 Squadron - 12 RAF Blenheim IVs - trained in skip bombing (3 lost)
No. 113 Squadron - 12 RAF Blenheim Vs - configured for strafing (1 lost)
No. 353 Squadron - 2 RAF Hudsons - assembly ships
No. 62 Squadron - 12 RAF Hudsons (3 lost)
From HMS Indomitable:
16 FAA Fulmars (4 lost)
From Chittagong:
No. 27 Squadron - 12 Beaufighters (1 lost)
No. 821 Squadron - 8 FAA Albacores - torpedoes (3 lost)
No. 827 Squadron - 8 FAA Albacores - 4 x 500-pound bombs
No. 25 Squadron - 16 RAAF Buffaloes (3 lost)
From Cox’s Bazaar:
No. 7 Squadron - 14 Indian Battles (2 lost)
No. 155 Squadron - 8 P-36s (2 lost)
From Akyab:
No. 5 Squadron - 8 P-36s (1 lost)
140 a/c total: 80 bombers (12 strafers, 12 strafe/bombers, 2 assembly), 60 fighters (12 strafers)
23 a/c lost (12 bombers, 11 fighters)
A decisive Allied victory - but they know they've been in a real fight. Five squadrons lost a quarter or more of their strength.
Last edited:
Driftless
Donor
There is also the potential naval surface (perhaps sub-surface as well?) that has yet to take place.
We will undoubtedly see the impact of the loss of those very hard to replace Japanese soldiers, as the tale unfolds. The loss of half of a key unit, along with their gear would change the calculus for the land battle.
And now the Fleet Air Arm is going to have to fight the air forces around the Indian Ocean to prevent them stealing the new Fairey Firefly when it enters service in 1943.
1630 Hours, 11 December 1942, Chittagong, India – As the last air attacks against the Japanese convoy wrapped up, the No. 221 Group with help from the US 10th Air Force set in motion the second phase of the plan to keep the pressure on the Japanese. An even two dozen Wellingtons from No. 215 and No. 99 Squadrons that had staged forward to Chittagong from their airfields near Calcutta for a night raid against Rangoon’s docks. They were joined by 16 B-24s from the 9th and 11th Bombardment Squadrons (Heavy) of the USAAF based near Calcutta. Each squadron was to proceed independently to the target given the challenges of a night mission and the differing performance levels between the bombers.
1730 Hours, 11 December 1942, 90 Miles South of Ramree Island, Bay of Bengal – The light cruiser Kiso and the destroyers Wakaba and Nagatzuki were heading due south at 16 knots. for the sanctuary of the Bassein River Delta 120 miles away. Rear Admiral Shima’s ships were crammed with almost 700 men from the 65th Infantry Brigade’s battalion that was on the Sapporo Maru. Part of him wanted to make a high-speed run to Ramree Island but the soldiers did not have much in the way of supplies so Shima decided it was better to retreat and then try to come up with an alternative course of action. He looked up into the darkening sky and could still see two reconnaissance planes orbiting overhead, one twin engine patrol bomber and the second an amphibious biplane. It was the biplane that concerned him the most. It was possible it was from a seaplane base but it was also just as possible that it was from one of the cruisers in the Allied surface group he knew was operating somewhere to the north if earlier reports were accurate.
After tailing the Japanese ships south for a few minutes, the Hudson from No. 353 Squadron and the SOC-3 Seagull from USS St. Louis departed with the Hudson flying low over the Japanese ships and waggling its wings as it headed north. Both planes sent out their sighting reports as they left the Japanese ships behind, the Seagull heading for Akyab instead of back to the task force, its crew looking forward to a little time on land. They were headed for a RAF base where there promised to be plenty of whiskey, something was not available to them on their parent ship.
After tailing the Japanese ships south for a few minutes, the Hudson from No. 353 Squadron and the SOC-3 Seagull from USS St. Louis departed with the Hudson flying low over the Japanese ships and waggling its wings as it headed north. Both planes sent out their sighting reports as they left the Japanese ships behind, the Seagull heading for Akyab instead of back to the task force, its crew looking forward to a little time on land. They were headed for a RAF base where there promised to be plenty of whiskey, something was not available to them on their parent ship.
1800 Hours, 11 December 1942, 40 Miles Southwest of Ramree Island, Bay of Bengal – The Allied task force was still plowing through the seas at 25 knots and was approximately 40 miles southwest of the southern tip of Ramree Island. Captain George O’Donnell on HMS Capetown was hunched over his plotting board with his navigation officer. Ten minutes earlier USS St. Louis had signaled Capetown with the sighting report from her Seagull and assuming the Japanese ships did not reverse course during the night, the survivors of the battered convoy were somewhere between 80 and 90 miles south of his task force and retreating. O’Donnell knew it was theoretically possible to run the Japanese down but he risked running his destroyers out of fuel and it meant the next morning his ships would be well beyond the range of any fighter coverage and that much closer to enemy air bases. He considered maneuvering south of Ramree Island until morning just in case his Japanese counterpart decided to turn around but it sounded like the Airedales had won this one on their own no matter how much he hated to admit it. After contemplating the situation for a few more minutes, Captain O’Donnell gave orders for the task force to turn north for Akyab. There they could top off their fuel bunkers and get back to sea quickly as he had a hunch the Japanese might decide to try again.
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