Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
- Thread starter fester
- Start date
- Status
My Japanese concept of operations is that the carrier force and the forward force will act as skirmishers and scouts for the Main Body which will only transit the Makassar Straits once attritional losses have been inflicted on the Allied fleets.
The KB and Forward Force will be in increasing contact throughout the day and can collaborate. The land based air power that the Japanese are counting on is under IJN control but coordination with the carrier force is minimal on the timing of torpedo bomber strikes. The Main Body will be listening to the radio chatter and moving to conform to visible opportunities but will not be communicating nor directly supporting either the carrier force or the forward force.
My Allied fleet concept of operations is multiple.
1) Primary point of the Parape landing is to outflank the Japanese division that is at Makassar and lay distant siege to the Makassar position while building up the crude facilities at Parape in order to support future advances up the Makassar Strait (on either side).
a. Land as much of the manpower as quickly as possible with the ability to skeedaddle on low notice.
b. Low combat intensity anticipated on the ground early on
2) The local covering force (USN CVEs and Dutch CLs) are primarily responsible for AA and ASWb. Low combat intensity anticipated on the ground early on
3) The distant covering forces (USN CV/BB and RN CV/BB) have the primary responsibility
a) of covering the landing force until the grunts are ashore and supplies for 15 days are landed
b) Calculated risk to inflict attritional losses on IJN are authorized once 3A is accomplished
c) Heavy units are not authorized to go north of Balikpapan
4) Coordinate with major Allied land based air on both Java and Timorb) Calculated risk to inflict attritional losses on IJN are authorized once 3A is accomplished
c) Heavy units are not authorized to go north of Balikpapan
Operation is successful as long as the landing force can arrive on shore in good order AND the fleet is not destroyed. 1:1 losses are more than tolerable.
Story 1748
USS GATO 0330 January 2, 1943 Makassar Strait
The decoded message was handed to the captain. He put down his coffee cup and lowered the message to the red night light. A few seconds later he looked at the charts and made his decisions.
"O'Malley, I want to be at the position indicated by this message by 0600... give me a course to get there" As he told the navigator what he wanted, he handed the young officer the message.
Three minutes later, the submarine turned just north of east and the screws accelerated her from a steady ten knots to a speedy nineteen knots. Look-outs were still posted searching the horizon for the action that they knew was coming but they still were seeing little.
The decoded message was handed to the captain. He put down his coffee cup and lowered the message to the red night light. A few seconds later he looked at the charts and made his decisions.
"O'Malley, I want to be at the position indicated by this message by 0600... give me a course to get there" As he told the navigator what he wanted, he handed the young officer the message.
Three minutes later, the submarine turned just north of east and the screws accelerated her from a steady ten knots to a speedy nineteen knots. Look-outs were still posted searching the horizon for the action that they knew was coming but they still were seeing little.
Derek Pullem
Donor
Maybe not such a play on words - if the KB gets past the sub line(s) then it has to get back after the battle. Even if they "win".Or Kantai Kessel (surrounded and destroyed).
Whereas the RN/USN has room to maneuver.
Story 1749
Palaw, Burma 0330 January 2, 1943
Another flare went up. The landscape was bathed in the soft light again. Half a dozen machine guns started to fire again. Their assistant gunners had enough time to change barrels while the ammunition bearers had run back to the universal carriers for more crates of bullets. Riflemen started to fire again. Their heads stayed low and tight to the earthern works as incoming bullets slammed into the thick walls, wasting their energy harmlessly near the Rhodesian volunteers.
Two miles behind the front lines, a full regiment of eighteen pounders began to fire. Observers had spotted the Japanese counter-attack a minute or two before the flares went up and even as the first flare was being replaced, the batteries began to fire. It was not the fire of a pre-determined barrage with a spotting round and then a correction and another spotting round. No, it was an urgent and slightly inaccurate barrage against known positions fired by tired gunners who did not want to fight hand to hand or over open sights. Twenty two shells burst close enough to where they were needed. They were all slightly short as the charging Japanese were moving at a fast walk instead of a slow jog. The second salvo seconds behind the first caught the supply clerks, mule drivers, cooks and mechanics out in the open. The company of well trained infantrymen who were stiffening this attack from the south had already started to hit the ground for cover before the first shells struck. The impromptu infantry hit the ground with steel splinters stuck into them by the third salvo.
Gunners scrambled to open up breeches, clear the barrels and slam home more shells even as the chaos of a night time fight increased near the trenches and listening posts. Shells landed in the beaten zone as another regiment of 25 pounders began to intervene in this, the fourth Japanese charge of the night. The first charge had been broken in the trench line in desperate hand to hand fighting. The second and third charges never made it to grenade range. This charge was illogical, it was different, and it was frenzied as men who should have known that they were incapable of taking the redoubt kept on trying to move forward. Knee mortars were beginning to drop shells directly into machine gun nests and fox holes while the 2 inch mortars sought to break up any obvious clumps of motivated attackers.
An hour later, silence except for the screams and sobs of the wounded could be heard. The last wave had crested on freshly strung wire. Clerks and cooks had thrown themselves onto the wire and then their compatriots used them as planks to walk over the obstacles. The lucky ones died quickly while the unlucky had to wait for a mercy stroke.
The brigade box held on the Burmese coast.
Another flare went up. The landscape was bathed in the soft light again. Half a dozen machine guns started to fire again. Their assistant gunners had enough time to change barrels while the ammunition bearers had run back to the universal carriers for more crates of bullets. Riflemen started to fire again. Their heads stayed low and tight to the earthern works as incoming bullets slammed into the thick walls, wasting their energy harmlessly near the Rhodesian volunteers.
Two miles behind the front lines, a full regiment of eighteen pounders began to fire. Observers had spotted the Japanese counter-attack a minute or two before the flares went up and even as the first flare was being replaced, the batteries began to fire. It was not the fire of a pre-determined barrage with a spotting round and then a correction and another spotting round. No, it was an urgent and slightly inaccurate barrage against known positions fired by tired gunners who did not want to fight hand to hand or over open sights. Twenty two shells burst close enough to where they were needed. They were all slightly short as the charging Japanese were moving at a fast walk instead of a slow jog. The second salvo seconds behind the first caught the supply clerks, mule drivers, cooks and mechanics out in the open. The company of well trained infantrymen who were stiffening this attack from the south had already started to hit the ground for cover before the first shells struck. The impromptu infantry hit the ground with steel splinters stuck into them by the third salvo.
Gunners scrambled to open up breeches, clear the barrels and slam home more shells even as the chaos of a night time fight increased near the trenches and listening posts. Shells landed in the beaten zone as another regiment of 25 pounders began to intervene in this, the fourth Japanese charge of the night. The first charge had been broken in the trench line in desperate hand to hand fighting. The second and third charges never made it to grenade range. This charge was illogical, it was different, and it was frenzied as men who should have known that they were incapable of taking the redoubt kept on trying to move forward. Knee mortars were beginning to drop shells directly into machine gun nests and fox holes while the 2 inch mortars sought to break up any obvious clumps of motivated attackers.
An hour later, silence except for the screams and sobs of the wounded could be heard. The last wave had crested on freshly strung wire. Clerks and cooks had thrown themselves onto the wire and then their compatriots used them as planks to walk over the obstacles. The lucky ones died quickly while the unlucky had to wait for a mercy stroke.
The brigade box held on the Burmese coast.
Last edited:
Yes but no. Fanatics in thrall to nonsense and ordinary slobs which means most people browbeaten by the fanatics. Unfortunately a condition that still persists in too many places to this day.
Well, this is shaping up to either cripple the Allies for a year, or lose Japan the war a year early.
Well this is the problem with not fighting the decisive battle on your own terms- you have to react, not act. The Allies have the initiative, and can preposition their assets. Without any sort of warning the Japanese subs are left out of place.
formion
Banned
When the make-up and position of the forces are considered - with no Japanese trump card steaming from the east of the Celebes, with no time to vector a great number of submarines in the area- I don't see how the Allies can be crippled for a year.
1) Previous posts have illustrated that the Allies have been training hard and have incorporated new lessons in their doctrine.
2) Whole longe range bomber groups have been invested in this operation, bombers that apparently find their target and have destroyed the japanese land-based air force and have rendered their bases unsuitable to operate aircraft for at least a short period of time.
3) The IJN has to pass twice from the submarine picket lines in the straits - once to enter and once to exit.
4) The battlewagons are staying behind and will be committed only when Kido Butai and the battlecruisers have soften-up the Allied navies. AN action between a KGV and a Kongo-class battlecruiser will be one sided to say the least.
5) The Japanese are committing almost their entire fleet in restricted waters against an enemy who has both significant land-based airpower and almost double the number of CVs. Even for the most optimistic Japanese officers, this doesn't sound like good odds. Especially in TTL when they didn't have the OTL stunning success. Therefore, quite possibly they have miscalculated by far the number of the available Allied CVs. This last point may be more crucial than all the above together.
Regardless our speculations, it's time for pop corn
Last edited:
- Status