Hypothetical Solomon Islands scenario.

Greetings, fellow gamers.

I got the idea for this scenario from reading about the Japanese efforts to withdraw their land forces from the Solomon Islands at the start of 1943, after they had given up on retaking Guadalcanal.  I think I was interested in The Battle of Kolombangara as well, although that took place 6 months later.  I set the scenario date as 11/06/1942, which is a couple of months too early.  Anyway, that's what I was trying to model on a small scale, a Japanese force trying to escort some troop transports (Mutsuki DDs) from point A to point B, while the US forces try to hunt them down. And because it's just me running both sides, I had to scale the forces back a bit from the size of the task forces involved in the actual battles.

     This was a night scenario - part of my objective was to get used to the extra rules and procedures used during a night battle, plus learn to handle torpedoes. I made a bunch of mistakes and learned a lot.

     FYI:  Because the software I'm using to manage the ship damage process needs to identify ships independent of their names you'll see notation like "Takao(1) or Quincy (U)".  Which represents the Ship name and the id tag in parentheses.  Also those id tags match the id taga on the bases.  So if you zoom in on the pictures hopefully you can figure how who's who.


Initial Conditions:

A Japanese task force has just left a base somewhere in the Solomon Islands after evacuating more troops onto 3 Mutsuki (Kisaragi, Mikatsuki, Mutsuki) class DDs.

The three troop carriers are escorted by Takao, Jinstu and 2 Atkitsuki DDs (Akitsuki, Hanatsuki)

They are being hunted by a US Task Force:
1x Portland CA (the Portland
1x Astoria CA (the Quincy)
3x Porter DDs (Porter, Phelps, Winslow)
I originally had a 4th Porter class DD but scrapped it at the last minute because I realized the Jintsu was probably too 'light weight' a ship on the Japanese side.

 Game movement / spotting scale:  normally  1" = 250 yds; BUT, on a table top  1" = 500 yards.  The rules use player estimated ranges to determine hits.

I think I actually had the correct models for most ships. The Porters might have been represented by Craven's but otherwise it should be accurate.

0200 hrs light breeze, calm sea.

Due to layout of terrain (Islands) the US commander splits forces into 2 TFs.
   TF1.1:  Portland and Porter,
   TF1.2:  Quincy, Phelps, Winslow

Both forces were moving at a sedate pace, 15 to 20 knots if memory serves correctly.  The rules specify that ships moving at 20 knots or more create enough of a wake to increase the changes of being spotted, so the Japanese were definitely under 20 knots. The US task forces might have been at 20 knots as they were actively searching for something.

Rolled dice for it, and only the Takao's search Radar was working.  Takao was most definitely not looking for a fight, this was a babysitting mission.  The lack of functioning search radar for the US side did not help the spotting situation. (Hint:  if you want to make something happen faster at night, just declare that the respective search radars are working).

Rolled dice again and came up with a Max Visibility of  30" tabletop (would have been 60" outdoors.)  Which orks out to be 15,000 yards.  It must have been a full moon or something. :-)   Later (around turn 3) the Referee became impatient and bumped the value up to 40" to get something to happen sooner. It was just too cold in the basement in January to sit around waiting for ships to spot one another.

I plotted two or three moves in advance and then moved the forces and check for spotting each turn.  But after a couple of moves at the realistically "sedate" speed, it dawned on the referee that it would indeed be close to actual Dawn before anyone was spotted.  That's when the spotting range was increased. 

Initial positions & Terrain at 0200 hrs (looking East, US task force in the foreground):

Note the Japanese flag on the terrain in upper left.

       ------------------------------------< ACTION REPORT: >------------------------------

Both sides move through the first two turns w/o even getting into spotting range.

Japanese view at the end of turn 2

Finally...at 0206 hrs (aka turn 3), Quincy (U) spots Jintsu (21), and of course Jintsu(21) spots Quincy(U)

Jinstsu fires both Starboard banks of torpedoes, hoping to delay the US TF.  

View looking north, end of turn 3, notice the oversized torpedo marker

at 0209 hrs (aka Turn 4):

The Quincy takes a long range shot at the Kisaragi (11)  and manages to get one hit.

[the Referee yawns and looks at his watch]

Part of the lack of action is due to US task force 1.2 did a bit of maneuvering to avoid Jintsu's torpedoes. It almost did not work and delayed them closing range with the Japanese.  "Give the commander of the Jintsu TWO Medals!"  :-)

Also Visibility is still bad, ships are out of effective searchlight range, and despite their training, Commanders are forgetting to fire Star Shells.

[Apologies, unable to find a picture of positions at the end of turn 4, the Referee may have been too cold to remember to take one.]


   [  sorry, forgot to take picture, was too busy moving things along ]


at 0212 hrs (Turn 5)....

Thing finally start to heat up....

 The Jintsu tries to return the favor, managing to bounce a shell off of the Quincy's Y Turret.

And the Quincy has equally bad luck, bouncing a shell off of Jintsu's mid-ship magazine.

The Winslow(K) somehow manages to drop a round on the Mikatsuki(14) and gets a helm hit.

On the other side of the board, the Atkitsuki(13) lands a couple of rounds on the Porter.

The US does a better job sort of, the Porter(R) lands two rounds on the Atkitsuki(13)

However, the Portland's(I) gunnery office screwed up and drops an 8" AP round on the Hanatsuki(16) because it was in front of Takao....Oooops.

End of turn 5, looking North

At 02:15 hrs (start of turn 6):

The referee gets a clue after complaints from the Japanese commander and the map was scrolled 6" North.

The crew of the Phelps(T) freaks out as a lookout informs them that 2 x 24" torpedoes run by their starboard side by about 100 yards and then 2 more torpedoes move past just to port!

the Quincy(U) finally puts some Hurt on the Jintsu(21), damaging #4 turret and more importantly, #2 Engine.
Jintsu(21) does land a shell on Quincy(U) but 5.5" guns just can't keep up and the shell bounces off of Y turret.


Meanwhile......

Atkitsuki(13) was hit by Porter(R) again, is now on fire, thus very visible... Porter turns off it's Searchlight and regains some level of stealth.

Portland(I) hits Takao(1) twice but both shells bounce.  Takao returns the favor but only gets one penetrating hit that doesn't do anything of interest (who needs a Catapult in a night battle anyway?)

Atkitsuki(13) also picks on Portland(I) and land a hit. Those 3.9" guns are small but they do still sting.

Overhead view at the end of Turn 6. Note the respective maneuvering challenges. (and the clever overhead shot :-)

At 02:18 hrs (aka Turn 7)

The Japanese experienced some command & control issues during the move: at 0218 hrs the Mutsuki(18) collides with the Mikatsuki(14) while doing 34 knots! ...and sinks the Mikatsuki.  The Mutsuki is afloat, but heavily damaged and temporarily DIW.  Well, at least her crew can do something useful and pick up the survivors from Mikatsuki while she is trying to get underway again :-)

[This is partially the referee's fault. I had initially intended to implement a hard border on the south edge of the map, but then realized that this would totally screw the Japanese.  So I started scrolling everything North. Sadly, by that point the Japanese TF was not in 'good order' and they managed to screw themselves anyway :-)  The earlier helm hit on the Mikatsuki(14) did not help things one bit.

Winslow(K) hits Jintsu, kills one of Jintsu's Damage control teams. 

And then the Portland's gunnery officer blows it again and Portland(I) pumps four 8" AP shells into Hanatsuki --- somehow AGAIN mistaking her for the Takao.  Miraculously for Hanatsuki(16), nothing critical was damaged, just some AA mounts were damaged and the bow is a bit ... mangled.  But she's still afloat.

Takao(1) doesn't make the same error.  Portland(I) is hit by four 8" AP Shells.  Only two penetrate but one starts a fire.  In preparation for next turn, the Takao's secondary gun crews gleefully load real ammo instead of star shells.

And Atkitsuki(13) keeps pounding on the Porter(R) and both Starts a fire and gets a Bridge hit!  So Porter is stuck following the exact same orders next turn.  AND Atkitsuki(13) manages to put it's fire out, thus leaving Porter(R) a bit in the dark about her exact location.
In return, the Porter(R) manages to hit Atkitsuki(13) twice and puts her B turret out of action.

...and Atkitsuki's crew manages to put the fire out.

Note the conjoined ships (#14 and #18).  Picture at "Original size" to aid in viewing (and experiment to see if publishing software actually cares).

At 02:21 hrs (aka turn 8):
The board was scrolled 10 inches more to the South.


FINALLY!  the Quincy(U)  hits Jintsu(21) with 4 AP rounds, three penetrated and one of them damages her  #2 Boiler and one of the #4 wing mounted 5.5 inch turrets.  (the Boiler hit is not that significant given one of Jintsu's engines is already damaged, but of course the US player does not know that).

Porter(R) hits Akitsuki(13) with a few more 5" rounds and puts Atkitsuki's B turret out of action.

Hanatsuki (16) returns the favor, hitting Porter(R) with a pair of 3.9" rounds that put Porter's Y turret out for the duration.


...and the Porter is still burning...

End of turn 8

At 2:24 hrs (aka Tun 9)  the Glorious mutual destruction the referee had been promised by the advocates of Night Scenarios finally came to pass. 

Due to some sort of Miracle (i.e. despite a %60 dud rate), 2 US torpedoes, fired by the Porter(R) exploded when they hit the Hanatsuki (16), and to add insult to injury, one of them hit in the Magazine!  Hanatsuki is vaporized in an impressive fireball. There were no surviors.


Then it's Payback time!

The Hanatsuki(16) gets revenge,  hitting the Porter with 6 3.9" HE shells, sending the Porter (R) to the bottom of the Ocean.



Takao(1) gets on hit on the Portland(I) and manages to put the Fire Control radar out. But the radar set's range is so short that it doesn't really matter. 

ka-Boom!!! Bye-Bye Hanatsuki

At 02:27 hrs (aka Turn 10):

Lookouts on Portland(I) soil themselves when they realize that 4x 24" torpedoes ( from Hanatsuki(16) just ran past the stern!

More semi-bad gunnery.  The Gunnery officer of the Quincy (U) could not hit the side of a Barn if the ship was was docked along side of it, let alone an actual enemy ship.  In return the Jintsu(21) and Atkitsuki(13) fire salvos that fall short of the Portland(I).

Referee is heard to mumble "Boring game! Night games need to get ships closer together or have bigger ships with More Guns and Better hit correction and Better, Working,  Radar" 

Winslow(K) hits Mutsuki (18) but with only one shell.  Mutsuki is still afloat.  But unknown to the US, her rudder is now jammed; the only saving grace for the Japanese is that Mutsuki was sailing south-southwest which is the direction of safety.

Portland(I) lands 3 more AP hits on Takao (1), nothing really exciting happened, Takao's search radar had already gone down earlier in the evening and she was out of spare parts.  And yet another hole in her Stern. On the other hand,  Takao's 2 AP hits on the Portland, started another Fire.  Takao's crew once again gleefully prep the secondary guns with real ammo.

Situation at the end of turn 10

TURN 11 -- 02/15/2019 07:52:42 PM
Scrolled everything 12 inches North.

Lookouts on Portland run out of spare briefs as four MORE 24" fish run past it's stern. A petition is started to nickname her the "Lucky P".

Portland(I) hits Takao(1) with 2 AP shells...once bounces off of Y turret, the other one appears to be an a "through and through" in the bow. Shell explodes on exit and does very little damage.

Takao(1) hits Portland(I), returning the favor with 2 AP Shells, hits on Bow and Stern, (which affect over all speed and turning ability).  But nothing serious.

However, Atkitsuki (13) also hits Portland(I) with 3 HE 3.9" shells, one of which damages Portand's Main Director.  Not. Good.  Portland also lost use of her #3 Secondary mount on her starboard side.


Back over to the East...

Jintsu(21) hits Phelps(T) with 2 5.5" HE shells.
Phelps now has a fire burning and no Main director.  No great loss considering the Phelps gunnery contributions to date.

...and the Fire on the Portland is still burning despite the best efforts of the damage control team to put it out.


The Captain of Portland makes note to recommend all 3 ships of task force 1.2 either be court-martialed for "failing to close with the enemy" or at a minimum
 be sent back to Gunnery school as the only thing that was on target for that group were the star shells. everything else is short. When, during the post action inquiry it was respectfully pointed out that indeed, his gunnery officer had the guns of his own ship hitting the wrong ship (Hanatsuki) repeatedly, he responded: "Yes. But Dammit, at least we hit something!"

The Portland, continuing to get the worst of the gun battle with Takao & Atkitsuki, decides to break off combat after losing her main director and having another fire started, leaving her illuminated to the enemy. Also the Bow damage was starting to impact her speed.  Not to mention that TF1.2 continues to fail to hit anything. Even a nearly DIW Japanese DD


Views of the final state of things:

End of the game, looking East

View looking west.

---------------------< Game Assessment & Lessons Learned >--------------------------------

Post game Referee Assessment:

    I think I'm going to have to score this as a very disappointing draw.  For a moment I thought the US had squeaked out marginal victory. Only because it looked like the Japanese had lost two out the three troop transports they were so desperately trying to save -  and they lost one by running it over with one their own ships (Awkward!).  But after checking records I realized that indeed the US failed to hit the Mutsuki (18) on turn 11 - and Mutsuki could only move at 4 knots and more importantly, only had four (yes, 4) tons of flotation left. So even an errant starshell might have sunk it.  That's part of why I picked up the game, I just couldn't take it any more; the referee was both Cold and Bored.  And it's not like the US forces would have actually *earned* this victory with the crappy gunnery from TF 1.2, rather the judgement would have been that the Japanese worked really hard to hand it to them. 

And yes, I really need to work on creating a better "fireball!" marker.  While they are not common, it's likely that this won't be only battle featuring a Magazine Explosion.

Lessons learned:

If I were to run this again, I would upgrade the JPN CL Jintsu to an Agano(CL) or even an Aoba (CA).  Because the US navy will not always shoot that badly.  And then definitely include that 4th Porter class DD for the US.

I would start the ships closer together because a realistic spotting range could be as low as 10" to 15" on the table top. 

The terrain layout was interesting, it provided challenges for both sides.  The Japanese player tries use the islands as a 'shield' to mask their escape and the US player was faced with a decisions as to how to best search for and then pursue the enemy. 

The players needed to make some interesting additional tactical decisions regarding the use of starshells and starshells vs. searchlights.  Ships needed to coordinate to make the best use of their illumination tools while ensuring the most efficient use of main / secondary batteries.  Loss of radio communication would hamper this effort.

 The Referee needs to truly commit to whether the map will 'scroll' or not before any game starts (if on a tabletop) - and *which* direction the map will scroll in and also if there is an upper bound to the scrolling.  The complication with allowing scrolling is having to move the torpedo markers that are taped down to the playing surface.  Also, just like the bases, the markers are too big for table top, they were designed for outdoor play. So then one has ship bases on top of torpedo markers and the poor referee is faced with trying to shift all of that around accurately.  However, the torpedo markers worked really well.  Can't wait to use them outdoors.

The Searchlight markers worked well and looked really good.  The Starshell markers worked...but did not look that great.  Also I logged some issues with the code, it does not preserve the range band setting when a game is reloaded and the lack of a 'start turn' marker and ship id tags in the Text log file really hampered creating this write-up.

In case anyone is wondering, the reason the tag Ids (letter and numbers) assigned to the ships (and bases) were not sequential is that I was experimenting with randomizing the tags.  Because, I don't know about you, but when I'm setting up a scenario, I choose the big ships first!  But if one then lets the computer assign tags sequentially, the players will know that the biggest ships always have the lowest numbered tags and there goes any chance of injecting some "limited intelligence" or poor spotting conditions into a game. However I found out that randomizing the Id tags was a nightmare. it resulted having values assigned to ships when I haven't yet built bases yet. (And yes, it occurred to me that the tag values on the bases should perhaps also be designed to be assigned at game time).  
     Non-sequential id tags also make keeping track of and/or grouping ships in to separate Task Forces challenging. I think humans deal better with consecutive sequences.  So I fixed the code to introduce an index that I use to randomize the list of ships but  still allows the code to assign sequential tags which match existing Base Ids. Problem Solved.

Also, need to remember to open side panel on image viewer to get date / time stamps on pictures from camera.  I actually had a lot of trouble integrating the pictures taken from my cell phone, which appends the date/time stamp to the file name vs. the camera which does not.  Also noticed that the camera metadata has something in it that causes the viewer software to "adjust" for daylight savings time - when it should not.  I know for a fact that I was NOT awake at 1:30 AM on a Tuesday,  work starts too early for that. :-)


Until next time...and may your Marksmanship be better than the US Navy's.