"The Battle of Samar 1944 - Odds? What are those? y-tube" Topic

Hi

Just watch this Y-tube link

YouTube link

How can any Wargaming rules to represent this battle. The US Sailors in this force desired more then just a presidential Unit citation.

Evans was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Hard to single out individual sailors in a fleet action. Presidential unit citation is nothing to sneeze at. It is a great honor and all the Sailors of Taffy 3 earned it and the right to wear the ribbon/medal.

You could play it out in several available board games or even with miniatures. I think it would be easy to write a scenario for your favorite WWII miniature naval rules.

The problem would be victory conditions and a way to restrict the Japanese Battleships. If the IJN player has free movement, he will and should destroy all the ships and the beachhead. Halsey is lucky this didn't happen.

One of three gigantic mistakes he made during the war. The other two involved typhoons. A court of inquiry at one time recommend a court martial but Nimitz overruled it. He was too popular with the folks back home.

I have given this a fair bit of thought. I think that when you consider the whole picture, it's a more balanced fight than one might think.

You can't just do the Taffy 3 surface fight. That's about 20% of the whole picture. The Japanese were also fighting air attacks from some 16 Escort Carriers. That has to be factored in. And if you include that you have to include the Japanese Kamikaze attacks on the other Taffys and the IJN subs. They were involved as well.

The Americans win if they force the Japanese to retire. How do you determine when the Japanese retire? You work out a mechanism that I call the Kurita-Meter. You give Kurita a fixed "morale" number. For every bad thing that happens, he loses points. Each CA sunk or crippled, lose points. Each time his flagship is strafed, lose points. Remember, by this point he has had 2 flagships sunk form under him and has been awake for like 40 hours. I've never worked out the number, but it has to be feasible.

American losses count for nothing. If Kurita falls to "0" game over.

If Kurita sinks or brishes past Taffy 3, and can continue, he undergoes x number of turns of air attacks. If Kurita is still AOK, you have a surface action against the 3 BBs Oldendorf sent to cover the east entry to the bay. He kept 3 in reserve. If Kurita beats those 3 he fights the other 3. There is no need to involve the light forces on either side in these battles. The Japanese CA/CL/DDs are overmatched, and the allies are largely (but not entirely) bereft of torpedoes. They have no skin in these fights.

If Kurita beats the other 3 battleships, he gets into the convoy roadstead and earns a draw. His force is surely spent by now. Even if he sinks all the APs and AKs, the next convoy coming to resupply the landing arrives in like 6 days.

The fleet carriers will be back soon to finish off whatever Kurita may have left, then they can take over the Taffys job in covering the beaches.

As a tactical consideration, the Japanese cannot use any of their guns at or below 5" on their CA/CL/BBs. The Japanese were holding those weapons in the AA realm. Also you gotta track ammo consumption. Congrats Kurita, you've reached the roadstead and have 9 18" and 46 6" rounds.

One also has to remember that Kurita didn't know Halsey had taken the bait and headed off with his carriers and fast battleships. He was constantly looking to the east.

In fact, given the nature of the naval air war, many of the Japanese sailors had never seen an American ship, and mistook Taffy 3's carriers for Halsey's and the escorts as heavy and light cruisers.

When Taffys 1 and 2 finally recalled their air strikes against Leyte and rearmed them for anti-shipping attacks, Kurita was certain Halsey had arrived.

And, yes, one cannot forget how exhausted Kurita was. He'd already been fished out of the water at least once since departing port and had endured five(?) air attacks from Halsey's carriers the day before.

I'd never considered how to simulate this battle in a game. Seriously, how does one simulate Evans' JOHNSTON, or the crew of SAMUEL B ROBERTS (two 5"/38s and 3 torpedoes?! Really?!!) Or Petty Officer Carr and his gun crew, continuing to work their gun after losing cooling air and knowing the next shell they loaded could detonate in the breach? Which, it did. Or Clifton Sprague's willingness to throw his escorts at such a vastly larger force? Not to mention his masterful use of shell chasing and rain squalls.

I think KPinder's morale mechanic is the only way one could do it and have a chance of approaching "reality". Thank you for planting that seed. ;-)

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

Losing all/most of the Taffy's would have been a disaster but even then, it is unlikely Kurita would have had sufficient ammunition left to take out the landing. IJN shooting even in the Taffy 3 portion of the engagement was really poor and assuming that continued, it is unlikely the BB's and CA's would have much left in their magazines. I don't know if the CVE's of Taffy 1&2 had naval strike (500+lb bombs and torpedoes) munitions on board but if so, Kurita would have suffered additional major unit losses as the fight went on.

Hard one to fight. Adm. Kurita did recall hs ships just as they were going to go after Spruance. Be interesting.

I think KPinder's morale mechanic is the only way one could do it and have a chance of approaching "reality". Thank you for planting that seed. ;-)

Regards,

Scott Chisholm
I agree with Scott!

capt Evans and the USS Johnson would be hard TO RECREATE ALSO. elite WITH SAVES?

McKinstry

If I recall correctly, most of the bombs the CVEs had were high explosive. I think they carried a handful of AP. Some, but not all of the CVEs, had a few torpedoes. Maybe 5-7. It should be noted, tho, that they also were carrying Napalm ordnance. The Taffy 3 ships wisely dumped theirs overboard at the start of the action. Is that not interesting from a game play perspective?

A 'must read':

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors by James D. Hornfischer

TMP link