Torpedoes in the Water! Disaster at Balikpapan

As part of our refight of ODGW's "Defence of the Malay Barrier" we recently played out an encounter between EASGROUP, A USN task force consisting of three cruisers and five destroyers under the command of Rear Admiral Glassford and a Japanese invasion convoy heading for Balikpapan, Borneo. The weather is awful, with strong winds and visibility of just 6,000 yards when the two forces meet in a night action at 2200 hours.

At this stage of the war (Late January 1942) very few Allied ships in the ABDA theatre of operations are equipped with radar. In EASGROUP only the cruiser USS Boise is equipped with an early fire control radar with an effective range of just 8,000 yards, but at least it’s working! (that was one of the few dice roles that did go my way in this game!)

  The two forces sight each other….. on the left at the top is the leading cruiser (USS Houston) with two USN four-stacker WW1 era destroyers nearest to the camera. “Crossing their T” are two divisions of four Japanese fleet destroyers of the “Fubuki” or later classes, all armed with 6 x 5” guns and up to 9 x torpedo tubes (plus reloads), each containing one of the infamous hard hitting Type 93 24” oxygen propelled “Long Lance” torpedoes.   

The nightmare begins……behind the destroyers are another line of Japanese ships – two Jintsu Class flotilla leaders. I decide to turn 90 degrees to starboard to try an end run around the rear of the Japanese formation. Somewhere out there beyond the rear destroyer division are the Japanese transports which I am trying to sink. I’m not interested in trying to mix it with the Japanese warships, though they are going to do whatever they can to stop me. The Houston, Boise and Marblehead are barrelling along at 32 knots and are turning away from the torpedo spreads that have been launched by the leading Japanese destroyers, so they have a reasonable chance of avoiding…I hope.

But its not to be, The Japanese must guess the correct direction that the target ship will end up facing and then roll a D6 to determine the number of hits, with low being good – a 1 is rolled and as she turns Houston is hit in the screws by a Long Lance torpedo, slowing her to just 8 knots.  

Meanwhile to avoid her the rest of the cruiser line closes in with the now sighted transports. Boise is able to badly damage one of the Japanese destroyers with fire from her 15 x 6” guns, but there are now many more Long Lance torpedoes racing towards the American cruiser line.

The American destroyers continue their end run, trading shots with the Japanese destroyers at almost knife fighting range, but their broadsides of 3 x 4” WW1 guns are no match for the 6 x 5” turreted guns of the Japanese ships.

Amongst the first division of Japanese destroyers another danger emerges as the Japanese flagship, a Mogami class heavy cruiser, comes into view at close range to the Americans. On the now crippled Houston another Long Lance slams home amidships, breaking her back, and she quickly sinks beneath the stormy Java Sea. Two further torpedo spreads approach the Boise….they need 1’s to hit, and yes you guessed it, two 1’s are rolled!!! The Boise is crippled and dead in the water and the air turns blue for a moment as I express myself candidly. Next turn the Japanese finish her off. The Marblehead is the next victim, overwhelmed by a storm of 8” shells from the Japanese flagship. I didn’t take any more pictures till one final one at the end of the game.

The US destroyers had a little more luck, with USS John D Edwards able to go in and fire it’s six old, but reliable  Mark 8 torpedoes at a large transport (the AK 4) at the rear of the nearest column, two of these slammed home, sinking the hapless vessel. USS John Paul Jones got several 4” hits on the next transport in the same column, but only slowed her down. I should have fired all of her tubes at that transport as well, but with multiple transports in range I got carried away and fired one mount at another target, but rolled too high to hit either of them in the end. That about sums up the game for me.

The Japanese destroyers take umbridge at the sinking of AK 4 and pursue the two remaining USN DD’s out of range as they hastily retreat under the cover of smoke.

Well that could have gone better for the USN couldn’t it? Six out of eight USN ships sunk while I managed to badly damage one destroyer and sink one transport and damage another. That is enough to force the Japanese to take a force morale test. If they fail the landings will not be successful, but the USN paid a very high price to achieve that result.