Grognard Wargamer Thread!

(I cannot imagine how a strategic pacific game could rule out submarines – maybe 42 -43 == but by 44?)

Only after the refits that took them to 114 foot beams. But they were supposed to be exceptions. Then the future of Aircraft carries sealed the deal. The Midway-class was the first planned and completed class to ignore the limitations imposed by the canal.

Again, the game isn’t strategic. It is a battle-level game.

(I am scrolling up to see the game)

From their website:

  • 6 historical scenarios: Coral Sea May 42, Midway June 42, Eastern Solomon Aug 42, Santa Cruz Oct 42, Guadalcanal Dec 42, Bismarck Sea March 43

  • Varied Hex maps with a scale of 30 miles per hex • 80 types of warplanes, historical ships

I agree with Greybriar.

PM there were submarines on every one of those battles. So if the game happens to be more tactical it shouldn’t matter.

Even if no sub ever fired a torpedo – every one of those guys at every battle you mentioned above was thinking “holy shit there could be a sub”

So how can a tactical or strategic Pacific War game not include submarines?

PM that misses the point. Both fleets had to compensate for the sub threat. And Goodnight.

“Being there” doesn’t mean being used in the battles. As was stated earlier, they usually picked off targets of opportunity after the battle. Or are usefully modeled in strategic situations, conducting, as you alluded to, a strategic war on shipping. They’re neat but not essential at a tactical scale. They weren’t under the command of Task Force commanders and weren’t part of their battle plans. As it is, I ain’t backing that game anyway, for a lotta other reasons. Like no multiplayer. And it being a iOS port to PC with no added features or functions.

Anyhoo, it’s bedtime.

(even if they weren’t actually on location they were there… )

Good on you :) I am not so much into the topic as to sink hundreds or thousands of hours into it as other have. The farthest I have got with thr campaign was to the end of the epic Q-Ball vs Canoerebel AAR at the Matrix forums.

I may give that a try, it’s only $20 on Matrix. Does it force you to manage all of the finicky details that Gary really got into in later games? All I really want to do is focus on the Carrier TFs (and the search for the enemy Carrier Tfs.)

I am not sure it runs well on modern systems @JeffL.

There are less distractions/features than in WITP imo, but there’s quite a lot of detail.

Ah well. Sigh. I just want Guadalcanal Campaign updated for modern systems. Or SSG’s old Carrier Wars with more of a campaign.

Including subs invariably means having to account for another layer that you can’t have tactical control over the way you do the surface forces. Allowing you to coordinate the subs with the surface units by having the all have the same movement mechanic would be laughable.

The “fear of subs” can easily be abstracted into ship movement rates and the like.

It is not a strategic game. It is entirely tactical. Play the iOS game and see.

Empire of the Sun abstracts submarines into a single die roll. It works fine. But that’s a strategic-level game, whereas this one is not.

Technically Empire of the Sun abstracts the strategic aspect of submarines into a single die roll. The occasional influence of submarines on operations and battles is handled by a few response cards.

Completely off topic, but whenever I see this game, this song starts playing in my head.

The strategic value of submarines is maybe the key. But the THREAT of submarines in any naval action in the Pac theatre was the point. Obviously Americans were threatened early and Japanese were threatened later.

Any account of fleet movement at that time reflected a threat of submarine action. I would love to play a good carrier based game that accounted for subs in the early (crucial time) war (coral sea/midway).

Quite frankly it was those battles that were just as important in our history as Chamberlains stand at Gettysburg.

And to mirror PM’s comment about music --when I see “Empire of the sun” I think only “Cadillac of the air” or in other words the best fighter in WW2 – the P-51. Though when I saw the movie my first thought was “were there any P-51’s in China?”

Sry I don’t mean to hijack your awesome thread guys. I will keep my comments scaled back.

I think of that song because of the line from it that was also the title of the album below. Similar to that game title and having some of the same subject matter during that time frame (Solidarity, East-west Tensions). Any way that’s why I think that song starts playing in my head.