Time for a replay again. This week I finally found the time to finish my long-set-up game of the Battle of Santa Cruz, third battle in a playthrough of the South Pacific Campaign Sequence, using the solitaire rules. (It is "long-set-up", because long-running would not be appropriate, overall playing time was distinctly below 2 hours. It was simply interrupted temporarily by other projects and too frequent travel.) The VP outcome after the battles of Coral Sea and Eastern Solomons were J 129, A 93. The Japanese had lost Zuikaku at Coral Sea and Shokaku at Eastern Solomons, whereas the Americans lost Lexington at Coral Sea, Yorktown at Midway (the "Midway Happens" rule), and Enterprise at Eastern Solomons. There are no ships to repair. Two US carriers are removed from the available set according to the Sequence rules, determined randomly (to represent the historical torpedoings of Saratoga and Wasp). The currently available carriers are Hornet, Saratoga, and Wasp. We assign dieroll outcomes equally: 1-3 Hornet, 4-6 Saratoga, 7-9 Wasp, 10 reroll. A roll of 6 means Saratoga is torpedoed. We roll again (1-5 Hornet, 6-10 Wasp), and another 6 is rolled. Not only is that the historical outcome, it is also the best for the US because Hornet has the highest capacity of the three carriers. Next, we roll for the availability of Hiyo. A roll of 5 means she lies with engine trouble at Truk, as historical. As a result, in this battle Hornet (capacity 11) will be available on the US side, while the Japanese side has Junyo, Ryujo, Shoho, and Zuiho (total capacity 16) available. This will make things interesting, as the US commander at Santa Cruz is rated aggressive. It is also likely to make for a short battle one way or the other. I set up both sides close to their historical locations. 0430: The Japanese are found but not within range. The Americans continue to close the range. 0800: No additional search results, the Japanese searches fail. The Japanese are getting more nervous, with Nagumo deciding to maintain station, but the fire-eating commander of the Junyo task force decides to barge forward and catches up with the main force. 1130: The Americans still have the advantage as the Japanese are marked with a S-2 marker. However, as it's an even turn the command rules force both sides to move towards their goal markers (which they reach). This forces the Japanese into the search area of a PBY returning to Santa Cruz, and a SBD search is launched in addition. Both Japanese carrier TFs are found, as is the Advance Force a hundred miles to the south (almost halfway between its own carriers and the US ones). The Japanese, whose long range planes have already departed the vicinity, have sent out a floatplane search which detects the Hornet TF. Both sides launch all-out strikes against the enemy. The Japanese decide to split the strike from their main force (Ryujo, Zuiho, Shoho) into two waves, with a third strike flying from Junyo. Two of them will have to roll a 4 or more to find the target, for the first strike from the main carrier force, a 3 will suffice. Both Japanese TFs have 18 Zeroes on CAP. The Americans launch an all-out strike (9 F4F, 27 SBD, 27 TBF) from Hornet, while 18 F4Fs remain behind on CAP. If the strike remains in one wave, it will have to roll a 5 or more to successfully arrive at the target. If the F4Fs go with the first wave, that wave will have to roll a 4, while the second wave, containing only SBDs or TBFs, would also have to roll a 4. So the Americans decide to split their strike into a F4F/SBD wave and a TBF wave. The Junyo strike (9 Zero, 18 Kate, 18 Vals) misses its target (DR 3). The first of the smaller strikes (9 Zero, 18 Kate, 9 Val) finds Hornet after some searching, at the limit of the planes' range (DR 3). The second one (same composition) is more lucky and bores straight in on the target (DR 10). On the US side, the SBDs with the fighter escort find the Japanese carrier TFs (DR 10), but the second wave containing the torpedo bombers loses its way and never finds the Japanese (DR 2). The US strike (now only one wave) selects the Junyo task force. The escorting F4Fs win the initiative and shoot down some Zeroes (1 Zero step lost), taking some losses in return (1 F4F step). The CAP attack shoots down 4 SBDs but there are no losses to AA fire. The remaining 12 SBDs dive on Junyo and score a hit, leaving Junyo behind smoking. [A 10] In the meantime, 54 bombers and 18 escorts converge on the Hornet task force. The Hornet CAP wins initiative but through bad luck only shoots down 4 out of 27 attacking torpedo bombers. Their focusing on the bombers permits the 18 escorts to calmly attack the CAP fighters, shooting down or damaging virtually all of them (very lucky Japanese dierolling, but it won't affect the strength of the attack). AA fire, which the US had high hopes for, is surprisingly ineffective (very bad US luck, e.g., South Dakota, which fires with a strength of 6 against Kates trying an anvil attack, failed to score a hit). About 5 torpedo bombers and a similar number of dive bombers are shot down in the approach, but the others bore in on the carrier, and Hornet cannot evade the torpedoes. Multiple torpedo hits and a bomb hit leave her dead in the water for the time being. [J 20] At this point, things are looking very bad for the Americans. The Hornet damage control crews throw themselves into the fray in a desperate bid to save the gutted carrier, but the odds are bad. In fact Hornet will get a -6 DR on its damage control roll (-5 for double, actually triple, Eng hits, -1 for the Deck hit) which means the best it can gain is one ENG hit removed, or one DECK hit removed. So it will definitely sink due to the flotation damage even if the ENG repair comes about. The crew is hurriedly taken off and the carrier scuttled. Junyo will get -4 (-3 for inferior compartmentalisation due to being a converted liner and -1 for the deck hit). That means she has a 50% chance of sinking due to onboard fires; otherwise she will survive. The DR is 8, meaning no damage is repaired but the ship survives. Junyo reverses course and slowly, still slightly smoking, begins to travel northwestwards towards Truk. She will not be available for the next battle. On the return trip, four steps of Japanese planes have to be ditched for lack of carrier decks since Junyo's recovery capacity is halved. [A 2] On the Allied side, the fourteen surviving steps all have to ditch as no other carrier deck is available and no land base is within [J 7] reach. The sinking of Hornet has reduced the US commander from Aggressive to Normal, so the US side is free to to Abort task forces and does just that. Hornet's escorts as well as TG64, which had been loitering near Guadalcanal, start retreating towards Noumea. The Japanese initially give pursuit and in late afternoon, a Japanese floatplane again sights TF17, now grouped around South Dakota as the main unit. The Japanese consider a strike, but decide that the risk of a dusk landing outweighs the potential benefits. Right now, the remaining carriers could start the next and final battle in the sequence with a full aircraft complement, but high AA and dusk landing losses could change that as the Japanese can only replace 2 planes before the next battle. The scenario could also be continued with the Japanese pounding Henderson Field, but as no transport mission is part of the scenario, the risk to the carriers does not seem warranted. In terms of Campaign Sequence VPs, the Japanese are ahead, and land-based planes will be replenished anyway in the next scenario. So gaining a 10-point advantage in the remaining day that might be offset by a single hit on a carrier seems a bit of a gamble. So the Japanese (which are Normal), decide to Abort as well and go home. Scenario VPs: J 27, A 12. Total VPs: J 156, A 105. Overall, this proved to be a good test of the solitaire rules, with several simplifications to the solo search placement restrictions. In the final battle, the Japanese would operate with Ryujo, Shoho, and Zuiho, and possibly (a 30% chance) with Hiyo. The Americans would get the CVEs Long Island and Altamaha since they have no CV available. In principle they could also get HMS Victorious, but the 2-week period between Santa Cruz and Guadalcanal is not sufficient to equip and move her to the South Pacific. Since the CVEs are not really a match for the (equally sized but faster) Japanese CVLs, things are not looking good. The Allies might win the battle (the Japanese would still have to neutralise Henderson Field to land troops, and thereby provide some good targets), but it is very unlikely that the Americans would be able to compensate for the existing 50-point gap. So, essentially the Japanese win the sequence. (Another option of course could be to change the victory conditions to hand a significant penalty to the Japanese for not landing the November convoy, forcing them to run the gauntlet after all. Have to think about that a bit in light of experience so far.) Markus Last 3 games played: Napoleon at Leipzig, Chickamauga, Solomon Sea --------------- http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/mst/games/ --------------- "Bakayaro! Bakayaro!" ("Stupid Bastards! Stupid Bastards!") -- Admiral Aritomo Goto's last words to his staff, October 11, 1942 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support. _______________________________________________ Consim-l mailing list Consim-l@mailman.halisp.net http://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/consim-l -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks transtec Computers for their support.