William Terdoslavich - Oct 22, 2008 9:21 am (#24972 Total: 25397) I'm tired of playing Euro games. I want to kill!!! In the Table last night at JR's: Victory at Midway, by Command Magazine. Midway is a battle that never ceases to astound. In real life, the USN rolled a bucket full of dice and they all came up 6s. For some strange reason, we have a hard time doing this as wargamers. The game is very much a product of its time, a double-blind refinement of AH's Midway. OK, it probably doesn't match everything you read in "Shattered Sword", but it was still a blast to play. I always crab about being shackled to the actual set-up in battle games, but I let it slide for the first playing. Free set-up made up for some of it. Playing Japan, I assumed the US would do a traditional set-up, keeping all three CVs in one task force posted northeast of Midway. But Dan Raspler, playing American, seemed to have posted them north/northeast of the Island, spoiling for a fight. I did not rely on the fog to the northwest to last long enough to matter, so there I posted the mixed task force of heavy surface units and one light carrier, plus those useless slow-moving transports. I really did not expect to take Midway. In VaM, if you get spotted, you can only give a general sighting report--carrier group or surface group, no details on how many ships or what kind of carriers. Figuring that a "carrier sighting" would keep the American CVs pinned to the north, I banked on my light CVs to act as "sacrificial pawns." This worked twice, as light CVs approaching from northwest of Midway draw off monster American carrier strikes. both light CVs got scragged and American air units got whittled down by massive Japanese flak. In the meantime, the four carriers of the main strike force drilled northward from the southern edge of the board. Two carrier air strikes were exchanged within 2-3 hexes of Midway. Kaga took a hit. So did Hornet. No CVs sunk. By this time, the damaged Japanese sea plane tender dropped anchor at Kure. Japanese CAs and BBs flattened Midway with gunfire. The Yamato detached to finish off the Hornet--and MISSED. The slow-moving transports with the SNLF could not make it to Midway by end of game on turn 25, falling just one hex short. The remaining American CVs picked up Kaga and finished it off. Air group losses for both sides were MASSIVE. My strike group was down to about a third of what I had when I started. The Americans were down to just five squadrons of strike aircraft, some depleted. But the USA won on points, three japanese CVs (two light) sunk in exchange for one CV damaged. I shot down more airplanes, but the Americans had more planes to begin with. Yankee fighter cap and fighter escort was usually massive. While the planes were garbage going up against zekes, the excess always struck the strike groups hard, which then got whittled down by flak before whiffing big time hitting the carriers. I had a lot of fun playing Victory at Midway. But I wonder what the next Midway game is going to be like, now that there is a different book title reinterpreting the battle. Dan Raspler - Oct 22, 2008 2:34 pm (#24982 Total: 25397) “When starting a world war one has to think very carefully.” -- General Helmuth von Moltke (the younger) Victory at Midway AAR (long) My AAR of the same game from the USN p.o.v., cross-posted at Bill's request. ================== Bill "Bull" Terdoslavich was Nagumo to my Spruance. I split my forces, with the Enterprise and escorts ESE of Midway and everything else NE. I regreted it right away since I would need a combined attack if I was going to take on his main carrier force. So I spent the first day steaming both task forces NW to the fog bank. No Japanese in sight. Second day my main force had to dawdle to let the Enterprise catch up. Still no sign of the enemy. As night falls I realize that if the fog lifts first thing in the morning, my fleet is too close to his projected position. Fog lifts first thing in the morning. I am too close to his projected position (a few hexes NW of Midway). Enemy CV sighted in an adjacent hex. Massive US carrier strike... on the Zuiho only, escorted by a large Japanese battle fleet including transports. AA losses are dramatic, but the Zuiho goes down and a transport is damaged. Fortunately, the Zuiho's bomber had been out scouting that morning, so he wasn't able to hit the US carriers. With battleships adjacent, I played it conservative and moved away. But because his transports are threatened, he moves away, too... this will cost him at the end of the game. Late afternoon, another Japanese carrier force is located to the SW of my position (a few hexes west of Midway). I steam towards it. Third day, first thing in the morning, I find his CV force and he fails to find me. So I pounce. And once again, I have been suckered. It's the damn Hosho, with a flotilla of AA guns, which shreds my incoming bombers. Still, the Hosho goes down. But I'm in trouble. I have miscalculated how fast another incoming enemy CV force can get to me from the south: Bill has played it beautifully. I pull back to Midway, he launches an alpha strike from the remaining four Japanese carriers, and I desperately throw everything on Midway at him since all my carrier-based bombers and half the fighters just flew the previous turn. We resolve his attack first. The US CAP wins the bounce and does an impressive job on the incoming bombers, as does the US flak. But a lot of bombers get through... and Bill's dice abandon him. Only one hit is done, on the Hornet, which seals three planes below decks. Then the Marine planes arrive at the Japanese fleet. His fighters and flak wreck havoc on the marines, so that only two planes get through. But I roll a 1 on my attack on the Kaga and get sweet revenge for the Hornet. Now both of us have crippled carriers. But Bill's main battle fleet has arrived at Midway and I must retreat east. Since I can't afford to wait for the Hornet, I send the Hornet north and hope for the best. Bill knows where the Hornet is and sends a battleship to finish her off before night falls. He simultaneously blasts Midway to smithereens with the rest of his fleet as I try to sneak off to the southeast. When the massive Yamato opens up on the Hornet, though, Bill misses again. The next turn the Hornet slips away for good. But damage has been done: except for carrier or bomber searches, the US is blind. The final turn of daylight on the third day sees both of us send all our planes at each other. I keep all my fighters back as CAP. Bill wins the bounce and mauls half my remaining bombers... but I still get to roll a dozen dice at Bill's flattops. No hits! Then we resolve Bills strike on me... and the same thing happens in reverse: his bombers are torn up by my CAP, and they all miss, too. Fourth day. Bill realizes he had withdrawn the transports too far back north after that first encounter, and that the game would end one turn before he could land. So he throws up a bunch of air search in a desperate attempt to find the remaining two US carriers. Slipping south through a hole in the search pattern, the Yorktown and Enterprise wait until they are out of range of the Akagi and friends and then suddenly start searching. The skipper of the Kaga is taken completely by surprise since they were under the assumption that the US carriers had retired to the north in support of the fleeing Hornet. A pitiful final airstrike from the depleted Enterprise and Yorktown squadrons is launched and four damaged bombers make it through the accompanying destroyer flak... and one of them drops a bomb through the Kaga's deck and sends her to the bottom. The US planes took 50% heavier casualties than the Japanese, but the IJN had lost four carrier steps (three total carriers), to the US loss of only the one Hornet step. A few other ships had taken some damage, including a hilariously lucky shot from a sub that sneaked past two destroyers to successfully torpedo the Japanese Seaplane Tender the turn before it got to Kure.