Pearl Harbor or Manila?

[Insano]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I went out on the web and looked, I found references to American aircraft losses to be in the 170 to 190 range. I have no idea where the 400 figure comes from.

You're right. I was going from memory (shows you what that is worth). I found this nice reference which shows 169 aircraft destroyed. The total damaged plus destroyed is more inline with what I was thinking this is listed as 328 aircraft.

https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/pear ... heet-1.pdf

The game total of 200 I was speaking of was just based on some tests I ran to see if it was possible to close the airfield on day 1 to allow for follow on strikes in subsequent days. In short, it wasn't. The airfield is too large and by putting every single aircraft in KB on airfield strike, including the Zeros, I was getting around 200 aircraft destroyed. Of course this then meant 0 bomb hits and damage to any of the ships present. Not a relevant game scenario, just testing an extreme case.

[LargeSlowTarget]

I'm not a fan of "other-than-PH" opening attacks for "historical" scenarios (not talking about "what if" mods where anything goes). Smells too much like 'alternative history' for me. Granted, the game will deviate from history from Day 1, but IMO in a historical scenario, the opening situation should be as close as possible to the real one - and the real war did start at PH (well, actually the landings in Malaya started 90 minutes before the PH attack). Also wondering if an attack on Manila would have had the same psychological impact than the attack on PH in unifying the US people. Furthermore, I shun taking too much advantage of 20/20 hindsight - for me, going for the subs in Manila is in the same league than Day 1 carrier hunting, Day 1 Mersing gambit, deep invasions like Day 2 Portland etc. - not my cup of tea. The great variations in the results of PH strikes - potentially going from none to all BBs sunk - can be avoided by using the "Dec 8th" or "Dec 7th post attack" scenarios which apply the historic damage done - also in regards to planes destroyed.

edited for spelling

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

I'm not a fan of "other-than-PH" opening attacks for "historical" scenarios (not talking about "what if" mods where anything goes). Smells too much like 'alternative history' for me. Granted, the game will deviate from history from Day 1, but IMO in a historical scenario, the opening situation should be as close as possible to the real one - and the real war did start at PH (well, actually the landings in Malaya started 90 minutes before the PH attack). Also wondering if an attack on Manila would have had the same psychological impact than the attack on PH in unifying the US people. Furthermore, I shun taking too much advantage of 20/20 hindsight - for me, going for the subs in Manila is in the same league than Day 1 carrier hunting, Day 1 Mersing gambit, deep invasions like Day 2 Portland etc. - not my cup of tea. The great variations in the results of PH strikes - potentially going from none to all BBs sunk - can be avoided by using the "Dec 8th" or "Dec 7th post attack" scenarios which apply the historic damage done - also in regards to planes destroyed.

edited for spelling

Very good points. I've actually never played the Dec 8th scenarios but the destruction of those PBY's it offers is definitely tempting!

[Platoonist]

One of my biggest nitpicks about the December 7th scenario is that it treats all the ships in Pearl Harbor that day as if they were lined up single file like ducks in a shooting gallery. (of course, it does that with every port attack everywhere) At least with the December 8th scenario you get the sense that some ships were shielded from torpedoes by being moored inboard or in dry dock, while others got the brunt of it.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball




I wondered if someone would suggest this.....Singapore offers more interesting targets than Manila (a good CL 2 AMCs) and positions you even better for an SRA move.

The issue is I wonder if this is gamey or not. There's no way that KB could sail close to Singapore on Dec 7th without alerting Allied Intel.

So? What are they going to do with that intel?

Place air units in SIngapore on high-alert, re-route Force Z. Basically, no Dec 7th surprise.

Their historical routing of Force Z once they did know what was going on was disastrous.