Using "Low Carnage" Settings for Pacific Battles

[KG Erwin]

I recently was rereading Larry Holt's SPWaW Guide, and one phrase from Paul Vebber struck me. He was quoted in the segment about "Jungle Fighting" as saying he believed that Inf Toughness in Pacific battles should be set at 150. That got me thinking about the "Low Carnage" settings, so I'm gonna use them, with the exception that Command & Control will be set OFF, and I will leave Auto Rally ON. I also started thinking about separate settings for the USMC and the Japanese, but I decided to make them the same.

Given that I play against the AI, the Artillery vs Soft Target setting of 180% seems excessive, but the AI's usage of artillery is one thing it's good at, so I'll leave it. I was also influenced by reading Eugene Sledge's "With the Old Breed", in which Professor Sledge stated that the thing he feared the most was being caught in an artillery barrage.

Using these settings in a 1942-45 Long Campaign should be interesting, as the USMC has obvious advantages, but the war's character changes in late 1943. The AI will switch to primarily defensive missions, as I begin the amphibious landing phase.

Another thing that I do is NOT use mines. For the Pacific, that's not so strange, as mines were seldom used by the Japanese anyway. Instead, they chose to dig in and build extensive fortifications from late 1943 onwards. So, instead of minefields, they can spend more points on fortifying caves and building bunkers. It gets to the point that I cannot afford to simply bypass these fixed defenses, as they dot the landscape.