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What is it about the Pacific War that interests you guys(and Rhonda) so much that you spend literally years researching it?

For me, the vastness has always fascinated me. All the way from Alaska to the Solomons. All those battles on islands that resembled nothing like America or Japan, thousands of miles from each others homelands.

Also, naval wars have always kept my interest and that was the naval war of all naval wars.

Another thing that fascinates me was the utter hatred each side had for the other, especially in the island battles.

Like you, naval wars have always fascinated me but there is more to it than that. The Pacific Theatre was the pinnacle of the combined arms doctrine. All three major aspects were heavily involved: air, land and sea. No one branch could be ignored - they all had important parts to play in the campaigns. 

I love history - particularly military history - and particularly World War II. Why the interest in the Pacific War?

As you say in your third point, the Pacific War was the naval war in terms of sheer size and scale.

BTW I've just seen you are on 2,501 posts ilovestrategy - congrats on your 5th star!![;)]

The carrier battles, and also because it was close to home (kinda) with the battles in the Coral Sea, the Kokoda track, the shelling of Sydney, ships sunk by IJN subs all the way along the East Coast.

I've got a few reasons, but I think it started with that 1/48 Monogram F4F model I got for my 11th (?) birthday and cool movies like "Tora, Tora, Tora" and "Midway," not to mention shows like "McHale's Navy" and "Baa, Baa Black Sheep." I also ran into the "Baa, Baa Black Sheep" crew on my 7th Grade field trip to Universal Studios and I was taller than Robert Conrad (he played VMF-214 skipper Greg "Pappy" Boyington to those unfamiliar with the series). I also played a lot of AH's "Victory in the Pacific" as a kid. Anyway, the sheer epic scale of the battles and the playing field is certainly attractive to us gamers.

Cheers,
CC

Who says the Pacific Theatre or even WW2 is a favourite.

I play WITPAE because its the best game covering a theatre I have an interest in, just like Wellington in the Penisula, The Western Desert and anywhere else the AIF left its (often graffitied) mark.

IMVHO, the dangerous ones who never lift their gaze from the Pacific!

ORIGINAL: Raverdave

The carrier battles, and also because it was close to home (kinda) with the battles in the Coral Sea, the Kokoda track, the shelling of Sydney, ships sunk by IJN subs all the way along the East Coast.

I agree. Carrier battles are unique and few in history. Plus, the Japanese were a unique player. A nice change from the usual goosesteppin' and blitzkriegin' Germans people either loathe or worship. Oddly enough I find the logistics fascinating too.

See SigPic.

Just referring to the tropical island setting, of course.


Ok - and carrier battles, combined arms, vastness etc.

I really enjoy military history.  Mainly the Civil War, WWII, and Medieval history.

The scale, the ships, the submarines. Subs, in particular; I love stuff about the U-boat campaign and the Med but there is something quite different about the Sub war in the pacific.

There's other stuff. Go into a British bookshop and there will be hundreds of books about D-day, Normandy and Hitler. Perhaps a few about the desert war and Italy. There are seldom that many about the Pacific war. I think, for me at least, the names still carry an exotic quality to them. Tarawa, Gaudalcanal, Midway, Pearl.

I think for the British as well the Pacific and the far east represent blows to the being of the Empire that the western front never really did. The fall of Singapore and the largely but important Burma campaign, for example, are elements of British history that are not as well known as they should be.

Also, and perhaps most importantly, aircraft carriers rock. They rock very hard indeed.

I just love ships. (and planes, tanks and trains for that matter)-especially when they are shooting at each other. I know war is not a healthy pursuit but I can't help but be facinated with.

Over the years my interest in things military has ranged over the campaign in NW Europe, Germany's war with the Soviet Union, Bomber Command's campaign and the Battle of Britain. But way back in the late 1950's my father, in general a man who had little time for military matters, sat me down in front of the television and said 'This is a programme worth watching'.

Only in black and white on a 405 lines CRT, but up comes the glittering swell of that opening sequence, and Richard Rodger's majestic theme playing over it: Victory at Sea!

Looking at it again now I'm stuck by its jingoism and lack of sophistication by today's standards. Yet I'm sure the series planted a seed of fascination in me that has lasted a lifetime.

"And now... the Pacific boils over!"

Around 1963 it became a tradition in our family to order a "Big Hoss Pizza" and as soon as it arrived, I would get out a fresh edition of Air Classics, or Flying Review International.
One weekend, I was munching down the greasy pizza and reading a story of the airedales who served in the Pacific, and how winning their wings allowed them to go from Coke to beer, (paycheck wise)..
Loved that particular issue and those mags for years.
Back then, with only Avalon Hill around, I was trying to envision everthing WITP later became!!
So help me, WITP really was everything I had looked for since those years.
 
AE just improved it by 80%.

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Back then, with only Avalon Hill around, I was trying to envision everthing WITP later became!!
So help me, WITP really was everything I had looked for since those years.

AE just improved it by 80%.

+1

A number of reasons for me, was the vastness of the theatre, the scale of the fighting and the forces involved and the incredible changes it caused in Australia, from outlooks with regards to other countries, The very large wave of emigration that was triggered after the war (Arthur Caldwell once Australian Minister for Immigration once stated "Populate or perish") to industrialisation.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

BTW I've just seen you are on 2,501 posts ilovestrategy - congrats on your 5th star!![;)]

Thanks! [:)]

Good responses. I also love WW2 carriers.

I have a voracious appetite for military history, strategy, and wargames. I am not too particular - from Thermopyle to Agincourt to Port Arthur to Rorkes Drift to Tet to Normany to the Somme to Gettysburg. They all have lessons to teach us about the spirit of a soldier and the burden of leadership

This is just the best game I have ever played on the subject, and one of the best games I have played in any genre, on or off computer. It's easy to get humbled.

For the me the biggest thing was the carriers, was always facinated. That and I have always liked military history, at a very young age I was very facinated with the WWII fortifications in my home town of Terrace (which is on the map in this game!).

Why the Pacific war; Well for me it is the fascination of this conflict being the first, and only big 'Engine War'. This campaign used human'engines of war' on and under the Sea, on the land and in the air on a vast scale. It was also a war were the arts of military science had to catch up with the use of these machines.

Yes I also love the carrier warfare, and the tactics and luck involved in those battles. But most of all it has everything, every type of warfare, and fought in every type of terrain.