Matrix Games Forums

Defending Oahu, the big island of Hawaii and Midway is a fairly considerable investment for the Americans. The West Coast is harder to attack, easier to defend and frees up resources that can be used elsewhere. But it greatly complicates and I fear almost eliminates a U S counterattack in the Pacific. What is the smart move?

I am in a PBEM game as Allies where I lost Hawaii / Oahu (long story). The NM hit every turn is absolutely killing me. In my view it is worth investing in defending Oahu / Hawaii or retaking it quickly if it is lost. I don't think Midway is a game changer.

Someone on the forum will know the exact NM hit per turn for Oahu / Hawaii and the other islands and hopefully post it here.

Defending Oahu / Hawaii probably requires AA upgrades, fighter upgrades etc. You can place one extra unit on the smaller island (Hawaii) prior to the attack without decreasing mobilisation. One sub can hang around without decreasing mobilisation. You can have some units ready to reinforce straight after the attack. It is still pretty tough to defend from a determined attacker, but hopefully you can make it costly for them.

It's pretty steep. I didn't know about this but looking at the national_morale.txt scripts:

USA - loss of Hawaii -10000 NM
Japan - capture Hawaii +5000 NM

Each turn (that's yours and your opponent's)
To 1943: -100 NM
1943-1944: -125 NM (so that's a cumulative -225 NM)
1944+: -100 NM (so -325 NM per turn)

So worth defending.

You are right.

It seems to me this Hawaiian question has not been thrashed out enough. Am I wrong in saying that an assault on Hawaii or even the U S West Coast is almost inevitable in most games by the Japanese? If so, what is the proper response? You can probably fortify and put in enough troops in Oahu to make a successful invasion difficult or impossible. But the U S readiness hit is catastrophic. It has been suggested to me that a Japanese player might just ignore declaring war on the U S altogether or at least for a long time. But if Hawaii is not strongly defended if seems to me a determined Japanese player can not only take it but place warships in its vast harbors and deadly defense pieces like maritime bombers to fight off a counterattack, which could be incredibly time consuming and expensive to mount. Is there a correct answer to this thorny dilemma?

Seems like a game design issue to me. I've never understood the rationale behind the "isolationist complaints" rule about US prewar deployment in the Pacific that stunts US readiness. There were over 35,000 army troops stationed on Oahu prior to December 7th, 1941 not to mention the bulk of the Pacific Fleet without any noticeable domestic uproar at home. Most Americans had never even heard of Pearl Harbor before it was bombed. Maybe the rule is there to balance the game by helping Japan facilitate fast conquests? I do like that in SC: War in the Pacific they enlarged the Pacific Ocean to its actual vast proportions on the map and did away with the long-range amphibious transports. In the actual war Hawaii and the West Coast were too much of a logistical leap for Japanese amphibs especially with so much of their sealift capability stretched to the limit in just taking the Southern Resource Area.