Example of Naval Combat

[Mark]

In Spring 1942, the Japanese decide to attack the American and British fleet in the Coral Sea.  They are attacking with their ships from the Solomon Sea as well as their planes from Rabaul and their bomber from Truk.

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[Mark]

The first phase in any combat is air to air combat.  The Americans have two fighters, the Japanese have three fighters and a bomber involved in the battle.  The side with the least amount of fighters (the Americans) assign their planes as either fighters or bombers, then the side with more fighters does the same.  The U.S. decides to have one plane be engaged in air to air combat with the other assigned to a bombing mission.  The Japanese assign two fighters in air to air combat and one fighter and the bomber on bombing missions.

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[Mark]

The Japanese player decides to bypass with one of his fighters and go after the U.S, planes on a bombing mission.  The first part of air-to-air combat is now resolved between dogfighting fighters from both sides.

In air-to-air combat, the U.S. fighter needs a "3 or less" to score a hit and rolls a "2".  The Japanese fighter also needs a "3 or less" but rolls a "4" and misses. The Japanese player needs to remove one of his air-to-air fighters as a casualty.  He chooses the fighter in air-to-air combat rather than his bypassing interceptor as it has not had a chance to fire yet.

Next, the Japanese bypassing interceptor fires at the U.S. planes on a bombing mission needing a "3 or less" to hit.  Because it is a fighter on a bombing mission, the U.S. fighter does not get to shoot back.  The Japanese player rolls a "5" and misses - the U.S. plane gets through! The U.S. fighter and the two Japanese planes assigned to bombing missions are now moved over to the Naval combat board.

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[Mark]

Ships and planes that were on bombing missions are laid out on the combat board.

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[Mark]

Players assign their bombing planes to the ships they are attacking.  The Japanese assign both planes to attack the American carrier.  The U.S. player goes after the Japanese light carrier with his plane.

Next, anti-aircraft is rolled.  Both fleets have plenty of AA available to fire at each attacking plane.  The Americans get lucky and hit the Japanese bomber.  Japanese AA misses the U.S. plane.

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[Mark]

The surviving planes from AA make their bombing runs against their assigned targets.  Being fighters, both need a "3 or less" to hit.  The Japanese score a hit against the U.S, carrier - but the U.S. player hits the Japanese light carrier as well. . . scratch one (err, two)  flat tops!

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[Mark]

The naval battle continues with Battleships firing and returning fire.  Only the Japanese player has a battleship and need a "4 or less" to score a hit.  The Japanese player rolls a "3" and the U.S. player chooses to take the casualty on one of his cruisers, marking it as damaged.

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[Mark]

After battleship casualties have been inflicted, attacking and defending cruisers fire at each other and remove casualties.  Cruisers need a "3 or less" to score a hit.  The Japanese cruiser misses with a "4" but both Allied Cruisers score hits.  The Japanese players chooses to damage both his cruiser and his battleship.

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[Mark]

After Cruiser casulaties have been inflicted, attackign and defending destroyers fire at each other, needing a "2 or less" to hit.  Both sides hit with one destroyer.  The Allies choose to damage their other cruiser, while the Japanese choose to elliminate a destroyer.

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[Mark]

Now that all units have fired and casualties have been removed, first the attacker and then the defender decide to retreat.  If neither side retreats, a second round of combat would commence beginning with air-to air combat again and moving all of the planes back to the air-to-air combat chart and reassigning them as fighters or bombers.

After careful consideration, the Japanese decide to withdraw and lick their wounds rather than risk their capital ships.  They will consider this a victory because they sank the U.S. carrier.

The U.S. (relieved by the Japanese withdraw) also consider it a victory.  Beating the odds, they sank a Japanese carrier and forced them to withdraw.  

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