"Wanting to create rules for Pacific carrier battles..." Topic

I'm considering creating some home-brewed rules for the Pacific carrier battles during the Coral Sea/Midway timeframe. In 1/3000.

These will cover strictly the carrier aspect of the battles, where the fleets never sighted one another. Surface ships will be restricted to supporting the carriers with AA as they did in the real battles.

A couple of questions come to mind, and I suspect that the TMP membership could answer them pretty quickly, thus saving me valuable time on research.

1. What was the average cruising speed of aircraft when they weren't in combat with the enemy? For instance, recon planes searching or squadrons moving about, say enroute to or returning from, a strike?

2. At what distance did it become possible for pilots to start identifying ship-sized objects at sea? And for sailors to ID planes in the air?

Also, are there any rules that focus on the carrier aspect of Pacific battles? If so, I may not even need to bother with trying to create my own.

Thanks in advance for any input. This is a secondary area of interest for me, but I found after reading a number of books on the subject, that I wanted to give it a go.

Track down the old boardgame "Midway" by Avalon Hill. It worked great. Loads of fun. You could just swap out the "battle board" for minis and design your own scenarios…

Flat Top is another old boardgame that covers the battles of 1942.

The Old Classic General Quarters should work fine

There are tons of sources that can provide cruising speeds for combat aircraft. They varied. Wikipedia wouldn't be the worst place to start.

Visual sighting was always a battle of trade offs. Flying at high altitude meant seeing farther, but reduced the chances of spotting individual ships. Height also increased the chances cloud cover would impede their ability to spot ships. Flying lower increased the odds of a sighting but reduced their sight range.

I'm a big fan of GQII for surface battles. I can't speak to their air ops rules, but I endorse giving them a look. GQ III might also be worth a look, but my experience with GQIII, hasn't been especially good. It's sufficiently complicated that even experienced GMs have seemed to get mixed up.

I have to think there must be a straightforward carrier air combat rules set. SeeKrieg IV and V probably cover some of this, but I wouldn't recommend trying to use them. Far to complex. But, they could be a valuable informational resources.

Get "Midway, The Shattered Sword." It's a priceless resource for understanding the differing approaches to carrier air ops.

At Coral Sea the Japanese Carrier Division 5 had 1 carrier badly damaged, but with an intact air group. The other carrier was undamaged, but it's air group cut to pieces. The logical idea is to switch airgroups and get 1 fully operational carrier back in service. The Japanese organizational structure was so rigid, this was unthinkable.

I'm sure people who game this a lot will be in with useful suggestions.

Built and ran a double blind Midway game for years as a convention game. Simple rules Used Axis and Allies naval actually to resolve combats with special rules for how movement and spotting worked. The fun was in the team effort to launch searches and locate the enemy.

Lots of fun, but the only way to do it is double blind. Used to have the rules and pic files online, but lost the free site where they were stored.

I second Shattered Sword, excellent read.

I'd go with the boardgames/rules for them, and/or GZG's Full Thrust rules for spaceships and spacefighters, and just swap those for aircraft carriers and terrestrial fighters and bombers.

GQ 1 & 2 should work too, in a pinch.

If I had to guess on the aircraft speeds, probably 180 – 200 MPH for most. Perhaps slightly lower for loaded dive and fighter-bombers, say perhaps 150 – 180 MPH.

All need to cruise to maximize fuel economy and range/endurance in the air, except when conducting attacks, fleeing, or in a dogfight.

Shattered Sword is an interesting book – but as with
ANY work on an historical event, the more you can
read, generally, the better your knowledge.

If you can find a copy, 'The First Team' published
by Naval Institute Press is an excellent account of
USN carrier operations up to and including Midway.

There are even aircrew rosters for the groups on
the carriers conducting ops during those months as
well as a wealth of statistics on the aircraft,
task group organizations, etc.

Thanks for the input guys. I think I'll do some more reading first; I already have Shattered Sword on my bookshelf, and I just ordered both volumes of The First Team, which should arrive by the time I finish Shattered Sword, so that appears to be the way forward…

Another fascinating book on carrier operations is: "Midway Inquest: Why the Japanese Lost the Battle of Midway" by Dallas Woodbury Isom. It gives a VERY detailed, minute by minute account of what was going on in the few hours from the first Japanese attack on Midway up to the moment the American dive bombers began their attack.