Dario
Posts: 4
Joined: 1/2/2006
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Hi to all.
I got interested in the Pacific War and in Carrier Clashes the first time I played the old Avalon Hill 'Flat Top' boardgame: I also am a Victory Games' 'Pacific War' veteran (does any of you guys know what I am talking about? boardgames, hexes, cardboard chits, big rulebooks and dice-late '80s-early' 90s, no computer...): I had been looking for a 'Flat-Top-like PC game for years when a year ago I found Uncommon Valor on a games shop shelf, bought it, and tried it for a bit. Somehow it wasn't like I expected it to be (the crucial part of plotting and timing carrier plane handling and launching of strikes was entirely left to the computer) even if I was really impressed by the amount of detail and the great weight logistic has in the longer scenarios. So, my copy of Uncommon Valor dozed on another shelf (this time in my flat) for ten months.
A couple of months ago -and after a PC crash and the consequent reshuffling of my stored software- I found my UV copy and decided to give it a second try: this time I seriuosly went through it an got addicted : after a successful first try (Coral Sea) I tried a long campaign scenario: i’ve had a couple of false starts but now I am playing the May 1942-Dec 1943 scenario (no Midway) alone and the June 1942-Dec 1943 scenario ’Yamamoto Prophecy’ (historical Midway) with a friend of mine (as usual, I am playing the Allied side and both scenarios are actually about at December 1942); I suspect that after the first six or seven months it is all downhill for the Allied, but it still interesting waching the shift of the balance going off-scale in U.S. favor and trying to coordinate at best all the assets pouring down on Noumea.
However, I really like the game and I don't miss higher graphics or animations; i'd rather have a better AI or more realism than 3D animations.
Yet I find the aircraft profiles colors and markings inaccurate;  plan views of planes are also incorrect, rough - and quite ugly.
I am also into aircraft and ship modelling, so I am quite sensibile to this kind of unaccuracy.
You know, I am one of those guys who gets upset every time I watch the ‘Midway’ 1976 movie (where use of original footage has been abused: in his last flight Charlton Heston somehow manages to be in five different types: if memory serves me right they were Wildcat, Dauntless, Vindicator, Corsair and Hellcat…) .
I also happen to have massed a lot of infos, books, images and data about Pacific War and to have a good hand with Photoshop.
So I went through a few (a dozen, more or less) hours of work and the result have been four Allied and three Japanese planes sets (both profiles and plan views).
I just copied my files in the UV Art File (saving the original ones first) and went playing.
 They work! - and I’d like to share them: anybody wants to see his Coral Sea air groups in their true livery (white and red bar rudder, blue-gray upper surfaces, red dotted stars etc. for US Navy, gull gray Zeros and Val, camouflaged Kates etc.) or late 1943 Allied planes in New Guinea with their quick identification white tails? (see the enclosed sample).
Each unzipped set is about 2,80 MB (Allied -4sets) or 2,05 Mb (Japanese -3 sets): anybody with space on his website to host them?
 Details:
• The first Allied set should be used for play set in May 1942 only.
• Repeated reports of friendly fire caused the cancellation of every red marking from US planes: at the end of may 1942 orders were received to cancel the red dot from US stars and to paint over the white and red striped rudders of Navy and Marines aircraft; at Midway (early june) all US planes sported the new, plain, markings. Aussies began removing the red from their cockades and tailflags around the same period. The second Allied set should be used for play set between June 1942 and June 1943.
• Third Allied set goes in between July and September 1943; in July 1943 the Navy (and the Marines) planes got a new color scheme: blue upper surfaces, intermediate blue sides and white undersurfaces replaced the ocean gray/light gray in use since the pre-war months: also, all US aircrafts changed their nationality markings: white rectangles appeared aside the star roundels, and a red border was added.
• Fourth and last Allied set is needed for the last months of play: US markings were simplified (no more red border) and single-engined aircraft in New Guinea received a new quick-identification livery: their whole tail assembly was painted white.
• Japanese Navy planes begun the war in a gull gray livery, with engine cowlings painted black. Torpedo planes (Kates) usually attacked low on the water and had their upper surfaces painted in dark colors (dark green, or two-color green and brown splotches). Land based bombers were camouflaged in Dark green and Brown; this is it’s the first Japanese set.
• With Japanese bases frequently under air attack and growing Allied air pressure, land based planes in the New Guinea-Solomons theatre soon received some form of camouflage; dark green was added to the upper surfaces (often quite roughly). Carrier planes kept their gull grey livery for some more months and carrier-based Vals got their dark green skins before Zeros. The second japanese set should getin use around mid-late Summer 1942 and kept for about a year.
• Around mid-1943 the Japanese Navy standardized the livery and markings of its planes: dark green uper surfaces, yellow wing trailing edges, white-bordered Hinomarus (Red Sun – or ‘meatballs’ to US flyers).There goes the third japanese set.
• IJA air force didn’t have such a standardization in color schemes: I have added different color schemes for single IJA plane types just for variety.
Good play to all!
Dario ‘Moresby’ Domenici – Roma, Italy
p.s. I am thinking seriously to also buy War in the Pacific: I'd like to hear about it from UV players.
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True Colors - 
RE: True Colors - 
. You may want to try to contact Spooky at 
RE: True Colors - 
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