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PBYPilot -> Midway's Influense (6/13/2002 4:59:21 PM)
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rowlf
[B]
The Coral Sea outcomes directly influenced the events at Midway. What if the Americans decisively trounced the Japanese at Coral Sea? What if both Shokaku & Zuikaku are lost and both Lexington and Yorktown survive relatively unscathed? That would give the US 4 carriers that the Japanese would have to worry about (not the 2 that they thought that they were facing). Or conversely, what if Shokaku & Zuikaku got off unscathed and sank both US carriers? That would leave the 2 Japanese carriers available to be at Midway, thus giving them 6 carriers to only 2 for the US. Results could be drastically different one way or the other, all depending on the different outcomes from Coral Sea.
Also, there would have to have something coded to be able to have the carriers (and their escorts) withdrawn from the South Pacific as they would have been for service in the upcoming battle. Both sides viewed it as a major (if not "the" major) confrontation. They would have to be pulled sometime in mid-May to make it back in time, and wouldn't be able to return until mid-to-late June at the earliest. Therefore you would be without more than a CVL/CVE or so until almost July.
Starting in May and wanting a historical Midway to occur could only happen if your "new" Coral Sea had much the same effect as the real one did (IMO). Essentially, by intervening in history before Midway, you are introducing so many possible future outcomes that it would be a nightmare to try to code. Or you are calling for the programmers to make assuptions on how future events (in fairly specific terms) are affected by "current" events. At best, they would have to come up with some way to simulate the results of Midway with the (possibly) different combinations of carriers on both sides. And how can you come up with the luck of catching 3/4 of the Jap carriers with ammo & fuel scattered all over the decks like they did?
I'm just trying to point out that it isn't just a simple case of: "Let us start the historical scenario with Coral Sea and follow on through with what happened historically at Midway." Any change at Coral Sea would have implications in what would happen later. The closest that you could come is as I stated above: the carriers would have to be ordered back for the June battle of Midway (on both sides - and whatever survived in usable conditions for Midway). Then they would have to come up with some way to "simulate" the battle with the changed ships available. That would require many assumptions on the part of the programmers (and you can imagine the debate over their choices :D :D ).
By entering in May you are changing things so much that the cascading domino effect on events snarls itself into almost infinite possiblities.
Just a thought . . . [/B][/QUOTE]
What you seem to be suggesting is having the game generate an outcome for Midway based on the units available for commitment there. That WOULD be difficult, and probably beyond the scope of Uncommon Valor.
But there might be a way of coming close to presenting the players with the strategic situation that resulted from Midway into a campaign that begins on the 1st of May. I'm suggesting an "historic" historic Midway. That is one where the ships (historically) sunk in that battle never become available for deployment to the Southwest Pacific. Those that were damaged (historically) in that battle would not be available until the appropriate time allowing for their repair.
In fact many of the ships of both sides that participated in Midway and the Aleutians weren't available to the South Pacific anyway. They had participated in recent operations and were earmarked for Midway. Nagumo's carriers were just back from the Indian Ocean and were refitting and rebuilding their air groups. Enterprise and Hornet were back from the Doolittle raid and were probably engaged in similar efforts.
The fact that Yorktown showed up for Midway was a result of extraordinary effort at making her combat ready again after her return to Pearl Harbor.
So in UV terms, Kaga, Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu along with Mikuma and I-164 would never be available to the Japanese. If the scenario editor cannot handle withdrawing ships permanently from the South Pacific, then a Yorktown class American carrier would never be available for commitment to the South Pacific (say Hornet), along with destroyer Hammann.
The other ships that participated in Midway or Aleutions ops, on both sides, would have their SOPAC availability dates set accordingly.
Obviously the best thing would be a modification that allowed the scenario designer to specify an arbitrary date for removal of an active SOPAC unit and whether or not and when that unit could return.
But failing that, keeping the five CV's mentioned from ever being committed to the SOPAC area would give both players a feel what it was like to operate in the shadow of the events at Midway.
Similarly other Midway outcomes could be generated by the scenario designer, different combinations of damage and loss of the various Midway participants, reflected in the removal of the lost units from the available ship list and the delay of the damaged units to availability for commitment to the South Pacific
Any gaps in logic of this post are solely the effect of grogily composing this at 3:00 in the morning.
PBYPilot
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