Funny result in Wake

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Ophion
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:32 am

Funny result in Wake

Post by Ophion »

I just played wake historical as the US, having never played the scenario before.

Knowing the japanese carriers were very dangerous in comparison to mine, I spent the first day rallying the various task groups together. Fletcher and Halseys groups (Saratoga and Enterprise) sailed together at 10kts while Brown's Lexington group got their skates on to catch up. No Naval activity happened in the first day, with only the marines on Wake getting hammered repeatedly.

Dawn of day 2 had Saratoga and Enterprise 200nM NE of wake with all planes armed and fueled, and Lexington about 150nM behind them, ready for the first clue as to the japanese location. Unfortunately, they found me first, with a search plane warning over my carriers a good 45 minutes before I got my own first sighting report, of the Jap carrier group only about 220 nM from me!

Switching all fighters to cap, I managed to get Saratoga and Enterprise's strikes off the deck just as the raid warning went off. Lexington launched in support, even though she was at the limit of her range.

The japanese strike was horribly effective. The elite japanese pilots homed in mercilessly on my HVU's. Soon both Saratoga and Enterprise had been blasted out of existence, with big E taking 5 torpedo hits from one wing! AV Tangier was also taken out easily, with numerous other minor hits on my supporting escorts.

With the scenario lost I could only wait to see if my own strike had any luck. They did manage to find their target and even did some damage, with Soryu and Hiryu both getting hit multiple times. Not knowing whether the japanese carriers were still flight op capable, and not wanting to turn disaster into catastophe, I pulled the lexington back to make sure she didn't suffer the same fate as her sister flattops.

So a decisive flogging of me, or so I thought. But when the results came in it said Decisive Allied victory!

The Americans lost Enterprise, Saratoga and Tangier (and didn't fulfil their resupply mission).

The Japs lost no ships at all, but had significant damage to Soryu and Hiryu. I assume most significantly, when Soryu and Hiryu were crippled their invasion force had to turn back, which forced the win to the Americans. Not sure I agree with this - I'm sure the japs would have been more than happy to postpone the invasion a second time and send their two carriers to the dock for a couple of months in return for bagging Saratoga and Enterprise!!

Maybe the victory conditions in this case should be tweaked to make it a draw?
Anyway, I enjoyed it immensly.

Final result screen:




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OldBoney
Posts: 32
Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:32 pm

RE: Funny result in Wake

Post by OldBoney »

If the scenario's suppose to be historical the victory conditions are badly flawed (IMO). The allies can lose all three carriers and win decisive by sinking one of the supply ships. Losing three carriers at that point in the war would have been a disaster. The loss of face from another failure would have been hard to take but dosen't compare.

You can change the "Best Result to "Draw" which still seems generous or give the allies some ship preservation constraints.

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