Operation SF Scenario

[Symon]

Sam and Mo will probably freak, but when this is finished, we'll be updating Guadalcanal, DEI, and Philippines scenarios to use all the new paradigms. Lots of opportunities for PBEMs with shorter time frames and smaller maps. [:)]

[DanSez]

Great news, thanks for all the labors of love.
As I have been a smaller scenario player, I have a couple of PBEM opponents I will try to lead over to the DaBabes versions. I am very happy to see the new SF alt-history game.

[Symon]

Almost finished. Sam wants the following noted. It will also be in the scenario documentation. So, Sam says;

US divisional units, in Australia, are very low in terms of experience. They are deployable, but if players do the usual and throw them in anyway, they will get their clock cleaned by experienced IJ combat units, and then they are gone for a while. Using the little known and even less used training paradigm, the 32nd and 41st IDs are at Camp Cable and Camp Caves, respectively, and have 80-90% readiness for their specific training location. This is where they trained for a month to two months before being released for combat ops. I think we should encourage players to do the same. Americal units are in the same condition at Noumea.

There are 3 infantry divisions in Hawaii, as of June, 1942. Units are assigned to Hawaiian Department and are temp restricted. They are there to defend the Hawaiian Islands and must not move elsewhere unless purchased. PPs are far and few between and are more use in buying out deployable Australian units initially. 27th division is also much less experienced than the 24th and 25th divisions and had a hard assignment to defend the outer islands.

There are six US divisions in the opening of the scenario, but 3 are restricted and the other 3 are very fragile. Players have 1 divisional equivalent that’s worth anything, at the cost of losing 3. It is a race against time to get them trained up enough to enter combat.

In the months to come, the callow youths of the 37th division are supposed to deploy to Fiji, and are actually in a TF on 26 May, 1942. But since this is an Op SF scenario, they are sitting at SD, loaded up, but with no place to go. They also have very low experience.

The 43rd division comes into play in Oct, 1942. They are not quite as inexperienced, but nothing to write home about. Then there are the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions that slowly phase into NZ from April to Oct, 1942. Contrary to popular opinion, these were not elite. They were a mix of ‘the old breed’ and mostly volunteers. Experience is good enough to go into combat, but it is not all that good. They must learn by doing.

I think I parsed this out fairly well. It’s what we all do in a CPX. Do not know how this translates into the stock game. Do not care. What you see is what there is.

[Symon]

Well, I sure put my foot in it this time. The scenario is very far off the usual GC scale. One can think of it as a separate game that just happens to use the WiTP-AE engine and map. I made a joke about having to have a manual for these scenarios because of all the changes, and got my head handed to me. Yes; these guys are so off scale that a manual is necessary and guess who gets to write it?

There’s an Allied Forces section and an Imperial Japan section. It’s broken down into 5 parts for each side:

Operational Orders and Victory Conditions:
HQs and Chain of Command:
LCU OOBs and Implications:
Naval OOBs and implications:
Air OOBs and Implications:

Each part has details about how its components work. There are a lot of things in there that some people would consider house rules, but they are not. They are scenario rules.

Have about 20 pages of the Allies done. A PITA but kinda fun.

[Mac Linehan]

JWE -

Am looking forward to this one!

Deeply appreciate your willingness to write the manual; a historically accurate hard core CPX at it's best!

Mac

[SigUp]

How big will the map be for this scenario? Full size or limited to a certain area?

[Mac Linehan]

John -

Am looking forward to this (now that's an understatement...<grin>).

As for updating the other Babes small scenarios - you have a Professional Team that is doing it right.

This is incredible. I do love the big campaign games, but sometimes I just want to play a fast moving grainy scenario, where I don't have to spend hours on a turn - and get right into combat.

A "Well Done" to you all, Gents.

Mac

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: SigUp
How big will the map be for this scenario? Full size or limited to a certain area?

This is the playing field; limited to the red rectangle.

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan
John -
This is incredible. I do love the big campaign games, but sometimes I just want to play a fast moving grainy scenario, where I don't have to spend hours on a turn - and get right into combat.
Mac

Well Mac, this has become the eggplant that ate Chicago. With all the changes and tweaks and bears (oh my!!) it has become the flagship for a completely new game paradigm, within the AE game system. The extra time it’s taking is so we can dot every ‘t’ and cross every ‘i’ and make sure it all finally works within the AE engine parameters.

Think of it as a separate game type, but using the AE computer engine. That’s why we needed to make a manual; it’s a separate game and needs separate rules. Oh, well.

We’re getting totally involved in the Op SF scenario details because we will migrate all the other Babes small-map scenarios to this paradigm: Guadalcanal, PI, DEI, and a couple others we have on the horizon.

Thanks for waiting. I’ll have a scen file with the Air/Land OOBs posted, within a week, for review. All I gotta do is instantiate the Nav stuff, and complete the manual.

This is a “tactics-III” level, computer driven, board game derivative, of the WiTP-AE game system.

Ciao. John

[berto]

After I have finished some must-do programming and graphics work (Real Soon Now), after we release our first stand-alone game in the revived Campaign Series (Q1 2015?), I will finally have sufficient ongoing free time for some sustained WITP:AE game play. This new series of small-map scenarios will help make that possible. Can't wait!

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: Symon

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan
John -
This is incredible. I do love the big campaign games, but sometimes I just want to play a fast moving grainy scenario, where I don't have to spend hours on a turn - and get right into combat.
Mac

Well Mac, this has become the eggplant that ate Chicago. With all the changes and tweaks and bears (oh my!!) it has become the flagship for a completely new game paradigm, within the AE game system. The extra time it’s taking is so we can dot every ‘t’ and cross every ‘i’ and make sure it all finally works within the AE engine parameters.

Think of it as a separate game type, but using the AE computer engine. That’s why we needed to make a manual; it’s a separate game and needs separate rules. Oh, well.

We’re getting totally involved in the Op SF scenario details because we will migrate all the other Babes small-map scenarios to this paradigm: Guadalcanal, PI, DEI, and a couple others we have on the horizon.

Thanks for waiting. I’ll have a scen file with the Air/Land OOBs posted, within a week, for review. All I gotta do is instantiate the Nav stuff, and complete the manual.

This is a “tactics-III” level, computer driven, board game derivative, of the WiTP-AE game system.

Ciao. John

John -

This is music to my ears; and to many others.

What is so awesome is that not only will your Team do a professional job (and none of us could really see any of you settling for anything less), but many of the original members of the AE Team, who know the ins and outs of the AE engine (Don comes to mind), are, I suspect, part of this project.

Plus, you have an entirely separate group of knowledge military professionals who will playtest and whose input will help to shape the final product.

It's gonna be good.

Babes started a whole new step towards gritty and realism; this, I would venture to say, is the next generation.

Mac

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan

This is music to my ears; and to many others.

+1

WITP:AE as I always hoped it would be.

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan
This is music to my ears; and to many others.

@Mac, @Berto, you guys are gonna love this (or maybe hate it, I dunno).
Have copies of the weekly status sheets of US Naval aviation that shows every squadron (USN and USMC), where they were and what planes they were flying and how many of each they had in inventory. Was very surprised as to how many front line Marine squadrons flew SB2Us, F2As, and F4F-3s into the December 1942 time period. The weekly’s show the upgrade history and who was in training and with what planes and when they were good enough to deploy and what planes they got when they did. Woof !!

Builds and pools are treated totally different in these scens. Planes are available in scenario defined groups and are limited. So a player is going to have to judiciously select airgroups for upgrade. One can slowly trick out a few rear area squadrons with front line machines, but at the expense of combat squadron replacements.

Idea is to fight out the combat squadrons and then rotate them with a (limited) number of prepared front line squadrons. Sound familiar?

Ooohh. This is getting so sweet.

@Berto, the weekly’s go all the way back, so they are relevant for the PI scenario work.

[berto]

Man, if you ever make a '44-'45 Liberation of the Philippines scenario, I will be absolutely, positively giddy with excitement!

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: Symon

@Mac, @Berto, you guys are gonna love this (or maybe hate it, I dunno).
Have copies of the weekly status sheets of US Naval aviation that shows every squadron (USN and USMC), where they were and what planes they were flying and how many of each they had in inventory. Was very surprised as to how many front line Marine squadrons flew SB2Us, F2As, and F4F-3s into the December 1942 time period. The weekly’s show the upgrade history and who was in training and with what planes and when they were good enough to deploy and what planes they got when they did. Woof !!

Builds and pools are treated totally different in these scens. Planes are available in scenario defined groups and are limited. So a player is going to have to judiciously select airgroups for upgrade. One can slowly trick out a few rear area squadrons with front line machines, but at the expense of combat squadron replacements.

Idea is to fight out the combat squadrons and then rotate them with a (limited) number of prepared front line squadrons. Sound familiar?

Ooohh. This is getting so sweet.

@Berto, the weekly’s go all the way back, so they are relevant for the PI scenario work.

Wow John - weekly squadron strengths and locations!!!!! Am I reading it correctly, these are not the bi-weekly Locations of Naval Aircraft? I'd love to have them, are they in a format you could send????

[wdolson]

We used it during development of AE:

http://www.history.navy.mil/a-record/ww-ii/loc-ac/loc-ac.htm

[Don Bowen]

Might be some confusion on my part. I have he stuff in the link but it does not cover every week and starts in February, 1942. Thought (and still hope) John might have found something that is truly weekly and covers the entire war.

[wdolson]

It has some holes in it, but that's the only record I've seen. If there is something better, I'd like to see it too.

Bill

[Symon]

Well howdy Don. Oh, heavens. I guess they are bi-weekly. We’ve been referring to them as ‘the weeklys’ for so long I guess the name just stuck. Yep, it’s the Locations of US Naval Aircraft. Sorry bout that.

But hey, now I got you guys here, you are the perfect people to help answer this question.

I got all the PatRon (VP) in Pac Theater as of the scenario opening day, as well as all VP that entered the theater by March ’43 (end date). There weren’t that many, at all. Seems Navy deployed PatRons as detachments of divisions (usually 4 planes).

For example, on June 4, ’41, PatWing 2 comprised CPW-2 (consolidated squadron), VP-13, 23, 24, 44, 51, all at Pearl Harbor. But most are given as OOB components at Midway, including VP-51 which was primarily in Alaska, and VP-22 which was merged with PI survivors to become VP-101 in Australia on 12 April, ’42. Notwithstanding Midway, several of the same VP are identified and located on Noumea, Johnston, and Palmyra, at the same time. And I do believe CPW-2 was the collection of the squadron “remainders” after deployment (the math works out) … Sigh …

So PatRons really are PatDivs. This can be done by OOB listing every PatRon as PatDivs. This is the most flexible because each can have a varying number of planes, but it doesn’t allow for rebuilding a squadron under the parent-child routines.

Or, one can give VP a “max split” of 3, and make the OOB have ‘dets’ with a parent unit and force everything into a cookie cutter max size.

It is a quandary because whatever paradigm is chosen will become a standard and be impressed across all of our small map scenarios. Know that grogs are gonna play these, but don’t want to break their bones by requiring obscure knowledge of this kinda stuff.

Ya’lls thoughts and input will be highly appreciated. Ciao. JWE

[GreyJoy]

I arrive a bit late here...sorry...
Have been reading this thread and got really interested in the overall concept behind this new vision of the game.

There's one thing i don't understand (or didn't realize while reading through the thread)... what does "SF" stand for?

Thanks in advance... i know i'm gonna love this...even if i won't be able to play it untill i'll finish my DBB-C games against Obvert[:D] (which, btw, once again has showed me how great DBB scenarios are!)

Thanks for the effort guys[&o]