Axis & Allies Guadalcanal

It looks interesting.  I have been on Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Gizo, and Kolumbangara, and spent a lot of time talking with the local people.  They still passionately hate the Japanese, by the way.  I will be interested in how they handle the supply situation, having been an Army supply officer, and also having studied the Guadalcanal campaign for 47 years now.  I will also be interested in how they handle attacking an airfield to render it unfit to land.  In World War 2, it took an average of 8 bomb hits, the bombs weighing at least 100 pounds, per 1,000 feet of runway to knock out a Japanese airfield for 24 hours.  Twelve bombs hits per 1,000 feet or using bombs weighing 500 pounds would take the Japanese about 48 hours to repair.  Generally, the US could repair a runway in about half the time of the Japanese.  Henderson Field was never really knocked out the entire campaign, and with it being 200 feet wide with hard packed coral, the Japanese never really mustered the needed bomber force to knock it out.  US accuracy from 14,000 feet against runways was about 1 hit per 6 bombs dropped.  Based on analysis of Japanese level bombing attacks, their accuracy was about one-half of that.  So 8 bombs X 4,000 feet of runway X 6 bombs for one hit X 2 for poor accuracy adds up to 384 bombs dropped to knock out the airfield.  I think that the Betty could rack twelve 110 pound bombs, so that means a minimum of 32 Betties to deliver the needed bombs.  I do not think that the Japanese ever put 32 bomb-carrying Betties over Henderson Field.  I will need to look that up.  Regardlless, I will look forward to seeing the game, and at the very least, I  will have more naval miniatures to use for other naval rules and game design.

@Flashman:

According to this post

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/181064

there are no tanks. So we’re still stuck with the shortage from AAR.  Claims the Japanese are in “light brown”.  Another in the long series of Japanese colours indistinguishable (to me) from at least one allied colour.

The Japaneses used very few tanks on Guadalcanal, with the only use being the attack in late October of 1942.  The ones uses were the T95 light tank, which were not terribly good.  The Marines had a company of M2A4 light tanks that they used in the Tenaru River fight, but were kept in reserve thereafter.  Believe me, Guadalcanal is NOT good tank country.  With the hills and jungle, it is strictly an infantry and artilllery fight.

Timerover51 thanks for the information. That stuff about how many bombs you need to wreck a runway was pretty interesting. Hopefully some new info is going to come out of GenCon next week and we will have less speculating on how this new game is going to work.

Has there been anymore information about the game at all within the past month or so?  Just curious to see how this is going to play out.

Man I would love a review copy

@djensen:

You’ll need to start a popular gaming website.  :-D

David, when do you want the article on the Solomons campaign?

so the rule book is only 4 pages of rules?

Can we get some info on the new combat system and a basic outline of how the game works?

@Imperious:

so the rule book is only 4 pages of rules?

Can we get some info on the new combat system and a basic outline of how the game works?

It seems unlikely that the rule book is only 4 pages. It sounds more like djensen is planning 4 articles to me.  :|

I have to second the tell us more as fast as you can though. :-)

Excellent coup for the site. Congrats.  :mrgreen:

The release date is 30 days away. I suspect Avalon Hill will begin with some articles for hopefully not more than a few years after its been released. I have not heard anything from funagames.com since they last published some photos for this.

How may cruisers does the game have each for Japan and USA? And secondly, were you shorted any pieces?  I have a standing prediction of a 2 piece shortage of something….( 3 times the charm)

_If you look at the preview pictures on the game site, you will note that they have the cruisers mixed up.  The Japanese cruiser is really the Portland class USA cruiser.  And the American cruiser is the Japanese cruiser.  Did anyone notice this?  I sure hate to see them send the game to market with this mistake.  Typically the A&A games go through great lengths to preserve accuracy.

Commander Hara._

So what ?

generally Eagle, that is called an inconsistency…

GG

First let me say that I’m not too worried about AA ratings of ships, or if BB can sink subs etc, I just know these are fleets and the BB maybe one or more BB with 1 or probably many more DD etc.  What I do have a problem with is:

1. As far as I know, no costal guns of any sort (real costal guns or plain artillery) ever hit a ship during this champagne.  The would IMO only work if there was a direct landing against a beach something that neither side would do at this point of the war.  Yes yes Wake was a different story because there were no beaches that were NOT covered by Costal Defense (CD).
2. AA is way way way too affective, once again as far as I know, few, very few planes were shot down by AA.  AA made planes fly higher and thus reduced bombing accuracy and reduced strafing.  So in game terms the presence of AA should only reduce the hits that planes get on defending ground targets.  One defending AA would reduce one hit from the attacker.   I think I would limit the AA to one per target type, so one for each airbase, and one for all ground units.
3. Tanks were used by both sides, and as the USofA got use to tanks in the jungle, they became very effective and by mid 43 no offensive was ever considered without getting as much armor ashore ASAP.  I will include the half-track with French 75 mm as “tanks” at this stage of the war.  The IJA type 1 Chi_Ha tank with a short 57mm was actually a reasonable jungle tank.  There one employment was badly mistimed being mustered during a heavy barraged and then led across a sandpit into American 37 mm and half-track 75mm guns.  I have some ideas how to get a few units on both sides to reflect their capabilities as well as their huge drain on supply and maintenance.
4. Simplistic game and too bad it can’t or does not reflect some national aspects such as much better American AA, especially say game turn 4 when proximity fuses would come into play.  Or that only the IJN fighters can fly about the same distance as the Betty Bombers, the USArmyAir need to wait until turn 5 when the USArmyAir would get at least one P-38  P-47 a turn.