A site for Avalanche Press’ Great War at Sea, World War II at Sea

Situation

The Japanese military was faced with massive and unexpected victories in early 1942, taking Dutch, British, French and American territories all across the Pacific. As they expanded, they knew they needed to keep the Allies from striking back and that meant keeping the connections between Australia and the United States divided.

The Japanese landings on New Guinea had gone a long way to split the allies, but the Japanese needed to control Port Moresby on the south eastern end of New Guinea where they could bomb and threaten Australia and to set up a base in the Solomon Islands at Tulagi where they could keep constant watch for naval convoys on the way to Australia.

The Allies had broken the Japanese Naval code in the winter of 1942 and knew that the attacks were coming so a mixed USN and Royal Australian Navy cruiser force and the aircraft carriers Lexington and Yorktown moved to intercept the Japanese invasion convoy of Tulagi on May 4th 1942. The Japanese were surprised but realized that this was an opportunity to attack and destroy the American aircraft carriers. The force dedicated to the Port Moresby invasion redirected east to look for the American forces in the Coral Sea to the south and west of the Solomon Islands.

On May 6th, both American and Japanese air search located parts of the opposing fleets although neither side located the other side's main carrier groups. The Americans sank the Shoho, a small carrier, and the Japanese sank the fleet oiler Neosho. Two days later in almost simultanious strikes both sides attacked. For the first time in history a naval battle where neither side saw, or fired on each other from the surface yeilded severe damage to one carrier on each side, the Shokaku and the Lexington. Although the Lexington had to be scuttled after damage control efforts failed, the Shokaku made it back to Japan for repairs. The Yorktown was damaged but left the battlefield in good order.

Although the battle was a Japanese tactical victory, they called off their invasion of Port Moresby and left the Coral Sea region.

Can you sink more carriers? Will you be able to proceed to take Port Moresby? Will the Japanese fleet be deprived of two or three carriers a month before Midway? You get to try all those things and more.

The operational map covers the Coral Sea off northeastern Australia as well as surrounding waters. You move your ships and planes on this map and search for the enemy. When you find them, you fight them on the tactical map.

Second World War at Sea is a simple and fun game series, built around the insightful concept of rolling a 6 on a die. Yet with that simple mechanic, it manages to include all of the important aspects of World War II naval combat (surface warfare, submarine operations, air missions and more). It’s a historically sound model (believe it or not, World War II admirals did not calculate the angle of a shell’s fall against the thickness of a ship’s armor) and it’s fun to play. Coral Sea will introduce you to this world of historical fun, that covers every theater of World War II (and a few more that never actually happened). Come join APL and learn to play Second World War at Sea.

Buy a copy of Midway Deluxe Edition and come play it online with this VASSAL module

VASSAL module not yet available

But you can register now and we promise not to disclose your information to anyone for any reason.

Remember that downloading this VASSAL module is only for owners of APL's Coral Sea. If you don't own the game from Avalanche Press, go buy it if you want to play. It is worth every penny.

Please do not repost this VASSAL module or provide it to others in any way. The license is for this site alone to distribute this content. Avalanche Press is being very generous to allow us to distribute this module and if it is abused, we may lose the right to distribute it or to produce more titles. Please buy a copy and keep the best historical game company in business.

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Or email me at hazencroftmatt@gmail.com and please put "Coral Sea Access" in the Subject line. Once I get your mail I will mail you a link to the download as soon as it is available.

Vassal Download

Email me at hazencroftmatt@gmail.com and please put "Midway Access" in the Subject line. Once I get your mail I will mail you a link to the download.
You may want to watch this short video on installation and basic usage. VASSAL SWWAS how to.

AARs

Coral Sea - Battle Scenario 6 - The Japanese Strike

The first AAR. Woo Hoo. Being the webmaster has it's perks.

The Japanes strike hit high and low. The CAP from the Yorktown managed to reduce the escort flight of Zeros and managed to splash three in the first pass. The Dauntlesses on CAP did their best to hit the Kates skimming the water on the the Lexington's starboard side, but in the end, had to watch in frustration as the crack pilots of the Shokaku held steady and delivered their torpedos in a spread that was impossible for the helmsman to avoid.

Four fish hit the water, three aimed true. The Lexington turned to starboard to comb the incoming wakes, but the third and final fish found her. Ripping into the starboard beam near the front elevator, the torpedo opened a huge gash down the side and the hit knocked out some electricity to the fore part of the ship and sent fire through the decks below the hanger, but the hit did not do enough damage to slow the Lady Lex nor to disrupt her flight operations.

Over the Yorktown, Val after Val heeled over and gracefully braved the AA fire and aimed their bombs at the flight deck on the wildly manouvering flat top.

The flak drove some of the Japanese pilots to release early and get the hell out of dodge, but three bombs pierced the flight deck. The Americans had prepared, flushing the fuel lines with CO2 and removing all loose ordnance, but the hits were enough to disable the front elevator which skewed to the port and fell partially into the hanger deck.

American damage control teams sprang into action and kept the fires under control, but the Yorktown was certainly hurt. Losing 4 hull boxes and with one deck box gone, the Yorktown was going to need to get to Pearl, but she would get to Pearl and then she would be back and she'd be bringing a few friends with her...

Dicussions

This is going to be linked to the wordpress component to allow members to comment on the scenario or the game in general. I think it will be easy to filger by the game name and the scenario name. Not doing this till I get WP hooked up.

Errata

This is going to be linked to the wordpress component to allow members to add errata to the scenario. I think it will be easy to filger by the game name. Not doing this till I get WP hooked up.

Articles

Not sure what this is yet. We could create a sort of blog entry that is specific to this game (Eastern Fleet).