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.
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