DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.


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DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.


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On 7/17/2012 9:33 PM, Jack McHugh wrote:
> Great review and I do have a copy of the game that I might be moved to
> take out and play around with....the only historical quibble I have with
> design is that the Japanese start out as superior in surface action at
> night and I don't see that represented here--in fact the Japanese
> surface forces seem to take quite a licking and its long range land
> based air from Truk that is doing most of the damage here.

A couple of comments. First, the Japanese superiority comes out in the
die rolls, I think. Take Savo. There was nothing systematic that
prevented the Americans from being more alert that night. Had they been
paying more attention, the battle might have had a much different
outcome. That is the kind of thing the die roll handles; roll a 1 (or
whatever) and they were sleeping, roll a 6 and they were on their toes.
Second, in my game the Japanese ground forces were eliminated early,
so there were fewer opportunities for slot runs and hence surface
actions. Had there been more, the outcome could have been very different.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.


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On 7/17/2012 9:33 PM, Jack McHugh wrote:
> Great review and I do have a copy of the game that I might be moved to
> take out and play around with....the only historical quibble I have with
> design is that the Japanese start out as superior in surface action at
> night and I don't see that represented here--in fact the Japanese
> surface forces seem to take quite a licking and its long range land
> based air from Truk that is doing most of the damage here.

A couple of comments. First, the Japanese superiority comes out in the
die rolls, I think. Take Savo. There was nothing systematic that
prevented the Americans from being more alert that night. Had they been
paying more attention, the battle might have had a much different
outcome. That is the kind of thing the die roll handles; roll a 1 (or
whatever) and they were sleeping, roll a 6 and they were on their toes.
Second, in my game the Japanese ground forces were eliminated early,
so there were fewer opportunities for slot runs and hence surface
actions. Had there been more, the outcome could have been very different.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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Thank you for your detailed description and replay of this game.

I got interested in it when I was trying to find a way to present miniatures players with night surface actions in the Slot. The historical ones are too well known for the players to have a realistic level of ignorance, and yet they deserve to have some context and not just a random assortment of ships on each side. Also the game would generate carrier-type battles.

I got the game pretty well figured out and I was able to herd two of my group members through an introductory game of it, but we never got around to using it for the miniatures campaign that I intended. Someday, I hope. I did draw up a table decoding the game's ship counters into named USN and IJN ships.

Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the scorn that it has universally drawn.

Brian
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DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.


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On 7/17/2012 9:33 PM, Jack McHugh wrote:
> Great review and I do have a copy of the game that I might be moved to
> take out and play around with....the only historical quibble I have with
> design is that the Japanese start out as superior in surface action at
> night and I don't see that represented here--in fact the Japanese
> surface forces seem to take quite a licking and its long range land
> based air from Truk that is doing most of the damage here.

A couple of comments. First, the Japanese superiority comes out in the
die rolls, I think. Take Savo. There was nothing systematic that
prevented the Americans from being more alert that night. Had they been
paying more attention, the battle might have had a much different
outcome. That is the kind of thing the die roll handles; roll a 1 (or
whatever) and they were sleeping, roll a 6 and they were on their toes.
Second, in my game the Japanese ground forces were eliminated early,
so there were fewer opportunities for slot runs and hence surface
actions. Had there been more, the outcome could have been very different.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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Thank you for your detailed description and replay of this game.

I got interested in it when I was trying to find a way to present miniatures players with night surface actions in the Slot. The historical ones are too well known for the players to have a realistic level of ignorance, and yet they deserve to have some context and not just a random assortment of ships on each side. Also the game would generate carrier-type battles.

I got the game pretty well figured out and I was able to herd two of my group members through an introductory game of it, but we never got around to using it for the miniatures campaign that I intended. Someday, I hope. I did draw up a table decoding the game's ship counters into named USN and IJN ships.

Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the scorn that it has universally drawn.

Brian
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On 7/20/2012 11:17 AM, Brian McCue wrote:
>
> Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which
> would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I'm not sure that is needed. The Allies had very good intelligence, and
both sides had pretty good reconnaissance, so there really shouldn't be
too much hidden stuff. Did any major sortie by either side go
unspotted? (It's been a while since I've read about the campaign.)

On the other hand, perhaps some uncertainty in spotting might be an
improvement; something like "Fast Carriers" had.

> I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the
> scorn that it has universally drawn.

Has it really been scorned? The ratings in S&T were not that high, but
that might be as much because of the subject matter as because of the
game system. The rating on BGG is pretty high.

If it is scorned, perhaps that is because it didn't set out to be what
people want it to be. That is, it is operational level, and has
abstractions suitable to that level, whereas players seem to prefer more
detail and less abstraction, or at least less obvious abstraction.
Perhaps what is needed is a monster game on the campaign, with 12 hour
turns covering the first 4 months, or maybe 4 hour turns. Plus tactical
naval system to handle the naval engagements. And a logistics system to
compare with that in "Campaign for North Africa", since logistics was so
important.

I'd buy it, but I don't think it would work very well. The scales of
the naval, air, and land systems are just too different to integrate
easily in any detail.

Another thing that probably lowers the popularity of the game is that
there are many times when one side or the other, or both, can't do much
of anything useful. In the monster version, there would be many days
when all you did was fly a few sorties from Henderson and consume
supplies, or not consume supplies if you were the Japanese player. Not
terribly exciting.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.


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On 7/17/2012 9:33 PM, Jack McHugh wrote:
> Great review and I do have a copy of the game that I might be moved to
> take out and play around with....the only historical quibble I have with
> design is that the Japanese start out as superior in surface action at
> night and I don't see that represented here--in fact the Japanese
> surface forces seem to take quite a licking and its long range land
> based air from Truk that is doing most of the damage here.

A couple of comments. First, the Japanese superiority comes out in the
die rolls, I think. Take Savo. There was nothing systematic that
prevented the Americans from being more alert that night. Had they been
paying more attention, the battle might have had a much different
outcome. That is the kind of thing the die roll handles; roll a 1 (or
whatever) and they were sleeping, roll a 6 and they were on their toes.
Second, in my game the Japanese ground forces were eliminated early,
so there were fewer opportunities for slot runs and hence surface
actions. Had there been more, the outcome could have been very different.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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Thank you for your detailed description and replay of this game.

I got interested in it when I was trying to find a way to present miniatures players with night surface actions in the Slot. The historical ones are too well known for the players to have a realistic level of ignorance, and yet they deserve to have some context and not just a random assortment of ships on each side. Also the game would generate carrier-type battles.

I got the game pretty well figured out and I was able to herd two of my group members through an introductory game of it, but we never got around to using it for the miniatures campaign that I intended. Someday, I hope. I did draw up a table decoding the game's ship counters into named USN and IJN ships.

Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the scorn that it has universally drawn.

Brian
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On 7/20/2012 11:17 AM, Brian McCue wrote:
>
> Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which
> would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I'm not sure that is needed. The Allies had very good intelligence, and
both sides had pretty good reconnaissance, so there really shouldn't be
too much hidden stuff. Did any major sortie by either side go
unspotted? (It's been a while since I've read about the campaign.)

On the other hand, perhaps some uncertainty in spotting might be an
improvement; something like "Fast Carriers" had.

> I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the
> scorn that it has universally drawn.

Has it really been scorned? The ratings in S&T were not that high, but
that might be as much because of the subject matter as because of the
game system. The rating on BGG is pretty high.

If it is scorned, perhaps that is because it didn't set out to be what
people want it to be. That is, it is operational level, and has
abstractions suitable to that level, whereas players seem to prefer more
detail and less abstraction, or at least less obvious abstraction.
Perhaps what is needed is a monster game on the campaign, with 12 hour
turns covering the first 4 months, or maybe 4 hour turns. Plus tactical
naval system to handle the naval engagements. And a logistics system to
compare with that in "Campaign for North Africa", since logistics was so
important.

I'd buy it, but I don't think it would work very well. The scales of
the naval, air, and land systems are just too different to integrate
easily in any detail.

Another thing that probably lowers the popularity of the game is that
there are many times when one side or the other, or both, can't do much
of anything useful. In the monster version, there would be many days
when all you did was fly a few sorties from Henderson and consume
supplies, or not consume supplies if you were the Japanese player. Not
terribly exciting.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I remember playing it at a time when I was playing awful lot of USN.

I remember feeling that whilst it obviously took from USN, it added little.
The Solomons campaign, and campaigns like it were being played out weekly by
me and my friends at almost the same level of abstraction and part of a
bigger game which was more fun.

Julian Barker
----- Original Message -----
From: <>
To:
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Consim-l] Solomons Campaign (SPI, 1973)


>I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
> ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
> sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
> so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Consim-l mailing list
> Consim-
> https://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/consim-l

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DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.


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On 7/17/2012 9:33 PM, Jack McHugh wrote:
> Great review and I do have a copy of the game that I might be moved to
> take out and play around with....the only historical quibble I have with
> design is that the Japanese start out as superior in surface action at
> night and I don't see that represented here--in fact the Japanese
> surface forces seem to take quite a licking and its long range land
> based air from Truk that is doing most of the damage here.

A couple of comments. First, the Japanese superiority comes out in the
die rolls, I think. Take Savo. There was nothing systematic that
prevented the Americans from being more alert that night. Had they been
paying more attention, the battle might have had a much different
outcome. That is the kind of thing the die roll handles; roll a 1 (or
whatever) and they were sleeping, roll a 6 and they were on their toes.
Second, in my game the Japanese ground forces were eliminated early,
so there were fewer opportunities for slot runs and hence surface
actions. Had there been more, the outcome could have been very different.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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Thank you for your detailed description and replay of this game.

I got interested in it when I was trying to find a way to present miniatures players with night surface actions in the Slot. The historical ones are too well known for the players to have a realistic level of ignorance, and yet they deserve to have some context and not just a random assortment of ships on each side. Also the game would generate carrier-type battles.

I got the game pretty well figured out and I was able to herd two of my group members through an introductory game of it, but we never got around to using it for the miniatures campaign that I intended. Someday, I hope. I did draw up a table decoding the game's ship counters into named USN and IJN ships.

Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the scorn that it has universally drawn.

Brian
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On 7/20/2012 11:17 AM, Brian McCue wrote:
>
> Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which
> would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I'm not sure that is needed. The Allies had very good intelligence, and
both sides had pretty good reconnaissance, so there really shouldn't be
too much hidden stuff. Did any major sortie by either side go
unspotted? (It's been a while since I've read about the campaign.)

On the other hand, perhaps some uncertainty in spotting might be an
improvement; something like "Fast Carriers" had.

> I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the
> scorn that it has universally drawn.

Has it really been scorned? The ratings in S&T were not that high, but
that might be as much because of the subject matter as because of the
game system. The rating on BGG is pretty high.

If it is scorned, perhaps that is because it didn't set out to be what
people want it to be. That is, it is operational level, and has
abstractions suitable to that level, whereas players seem to prefer more
detail and less abstraction, or at least less obvious abstraction.
Perhaps what is needed is a monster game on the campaign, with 12 hour
turns covering the first 4 months, or maybe 4 hour turns. Plus tactical
naval system to handle the naval engagements. And a logistics system to
compare with that in "Campaign for North Africa", since logistics was so
important.

I'd buy it, but I don't think it would work very well. The scales of
the naval, air, and land systems are just too different to integrate
easily in any detail.

Another thing that probably lowers the popularity of the game is that
there are many times when one side or the other, or both, can't do much
of anything useful. In the monster version, there would be many days
when all you did was fly a few sorties from Henderson and consume
supplies, or not consume supplies if you were the Japanese player. Not
terribly exciting.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I remember playing it at a time when I was playing awful lot of USN.

I remember feeling that whilst it obviously took from USN, it added little.
The Solomons campaign, and campaigns like it were being played out weekly by
me and my friends at almost the same level of abstraction and part of a
bigger game which was more fun.

Julian Barker
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From: <>
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Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Consim-l] Solomons Campaign (SPI, 1973)


>I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
> ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
> sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
> so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Consim-l mailing list
> Consim-
> https://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/consim-l

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On 21/07/2012 4:05, T. Michael Sommers wrote:
> On 7/20/2012 11:17 AM, Brian McCue wrote:
>>
>> Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which
>> would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.
>
> I'm not sure that is needed. The Allies had very good intelligence,
> and both sides had pretty good reconnaissance, so there really
> shouldn't be too much hidden stuff. Did any major sortie by either
> side go unspotted? (It's been a while since I've read about the
> campaign.)
I'd say it was not that a whole sortie was not spotted, but rather that
parts of a sortie inevitably were not spotted. Thanks for your replay
and analysis by the way, it was very interesting. One thing that struck
me was the very high lethality of the carrier battles that you
describe. Seems it occurred more often than not that multiple carriers
were sunk on the losing side. This never happened in any of the South
Pacific carrier battles. Essentially it seems as if the attacks are
somewhat too dangerous.

Now, the game allows a small number of planes to seriously damage a
carrier and that is good and how it needs to be. (You mentioned Fast
Carriers - the greatest flaw of Fast Carriers was that a small number of
planes could never hope do serious damage in that game.) However, the
reason this was important in the historical battles is because usually
only a small number of planes got through. Some carriers were not
found, some strikes went astray, there was serious attrition before
bombing. Here it seems that the system assumes that everyone who flies
makes contact and counts in the attack.

>> I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the
>> scorn that it has universally drawn.
>
> Has it really been scorned? The ratings in S&T were not that high,
> but that might be as much because of the subject matter as because of
> the game system. The rating on BGG is pretty high.
Keep in mind that many people on BGG take the rating descriptions
literally - they will rate a game high if they *want* to play it
(including when they have not tried it at all!). The DG version has
very few ratings and fewer have any comments. There are only two
ratings above 7, and one is by a nutcase who rates everything a 10.
There is a larger block of negative opinion (with reasons given), which
is a warning sign by BGG terms.
>
> If it is scorned, perhaps that is because it didn't set out to be what
> people want it to be. That is, it is operational level, and has
> abstractions suitable to that level, whereas players seem to prefer
> more detail and less abstraction, or at least less obvious abstraction.
If you read the negative comments on BGG (I was one of those who wrote
one) you will see that exactly the opposite is the case. People are not
complaining that it has too little detail. They are complaining that it
added complexity and detail compared to the original game (which is
referred to in a positive way) while making the history worse. The
worst of both worlds as it were.

Markus
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DESCRIPTION

Solomons Campaign is an operational simulation of the first four
months or so of the Guadalcanal campaign, published by SPI way back in
1973 (notice that significantly more time has passed between
publication and today than had passed between the events simulated and
the publication of the game).

As an operational level game, the mechanics are somewhat abstract.
You won't be moving planes from the hangar deck to the flight deck,
for example. Ground strength points represent about 1000 men, and air
strength points about 10 planes. Counters for ships represent from
one (for CVs and BBs) to five (for DDs) ships. Each turn is a week,
and each hex is about 200-300 miles (this is not stated in the rules).

Components

The components are typical for an SPI product of 1973: highly
functional, but not glitzy. The 22x28 map is red and dark blue on
blue stock. The central portion shows the area around Guadalcanal,
and has 3-3/4 inch hexes (yes, almost 4 inches). Only Guadalcanal and
Bougainville (the map calls Bougainville Shortland, after one of the
small islands off Bougainville) are shown on the map; the rest of the
Solomons are invisible (I told you the game was abstract). There are
also areas that represent Rabaul, Truk, Espiritu Santo, and Australia.
The mapsheet also contains displays and tracks. The turn record and
reinforcement track (and their rules) are on a separate sheet. The
combat tables can be cut from the rules folder.

The 1/2 inch counters themselves are a bit abstract, too. They are
white on dark blue for the Americans, and dark blue on pale yellow for
the Japanese, and owe a lot to the counters for the earlier games USN
and CA. Ground forces have the standard infantry symbol above
their strength (they don't move, so there's no movement allowance).
Air points are either land-based (LAC) or naval air (NAC), and show a
generic airplane silhouette along with the strength and range. there
is not distinction among types of plane (other than land or carrier
based). Air and ground point counters (and supply counters) can be
broken down and combined like money; they are just numbers. Ship
counters have relevant values in the corners and a designation such as
"CV-2" in the middle. The numbers are not hull numbers, just
identification numbers for the game.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are clearly descended from USN. Each turn is
broken down into about 100 segments, but in most of these on most
turns nothing happens, so they can be skipped over quickly.

There is a plot phase, a plot execution phase, a ground combat phase,
then another plot phase and plot execution phase. Naval movement and
naval and air combat is handled in the plot and execution phases.
Each execution phase is broken down in to alternating day and night
segments, 7 in each phase, in which the action occurs.

In the plot phase you give mission and movement orders to naval units.
Missions are given to task forces, and can be, depending on the
composition of the task force, shore bombardment, surface action, or
transport. The Japanese, only, have the option of switching any task
force to surface action. Either side can abort a mission.

Missions are assigned to air units in each day execution segment.
Missions are CAP (area defense and point defense), bombardment of land
bases, or anti-surface bombardment.

Each task force or air group can only execute one offensive action per
turn (another abstraction). Carrier air groups that have already
executed their one offensive action can, however, under certain
circumstances, counter-attack if their home task force is attacked by
enemy carrier air groups. Assuming they survive that attack, of
course.

Slot runs

The Japanese can make special runs down the Slot (the Tokyo Express).
These can be bombardment or surface action missions, and can include
a destroyer transport as well. The advantage of slot runs is that
they are immune to air attack (they are out of range by daylight),
which means that only cruisers and destroyers can go on them (other
ships are too slow to get away in time). The disadvantage is that the
Americans can have special anti-Slot TFs, which are guaranteed to
intercept the Japanese.

Refitting

Only cruisers and destroyers (including the APD) stationed at Rabaul
or Espiritu Santo can sortie every turn. All other American ships
must skip a turn to refit after each mission (this really is mostly
transit time from base to the operations area). Other Japanese ships
at Rabaul must also skip a turn. All Japanese ships at Truk (except
submarines) must skip two turns. This refit time has a tremendous
effect on the game.

Hidden movement, intelligence, and reconnaissance

Movement plots are secret, and movement is hidden. Except ...

During the day, all Japanese TFs are spotted by the Americans (their
presense is spotted, not their composition), and all American TFs are
spotted by the Japanese in the northern half of the map (this expands
later in the game). All TFs of either side in the same hex as
Guadalcanal are spotted, day or night.

In addition, at the beginning of the turn the Japanese must tell the
Americans what kinds of ship will sortie from Truk and Rabaul.

Combat

Combat is generally straightforward, but I'll expand a little on how
air groups attack naval units. The first step in any air attack is
that the defending area CAP, if any, shoots at the attackers. The
defender than tells in a general way what kind of ships are in each
task force that is present in the hex. The attacker picks a task
force to attack, and the defender then breaks that task force up into
task groups of no more than 4 ship units. He again tells what kind of
ship is in each, and the attacker allocates planes to attack as many
groups as he wants. Each group then adds its AA strength to any
point-defense CAP and shoots at the attackers. The survivors then
attack individual ships.

The combat results table is fairly bloody: attacks at 1:1 are
guaranteed to at least cripple a ship, and carriers and transports
don't have very high defense strengths. Three air points are all that
is needed to guarantee some damage against a typical carriers; 6 will
give a 50-50 chance of sinking it, and 9 will give a 5/6th chance of
sinking.

When a ship is crippled it must go to Australia or Truk and undergo
repairs for a random amount of time: twice the number of turns on a
single die roll, plus normal refit time.

Shore bombardment will destroy aircraft and supplies. Supply
destruction is either half the existing supplies or all of them (or
none, of course).

Supplies

Ground units need supplies to attack; one supply point must be
expended. One point must also be expended to launch an air attack
from Henderson (but not CAP). American (but not Japanese) ground
points need supplies to exist; one supply point must be expended each
turn. After 3 turns with no supplies American troops start
disappearing. Japanese troops can go indefinitely with no supplies.

Training NAC

NAC that arrive as reinforcement can't operate from carriers until
they have been trained. To train them, they must go off on a carrier
for a turn (Amerians) or two (Japanese). When the get back, they are
trained.

Submarines

The Japanese have submarines, but they have little effect. They need
to roll a 6 before they can attack at all (according to a Q&A on
Web-Grognards), and they can only attack in daylight.

Victory

Victory is based on points. You get points for destroying enemy units
(not merely crippling them), and for possessing Henderson at the end
of the game. Destroyed supply points don't count, nor do destroyed
Japanese land points.

Miscellaneous rules

Henderson field can't be used until a 1 or 2 is rolled at the
beginning of the turn. Japanese units (except submarines) can't
sortie from Truk unless a 1 through 4 is rolled at the beginning of
the turn.

I think this covers the main points of the rules.

REPLAY

Here is an account of a game I just played solitaire. Despite the
secret plotting and the hidden movement, the game plays well
solitaire, because of the intelligence and reconnaissance rules.
Since the Japanese must tell the American what he is up to each turn,
in outline, it is okay for the solitaire player to know what is in his
own mind as the other player. In other cases, decisions can be made
randomly for each side. For example, if your planes are attacking a
task force with multiple groups, the "enemy" must tell you which
groups contain carriers, battleships, and transports, so you, as the
solitaire player, just pick randomly from among those groups that
contain the kind of ship you want to attack. Submarines can be
deployed randomly after the American movement plot is made.

The style of what follows is somewhat inconsistent. I could not
decide on using present or past tense, so I ended up switching back
and forth randomly. Of course, I could have gone back and fixed it,
but I'm too lazy.

Abbreviations:
CV: carrier
CVL: light carrier
BB: battleship
B: old battleship
BC: battlecruiser
CA: cruiser
DD: destroyer
SS: submarine
TR: transport
APD: destroyer transport
NAC: carrier aircraft
LAC: land-based aircraft
CAP: combat air patrol
AA: anti-aircraft
CVBG: carrier battle group (anachronistic)
SAG: surface action group (anachronistic)

Turn 0 (Initial setup)

Japan:
Truk: 4 CV, 18 NAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 2 BC, 4 CA, 4 DD
Rabaul: 13 LAC, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 ground points

US:
On Guadalcanal: 15 ground points
Off Guadalcanal: 3 CV, 24 NAC, 1 BB, 7 CA, 5 DD, 7 TR,
6 supply points
Australia: nothing
Espiritu Santo: 5 LAC, 1 APD, 3 ground points

Turn 1

Die roll results in Henderson not being completed.

The Japanese launched an air attack from Rabaul on the transports at
Guadalcanal. One transport was sunk, and one crippled, which will
return on turn 6. Fortunately for the Americans, one of the
transports lost was empty. No planes were lost. Two ground strength
points were landed by Japanese destroyers (I missed the rule that says
only one destroyer can be used as a transport in a single execution
phase).

The Americans unloaded 5 supply points from transports, and another
point with the APD.

Turn 2

Henderson is still not ready. Units at Truk can't sortie.

The Americans intercepted a Japanese slot run, but did no damage.
Two more ground points landed. An air attack on Guadalcanal
produced no results.

An American ground attack resulted in a loss of two ground points by
each side.

The APD landed another supply point.

Turn 3

Another slot run brought in two ground points for the Japanese, but
not until American carriers sank an escorting cruiser at the cost of 3
NAC.

The Americans sent out a convoy of 5 transports carrying 3 ground
points and supplies, and covered by all 3 carriers. The Japanese
launched an air attack at extended range. CAP brought down 14 LAC,
and AA fire brought down the last attacker.

A ground attack eliminated all Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, and
cost the Americans two ground points. Eliminating Japanese ground
points gains the Americans no victory points, while the Japanese get
one VP per American ground point lost, but driving the Japanese off
the island seemed worth the loss. Now there is nothing the Japanese
can do on the island until ground reinforcements arrive on turn 7.

After 3 turns (including turn 4 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 11; US: 34
Losses: Japanese: 1 CA, 15 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 3 NAC, 4 ground points
On Guadalcanal: Japanese: nothing
US: 15 ground points, 16 supply points
Rabaul: 7 LAC
Truk: 1 NAC (untrained)
Espiritu Santo: 12 LAC, 3 ground points
Australia: 6 NAC (untrained)

Turn 4

Henderson still not done, but Truk units can sortie.

The Japanese carriers stayed in port, hoping to be able to go after
the US carriers in the next turn. All the battlecruisers and old
battleships bombarded Guadalcanal, destroying half the supplies there.

The Americans did nothing, not wanting to run into the BCs and Bs,
except to send a supply point by APD.

Turn 5

Henderson is FINALLY completed. Truk units can sortie again.

The Japanese are expecting large reinforcements on turn 7, including 9
ground points and some reinforcements. They have decided to save the
carriers to support them. If used this turn, they would not be ready
until turn 8. They could, of course, delay using the reinforcements
until turn 8, but the sooner the Japanese reestablish a presence on
Guadalcanal the better. One carrier went off to train 5 NACs.

The Japanese did send a small surface group, 1 CA and 4 DDs, to
interfere with the American transports.

The American plan this turn was like the Japanese plan at Midway: four
TFs converging on Guadalcanal all taking different paths. There was
one CVBG, with all 3 carriers, 2 SAGs, and transports. No air attacks
were expected, as the Japanese have only 6 LACs at Rabaul, so
splitting up made some sense.

When the Japanese reached Guadalcanal (at the same time as the
American SAGs and transports), American carrier planes attacked them
first. 4 NAC were lost, and one destroyer sunk; not such a good deal
for the Americans. Then there was a daytime surface action: 2
American BBs, 2 CAs, and 2 DDs, against 1 Japanese CA and 3 DDs. The
Japanese lost 1 CA and 1 DD; the Americans lost nothing. Now down to
2 DDs, the Japanese TF aborted. This mission by the Japanese was
probably a bad idea; they should have foreseen running up against a
much superior force.

The Americans landed 3 ground points and 9 supply points from
transports, and another supply point from the APD. The APD always
sails as late in the turn as possible, hoping that by then all the
excitement will have died down, and it times its trip to arrive at
Guadalcanal at night, to avoid air attacks.

The SAG that sailed from Australia ended its turn in Espirtu Santo.
The force there now has 2 BBs, 6 CAs, 2 DDs, and the transports.

In the last execution segment, 13 LACs transferred to Henderson.

Turn 6

[Before starting this turn, I discovered a Q&A on Web-Grognards, which
indicates that the APD unit should not appear until turn 2. To
compensate for this error, I've deducted one supply point.]

Truk units can't sortie. They weren't planning to, anyway. There are
only two DDs left at Rabaul, so they won't be going anywhere, either.
The Japanese did try an air attack against Guadalcanal, though. CAP
brought down 6 LACs, which left too few to achieve any bombardment
results.

The Americans didn't do much, either. Three ground points were
transported to Guadalcanal, and one cruiser transferred to Australia.
Hornet arrived at Australia, with a DD, and immediately went off to
train replacement NACs. It will be back on turn 7.

After 6 turns (including turn 7 reinforcements):

VP: Japanese: 16; US: 81
Losses: Japanese: 2 CA, 2 DD, 21 LAC, 6 ground points
US: 1 TR, 7 NAC, 4 ground points
Japanese:
Rabaul: 14 LAC, 2 BC, 2 DD, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 6 CV, 36 NAC, 2 BC, 2 B, 4 CA, 6 DD,
1 SS (at sea)
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
Espiritu Santo: 4 LAC, 3 BB, 5 CA, 2 DD, 6 TR, 1 APD
Australia: 8 NAC, 3 NAC (untrained), 4 CV, 5 DD, 1 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 21 ground points, 15 supply points

Turn 7

Truk units can't sortie. This changes Japanese plans. They will not
transport their new troops to Guadalcanal. They will still send out a
bombardment group of two BCs and 2 DDs from Rabaul.

The Americans decide to save their carriers for later, to get at the
Japanese carriers and transports. However, they send out every
surface unit in Espiritu Santo, 3 BBs, 5 CAs, and 2 DDs, to get the
Japanese bombardment group, figuring that this will be the best chance
they will ever have in a surface engagement.

When the battle comes, the Americans get 2.5:1 odds in a night
surface engagement. They cripple one BC and one DD, which will return
to action on the 14th and 15th turns, respectively. This was the
worst result they could get without losing any units themselves. The
Japanese then bombarded the island, destroying 1 LAC and half the
supplies.

The next segment, the Americans launch an air attack against the
retreating bombardment group. AA fire brings down one LAC, and the
bombers cripple the DD, which won't return before the end of the game.
The Japanese, guessing that the Amerians would be aggressive, attacked
Guadalcanal by air. They decided to go against the surface ships,
which were still there. The Japanese chose a TG with only three
units, one BB and 2 CA. American AA got 4 LAC, and the surviving
planes attacked each CA at 1 to 2. They cripple both cruisers, which
will return on the last turn.

The APD brrought a supply point to the island, and 4 LAC transferred
there, too.

Neither side is happy about this turn. No decisive results were
achieved, although the Americans did nearly eliminate, at least for a
while, the Japanese surface group at Rabaul.

Turn 8

Truk can sortie. This turn will see the big battle.

The transports will sortie from Rabaul, carrying 9 ground points.
Unfortunately, there are no escorts for them, but the other Japanese
TFs will travel with it to provide some support. The carriers, all 6
of them, will sortie from Truk, along with a SAG consisting of 2 BCs,
a CA, and a DD. The Japanese now have 3 SSes. Until now the
Americans have been able to avoid the one sub in action, but now all
the southern approaches to Guadalcanal can be guarded.

The American CVs will sortie to intercept the Japanese. There will be
a big carrier battle. The Japanese have 6 CVs and 36 NAC, while the
Americans have 4 CVs and 32 NAC.

The Americans only have 3 CAs and 2 DDs available for surface action,
and they expect this group to be outclassed, so they will stay home.

The carrier battle occurs on the second day of the turn. The American
CVs are off Guadalcanal, and the Japanese forces are in the hex just
north of the island. The Americans put up 4 NAC and 16 LAC on CAP,
leaving 28 NAC for the attack, and the Japanese put up 15 NAC CAP and
attack with 21 NAC. The Americans decide to concentrate on the CV TF,
and let the transports go. Japanese CAP gets 3 NAC. The Japanese
have 3 TGs, each with 2 CV and 2 DD. The Americns split their attack
against 2 of them. They pick (randomly) 2 that only have light
carriers. In the first attack, 3 NAC are shot down by AA, leaving 9
to attack the carriers. They get a 3:1 on the weaker, and a 2:1 on
the stronger. The results are that the weaker is sunk and the
stronger is crippled (to return on the second-to-last turn). Two NAC
are shot down in the second attack, leaving 11 NAC to go against the
ships. They get a 3:1 against the stronger CV, and a 2:1 against the
weaker. Both are sunk. The CVs lost are Junyo, Ryuho, and Zuiho, and
Hiyo is crippled. Eleven more NAC are lost when there are no decks
for them to land on.

Then the Japanese attack. CAP got 7 Japanese NAC, leaving 14 to
attack. They all go against a TG with only 1 CV (one of the 3 TGs has
2 CVs). AA got 3 NAC. All 11 remaining attackers go against the CV
at 3:1, and Hornet is sunk. All surviving planes land on carriers.

So far so good for the Americans, but the turn isn't over yet.

On the third day, Cactus Air Force attacks the transports. The CVs,
which are still hanging around, will provied CAP. The Japanese also
decide that this is the best time to attack with their LACs.

Sixteen LAC attack the transports. CAP gets 4, but the rest get 2:1
attacks against the 3 transports. One is sunk, and the other two
crippled. They will not be repaired before the game ends. Nine
ground points are lost.

When the Japanese attack, they lose 7 LAC to CAP, which leaves them
not enough to inflict any damage. That night, the Japanese surface
group bombards the island, destroying 3 LAC and half the supplies.

Once again, the APD takes a supply point to Guadalcanal, and two LAC
transfer there.

Additionally, a spare Japanese cruiser transfered from Truk to Rabaul,
as did one BC and one CA from the surface group.

All in all, the Americans don't have much to complain about this turn,
despite some not-so-good die rolls. They have 3 carriers left to the
enemy's 2, and they destroyed (if they didn't sink outright) the troop
convoy.

Turn 9

At this point, the Japanese situation looks hopeless. They have
nothing on Guadalcanal, and, given what happened last turn, they have
little hope of getting anything there. Even if they do get troops
there, and even if they have enough supply to attack, they have little
chance of whittling down the large American force already on the
island. Their only hope is to sink the rest of the American carriers
without losing their last two. Not impossible, but not likely,
either, especially since, due to their recycling time, the Japanese
carriers have only two sorties left.

Truk units can't sortie, but they weren't planning to, anyway. There
are only 3 American supply points left on Guadalcanal, not worth
risking much to get. So, the Japanese navy will do nothing this turn.

Knowing that, the Americans will send a supply convoy of 4 transports
loaded with supplies. And the APD later.

When the transports arrive on the third day, the Japanese launch an
air attack with 15 LAC. CAP gets 6, but the survivors sink one
transport and cripple another (which won't be back before the end of
the game). So Guadalcanal only gets 6 supply points, plus 1 from the
APD.

On the last day, 2 LAC and 7 untrained NAC deploy to the island.

After 9 turns (including turn 10 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 88
Losses: 3 CVL, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 21 NAC, 38 LAC, 15 ground points
Rabaul: 12 LAC, 2 BC, 3 CA, 9 ground points, 3 TR
Truk: 1 NAC, 10 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 2 CA, 2 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 2 CV, 6 DD, 16 NAC, 1 BC, 1 DD
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
US:
VP: 244
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 15 NAC, 9 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 3 BB, 3 CA, 2 DD, 2 TR, 1 APD
Refitting: 2 TR
Australia: 8 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 3 CV, 5 DD, 3 CA
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 13 LAC, 7 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
10 supply points

Turn 10

Truk can sortie.

The Japanese decide to send two bombardment group, one in each
execution phase, the first from Rabaul and the second from Truk. The
Americans decide to try to intercept the first.

On the second morning, American planes from Guadalcanal attack the
first Japanese group. They lose 3 NAC and cripple the BC in the
group; it will not return. The remaining Japanese ships, 3 CAs,
knowing that an American force with at least one BB is on the way,
wisely decide to abort. On the same day, the American group evades a
Japanes submarine.

The second Japanese bombardment group arrived on the fifth night of
the turn, and destroyed 3 LAC and half the supplies.

The APD mission aborted because of the presence of the bombardment
group. They should have kept going; if the Japanese went after them,
they couldn't have bombarded.

Two untrained NAC went to Guadalcanal, and 10 untrained NAC went to
the new Shortland air base; Japanese task forces heading for
Guadalcanal will now have CAP at a vital point.

Turn 11

Truk can't sortie.

The Japanese sortie a bombardment group from Rabaul consisting of 1 BC
and 3 CA, timing it to arrive in the eighth segment (nighttime). The
Americans send a heavily-escorted supply convoy which will arrive at
the same time. The American convoy consists of a BB, 3 CA, and 2 DD,
plus 4 TR full of supplies.

There is a night surface action, in which the American BB and one CA
were crippled (both are out of action for the remainder of the game).
There were no Japanese losses. However, the supplies were landed.
The NAC on Shortland prevented air attacks on the Japanese TF.

The Japanese transferred 2 untrained NAC to Rabaul, and the Americans
transferred 2 untrained NAC and one LAC to Guadalcanal, plus a supply
point on the APD.

Turn 12

Truk can sortie.

This turn will have another carrier battle. The Japanese sortie a
small surface group (1 BC and one DD) and the carriers from Truk, and
3 transports loaded with troops and an escort of 3 CA from Rabaul.

The Americans sortie the carriers from Australia and a surface group
(2 BB, 2 CA, 2 DD) from Espiritu Santo.

They all arrive at Guadalcanal on the third day, the Japanese
submarine having missed both American groups.

The Americans use the 19 air points at Henderson as CAP, and the
Japanese use all their carrier planes as CAP. The action starts with
an airstrike against the American carriers launched from Rabaul. CAP
and AA get 19 of the 20 attackers.

Then the American air strike hit the Japanese carriers. CAP got 3
NAC, leaving 11 to go against one TG and 10 to go against the other.
AA got 3 NAC attacking the first group, but the remaining 7 NAC got
2:1 odds against Zuikaku and sank it. In the second group, AA got 2
NAC, and the remaining 9 got 3:1 on Shokaku and sank it, too.

All told, iin the air battle, the Japanese lost their last 2 carriers,
the 16 NAC they carried, plus 18 LAC and 1 NAC from Rabaul. The
Americans lost 8 NAC, but they have 8 more waiting as replacements in
Australia, already trained.

Then the surface battle. The Japanese switched their bombardment
group to anti-ship. The Americans attacked with a BB, 2 CAs, and a
DD, and sank the Japanese BC. This left a BB and a DD to attack the
transport group at 1:1. Half the Japanese force was crippled: a CA
and 2 TRs (with 6 ground points aboard). None of the crippled ships
will return. No American ships were hurt.

In the ground phase, the Americans attacked at 3:1 and eliminated the
3 Japanese ground points that had, finally, just landed.

The Americans returning to Espiritu Santo evaded the SS again. And
the ADP delivered a supply point. Three LAC transferred to
Guadalcanal. The remnand of their surface group and carrier group
retuned to Rabaul instead of Truk.

After 12 turns (including turn 13 reinforcements):

Japanese:
VP: 99
Losses: 2 CCV, 3 CVL, 1 BC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 1 TR, 38 NAC, 56 LAC,
24 ground points
Rabaul: 1 LAC, 1 NAC (untrained), 1 BC, 1 CA, 7 DD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 1 TR
Shortland: 10 NAC (untrained)
Truk: 1 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained), 2 B, 3 CA, 1 SS (at sea)
Refitting: 1 DD, 2 SS
Repairs: 1 CV, 1 BC
Guadalcanal: nothing
Crippled: 1 BC, 1 DD, 4 TR
US:
VP: 399 (+ 150 for holding Henderson)
Losses: 1 CV, 2 TR, 26 NAC, 12 LAC, 4 ground points
Espiritu Santo: 2 LAC, 2 CA, 2 DD, 4 TR, 1 APD, 9 ground points
Refitting: 2 BB
Australia: 24 NAC, 2 NAC (untrained)
Refitting: 3 CV, 4 CA, 6 DD
Repairs: 2 CA
Guadalcanal: 11 LAC, 11 NAC (untrained), 21 ground points,
15 supply points
Crippled: 1 BB, 1 CA, 1 TR

If the Japanese position was hopeless three turns ago, it is totally,
absolutely hopeless now. The have no chance at all of taking
Guadalcanal, since they have only one transport left, and a force of
only 3 ground points will be exterminated the moment it lands.
Even if they somehow, magically, got all their ground points to
Guadalcanal, and got them in supply, they would not have enough troops
to attack at the minimum 1:1 odds.

They have no air force left to speak of, either. At sea, they still
have significant surface forces, but their last carrier, which will be
repaired on the next to last turn, can only carry 5 NAC, so it will
only be able to provide a little CAP to whatever TF it is with. From
now on, the Americans can simply avoid surface actions, and the most
the Japanese will be able to accomplish is to destroy a few air points
and some supply points by bombardment.

As far was victory points go, the Japanese are 300 points behind, not
counting the occupation of Henderson. To win, they need more than the
Americans have. Even sinking all three remaining American carriers
won't give them a victory.

Therefore, I'm calling the game.

LESSONS LEARNED

I think the Japanese needed to be more aggressive. On the last turn,
for instance, I think they should have attacked the American carriers
with every plane they had. I kept the carrier air groups on CAP
hoping to protect the transports (and the carriers), but I should have
foreseen that they were all doomed. On the other hand, had the
Japanese attacked, they definitely had enough to get one or maybe two
or even three American carriers. The final result would not have
changed (the Americans would still have kept Guadalcanal), but the
cost would have been higher, perhaps much higher.

Air attacks on ships are very bloody. If even just a few air points
survive CAP and AA, they can sink a carrier. If a lot of air points
get through, low-defense-strength ships are all goners, and even
high-defense-strength ships can be sunk or at least crippled. Also,
only very small air groups will all be destroyed by CAP and AA (unless
they are coming from Rabaul at extended range, in which case the
losses are doubled). So some air points will almost always get
through, and some ship will be crippled or sunk.

DDs are, in every way but bombardment strength, stronger than cruisers
in the game. This is clearly because they represent more ships, not
because, ship for ship, they are stronger. Japanese DDs are also the
only ships they have for the first serveral turns that can deliver
troops and supplies to Guadalcanal (although the historical Japanese
did have some transports available).

I think the only way the Japanese can win is to get the American
supplies, and then launch ground attacks (unsupplied Americans defend
at half strength). So they need to go after the American transports,
and use bombardment to reduce the supplies on the island.

Bombardment does not seem to be very useful, however, unless you have
enough strength to give a good chance of getting all the supplies in
one attack. It takes many turns of getting just half of the supplies
to totally eliminate them, in which time a resupply mission is likely
to have succeeded. Even just bringing in one point a turn on the APD
can keep the troops alive.


CONCLUSION

Overall Solomons Campaign is a very good simulation of the Guadalcanal
campaign. Most of your time is spend planning your next moves.
Because of the refit requirement, and the sporadic arrival of
reinforcements, you must plan several turns in advance.

The game does a good job of recreating the historical tempo of
operations. You see very clearly why there were only two major
carrier battles in the six months (only four represented in the game)
of the campaign.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.


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On 7/17/2012 9:33 PM, Jack McHugh wrote:
> Great review and I do have a copy of the game that I might be moved to
> take out and play around with....the only historical quibble I have with
> design is that the Japanese start out as superior in surface action at
> night and I don't see that represented here--in fact the Japanese
> surface forces seem to take quite a licking and its long range land
> based air from Truk that is doing most of the damage here.

A couple of comments. First, the Japanese superiority comes out in the
die rolls, I think. Take Savo. There was nothing systematic that
prevented the Americans from being more alert that night. Had they been
paying more attention, the battle might have had a much different
outcome. That is the kind of thing the die roll handles; roll a 1 (or
whatever) and they were sleeping, roll a 6 and they were on their toes.
Second, in my game the Japanese ground forces were eliminated early,
so there were fewer opportunities for slot runs and hence surface
actions. Had there been more, the outcome could have been very different.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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Thank you for your detailed description and replay of this game.

I got interested in it when I was trying to find a way to present miniatures players with night surface actions in the Slot. The historical ones are too well known for the players to have a realistic level of ignorance, and yet they deserve to have some context and not just a random assortment of ships on each side. Also the game would generate carrier-type battles.

I got the game pretty well figured out and I was able to herd two of my group members through an introductory game of it, but we never got around to using it for the miniatures campaign that I intended. Someday, I hope. I did draw up a table decoding the game's ship counters into named USN and IJN ships.

Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the scorn that it has universally drawn.

Brian
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On 7/20/2012 11:17 AM, Brian McCue wrote:
>
> Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which
> would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.

I'm not sure that is needed. The Allies had very good intelligence, and
both sides had pretty good reconnaissance, so there really shouldn't be
too much hidden stuff. Did any major sortie by either side go
unspotted? (It's been a while since I've read about the campaign.)

On the other hand, perhaps some uncertainty in spotting might be an
improvement; something like "Fast Carriers" had.

> I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the
> scorn that it has universally drawn.

Has it really been scorned? The ratings in S&T were not that high, but
that might be as much because of the subject matter as because of the
game system. The rating on BGG is pretty high.

If it is scorned, perhaps that is because it didn't set out to be what
people want it to be. That is, it is operational level, and has
abstractions suitable to that level, whereas players seem to prefer more
detail and less abstraction, or at least less obvious abstraction.
Perhaps what is needed is a monster game on the campaign, with 12 hour
turns covering the first 4 months, or maybe 4 hour turns. Plus tactical
naval system to handle the naval engagements. And a logistics system to
compare with that in "Campaign for North Africa", since logistics was so
important.

I'd buy it, but I don't think it would work very well. The scales of
the naval, air, and land systems are just too different to integrate
easily in any detail.

Another thing that probably lowers the popularity of the game is that
there are many times when one side or the other, or both, can't do much
of anything useful. In the monster version, there would be many days
when all you did was fly a few sorties from Henderson and consume
supplies, or not consume supplies if you were the Japanese player. Not
terribly exciting.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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I remember playing it at a time when I was playing awful lot of USN.

I remember feeling that whilst it obviously took from USN, it added little.
The Solomons campaign, and campaigns like it were being played out weekly by
me and my friends at almost the same level of abstraction and part of a
bigger game which was more fun.

Julian Barker
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Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: [Consim-l] Solomons Campaign (SPI, 1973)


>I played _SC_ FTF when I was in graduate school, i.e. a zillion years
> ago. About all I remember about it was my reaction: the game
> sucked. So it was all the more surprising to find that this replay was
> so interesting. Maybe this is the sort of game that works better solo.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Consim-l mailing list
> Consim-
> https://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/consim-l

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On 21/07/2012 4:05, T. Michael Sommers wrote:
> On 7/20/2012 11:17 AM, Brian McCue wrote:
>>
>> Two sets, a referee, and some additional double-blind rules (which
>> would probably actually _simplify_ play) would help a lot.
>
> I'm not sure that is needed. The Allies had very good intelligence,
> and both sides had pretty good reconnaissance, so there really
> shouldn't be too much hidden stuff. Did any major sortie by either
> side go unspotted? (It's been a while since I've read about the
> campaign.)
I'd say it was not that a whole sortie was not spotted, but rather that
parts of a sortie inevitably were not spotted. Thanks for your replay
and analysis by the way, it was very interesting. One thing that struck
me was the very high lethality of the carrier battles that you
describe. Seems it occurred more often than not that multiple carriers
were sunk on the losing side. This never happened in any of the South
Pacific carrier battles. Essentially it seems as if the attacks are
somewhat too dangerous.

Now, the game allows a small number of planes to seriously damage a
carrier and that is good and how it needs to be. (You mentioned Fast
Carriers - the greatest flaw of Fast Carriers was that a small number of
planes could never hope do serious damage in that game.) However, the
reason this was important in the historical battles is because usually
only a small number of planes got through. Some carriers were not
found, some strikes went astray, there was serious attrition before
bombing. Here it seems that the system assumes that everyone who flies
makes contact and counts in the attack.

>> I bought the DG version, but have not looked at it because of the
>> scorn that it has universally drawn.
>
> Has it really been scorned? The ratings in S&T were not that high,
> but that might be as much because of the subject matter as because of
> the game system. The rating on BGG is pretty high.
Keep in mind that many people on BGG take the rating descriptions
literally - they will rate a game high if they *want* to play it
(including when they have not tried it at all!). The DG version has
very few ratings and fewer have any comments. There are only two
ratings above 7, and one is by a nutcase who rates everything a 10.
There is a larger block of negative opinion (with reasons given), which
is a warning sign by BGG terms.
>
> If it is scorned, perhaps that is because it didn't set out to be what
> people want it to be. That is, it is operational level, and has
> abstractions suitable to that level, whereas players seem to prefer
> more detail and less abstraction, or at least less obvious abstraction.
If you read the negative comments on BGG (I was one of those who wrote
one) you will see that exactly the opposite is the case. People are not
complaining that it has too little detail. They are complaining that it
added complexity and detail compared to the original game (which is
referred to in a positive way) while making the history worse. The
worst of both worlds as it were.

Markus
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On 7/20/2012 5:43 PM, Julian Barker wrote:
> I remember playing it at a time when I was playing awful lot of USN.
>
> I remember feeling that whilst it obviously took from USN, it added
> little.

Well, it did add bigger hexes, so you don't get those two-inch tall
stacks of counters that USN is so fond of.

--
T.M. Sommers -- -- ab2sb
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