War Plan Kumquat: SDR and Barthheart's attempt to play Plan Orange.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Despite the fact that neither Barth nor I are remotely conversant with the rules, we're going to have a bash at playing Mark Herman's Plan Orange.  It's a variant of the board game Empire of the Sun that can be found in #29 edition of C3i magazine.

We're playing the 1932 scenario, The Shanghai Incident. I'll be playing as the Japanese and Barth will command the Americans.

The alt history behind the scenario is that during the Japanese siege of Shanghai one of the ships of the US Yangtze Patrol, the USS Panay, intervened and attempted to evacuate Chinese non-combatants.  It was sunk by Japanese aircraft leading to the freezing of Japanese assets by the US.  The Japanese respond by attempting to remove the US from the Western Pacific.


The game lasts 6 turns in total.  Turn 1 is special and mainly consists of two massive Japanese surprise attacks and a minor US response.  Turns 2-6 are regular.

The game can end before turn 6 if any of the following conditions are met:

1)  On turn 4 or later, the US wins automatically if it has a capital ship ratio of 2:1 over Japan.  Japan wins if it has a 3:2 ratio over the US.

2)  If the Japanese Home Islands are blockaded or the US can capture Honshu, the US wins.


If the game progresses to the end of turn 6, Japan wins unless the US manages to hold all three Philippines control points.



Here's the initial map setup (click map at bottom of post to expand).  All of Japan's forces are committed and on the map.  The US player has some leeway in setting up his forces in the strategic overlay box.  Once that's done, the game opens with Japan conducting two surprise attacks using Event Cards.




Japanese opening attack cards.

[Barthheart]

Well... I've setup what units I can in the Strategic Display, basically North American waters.

Lets see what the Japanese surprise attacks can do....

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Japan starts off with a surprise attack on the Philippines.

I play the Philippines offensive card as an event.

I start by selecting an HQ to command to operations (easy choice in this game as there is only one Japanese HQ).  I select the IGHQ.  It has a range of 20 and an efficiency rating of 1.  This means I can activate any unit within 20 hexes of the HQ.  The event card has a logistics value of 8.  This means I can activate up to 8 different units for my offensive.  I get to add the efficiency rating of the HQ to the activation total so I have a total of 9 units I can activate.

I decide to try for a three pronged attack on the Philippines.  First, I send the Southern Expeditionary Army to launch an amphibious assault on Clark airfield which is guarded by the 17th Pursuit Group and a regiment of Filipino Scouts.  The carrier Akagi provides air cover of the assault with support from the Ominato Air Group based on Formosa.

With the air cover from Clark tied up, I send a task force of the battlecruiser Haruna and the heavy cruisers Nachi and Takeo to hit the light cruiser Marblehead at Corrigador.  We'll leave the large garrison in Manila and their ridiculous railroad guns alone for now.





Third, I launch an amphibious assault on Leyte led by the Formosa army with the battlecruiser Hiei providing naval support.  They should be able to make short work of the single US Army regiment there.



Finally, I sortie the Yokosuka Air Group out of Saipan to hit US air units on Guam.

[GJK]

This should be good - following with interest!

[Barthheart]

"Good" being relative with two lost morons trying to play a game they don't understand....

Anyway, I'm powerless to react to his turn 1 actions... no cards! I'm just watching like the rest of you all.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

You get to roll a few dice in the faint hope of scoring a crit.  That's old timey fun!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

And the moron is strong with this kid already!

I landed on the wrong side of Luzon and ended up putting my army on the wrong beach and they're now out of supply.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Barth was gracious and gave me a Mulligan on my botched landing (tactical tip of the day: When launching an amphibious assault against an airfield, try to land on the side of the island WITH the airfield.)

Phase one of the Japanese offensive saw the Southern Expeditionary Army taking Clark airfield and the Ominato air group rebasing there.  The Ominato air group took a pasting from 17th Pursuit Group during the offensive and is at reduced strength.

The Formosa Army landed at Leyte with support from the Hiei and was able to take the objective without loss.

The naval task force charged with denuding US naval assets at Corrigador succeeded in sinking the task force centred on the light cruiser Marblehead.


With phase one complete, the objective of phase two was to complete the capture of the Philippine islands and to cut supply by knocking out the Americans at Guam.

The Southern Expeditionary army assaulted Manila with heavy naval support from the BC Haruna and CA Nachi task forces. 





The Akagi carrier group provided support for an amphibious operation against Davao spearheaded by the 8th Division based on Okinawa.






Finally, the landings on Guam were attempted by the Formosa Army with support from the Kaga carrier group.

[Barthheart]

Only shot at doing some damage and I roll a 0.... :P

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

The surprise attacks by the Japanese went off reasonably well.

Guam fell and, apart from one out of supply regiment hiding in the jungles, the Philippines is under Japanese control.  We did lose some air power but that should be replaced next turn.

Now to see what those crazy Yanks have up their sleeves.

[Barthheart]

Not much to report... just shuffling some BB's and a CV from the West Coast to Hawaii. Weeeee, crazy stuff. :D

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Barth played this card but used it for the operations value (top left number) to move his capital ships to Oahu rather than to put his mothballed cruisers and destroyers back into service.






I responded by re-basing a portion of my fleet at Eniwetok. 

[Barthheart]

Of sure... be like that....

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Barth played War Plan 1934 for his final card on turn one.



Cards can either be played as an EVENT or for their OFFENSIVE points. 

If a card is played as an event, the player follows the text listed on the card.  In the case of this card, it would allow the US player to activate any HQ (easy as each side in Plan Orange only has one HQ) and use that HQ to control a number of units equal to the card's logistics value plus the efficiency rating of the HQ.  This is a big event card as it lets the US player activate 9 units plus the HQ efficiency rating (both US and Japanese HQ's in this card have a rating of 1).
Being able to activate 10 units for an attack is huge but there is a drawback.  Up along the top row of the card there's a gold box displaying, in this case, OC: 3 and EC: 5.  This is the intelligence value of the card.  OC is used if the card was played as an OFFENSIVE and EC if it was played as an EVENT.

When a player launches an air and/or naval offensive, the default condition is that it will be a surprise attack and the player on defence will not be able to react to it.  In addition, the attacking player gets to attack and apply hits first and only the surviving units get to fire back (no surprise attacks in ground combat).  The defensive player does get a chance to alter the intelligence condition of the attack.  If he has a reaction card in his hand, he can play that which might allow for an intercept or a counter offensive.  If he has no reaction cards, he still gets to make a die roll to see if his intel guys managed to learn of the offensive.   The defensive player rolls a d10 and if they roll equal to or lower than the intelligence value of the card, the default condition changes from surprise attack to intercept.  This allows the defensive player to activate a number of units equal to the OC value of the card (the big number in the top left) plus their HQ's efficiency and move those additional units into the battle hex.  Additionally, attack and defence rolls and damage are conducted simultaneously.  Cards with large logistics values generally have high EC intel numbers as they're easier to detect.  In this case, the EC is 5 so the defender would have a 60% chance of detecting the upcoming offensive and be able to react to it (0s on the d10 roll count as 0, not 10). 

You can also play the card as an OFFENSIVE if you can't or don't want to use the event.  In that case, you activate a number of units equal to the big number in the top left of the card plus the HQ efficiency.  Any attempts by the defending player to react to  OC attacks would use the lesser OC intel rating on the card, in this case OC: 3. 

Barth decides to use his card as an event but rather than launching an offensive, he uses it to coalesce his ships into a massive fleet at Oahu.




I get the feeling the US isn't taking the loss of the Philippines with the sort of equanimity we'd hoped for.

So, at the end of turn one, the Philippines surrenders and here's how things are shaping up.

[Barthheart]

Start of turn 2, the US manages to rebuild the 17th Patrol Group, fighters, on Wake Island... some air cover is better than none.
Played "National Guard Mobilization" card to mobilize 3 US 4-10 infantry brigades on the West Coast.

Dull but I think necessary moves.

More excitement coming up in SDR's move. ;)