Saturday, August 16, 2014

Transposing Savo Island Pt. 2

OK let's work the key features into a 1941ish Med action.  One of the nice features from a gaming perspective is that the initiative swung back and forth between sides as did control of the air.
  • Red should have an advantage in spotting and night fighting.  Translation the Brits are red and the Italians are Blue.  The combination of radar and RN night fighting training gave them a huge advantage early in the war.  
  • Blue is escorting a fleet of transports that have successfully landed on Red territory.  The Italians didn't achieve this in history, but the possibility existed especially in the Aegean and on Crete.
  • The Blue squadron is patrolling a straight that stretches from one board edge to the other, but there is an island midway in the straight so Blue needs to split his forces into two groups.  The Aegean certainly gives lots of opportunities for real or fictional locations that fit.  Translation Savo becomes the Greek Isle Savos.
  • Red cannot linger and needs to get his squadron away in good shape to fight another day.   US air power ruled the skies over Guadalcanal and lame duck Japanese ships caught in the area come day break were quickly sunk.  Translation, replace US a Naval air power with the Luftwaffe.  This gives us a similar situation to the RN's situation during the assault on Crete.  They smashed a couple small convoys at night but paid a heavy price to the Stukas in the day.
So in summary with a have plausible location and forces to give a very similar balance to the scenario using forces from another theatre in the same period.

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