Uncommon Valor: Battle for the South Pacific, and After Action Report between Ace and Dracho
UV is a turn-based "we-go" game simulating the battle for the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and Rabaul in WW2, between May 1, 1942 and December 31, 1943. The game is available for 20$ digital download, at
www.matrixgames.comA view of the overall map, shows the area of the SouthPacific portrayed in the game. Truk, the island in the top middle, is where all Japanes forces, supplies, etc. arrives... on a user defined amount of variation from their historical date of arrival (from 100% historical to 100% random). In the Southeast corner of this map, is Noumea, where all US forces and supplies arrive. In the Southwest, you can see the northeast coast of Australia, incl Brisbane (where all UK, Aussy, NZ, etc. forces and suppliesarrive) Above Aussy is the east half of New Guinea (and Port Moresby). heading North and East, we jump across the straight there, follow the big island northeast, and see Rabaul, the lynchpin of Japan, in the South pacific. The Solomon Islands chain is clear in the center / center-right of the sceen (with Guadacanal in southeast).
each hex is 30 miles across
Each turn is one day, broken into three phases: Night, Morning Afternoon. At the conclusion of the Afternoon turn, you will give orders to your forces (broken down into individual ships, aircraft squadrons, regiment sized combat infantry, company sized support ground forces, and individual commanders) for the following day. Once you give your orders, you can not change them until after the next afternoon phase.
Logistics play a heavy part in this game, if you don't keep bases supplied and ports fueled, you have no ammo to fire your guns and juice to move your machines. Ground Forces suffer from fatigue, disruption due to combat, supply state, malaria (very few places on the map are Malaria Free. Basically Australia & Noumea for the US, Truk for the Japs). Experience, morale, commander quality, in range of it's superior headquarters, all factor into a ground units ability to do their job effectively.
Every ship, from the mighty BB-Yamato, to the future US president's PT boat, is included in the game. There are your standard combat ships (CV, BB, CA, CL, DD... easy for all SFC'ers to know this) to your transports (AP, AK, LSx, AG, APD), to your gunboats and PTs (PT, PG, PC, SC), to mining ships (ML, MSW), to sub & sub chasers (SS, SC). Ships require fuel and supplies from port to move and fire weapons. Ships will suffer unavoidable System (SYS) damage at sea (price of being on the unforgiving ocean). Damage from enemy weapons will hurt SYS damage, Floation (FLT) damage, or Fire damage. If any of those get to 100%, ship sinks.
As always, Air Superiority gives the ultimate advantage. Every 'common' airplane that fought in the South pacific is modeled, into squadrons. Squadrons can be Fighter, Fighter-Bomber, Dive Bomber, Torpedo Bomber, Level Bomber, Recon, Transport, Search, Supply. Each different type of squadron has unique types of missions it can fly (although many, such as 'level bombinb mission' overlap among the types), which you must order each turn (lest you screw up and set them on a long range mission during a Thunderstorm, thus taking unnecessary stupid losses).
Control the Skys, and you control the seas. Control the Seas, and you control the Islands. Control the Islands, and you control the bases. Control the bases, and you control the Skys.
is the the order of business.
The "winner" is decided by who has most victory points. You score victory points for sinking ships, shooting down planes, etc., and also for any base you control that's in supply at the end of the game, multiplied by the combined value of it's airport, port, and fortification.
All Jap stuff starts the game in control of Truk, Rabaul, Kavieng, and Lae, for the most part. Allies start in Nomeua, Espiritu Santo, Australia, and Port Moresby, for the most part.