Coral Sea 2009, Scenario Rules

Contents

• For all players:
  • Introduction
  • Dates and Times
  • Summary of Rules
  • Map
• For command staff (and any others interested):
  • Victory Conditions
  • Forces
  • Other Rules
  • Settings
• For CM's:
• CM Reference
• References
• Credits

For All Players:

Introduction

May 7, 1942, Coral Sea, before dawn.

Vice Admiral Takeo Takagi looks out from the bridge of his flagship, Myoko. There are American carriers out there -- somewhere. He knows this because his scouts spotted them yesterday as they were entering a rain squall. Yes, they are out there. Today is the day to hunt them down and to destroy them.

Under his command are the IJN fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku (both veterans of Pearl Harbor, Indian Ocean, and the sinking of British carrier Hermes), as well as the the cruisers Myoko and Haguro and several destroyers. Covering the invasion fleet is the light carrier Shoho and numerous cruisers and destroyers, all under the command of Rear Admiral Aritomo Goto. Also, there is the Imperial Japanese Army air base at Lae, current home of the 4th Ku (bombers) and of the famed Tainan Ku (fighters). Altogether, it is a potent force of A6M2 Zero fighters, D3A1 Val divebombers, and B5N2 Kate torpedo bombers, as well as some scout planes.

Takagi's and Goto's missions are to destroy the US carriers and to capture Port Moresby for the glory of Japan. Then, Japan can turn its attention to Australia.

Meanwhile, Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher is also preparing for the day ahead. Thanks to intercepts and previous cracking of the Japanese communication codes, the allies have been able quickly to assemble a sizeable opposing presence of their own. Under Fletcher's command are the USN fleet carriers Lexington and Yorktown; their contingent of F4F-4 Wildcat fighters, SBD-5 Dauntless divebombers, and TBM-3 Avenger torpedo bombers; and numerous cruisers and destroyers. Also, there is the air base at Port Moresby, current home of the 8th Pursuit Group (P-39D's) and 3rd Bombardment Group (SBD-5's), and some scout planes from Australia.

Fletcher's job is to stop the invasion of Port Moresby and, for the first time in the war, to turn back the fierce Japanese.

Now it is 6 am on May 7th, and the launch signal has been given. Planes roar down the decks of carriers, into the early morning skies. This will be the day that sees the world's first carrier-vs.-carrier battle. The next two days will decide whose ships rest on the bottom of the ocean and who controls Port Moresby.

This is a side-switch scenario. There are two teams (Team Alpha and Team Zulu). First, Team Zulu will be the US forces and Team Alpha will be Japanese forces, and there will be two days of battle (frames 1 and 2). Then the teams will switch sides, and we will run the fight again in frames 3 and 4. Fighter pilots get two lives and bomber pilots get three lives.

Dates and Times

Show-Up Time for this scenario is 3 pm Eastern Time in the Special Events II arena. The arena is closed to admittance after Show-Up Time. The action starts in July, 2009 as follows:

• July 18: test frame -- please all attend
• July 25: frame 1
• August 1 : frame 2
• August 8: frame 3
• August 15: frame 4

The arena is locked to admittance at Show-Up Time, so please show up no later than Show-Up Time. (Takeoffs start 30 minutes after Show-Up Time, the time in between being used for briefings and to get organized.)

If you get disconnected and need back into the locked arena, please type into any text radio buffer: ".p Brooke let me in". Then keep trying to get in (even if the game shows Special Events II as being locked -- try entering still, as the status does not always update quickly). Once you are in, type ".p Brooke i'm in".

Frames will run for 3 hours after takeoff, then a disengagement will be called, and planes will have 30 minutes to land.

Summary of Player-Enforced Rules

The following is a summary of some rules that regular pilots must follow. This is intended as a handy summary list. If you want further details, you can look at the sections below.

• Graphics settings (not a rule, but here as helpful information)
  • If you can't see Port Moresby (p13) or its buildings until you get very close, try going into the clipboard map, go into "Options->Graphic Detail", and click "Default" then "OK". (If you have your "Object Detail" slider set too close to "Faster" or your "Ground Detail Range" slider set too close to "0.5 miles", it can cause such problems.)
• Lives:
  • Fighter pilots get two lives in aircraft.
  • Bomber pilots get three lives in aircraft.
  • You use up a life if you don't get "Successfully Landed" message back at base or CV.
  • If you run out of lives, please be a gunner for a bomber or on a ship.
  • Deaths as gunners or LVT drivers do not use up lives.
  • Getting disconnected doesn't use up one of your lives as long as you get permission from Brooke to re-up.
• Armament:
  • Torpedo bombers (except from Shoho) may carry only torpedoes, not bombs or rockets, and may not rearm at Port Moresby area.
  • SBD's in VS squadrons may load only one 500 lb bomb.
  • SBD's in the VB squadrons may load only one 1000 lb bomb or one 500 lb bomb.
  • Fighters may not carry bombs.
  • F4F-4's may not carry drop tanks and must use the 4-gun option (to model F4F-3).
• Bases and CV's:
  • If you take off from a base or CV, you must land back at that base or CV (unless it is destroyed or unless it is near end frame).
• Other:
  • CV's must be heading east or southeast (or in between) to launch or retrieve aircraft.
• LVT's can be launched only near Port Moresby.
• There are special rules for scout pilots -- see below.

Map

Overhead view of Port Moresby (p13). Before troops can capture, you must destroy all of the buildings in the yellow boundaries, including the church and the water tower. All of the buildings in the yellow boundaries have a hardness of 100 lbs. For capture, get 20 troops into the map room. Note that for this port, the vechicle hangar and map room are in different places than for a typical Main Arena port. Examples of buildings that are destroyed and that are still up are indicated (the difference in appearance at distance is subtle, just as with normal town buildings).

For Command Staff (and any others interested):

Victory Conditions

Each side must pursue all objectives set forth by High Command. IJN objectives from Japanese High Command: (a) capture Port Moresby (unless invasion is cancelled); (b) sink the American aircraft carriers operating in the Coral Sea region. Allied objectives from allied High Command: (a) prevent the capture of Port Moresby; (b) sink the Japanese carriers operating in the Coral Sea region. As each side pursues those objectives, scoring is calculated as follows.

For frames 1 and 2, the above victory points are summed, and the victory for those two frames are determined as follows. Note that there is a strategic and tactical side to victory -- a side can win strategically yet lose tactically.

Then there is a side switch, the event is rerun for frames 3 and 4, and victory is judged as above.

For scoring purposes, a side's number of aircraft lost = deaths + bailed + captured + crashed + ditched + disco'd.

Forces

Each side can register up to 128 players.

Japanese Forces

IJN Task Groups

IJN and IJAAF Aircraft

* Notes, to enhance historical apsects:

• At Lae (a5), A6M2's and D3A1's are enabled only for frames 2 and 4.
• Ki-67 scouts must jetison bombs or torpedoes before takeoff, must retard throttle to use no more than 34" manifold pressure whenever indicated airspeed is above 175 mph (for example, pilot can use full power during autoclimbs, but generally will be at 34" otherwise).
• B5N2's from Zuikaku and Shokaku cannot carry bombs, only torpedoes. The B5N2's on Shoho can carry torpedoes or bombs.
• LVTA2's may not launch if invasion is cancelled -- see below.

US/Allied Forces

Allied Task Groups

USN and USAAF Aircraft

* Notes, to enhance historical aspects:

• At Port Moresby airfield (a3), P-39D's and SBD-5's are enabled only for frames 2 and 4.
• B-25C scouts must be glass-nose models and must jetison bombs before takeoff.
• TBM-3's may not carry bombs or rockets, only torpedoes.
• F4F-4's may not carry bombs or drop tanks. F4F-4's must use 4-gun option (to model them as F4F-3's).
• VS aircraft may carry only one 500 lb bomb.
• VB aircraft may carry only either one 1000 lb bomb or one 500 lb bomb.

Other Rules

Lives -- 2 for fighters, 3 for bombers. Fighter pilots get two lives. Bomber pilots get three lives. You use up a life if you get out of your plane and get anything other than a "landed successfully" message. I.e., you use up a life if you get killed, ditch, bail, or crash. Deaths in LVT's or as a gunner do not subtract from your lives.

Land back at your home base or CV. Aircraft launched from a base or CV must land back at that base or CV. In the final 30 minutes of the frame (after disengagement has been called), land-based aircraft can land at any friendly base, and CV-based aircraft can land at any friendly base or CV.

If your base or CV is destroyed. If your home base or CV is destroyed, land-based aircraft can land at any Allowed Base, and CV-based aircraft can land at any Allowed Base or CV, and that becomes your home base or CV. "Allowed Base" means, for allied forces, a3 (Port Moresby) or a4 (Australia), and for Japanese forces, a5 (Lae) or a17 (New Britain). If your base or CV is destroyed before you can launch, you can pick any other Allowed Base or CV to be your home base or CV, and you must obey any restrictions on aircraft launching from that base (i.e., not all planes are available from all locations -- take whatever is the closest to what you were in and obey the rules for flying this new plane, such as what ord you can or cannot load).

Rearming. All aircraft are able to exit and relaunch at their home airfields. Other than that, they may rearm only as follows.

Drop LVT's near Port Moresby. The IJN may land LVT's only if launching from sectors 5.11, 5.12, 6.11, or the southwest corner of 6.12 (i.e., on the southern side of the peninsula, as much farther than that would entail marching through more than 25 miles of jungle and possibly mountains).

CV's must turn into the wind. CV's must turn to a heading of east or southeast or anything in between to launch planes or to retrieve them.

Scouts. Scouts get 3 lives (same as bombers). Scout duty can be a single mission or multiple lives worth -- depends on your CO's orders. Scout pilots can fly divebombers or torpedo bombers for remaining lives (if any). Scouts can't carry bombs, rockets, or torpedoes. Scout planes will be allowed to launch at Show-Up Time -- about 30 minutes in advance of everyone else. If a scout pilot is done scouting for the day and is clear of enemies, he may ditch his plane in the ocean rather than fly all the way back to his home base. This will give the enemy a point for the aircraft, but it will not subtract from the scout-pilot's available lives. If the scout is shot down, bails, or crashes, it does subtract from his available lives.

Capture and troops. p13 (the port of Port Moresby) is the capture target. To capture it, the IJN must destroy the indicated buildings (see picture above) and get 20 troops into p13's map room. If there are any of the indicated buildings up, the troops won't take at the map room (like trying to capture an airfield when not all town buildings are down). The buildings have hardness of 100 lbs each (so the 50 kg bombs from a D3A1 will take out buildings, a 250 kg bomb will take out a radius of buildings, buildings are strafable, and shells from 8" naval guns will take out buildings). The vehicle hangar is tougher with a hardness of 1000 lbs.

Fleet placement and movement. Task groups must start in the areas designated on the map in frames 1 and 3 (which represents dawn on May 7). Between frames, to simulate night movement, task groups may move up to 50 miles (in movement through the sea, not across land) from where they ended the last frame. (Shoho was spotted in 10.13.2 on May 6, and Lexington and Yorktown were spotted in 12.8.9 on May 6.) The IJN must keep the Covering Group (Shoho's task group) and the Invasion Group (various other cruiser, destroyer, transport, etc. task groups) all within 25-35 miles of each other -- call this overall group of ships the "Invasion Force".

Damage. Any objects destroyed will stay destroyed for the frame. Any ships sunk in frame 1 (or 3) will not be available for frame 2 (or 4). Otherwise, ships and bases repair all of their damage from one frame to the next.

Shore batteries. Port Moresby has three shore batteries. They look exactly like the hard shore batteries in the Main Arena, but on this terrain, they will have a hardness of 100 lbs. I.e., regardless of their appearance, they represent open-topped artillery positions.

Invasion cancelled. If Port Moresby is not already captured and if either of the two following conditions are met, the invasion is cancelled, and the IJN may no longer capture Port Moresby. Contidion 1: the Shoho is sunk and two Invasion Force cruisers are sunk. Condition 2: the Shoho is sunk, another IJN carrier is sunk, and the USN has at least one carrier still in operation.

Early victory. If either side loses all of its carriers in frame 1 (or 3), a special following frame will be run. This rerun will not affect the scoring of the scenario, but the CM team will tally up the points for the special frame so that people can see how it turned out. If the US loses all of its carriers in frame 1 (or 3) and if invasion has not already been cancelled, the IJN will get credit for capture of Port Moresby. If the IJN loses all of its carriers in frame 1 (or 3) and if Port Moresby is not already captured, the US will get credit for denying capture of Port Moresby. For the special frame, the battle will be restarted with fresh fleets and reset field ownership, the goals remain the same (i.e., sink enemy CV's and IJN goes for Port Moresby), but the following will be the starting zones:

For the CO and XO. The CO and XO of each side get three lives and can fly any assortment of available aircraft (except that there cannot be more than 6 scouts used by a side total) until they are out of lives.

Settings

Terrain. coralsea.

Wind. 0 mph at 0-2k altitude, 20 mph from 2k altitude on up, heading east-to-west.

Icon. Short range (.icon 1).

Clouds. In the Weather Front Area (which is a weather system in the allied area during frames 1 and 3 and in IJN area in frames 2 and 4 -- see map), there is cirrus at 40k, altostratus at 20k, and scattered cumulus/rain squalls from sea level to 10k. On the boarders of the Weather Front Area (from border to 25 miles out), there is cirrus (at 40k) and either altostratus (at 20k) or sparsely scattered cumulus (at 9k). Farther away from the Weather Front Area, there is cirrus (at 40k) and sparsely scattered cumulus (at 9k). Thus the boundary marked as "Weather Front Area" on the map shows the borders of the low cumulus/squalls.

Radar and Sector Counters. No radar or sector counters for IJN. Tower radar for Lexington and Yorktown, 25 mile radius.

Time. The cockpit and tower clocks will be set so that Takeoff Time (T) is 6 am in the game. Time multiplier will be set to 4. Thus, the frame will start at sunrise (6 am), disengagement will be called at sunset (6 pm), and planes must be down by 8 pm.

All other settings are the default settings listed here: http://ahevents.org/images/stories/scenarios_images/defaultSettingDocument/defaultArenaSettings.html

For CM's:

CM Reference

Hardness for ships.

Torpedo equivalent damage = 4650 lbs
Carrier hardness = ObjectHardnessMults[SHP] x 6750 lbs
Cruiser hardness = ObjectHardnessMults[SHP] x (Ship Hardness) x 1000 lbs
Destroyer hardness = cruiser hardness

Destroy Objects.

• We use c32, 33, 34, 35; c52, 53, 54, 55, 56 -- and not any other task groups.
• Destroy the other task groups:
  • ".det f42shp 1"
  • do this for 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 (i.e., the rook task groups)
  • do this for 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 (i.e., the unused bishop task groups)
  • do this for 57, 58, 59, 60, 61 (i.e., the unused knight task groups)
• In frames 2 and 4, destroy ships that were not alive at end of previous frame.
• Destroy the 5" manned guns and 40 mm guns (BAA and BAT) at the used task groups; restore the 8" guns (baa00c, 00d, and 00e):
  • ".det f32baa 1", ".det f32bat 1", ".restore f32baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e).
  • ".det f33baa 1", ".det f33bat 1", ".restore f33baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
  • ".det f34baa 1", ".det f34bat 1", ".restore f34baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
  • ".det f35baa 1", ".det f35bat 1", ".restore f35baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
  • ".det f52baa 1", ".det f52bat 1", ".restore f52baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
  • ".det f53baa 1", ".det f53bat 1", ".restore f53baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
  • ".det f54baa 1", ".det f54bat 1", ".restore f54baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
  • ".det f55baa 1", ".det f55bat 1", ".restore f55baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
  • ".det f56baa 1", ".det f56bat 1", ".restore f56baa00c 1" (and 00d, 00e)
• Destroy the following cv's and dd's:
  • ".det f34shp000 1"
  • ".det f35shp000 1"
  • ".det f53shp004 1"
  • ".det f55shp000 1"
  • ".det f56shp000 1"
• Destroy the radar at all bishop bases except c32 and c33 (".det f03rdr 1" and so on).

MOTD. The following can be copy and pasted to use as the MOTD, with appropriate number for frame number.

Welcome to the scenario Coral Sea 2009!

Show up at or before 3 pm Eastern Time to play.

If you are not registered, you are welcome to play,
but please change to country Rook,
go to p25 tower, and type on channel 200,
"Walkon requesting assignment."

If you need back in and the arena is locked, please
enter ".p Brooke let me in" into a radio text buffer
such as from the Main Arena. Try getting into the
arena thereafter even if the games says the arena
is locked -- the screen doesn't update quickly.
Once in, type ".p Brooke i'm in".

Allies = Bishops
Axis = Knights
walkons = Rook

CM checklist. Prior to Start Time:

• Announce to players to remind CM if he doesn't announce "logs started".
• Load terrain.
• Rotate countries if needed. Make sure axis fields are Knight, allied fields are Bishop. (country order 3,2,1)
• Load tables.
• Change field ownership if needed.
• Set MOTD.
• Check that correct planes are enabled at correct fields -- make sure ground guns are enabled everywhere. Save if any changes done.
• Check arena variables and resave all the non-default ones. Save if any changes done.
• Set object settings.
• Destroy any objects needed (various guns, radar, task groups).
• Set .icon.
• Set wind.
• Remember to do .startlog before takeoffs.
• Get walkon field number for axis and allies.
• Remember ".vset locked 0" unlocks arena.

Timing Table

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Coral_Sea
http://www.michael-reimer.com/CFS2/CFS2_Profiles/PTO_Allies_USN_CV-02_Lexington.html
http://www.michael-reimer.com/CFS2/CFS2_Profiles/PTO_Allies_USN_CV-05_Yorktown.html
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/2-pacific-theater-operations/f4f-4-wildcat-13-vf-3-w-n-leonard-uss-yorktown-battle-midway-group-build-18091-2.html
http://detailsite.tripod.com/CV2_afteraction_report_5.8.42.htm
http://www.ibiblio.net/hyperwar///USN/ships/logs/CV/cv5-Coral-prelim.html
http://www.ibiblio.net/hyperwar///USN/ships/logs/CV/cv2-Coral.html
http://vf2.org/history.aspx
http://www.microworks.net/PACIFIC/battles/coral_sea.htm -- concise list of ships
http://books.google.com/books?id=tfLTKzIM99IC&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=shoho+carrier&source=bl&ots=hFTz6hNzha&sig=g_DgU9qeg_0Y00QuICbLH8ZCufU&hl=en&ei=LawXSqLkD5HgsgPTu9SSDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6 -- list of japanese aircraft on the various ships
[1] The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway, by John B. Lundstrom. Excellent reference!

Credits

Original scenario design: SlvrFox and the 327th Steel Talons

Modifications: the Scenario Team

Terrain: Dux

Team Alpha CO: Oneway (1way)

Team Zulu CO: Gpwurzel (gwurzel)

Game-day CM: Brooke and Newman

Writeup: Brooke