War Plan Orange

Fleet Action in the Pacific 1936

 

I wanted to try out the Find, Fix and Strike rules with a larger action so I got the 1/6000 War Plan Orange fleets out. I was going to be sensible and keep it to about 6 capital ships a side with a handful of light forces, but in the end I just got my big bucket of ships out and poured them onto the table. Go big or go home.

Working from the lists in ODGW's Sudden Storm, I gave the Japanese all 10 battleships of the First Fleet in 3 divisions, along with 2 CA divisions, 1 CL division, and 4 DD divisions. The US had 14 BBs in 5 divisions, 2 CL divisions and 4 DD divisions.

To help identification, and to avoid having to constantly refer to a stats sheet, I made up some divisional markers printed on thin card, to be placed on the table next to the models. These show the name of the division and all the ships in it, and all the stats in a compact and hopefully readable form. They also have spaces for each ship's torpedo launchers and float planes, so they can be marked off when used or destroyed. For now I'm using the ship stats as provided in the rules, the only difference being that long range torpedoes can fire out to 14" with a 4" spread, instead of the usual 25"/6".

I decided it was best to ignore floatplanes for now. With almost every ship having 2-3 planes, trying to track them all just isn't practical. In fact I'd intended to have no aircraft ops at all, but I did end up throwing some in toward the end just to try them out. At setup though, I'm assuming the weather is just bad enough to preclude air ops but not bad enough to slow down DDs - yes, I know that's ridiculous but I wanted the light forces to be useful! I also included some randomly placed rain squalls - 4-6" ovals which drift 1D3" downwind each turn and block LOS.

US approaching from the E (top), IJN arriving from the western edge (bottom). Wind is from NW. Visibilty is 18,000 yards.

The Kongo class fast battleships of Sentai 3 form the van of the Japanese line.

US Main Battle Force in line of division columns.

The fleets deploy.

IJN cruisers launch long range torpedoes at the US van.

Light forces exchange torpedo fire.

The battle lines engage.

IJN battle line viewed from the south.

After many turns of pounding away, the Japanese line holds while the US retreat in disorder, with their light forces laying smoke.

The US destroyers are slowly whittled down by the advancing Japanese cruisers, with the battleships following up.

At this point it was pretty much game over, but I thought I'd try and get my head round the air rules. The weather clears up and aircraft from Saratoga, Lexington and Ranger arrive: 6 flights of SBU divebombers, 6 TG-2 torpedo bombers, and 6 escorting F3F flights. At the same time 6 flights of Japanese A4N fighters arrive from the Ryujo and Hosho to fly CAP over the fleet.

The cavalry are here!

IJN fighters flying CAP.

All but 2 planes are driven off or destroyed by Japanese fighters and AA fire. The divebombers target Ise, but do no appreciable damage.

A sprawling dogfight as the A4Ns chase the retreating strike planes, hotly pursued by the American F3Fs. Actually they're all Fairey Swordfish and Gloster Gladiators, but ssshh, don't tell anyone.

Thoughts and stuff

I had a blast playing this, even though it was really just a kickabout to get a proper feel for the rules.

I'm glad I took the time to make the divisional name/marker thingies - I felt they were a definite success. It's great having all the information you need right there next to the unit, and they make identifying 1/6000 ships much easier. It made the whole thing feel a bit like a monster board-wargame without the hexes, and with little model ships instead of counters. The overall visual impression feels somewhere between the the perspective of a reconnaissance plane circling the battle, and a plotting table at the Naval War College.

I love this ground scale (1"=1000 yards, or 1/36000) with 1/6000 models, and managed, just, to fit everything on a 6'x4' table, albeit with a couple of scrolls northwards. I'd have been hard pushed to get many more divisions on the table, and I am quietly eyeing up the space I have and thinking about squeezing in a bigger table. (Don't tell the missus I said that). I would love to be able to deploy all the cruiser and DD formations of both fleets, rather than the small selection I used here, and use the light forces as they were intended: en masse.

Lots of work to do in terms of tweaking stats and so on, but I feel like FF&S are the rules I'll end up using for fleet actions and campaigns in this period.

Just in case you're interested, here are some YouTube links for more info -

Lecture by Dr John Kuehn on naval innovation in the interwar period:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz7DcC3Brp8

Evolution of War Plan Orange by Peter Pellegrino (wargame designer at the US Naval War College):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXal8JUqAfQ

An overview of actual rules, maps and components used by the Naval War College:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmTy8kBB76U