A friend and I tried out a smaller operational scenario in Coral Sea today. Covered a 4 day period starting with the Japanese invading Tulagi and sending another invasion force to Port Moresby while the American carriers were coming up from Espirito Santo.
The Yanks found the Japanese transports off the coast of Tulagi and SBDs from the Yorktown and Lexington blew the hell out of them. Japanese spotting planes from Gasmata located a combined US/ Aussie task force of cruisers and destroyers and B5N2 Kate torpedo bombers were sent out just before dusk. They managed to sink the Chicago but lost several bombers in the process. Japanese I-boats attempted to hit the remaining cruisers during the night but failed to find them in the darkness.
Next morning, Japanese bombers from Lae, Kavieng, and Rabaul launched a series of strikes over the Owen Stanley mountains at Port Moresby. They managed to inflict moderate damage to the runway and port facilities but the P39s on CAP took down a lot of G3M Nells.
American PBYs spotted the main Japanese task force consisting of the carriers Zuikaku and Shokaku and their escorts but misidentified them as escort carriers. They also spotted the escort carrier task force of the Shoho and escort but send an incomplete report informing the US admiral only that a large task carrier task force consisting of 10+ ships had been spotted. The Americans launched massive strikes from the Yorktown and Lexington against this group, ignoring the main task force. They also sent a small force of SBDs to attack the few remaining ships of the Tulagi invasion force.
Japanese floatplanes from the Kinugasa Maru floatplane tender located the Yorktown carrier group as well as the Lexington. They were able to radio back accurate information about the Yorktown but were shot down by the Lex's cap before they could relay location information.
The Zuikaku and Shokaku launched combined strikes against the Yorktown while the Shoho sent a small force of torpedo bombers against the US/Aussie cruiser group.
The Japanese struck first. One flight consisting of D3A Val dive bombers and Zero escort failed to find the target at all and returned home. The second wave of Vals and escort were intercepted by the Yorktown's CAP and became quite dispersed. AAA threw them into further disarray and their attack only managed to damage 2 cruiser escorts. It did manage to disperse the US CAP allowing two waves of Kate torpedo bombers free passage to the heart of the task force. AAA managed to knock down a few bombers but the carrier ended up taking 6 torpedoes, sinking her.
The SBD's managed to sink the last of the APDs and transports attacking Tulagi, thereby preventing the island from falling into Japanese hands but that was the only real success the Americans were to have. Half their flights failed to locate the Shoho group. Those that did were shredded by the Zeroes on CAP. The SBDs sank 2 destroyers and lightly damaged a cruiser before being driven off.
The confirmation that the US had multiple carriers in the region was enough to convince Admiral Hara to cancel the Pt. Morseby invasion force and recall it to Rabaul however.
We decided to end the scenario there. The Japanese were ahead on points due to the sinking of the Yorktown but could not complete the scenario objectives due to the loss of one invasion force and the recall of the other.
Fun game! Fiddly and with some poorly designed sheets and data cards but very tense. I really like the cat-and-mouse search phase and I especially like the fact that your spotting planes will send back exaggerated, partially, or fully incorrect sighting report data. Makes you really second guess yourself when committing air strikes.
