Nice!
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Imperial Japan does absolutely not agree with my presence on Rennell. They fiercely patrol the waters between the Solomon islands and Rennell. I donāt have the oppertunity to think about offensives myself. I have my hands full keeping the Japanese busy to keep them from thinking about stepping a foot on my island. With the devs keeping their word and fixing the carrier and airplane issues within the day I find myself back in the Pacific to fend off all these attacks.
Itās patrols like these that harass me constantly. I imagine some of these, like this kuma class, can hold quite a few troops (all warships can hold troops for invasions and occupation). Iām trying to keep them away from my coasts using air attacks. I rely on the fighters stationed at Rennell to scout out the surface combatants, relying on Avengers and Dauntless aircraft from the Hornet to engage and keep them at bay. Occasionally, I can bring a long range patrol from New Hebrides into the fight. However their flight time is so long that fights are long over before they get there. I have hopes that someday theyāll be in a good position just as I have a good fix on some bad guys in the Coral or Solomon seas.
Another fine day for dive bombing. The guys up front are looking like very juicy targets. These guys have been trying to harass and chase the carrier task force, which I am answering in kind for the first time. As I am getting closer I am starting to realize what Iām actually up against. Itās the legendary Yamato battleship in what the game tells me is her 1942 configuration. Rather than dividing the targets, I am organising my planes into 3 fights that will attack in rapid succession, within seconds after each other.
The waves coming in, some already damaged on the way down but steadfast in their attack.
Good hits! I think I had somewhere between 8-10 hits with only a handful of misses. Looking back at the carnage going for a bigger spread would have been better but I opted for centre mass to increase the hit probability.
The attack started large fires amidship. But the captain makes a fatal flaw while trying to perform damage control. It appears as if she is trying to flee the carnage which is useless considering she is well within range of my carrier wings. By doing so, she is introducing a ton of wind over her deck, causing the flames to spread aft and eventually finding their way below decks where they made their way front as well. While I couldnāt stick around to watch her go down, the post-battle briefing told me she burned out and sank. There were still plenty of ships remaining, though. And I had big, long-ranged friends around that I wanted to put to the test.
B-17Fās all the way from New Hebredis. I was torn by thinking about from what altitude they should bomb. The lower they were the more likely to hit but also to be hit. I left things at default altitude.
I wonā¦ but at what cost? The lives for crew of a bomber for those on the cruiser.
On the long journey home I came across another one of those pesky scouts that keep tracking my carrier. This one ventured close to check my bombers but probably didnāt take the gunners into account!
Happy with their performance in the first round, I brought my B-17ās back for more and they also found themselves a real juicy target. The one of a kind Japanese battleship KongÅ. I lined up my bombers and hoping for plenty of hits with their 2000lbs bombs.
No losses this time, and still plenty of hits.
KongÅ burned hard and went down fast.
I also picked up this trick from the Japenese. I now have some tambors in the region to harass and do upon them what they tried upon me. I only scored one hit with this attack though, andā¦
He proved to be an angry fellow! I didnāt realize how big he was until he got so close. Luckily I managed to sneak away in the dark depths. Please donāt mind the cavitation. As soon as the propellers spin they produce cavitation in War on the Sea. Like I said, we may have gained some width with this game, but we lost some depth compared to Cold Waters.
Another fine day for torpedo bombing between Rennell and the Solomonsā¦
Produce of a hard days work as seen through the binos of one of the pilots.
At this point aircraft losses started mounting up, and small damages started piling up on most of my ships. I decided to pull the whole task force back for repairs, sending in a new and bigger one centered around the USS Enterprise as a replacement. As of now, these guys are still en route.
6 Likes
Wow, impressive game!
That thing about the wind that worsened the fire is real or wishful thinking?
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Thatās real. At least its explained in the manual and the damage control tutorial so Iām assuming its real 
The fires did spread after all.
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Absolute brilliance!
Thanks!
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Nothing fancyā¦ just a few clips from some battle action. Iāll learn the details later, just enjoying watching the action play outā¦
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Am I missing something? Where are the sub missionsā¦ I only see the one in the tutorial. Not one in the list of single missions.
Single missions is not where this game shines. In campaign, they rock. Especially when combined with some planes for spotting and DD suppression.
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I played one in the list of single missions, but I canāt recall what it is called. It was IJN sub against USN cruisers, though.
Haha thanks Chuck.
Donāt worry, science has showed since WotSā release with much relief that our games are very different despite their seemingly common setting. They offer a complementary experience, and can provide fun in parallel for different reasons, at different levels.
Well, at least itās true for that one - ours is not out there just yet, and actually still rather far on the horizon, so donāt hesitate to hurt yourself with one more PTO strategy game. You might actually enjoy it 
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Thank you Sryan for your support & your fair assessment
I might want to object here though. I donāt want to throw poo at anybody in there, but this is just plainly incomparable I am afraid. I wouldnāt release a dynamic campaign if it meant releasing that sort of campaign - which might fit just right the gameplay of WotS, but would be a far cry from our expectations in terms of historicity & realism. Youāre basically invading Guadalcanal with 15 ships, thereās zero C3i, carriers carry 40 planes, searches cannot be assigned, patrol boxes cannot be drawn, troops are loaded/unloaded instantaneously, and so are airfield builtā¦
I am sorry but the day Iāll be making that very same campaign - for, if our game delivers, we will - it will be something else entirely, much closer to a real time War in the Pacific than its Killerfish cousin
Just felt it would be useful to make this tiny precision, sorry for intruding.
Cheers!
4 Likes
I think you hit the shortcomings on the head Amiral. Now that I had a weekend to play it properly I agree with your observations and find many other small shortcomings and abstractions, such as the consequenceless loss of ground based aircraft and supply and fuel not being exactly what I hoped it would be. They are just resources for construction. Still, I had quite some fun playing the battles and I can play this to turn the tide over to the day we finally get our hands on TFA and sea power.
I hope the day will come that we get our hands on something like that.
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Playing War on the Sea has made me more eager to see Task Force Admiral come out, for its more detailed handling of sea and air ops.
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Oh well in all honesty @Sryan I wouldnāt really call them shortcomings myself - they fit a certain original gameplay concept and keep the overall balance relevant. It just so happens that it is not the player experience I am looking for in that regard, but to each his own, and I can certainly understand why it resonates with many people out there. On the tactical level, as you say, fun is guaranteed and it is a great achievement we will have to work hard to equal, especially without imitating it
Cheers!
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Iām really loving it. Only thing that bugs me atm is that IJN subs are impossible to detect, even with active sonar. Probably a bug.
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Welcome to MudSpike!!
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They sure are hard to find indeed.
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They are hard to find indeed. In the sensor tab I saw that virtually all active sonars in the game have a range of just 1nm, so you already have to be kinda close to use it. I noticed that sonars improve dramatically in performance if the vessel using it is slower than 15 knots. It seems that other subs are very good at detecting enemy subs ( I even managed to drop depth charges on an a sub using planes this way). If the sea-state is bad (5+) it seems subs are impossible to find.
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Any thoughts on the state of the game a few months on? I hear the updates have been pretty good?
Iām wondering the same.