From: Markus Stumptner <mst@dbai.tuwien.ac.

at>
Subject: Updated PW Files

These are the house rules our group uses to play Pacific War. They
are divided into three sections. Section I deals with important
alterations that we consider necessary for play. Section II deals
with "chrome" rules and optional rules. Section III lists rules that
others came up with, and which we use.

I. NECESSARY ALTERATIONS

Over time, our playings of the campaign game have uncovered some
issues in the Pacific War campaign game that directly influence the validity
of the game as a historical simulation. The result is that we now play the
game in an improved version that incorporates several house rules, and
this has greatly increased our enjoyment in what was already a top
product originally. The changes we made satisfy five (to us)
important criteria:

- they correct loopholes in the rules which reward strongly

ahistorical behavior by players
- they are SHORT
- there is no increase in playing time or recordkeeping
- been tested using multiple scenarios and partial campaign games
(although the two campaign games we started after most of the
changes were introduced have not progressed into the second half of
the war yet)
- they are cautious, i.e., whenever there was a discussion whether
the alteration was sufficient, we chose to err on the side closer to
the original design.
- they are significant, i.e., they are not mere chrome, but exercise a
direct influence on the strategic planning of the players (with the
naval combat rule being the exception).

The last remark does not mean that we feel the game is not good unless
it has been significantly altered, but that unless an alteration was
significant, it was better to leave the original alone. If it ain't
broke, don't fix it. Note that the first rule change below (which is
clearly the most momentous one) is in our opinion also the one most
needed to give the full campaign (the Strategic Scenarios) more
historical accuracy.

The section below presents the rules. The historical (and game-related)
rationale for the rules follows afterwards.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Rule changes

1. Ground Unit Movement (19L-7): During battle cycles, ground units

can only move once per week. The player can choose in which
particular battle cycle to move. Contact phase movement does not
count against this limit. Each unit can only be involved in combat as
attacker once per week (on the first turn when the standard conditions
for combat apply). Unloading *and* loading a ground unit in one week
or vice versa is allowed if no ground combat occurs in between. An
empty installation is considered overrun even if a ground unit
ends its move in the hex via naval movement but does not unload.

In addition, each player can move one division by railroad movement

(that is, by continuous movement along roads or clear hexes) inside
India, between Rangoon and China, and in Australia south of Cairns
during the Strategic Transport Phase.
Note: weeks are already kept track of on the Time Display by the Op
End markers. Only the first week of an operation is not marked on the
track by an explicit marker. We use the inverted Penalty time marker
for this purpose.

Note also that the rule does not limit combat in a hex to happen once
per week. After a unit has attacked in a hex, a new force of the same
side (that has not attacked this week) that enters the hex will still
have the choice to attack or deactivate in the next ground combat
phase. The unit that attacked previously will not take part in the
attack.

Finally, note that the requirements for movement and combat are
independent, i.e., a unit that starts a week in a hex with an enemy,
attacks, and remains alone in the hex after combat, can still move in
that week (although it cannot initiate combat again before next week
even if it should move into another enemy-held hex). During the first
month at least, we've found it advantageous to put markers on them
(choose any from any other game), since there's more going on at the
same time than in any later month. The increase in the fumble factor
is offset by the fact that now you don't move or attack so often.
In general though we haven't found using the markers a necessity.

2. Air strikes against ports and fortresses (27L-4). Air attacks on

ports and fortresses are not made on the AIR VS INSTALLATION line of
the Air/Naval Combat Results Table, but on the AIR VS GROUND UNIT
line. For the purpose of these attacks, a 'T' result is interpreted
as '1', '1' as '2', '2' as '3'. Attacks on air bases and OSB's ("soft
installations") use the AIR VS INSTALLATION line. During the first
operation of the Strategic Scenario, the AIR VS INSTALLATION line is
also used against the Allied port which is the target of Special Rule
6. (the "Pearl Harbor" attack) to simulate the special surprise
conditions. The Singapore fortress is rated as having 10 steps
instead of 3 and is rated 2-4-10 for gunnery.

3. Special 4E bomber effects:

Any 4E air unit attacking a ground unit uses its NAVAL rating instead
of its ground rating.

The range of 4E air units does not increase from 20 to 26 hexes in

June 1942 (as specified by Special Rule 7 of the Strategic Scenario).
Instead, it increases by 2 hexes to 22 and by 2 hexes every June
thereafter (i.e., it reaches the maximum of 26 hexes in June 1944).

4. Submarine Combat (23R-2). ASW-capable units can screen against

submarine attacks.

After the submarine player has rolled to determine the number of

actual attacks and assigned a target to each eligible attack, the
owning player can use each ASW-capable unit in a TF attacked to screen
against one attack. Not more than one unit can screen against one
attack (but if multiple escorts are present, each can screen against a
separate attack).

The success of the screening is checked by rolling against the unit's

ASW rating). A 'hit' result means that attack does not take place,
but no damage marker is placed on the submarine. ASW combat is
performed normally after all submarine attacks have been executed (or
averted).

Damage and ASW strength: The ASW value of a DD or DE unit does not
decrease with every hit. Rather, it decreases by 1 when the unit has
suffered 3 hits, and again when the unit has suffered 5.
5. Task force organization and target selection in naval surface
combat.

No unit other than a DD or DE may be placed in the screen of a task

force unless no DE or DD is in the core of the task force. AA's (but
not APD's) and all CV, CVL, CVE, CVS, and ST units must *always* be in
the core of a Task Force.

In naval combat, all screen units must be placed on the Naval Display
before any core units are placed.

The following restrictions apply to target selection for naval

gunfire:
- Only BB's and BC's may fire at BB's at long range.
- Only CA's, BB's, and BC's may fire at BB's at medium range, or
at CA's, BC's, CV's, and US CL's at long range.
- DD's cannot use gunfire against BB's at any range.
- CA's, BB's, and BC's firing at DD's and APD's at night have their
gunnery rating reduced by 1.

Note: There are no such restrictions on torpedo targeting.

6. All submarines except for the STO submarine cannot search (not even
in their own hex). QSubmarines including the STO submarine cannot
search on the first turn of the Strategic Scenario.

7. Airfield construction. Airfield construction cannot be aborted by

breaking the constructing engineer unit. Airfield construction is
aborted by gaining the requisite five hits on the airfield under
construction, UNLESS the constructing player pays another 2 (Japanese
player) or 4 (Allied player) command points immediately. If the CP's
are paid, the damage markers are removed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion
----------

1. The rule on moving units only once per week basically drops ground
unit movement during battle cycles to a quarter of the original value.
This is a drastic change that we introduced because it became obvious
to us that the ahistoric rapidity of ground movement strongly skewed
play in the Strategic Scenarios (although our playings of Campaign
scenarios have also profited from the change).

Consider the following situation (describing the actual December 15

battle cycle of one of our Strategic Scenarios).

- The Japanese have broken through the mountains near Imphal into
India, with a single half-strength quality 5 division blocking their
way into Calcutta.

- Manila has fallen in the first week of December.

- Singapore has been interdicted (by two bomber attacks on December 9

and 11). There are no Japanese units in Malaya except one 5 TQ
division blocking the Isthmus.

- The Central Pacific HQ has been interdicted. Enterprise has been

sunk (on turn 4, despite the fact that she started running away on the
first turn of the game). The initial Pearl Harbor attack went in
against the submarines, two more turns interdicted the port.

All of these were achieved with Japanese forces activated for a

three-week operation (basically, 83 points worth of units), with
several battle cycles left to complete the conquest of the cities in
India. They are good, but not exceptional. In other words: Mainland
India has a good chance of falling in December (experiments showed
that at least three Chinese armies must be activated to slow the
Japanese down enough to have a chance to prevent this from
happening). The campaign on Luzon (which historically took till April)
is finished in December. Burma and mainland India fall into Japanese
hands in December, and there are command points left to try attacks on
Mindanao, Sumatra, Rabaul, and alternately Dutch Harbor or even
Noumea. ABDA HQ and Malaya fall in January. If Malaya were attacked
in December, it would also fall within a month, as even the designer
himself agrees. But India is of course a better target.

In theory, the chance of being deactivated following a failed combat

result might be considered sufficient to slow the Japanese down in
their conquests. Especially at the beginning of the game though,
their numerical and TQ advantages, together with the ability to use
their armor brigades on Luzon, in Malaya, and all through Burma right
to Imphal and onto the Indian plain allow the Japanese to keep their
offensives going, even with average dierolling. These amazing results
are also not the result of the defenders' inexperience. Our group
includes seven people with a total experience of about 9 to 10 (at
least partially) played Strategic Scenarios. And second, the
historical Japanese successes are generally credited as amazing by
historians. Yet, they took months instead of weeks. Why (apart from
the fact that the players in the game have a somewhat better knowledge
of their opponent's initial positions) such a huge difference?

[Note: I am aware that a Pacific War "Day" does not correspond directly
to a calendar day. For the following discussion, this is not a problem
as it deals with movement over the span of a whole month, so the
variations are covered.]

The first reason is that a ground unit in Pacific War can effectively
advance at a pace of 300 miles per battle cycle - this exceeds the
best efforts of the German Wehrmacht in France and Russia, but here we
are dealing with a mostly infantry force advancing on jungle roads.
There is also a full move in the contact phase. To illustrate the
point, the following table gives some rough estimates of the pure
movement ability of a typical Japanese infantry unit for three
different games: Operation Cannibal (on the Burma theatre), Singapore
(on the fall of Malaya), and Pacific War. The Operation Cannibal
numbers assume relatively good weather and average chitpulls. It is
assumed that no combat occurs. The Pacific War examples assume a
two-week operation with a 6-step (2-day) contact phase (leaving 6
battle cycles) and a three-week operation with a six-day (17-step)
contact phase, leaving 8 battle cycles (this is easily sufficient for
the initial operations in the game).

| in jungle | on roads |
-------------+--------------+---------------------+
Op Cannibal | 400 mi/month | 1000-1200 mi/month |
Singapore | 170 mi/month | 512 mi/month |
PW 2 weeks | 1400 miles | 2100 miles |
PW 3 weeks | 1800 miles | 2700 miles |

It will be noted that even if combat slows the Japanese in Pacific War
down by half, they are still far too fast. Even if only mixed terrain
(the worst that occurs on the PW map apart from impassable mountains)
were present, this would reduce the totals to 700 miles and 900 miles,
respectively - still far more in 2-3 weeks than the two
operational-level games allow in a month.

The second problem is supply. Historically, the Japanese had

significant problems in pushing beyond Rangoon - they needed to
reorganize their supply network, and their last offensive into India
basically was expected to feed itself on captured stores. In Pacific
War, this is theoretically represented through the activation
mechanism, but given the ground movement rates (which let an infantry
division outrace a transport ship!), a division that starts December
1941 in Indochina can move into Thailand, attack into Burma, and push
on into India, all in one month, still running on the two command
points that were originally spent on it over a thousand miles away.

Why was movement designed the way it was? It appears that despite the
thorough playtesting (which involved multiple full campaigns), the
development of the game did not experiment with a Japanese strategy
that ignored Malaya to get at India early on. This is excusable given
the effort that was obviously spent on the game and the strangeness of
the strategy, but the strategy works - for very "gamey" reasons, and
now that the problem has been found, it needs fixing.

And the effect of the new rule? The reduced pace on land produced by
the change is amazingly historical. The theoretical top speed of
marching infantry is still fairly fast (900 miles in a two-week
operation on roads), so there is no risk of falling below historical
advance rates, but we have a fourfold reduction over the original
"jet-powered" land units with a very simple rule. The pace of the
game overall is not actually slower, since naval operations still
proceed without change. The reduction in combat frequency also means
that supply is spent in more direct proportion to the number of
attacks one can attempt with a unit. One-hex island battles now can
approach their historical duration unless the attacker gets some
"rout" (i.e., very good) ground combat results. Ultimately the slower
movement slows the Japanese down in the beginning of the game, and
will slow the Allies down during the Japanese collapse (which went
extremely fast with the original rules, too - now, with four attacks
per month, there should be some prolonged fights over well-defended
islands, lasting more than a month just as the real thing). It should
be noted though that we have not tested the rule for the last two
years of the war yet - the campaign games we have started since we
introduced the rule some months ago have not progressed far enough yet
due to external time constraints (read, we've got a life).
Nonetheless, we consider it a drastic improvement. The reason for the
exceptions is to still provide a limited rapid transport capability
behind the front, and to avoid too much of a slowdown for amphibious
operations.

Rule 2 (reducing the effectiveness of air attacks on ports and

fortresses). This rule was introduced because it proved too easy to
interdict headquarters with airpower alone - the Malaya headquarters in
Singapore was previously routinely interdicted entirely by airpower in
our games (2 attacks by three 2E planes are usually sufficient). The
same will be done to Japanese ports in the second half of the
Strategic scenario, again far too easily. Why spend effort on the
Japanese merchant marine when you can simply interdict any port that
contains a Japanese HQ with B-24 attacks in a few turns?

With the change, it's still quite possible to take a port out by air,
but it requires some effort. Note that historically, the Japanese
bombarded Rangoon throughout December 1941, and the port was a shambles,
but reinforcements were still arriving by "strategic transport" - the
same goes for Singapore in late January (actually, the British fed
reinforcements in virtually up to its fall - so obviously the Japanese
were not able to interdict the port).

The Singapore fortress got an extra upgrade because its installations

(10 battleship-caliber guns, 40 8" guns, and still more smaller ones)
warranted it. The IJN treated Singapore with respect. When playing
PW with the original 3-step fortress, a couple of CA units plus
destroyers were often able to take out the fortress and Force Z within
a single naval combat. Mark Herman's justification for this was that
the land-based guns were at a disadvantage when fighting ships - but
all my reading indicates that while land-based artillery made for
nonmoving targets, it also made for far more stable gun platforms with
better rangefinding equipment - and you had to take every emplacement
out by itself instead of all turrets going silent when the ship was
damaged enough.

Rule 3 (reduced 4E air unit capabilities). What is the best ground

attack aircraft and ground support aircraft in the game? The B-17!
Great for flushing enemy battalions out of the jungle or breaking
divisions in New Guinea. Have you ever played the Guadalcanal
Campaign scenario and wondered why the US did not historically simply
blast Guadalcanal for months with B-17s before wiping the broken
Japanese remains off the island? Because this was not what 4E bombers
could be used for - they were used for searching and bombarding
infrastructure.

With this rule change, 2E and 1E units will be preferred for ground
support, just as in reality. (Note that previously there was little
reason for the Allies to build 2E units - now there suddenly is a
place for tactical airpower.)

As for the bomber ranges, Mark Herman notes that such long-range
missions were flown and the reduced bombloads are already incorporated
in the rating, which is true, but even B-24s with the reduced bombload
flew 2600 mile roundtrip missions only rarely, and only from 1944 onwards
(when the required fuel-saving flight procedures had been learnt,
partly developed by British Liberator crews in India). Source: Alwyn
Lloyd's "Liberator."

Rule 4 (ASW screening). Previously, apart from the ASW sweep rule,
which represents the US intelligence advantage as much as anything
else, ASW capability in the game is absolutely passive. This has led
to players successfully sailing around the seas in task forces that
contained only carriers, because it is often possible to keep out of
the range of submarines, and Destroyers are not used for escort
duties, merely for naval combat, and the points thus saved are used
for other purposes. I was appalled when I saw this done the first
time, but I have to admit it works in the game although it would have
been anathema for any WW2 admiral. The altered ASW rule gives escorts
real *protective* capacity and encourages players to carry around at
least one DD per carrier in a TF without drastically reducing the
submarine's chances.

The damage rule for ASW is based on the fact that ASW combat is not
really formation work, so 5 DD's will be nearly as effective at it as
6.

Note to Steve Crowley: Given that most DD's have an ASW value of 2,
losses to screened ships will sink by 30% (e.g., take a DD per carrier
and 30% of the sub attacks on that carrier will be screened). If you
feel subs are still too powerful, make the screening value equal to
the ASW value + 1 (i.e., a ASW=2 DD will screen on a roll of 0-3).
Every additional +1 shift will reduce the sub attacks through that
screen unit by 10%. Try it out to find what value you like. For us
the unadorned ASW value was enough.

Rule 5 (naval combat restrictions). A complaint that is seen

occasionally is that in Pacific War, naval combat is too bloody in
general and capital ships in particular die too quickly (because all
other ships simply gang up on them). There is little sense of the
clashes between escorts that preceded and accompanied virtually every
naval engagement in the Pacific, because there is no need - a DD hits
a BB at long range just as well as another DD. These rules reduce
lethality and encourage a balanced ship mix in task forces without
requiring a separate armor penetration table or similar detail. (In
particular, the -1 modifier to big guns firing at DD's expresses the
reason why both sides, and the US in particular, built CL's at all -
they used faster-firing guns with shorter range than heavy cruisers,
because they were intended as destroyer killers. Now that is exactly
what they are good at in the game.)

Alternately, one could also halve the anti-DD shooting at night

instead of -1. Take your pick.

If you find players *still* focusing all fires on one BB per battle,
try experimenting with forbidding doubling up against targets until
all targets are covered. We don't use this at the moment though.

Something similar to the "put DD's into the screen" rule was also
printed in the GENERAL back with Mark Herman's article. (Which I
btw recommend unrestrainedly to everyone interested in the game.)

Rule 6 (no submarine searches). There is a special rule in the

Strategic Scenario that forbids the Japanese carrier strike force to
search for the US carriers on the first battle cycle. However, the
Japanese player knows the exact location of two of the US carriers, so
he can simply pile submarines into those hexes and conduct in-hex
searches with them, making a detection result for at least one carrier
very probable. This is of course completely artificial. The Japanese
had no idea where the US carriers were.

In fact, we currently play with a stronger rule which says that

submarines may not search for task forces at all (since submarines
only provided strategic search information, but not pinpointing for
airstrikes). I recommend it, but it is not as drastically important
as on the first turn of the game.

Rule 7 (Airfield construction). So, how many airfields do your

Japanese construct in the game? It is extremely easy to break the
Japanese engineers (and even the Allies have trouble till 1943 to just
improve an airfield if the Japanese don't want it). Historically,
airfields, once built, were virtually indestructible, and the game
shows this. However, while being constructed, the same was true -
bulldozed terrain largely stayed that way even under attack, and as
late as 1943, determined Allied air attacks to prevent construction of
the airfield at Munda were a failure. All that was needed was
sufficient determination of the constructing player to keep shipping
in troops and equipment if his preparations were discovered - which is
represented by the CP payments. The CP payments for the US are higher
because the Japanese airfields were built on a shoestring anyway
(that's why they took so long).

Those are the rules and the reasons why whe introduced them. Overall,
they have made the game more historical, and more enjoyable, but not
slower or more complex. I recommend trying them in your next game,
and comments are appreciated. While developed in the context of the
Strategic Scenarios, some of these rules (in particular the reduced
ground movement) make some of the early Campaign scenarios (e.g.,
Malaya and the Philippines), which used to be highly unbalanced and
boring, into actual nailbiters. Now the Japanese players have to work
to replicate the historical Japanese advance rates instead of having
them dropped in their lap. At the same time, the ability to reach or
exceed the historical performance is still well within their grasp.

II. CHROME RULES

Here are several "chrome" rules (so we didn't put them on the list
with the other rules).

Chrome Rule 1: The Manila hex is CLEAR terrain. The Corregidor hex
also includes the Bataan peninsula, which is MIXED. Activated units
can move from Bataan to Corregidor freely by ground movement. Place
the Corregidor fortress marker on top of forces on Corregidor and
place forces on Bataan on top of the fortress marker for clear
distinction. Units cannot attack "across", i.e., they actually have
to move to the proper part of the hex to attack, and a subsequent
attack still counts as amphibious assault. An amphibious assault on
either is not possible unless the other is controlled (i.e., the
Japanese cannot land troops on Bataan to prevent a retreat there).
The Japanese cannot use Manila as a port except as a
submarine-protected anchorage until Bataan is free of Allied units.

Why this rule? Well, while the resistance level of the US forces on
Luzon now corresponds much better to their historical performance, the
SW Pac HQ (and with it, Allied control of the Manila port) now
survives much longer than it did historically. That's because the
Manila terrain is "mixed". Historically, the vicinity of Manila was
considered indefensible, so the troops retreated to Bataan, while the
city was declared open and surrendered to the Japanese in December.
It is arguable whether minor terrain details should figure in a
strategic game, but the survival (or not) of an Allied HQ in the first
three months of the war does have some strong repercussions on the
first year of the war, so this special rule is presented for those who
are willing to live with the stacking in the Corregidor hex. As for
the port rule - the port entrance to Manila was directly beneath the
guns on Corregidor, so the Japanese will have to land on Corregidor to
use Manila for strategic transport.

In theory, the important part of the rule is declaring the Manila hex
clear - when Manila falls, the Allied troops could just as well
retreat into South Luzon and the Bataan part could be omitted. But a
crafty Japanese player could prevent that by an auxiliary landing
there, whereas the Japanese had no inkling of nor intent to refuse a
retreat to Bataan. So, when giving the Japanese a break in taking
Manila, it's only appropriate to give the Allied troops the chance to
retreat somewhere to continue as a thorn in the Japanese side for some
time. Note: This last modification will again make the Fall of the
Philippines scenario quite a bit easier for the Japanese.

Chrome Rule 2 (this is an addition to rule 6): Allow the US player to

set up two dummy task forces within two hexes of the two fixed carrier
TF setup hexes near Oahu. Allow any of the task forces to contain the
actual Enterprise and Lexington TFs (but the TF composition should not
be altered). This setup happens *after* the Japanese has placed his
carriers and submarines. The dummies cannot set up closer to Oahu or
the Japanese carriers than the corresponding original setup hex for
that carrier.

The Japanese did not know where the US carriers were - they should have
to search for them just as in reality. This is a variant that we have
agreed on but so far not played.

Chrome Rule 3: Strategic Transport. (a) If a unit is strategically

transported across a distance of 20 hexes or less, it arrives
immediately. (b) If it is transported across more than 20 but no more
than 40 hexes, it arrives on the 15th of the month. (c) If it is
transported across more than 40 hexes, it arrives during the Strategic
transport phase of the next month.

Keep track of units transported according to (b) and (c) on a sheet of

paper or on the Month Track. Make a note of the intended port of
arrival. If the port has falled to the enemy in the meantime, has
been interdicted, or is within 2 hexes of an enemy air unit, switch to
the nearest alternate target. The new target may not be farther in
hexes from the starting port than the old. If no alternate target
port is available, put the transported units on the reinforcement
track for the next month.

A unit transported according to (b) and (c) can absorb replacement

steps while in Strategic Transport as if it were present in the port
of arrival during the Replacement Phase.

Chrome Rule 4: Building OSB's

OSB's can be built in unnamed locations. To simulate the necessity of

building the necessary infrastructure, costs are doubled (to 20 CP's).
In addition, an unbroken engineer unit must be present. (The engineer
may still be engaged in building an airfield). These requirements
hold even if another OSB existed at the same location before (and was
destroyed or disbanded).

With the rules as written, OSB's can only be built in named locations
or Linked Ports, but the choice of Named Locations on the map seems to
be based on historical choices, not on necessity.

Experimental Rule 5: OSB transport costs

For every OSB occurring as part of a command link that traces its own
command link over water or over land directly to a port without OSB,
multiply the points spent by 1.5. (E.g., a 1-point unit that is
linked only via 2 OSB's would cost 2.25 points to activate; a 3-point
unit, 6.75.) Round up the activation totals (do not round per unit
and then add up).

The purpose of this rule is to counteract the ploy of building up an

OSB network that covers the whole map, and then assign all command
points to a single HQ to prevent CP wastage and unrealistically
improve CP usage. I would recommend against using it unless you are
dealing with an opponent who insists on using such a strategy. The
problem with the rule is that it drastically increases costs for units
farther inland, in particular in mainland China (where costs are
already high). This is why the rule only affects OSB's tracing over
water. An alternative would be to penalize every OSB, but drop the
tripled Japanese command costs in China and halve the activation costs
of all Chinese armies to 2.

Chrome Rule 6: All Dutch units have a TQ of 2 for all purposes until
the end of March, when they change to their printed rating of 3. (For
a justification of this rule, see the analysis on my webpage
concerning the Japanese landings in the Dutch East Indies.)

III. Foreign house rules that we use.

1. China (Gregg Belevick)

Upon conquest of China, the Japanese player must maintain at least 90

steps of ground forces in China at all times. there must be at least
one ground step within two hexes of every Chinese city. The units
satisfying this requirement may be in China, Manchukuo, Korea, or
Indochina. The Communist units remain in play but are now considered
isolated until a Chinese city is recaptured.

Nationalists: If isolated, will only suffer attrition down to one half

of their starting strength.

Communists: Communist units are considered linked if they can trace a

path free of enemy units and not within 2 hexes of enemy air units to
the north board edge. If isolated, they take troop quality checks but
NEVER suffer attrition.

2. Reinforcement delays (Gregg Belevick)

US reinforcements that appear west of the Australian east coast do so

with one month of delay. British reinforcements that appear east of
the Australian west coast do so with one month delay.

Note: This can be complemented by using the restrictions of

Experimental Rule 3 (Strategic Transport).

3. Reckoning post-op penalty time (Steen Kastoft Hansen)

After the Operations player has deactivated all units, the day marker
is only advanced once (after the first battle cycle, on which the
Reaction player can still attack), but for the other four battle
cycles it is not advanced. They have to be kept track of by other
means. The operation player has to announce that he has deactivated
all units when this has happened, and the reaction player can then
deactivate or activate accordingly.

During the latter four Battle Cycles, submarines of both sides cannot
move although they can still attack. Using this rule, the Reaction
Player can no longer delay an operation by a full week by simply
keeping a rear area unit active. The submarine rule was added to keep
the range of submarines from increasing over the span of a month.

4. Intercept Condition Operation Player Contact Movement (Chris

Perleberg, F&M 101)

When the Operational Intelligence Condition is Intercept, the Reaction

Player cannot automatically stop the Contact Phase after the second
Naval Movement Impulse. He can stop it the moment that a task force
of the Operation Player is within search range of one of his units and
that unit searches for it, regardless of whether the search is
successful or not. Weather modifiers are ignored.

Note: Mark Herman thinks this might lead to problems in making

late-war US "deep strikes" too easy. It will certainly require
religious deployment of LRA's by the Japanese player. I note that it
will allow the Doolittle strike to proceed even under an Interception
Intelligence Condition unless Midway is in Japanese hands which to me
sounds like a good thing. This rule should be considered experimental.

5. Rules from The General

Arrival of US Special Forces units (replace arrival times given in the
Scenario Booklet): 1 SF: Jul 42, 2 SF: Aug 42, 3 SF: Jul 44.

The alternate (actually: historical) SF arrival times should be used

since with his more realistic advance speeds, the Japanese does not
need the aggravation of having these units stand in his way six months
ahead of their historical arrival times. The other OOB changes are
unclear in terms of balance so we do not use them. (Although the
Australian restrictions and the British withdrawals should probably be
used if you have an Allied player who is hardy enough.) The
distinction between fast and slow units from the same article is a
nice chrome rule but hard to apply in practice unless you mark the
counters.

Modification History
--------------------

98-10-30: Generalize screening to all ASW-capable units. Submarines

cannot move during the four "additional" battle cycles.

98-11-02: Add Perleberg rule for Interception. Submarines cannot

search. Add list of General house rules used.

98-11-06: Subs cannot attack into Manila port even if Corregidor is

still held, so Japanese units can safely Deactivate.

99-01-04: Strengthened PH dummy carrier setup, easened amphibious

movement restrictions.

99-01-12: Simplified alternate ports.

99-09-02: Switched to "empty" installations in overrun rule.

Strategic Transport (Exp.Rule 3) switched to "Chrome." Added Chrome
Rule 6 (Reduced Dutch TQ).