[Pursuivant]

Face it, IL2 kind of sucks for early Pacific War scenarios, not just in plane selection, but also map choices and ground objects.

This isn't just due to the NG Consent Decree limiting the selection of US ships and aircraft, but rather due to the 1c design staff trying to cover too much territory (sometimes literally) without much understanding of, or love for, the theater.

In a way, a Russian design team attempting to do a sim of the Pacific War falls about as flat as a US or Japanese design team attempting to do a sim of the Eastern Front!

Hawaii Map: This was a stupid choice for a map, since it was the scene of exactly one very unevenly matched historical scenario (although there were two very large waves of attackers). You get your choice of 1st wave Japanese dive bomber, torpedo bomber or fighter, 2nd wave ditto, or hapless Americans flying a P-40 in a "target rich environment." Maybe add a hypothetical Japanese "third wave" dive bomber/fighter attack vs. the oil tank farm at Pearl, possibly with a few more US defenders in the air.

You're terribly limited in the number of US ships you can put into the game, but there were a number of US ship types that NG never got its grubby hands on (via Ingalls Shipyards and its predecessors) that could be included.

Honolulu looks barren and strange to my Yankee eyes. For that matter, any built-up area just seems wrong, whether it's Stalingrad, Berlin or Singapore.

The map could be made more interesting, as well as more "target rich," by adding some distinctive "American" or "Hawaiian" ground objects to the game - like US-style water towers, naval facilities, civilian buildings, etc.

Adding a "golf course improvised airfield" object would be quite handy for early Pacific War scenarios, since the allies often resorted to landing (or launching) planes from golf course fairways. At Pearl Harbor, one B-17 made a forced landing on a golf course, so it's appropriate for that map.

As for planes, basically any American plane that wasn't a P-40B, P-40C or a P-36A was a target (any B-17 in the air were unarmed and filled with passengers), and most planes never got off the ground. All the second-line or obsolete US aircraft could be adequately modeled as static objects.

Currently, there is a flyable Hawk 75. It's quite possible that we could get a flyable P-36A by "reskinning" the cockpit, replacing the Finnish placards and gauges with American equipment.

Wake Island: For early war scenarios, this is another puzzler. The Japanese severely damaged aerial opposition in their first attack, but the defenders were able to do some damage to the invasion fleet before an IJN carrier group crushed them 10 days later. Basically, there are 5 historical early war scenarios there given the current plane set.

After that, the US put in a submarine blockade and starved the defenders. Periodically, the USAAF would bomb the place using unopposed high altitude level bombing raids. Sometimes they were literally advanced training missions for bomber aircrews transiting from Hawaii to the SW Pacific!

So, really boring and one-sided stuff unless you just want a nice, simple B-24 bombing scenario.

There are some critical missing ground objects, like the Pan Am Clipper terminal and barracks buildings.

Almost none of the actual Japanese ships which took part in the battle are available.

For planes, the really big omission is the G3M variants, which would be an incredibly handy plane to have for 1939-42 Asian scenarios.