Coral Sea - This map is just a big square of virtual ocean. There are no actual islands. Presumably the map portrays the area where the Yorktown was sunk. The area where the Shoho was sunk near the Deboyne Islands aren't modeled. Perhaps this is just as well because they were a backwater area for most of the war. A generic ocean map is more useful.
For once, the IJN has a reasonable selection of ships which were actually present during the battle, although there could be more Cruiser, Destroyer and Auxiliary types.
The US ship selection is also "not bad" although thanks to Northrop Grumman there are no US Battleships and some other ship types are missing. Again, there are plenty of smaller ships which aren't in the game.
My biases with regard to ship types are probably showing, though. It's fun to bomb big targets like BB or CVs, but most anti-shipping strikes (and sub ops) were attacks against smaller, more numerous ship types like DD, FF, minesweepers, gunboats, MTB/PT boats, and merchant ships.
With recent patches, there are (finally!) no important planes missing from the order of battle, and all but the TBD are flyable.
A flyable TBD would finally give the Americans a flyable torpedo bomber type, since the NG agreement makes a flyable TBF impossible. It would also open up a variety of other early war US torpedo bombing missions, not just suicide missions at Midway.
"Nice to have" planes which were unimportant during the Battle of the Coral Sea but widely used elsewhere would be the E7K "Alf," the G3M "Nell" (notice the trend here - if I could choose just one early Pacific War plane to add to the game, it would be the G3M), the H6K "Mavis", one USN Seaplane type (choose the Curtiss SOC Seagull, the Vought O2SU Kingfisher, or the Grumman J2F Duck), a flyable B-17E, and a flyable PBY.
Midway - This map actually does a decent job of depicting the area where there was intensive aerial action. While there were just one strike on Midway, it was critically important to the overall Midway campaign.
Midway island is missing a few period ground objects - like barracks, and the Pan Am Clipper dock and hotel (could also be used for Wake Island). By the time of the battle the island was a fortress, but placing guns, etc. is up to mission builders.
Most of the comments about the Coral Sea map apply to the Midway map.
A "nice to have" plane which was only peripherally involved in the Midway campaign, but which were extensively used elsewhere is the Martin B-26A Marauder. The obsolete Japanese types like the B4Y would only be useful additions if the game were to move into modeling the 2nd Sino-Japanese War.
|