I seem to have wasted a lot of time trying to convert Woolfman's PH from the 1.28c version Moggy sent me.
I have had some success, replacing the original Jap carriers with SPAW versions, and fixing some tile and height map faults., but going back to 1.28c I find that although there are several US airfields, only two (EWA and NAS) appear for selection for a single mission. The "tarnames.str" file seems to be faulty too.

My question in the title is based on the fact that the theatre is extremely limited, with just the Japanese carriers for the allies to attack Most missions involve a lot of flying over water.
It would have to be a "what if" theatre anyway. Historically it appears that only two US fighters got off the ground and engaged the enemy, and I cannot envisage career paths similar to Moggy's Midway.

Jel

Jelly all I an say is if you do it I will fly it just to be one of the pilots standing tall that day "That will live in Infinity"

Salute your efforts Jel.

I would simply say don't put in much more effort on it. If there is something that players can use as you have it, just put out the small package. As Russ says, some will enjoy flying as the US pilots who did get off that day.

I wonder if it could be folded into Moggy's nascent Carrier Air Wars project.

Now, not to pull this off subject but if you want some "desperate days" action there's a Guadalcanal Campaign included with SPAW.

May fit better with Midway. Japanese planes and carriers much the same. Shame Pearl would be just off the map.

Shift the map?

That said, I don't know feasible it would be.

Probably lose something off the other side

Are you sure?

Believe it or not I was able to squeeze an Italian target onto the original European Map. You couldn't fly too much further to the east or south, maybe 25-50 miles, but other than that it works just fine.

And if you did lose something to the west what would it be?

Snap! I placed some targets in Italy in my unified 1940 map.

Flight to Milan

This is the new Midway theatre:



The choice I had to make, without doing too much injury to the real geography is represented in this map:



It was either Pearl or Wake, and I chose to have Wake.

Yeah Ok, that's a big shift.

How about DAW (Darwin Air War)? Same Carrier group as Pearl.

A Darwin campaign was being worked on as far back as 2002, but I don't think it ever saw the light of day.

Perhaps, as suggested in another thread, if the Americans had a player-set, variable amount of prior warning, there would be more US aircraft in the skies, and the AA would be far more effective. This would change the game radically. For example, given adequate prior warning, all or part of the fleet could have sortied.

Greatest amount of warning scenario: Fleet sorties, and is in combat formation. Land-based aircraft are in the air, and AA is fully manned and supplied with ammo. Even massed infantry units could have had some AA effect on low-flying aircraft. This last was a maneuver that was specifically trained-for during the interwar years, and likely latter part of WW I. I've seen it demonstrated, along with an explanation of lead-lengths, and so forth.

Least amount of warning scenario: Basically historical situation. Number of US carriers in port. or even arriving, could be increased. US aircraft on the ground, AA unmanned, ammo unissued.

Given that EAW is capable of having large numbers of aircraft in the air in a fairly small geographic area/volume, this ought not be impossible to re-create. Toggling a certain level of warning would generate X number of American aircraft in the air, a certain level of AA effectiveness, and possibly fewer ships in the harbor. The physical map of the sim might not need to include outlying features, such as USAAF satellite airfields, as it could be presumed the US fighter aircraft would be vectored to intercept incoming Japanese aircraft, and that would confine the map to a smaller area, probably at the approach points historically used by attaching Japanese planes.

Unknowns: Fleet sortie time required. Number of US fighter aircraft available, and the time required to get them into the air in fighting formation. Method of control of US aircraft while in the air. Number/position of ground AA emplacements, and time required for fully manning them. Number of infantry units available, which could employ massed AA fire at aircraft, as well as their effectiveness when doing so. Warning time required to achieve max effectiveness of US ships/Aircraft/AA units/Infantry units; presumably different for each type of unit, with ships taking the longest, and static AA units the least. The AA units on the ships themselves would probably be fully effective very quickly, but actual movement of most ships would take some time.

Naval enthusiasts could play a sim where the US fleet (with or without carriers) could sortie, maneuver in combat formation, and possibly attack Japanese Combined fleet while all (or most) their planes were at Pearl. US B-17 aircraft would be used in such an attack, albeit without fighter escort. The lengthy periods of time spent flying over water could be remedied by the inclusion of a "warp-ahead" feature, occasionally seen in other sims. Such a feature could "warp-ahead' to next waypoint, with standard time-rate intervening if an enemy is encountered along the way. After such an action, the player could re-engage 'warp-ahead" feature to proceed to the intended destination (initially selected waypoint), or select another point on their map if the initially selected waypoint is not desired.

It is worth noting that the naval aspect of such a sim would necessarily depend on the forces engaged, and this, in turn, depends on what survives the Pearl Harbor attack. The variable warning time feature proposed above would obviously have a considerable effect on US forces available for a subsequent Fleet vs. Fleet action, not the least aspect of which would be the number of Japanese aircraft returning from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Again, the variable warning time feature would have a considerable effect on that aspect of the sim, as well.

Absent the variable warning time feature, the Pearl Harbor scenario is a re-play of the historical plane vs. moored ship action. The similarities to the previous Brit attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto are obvious to most historically-minded people, and the general design of both scenarios ought to be fairly similar. That's fine, if that's what one wants. I submit the addition of variable warning times presents an entirely new, more interesting game, and one which I don't believe has been done before.

OK it is coming along nicely, and working




It is a rebuild based on the ETO target map for starters, with the Pearl Harbour tilemap and heightmap, with some corrections. Most of the ETO targets have been moved out of the way.
There are very few active targets

The six Japanese carriers are from SPAW.
I have tried it with a SPAW planeset, the Midway planeset and the Flying Tigers planeset.
I am now in the process if removing unnecessary files

#%&*$# fine Tony ..been flying Midway in IL-2 BAT and it's a blast hoping to fly Pearl in EAW been reading "Long Days Journey into war" about the first days into the War when all appears to be lost..sorry for the spelling but I've known men who served there

Here is the historic route the Japanese chose. It was carefully chosen to minimize possible contact with other ships/aircraft that might give warning Note that dates are Japanese dates, not US dates.



The blue path of the Lexington shows it dropping-off aircraft to Midway, and then avoiding the Japanese Combined Fleet after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Red path of the Enterprise shows similar aircraft drop-off to Wake Island. Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
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Note the side-expedition diverted towards Wake Island, and timed in conjunction with the Pearl Harbor Attack. Note also the "Jog" around Midway, which had fairly long-range recon aircraft available. The Japanese had recent intel about Midway as concerns aircraft types available.

So, unless a naval scenario is envisioned, neither Wake nor Midway need be included. If a naval scenario is desired, the only way that makes sense is to allow sufficient warning time to US forces at Pearl Harbor in order for the fleet to sortie, and aircraft /AA units to be activated and effective. Otherwise, there is no real naval engagement. Enterprise and Lexington were returning to Pearl low on fuel, and without most of their aircraft, since the room for aircraft on both carriers was formerly occupied by the "ferried" aircraft dropped-off to their destinations. IOW, neither carrier, having flown-off the ferried aircraft, had a full compliment of aircraft.

Absent such advance warning, no notice of either Wake or Midway need be taken. In such case, given the presumed position of the Japanese fleet, then perhaps the inclusion of Midway might be advised, as the Japanese used basically the same route in retiring from the Pearl Harbor attack, and for the same reasons used in their advance.

IMHO, even given advanced warning, US land-based fighter aircraft would not have been able to attack the Japanese fleet, only aircraft very near Pearl Harbor. B-17s could have attacked the Japanese, but level bombing of ships showed a miserable hit record, as evidenced by B-17s flown from Midway during Battle of Midway.

OK there is a "Pearl160.exe" 7-zip self installer to be run in your 160 folder.
It is in the "160 Specials" folder for which there is a link in my signature.

It installs the theatre, and adds a "65-Pearl Harbour" file to the "LongDirSets" folder so it can be loaded with the filemanager.
You will have to choose a planeset, and I recommend that the exe that you use is an "Old Map" version.

All of the Japanese bases are carriers, and all of the allied ones are land based airfields.

In the original version a special tile was used for one of the Hawaiian bases, replacing the "BNROAD4.TER" and "LRROAD4.TER" tiles in the default ETO set.
Because of that the tile-set remains the ETO version. It would be nice to have a more Hawaiian tile-set

Jel

I have done some more work on this
I found a Pacific terrain and edited the tilemap to make it match.
Using one of the coast tiles, plus enduring a steep learning curve in Photoshop I was able to make the special tile needed for the main US base.
This tile is an island.
I was able to use more of the target data from woolfman's original to make his TMods appear at the main US base.
When I tried to do others I got a CTD at some of them so I went back to my previous version.
I will investigate more



An additional target has the Japanese fleet (apart from the carriers which are individual targets and bases) using Ray's TMods.

Here we found the fleet at sunset


Jel

At the risk of seeming like someone who is raining on this parade (and that is not my intent), the concept of Pearl Harbor, land-based, single-engine fighter aircraft both finding the Japanese combined fleet, and engaging it is dubious, at least. For one thing, the pilots had no idea where the fleet was, nor did they have the range to do so, unless it was intended, at the outset, to be a suicide mission.

Japanese naval aircraft philosophy dictated that the aircraft be used in an offensive manner, and so the Japanese aircraft sacrificed many features, such as self-sealing fuel tanks, armor plating, and some construction robustness that was thought essential in US aircraft. The Japanese philosophy gave them aircraft of exceptionally long range and such aircraft were very nimble in combat.

The Combined Fleet, in its attack on Pearl Harbor, used these Japanese Naval aircraft features to its advantage, launching out of range of US fighter aircraft, but well within the range of its own aircraft. The Japanese Fleet took a calculated gamble that long-range search aircraft were not being employed in that mode, as indeed, they were not. Perhaps there was intel from Japanese agents observing the airfields.

By all means please continue to develop the scenario; I don't want to seem to discourage that at all. However, in doing so, consider that any US single-engine aircraft launched from Pearl Harbor to attack the Japanese Fleet would be on a one-way mission. That said, I'm sure that some pilots would have taken-off knowing that. History shows that even if such planes were able to follow returning Japanese aircraft, they would have met the CAP of Zeros over the fleet, and almost certainly been shot down before dropping a bomb or launching a torpedo.

This is a 160 version,and as such it is just another theatre to choose. 160 is all about mixing and matching theatres and planesets, and not about re-creating historical circumstances.
The original was unfinished, and had a number of faults. Among them were airbases listed in the files, appearing on the map, but never able to be selected in the game by any side in any year.
As I wrote previously, in terms of the game there were too few targets and a lot of flying over water. The only Japanese targets for an Allied escort, bombing or interdiction mission were the carriers, so the only realistic allied mission was an intercept. Because of this I was prepared to stop working on it, based on the low entertainment value.
However, Russ really wanted to try it, so I went on and finished it.
In the last version I added the Japanese fleet target to check out Ray's ships.
I will upload that version when I have finished this post