Guadalcanal Campaign: US vs Japan

To take the tactical system from Naval Thunder and construct a strategic level game around it, I need to invent a few subsystems that generate the ships available for each battle. This involves creating the following:

• A strategic-level movement system, handling movement on the scale of hundreds of miles (the south Pacific is BIG!), over a period of days.
• A separate system for air movement and patrol, which occurs on a different time scale and involves "soft" zones of control where aircraft are dispersed over a large range of territory.
• A search system, to figure out when task forces of ships can respond to one another's presences.

Additionally, it's important to appreciate the asymmetry between the Japanese situation in late 1942, and the American situation, since this needs a few subsystems of its own to be modeled. Roughly speaking, the USA is split between two theaters of war (and following a Hitler First strategy starting in North Africa) and mostly playing defense in the Pacific. The Japanese are focusing virtually all their military might on trying to isolate and strangle Australia and New Zealand, given the impracticality of invading distant (and heavily fortified) American objectives like Hawaii.

This leads to a very asymmetrical disposition of forces with the following advantages and disadvantages. Favoring the Japanese:

• A larger navy in the Pacific theater, particularly in cruisers and destroyers. Initially Japan had a carrier-fleet edge, but frittered it away in the trap at Midway earlier in 1942.
• Better field training and discipline, particular during night missions.
• A superior grasp of certain tactics, like the use of torpedo runs.

Favoring the Americans:

• A deeper pool of recruits, and particularly, the ability to constantly replace lost pilots.
• A major intelligence advantage due to the cracking of all vital Japanese military codes.
• Primitive (but rapidly improving) radar systems that could spot ships from 14 miles away.
• Nearly unlimited fuel reserves, thanks to giant East Texas oilfields, and an extensive merchant marine that could be put into service as oilers and supply ships.
• A better development of ground-based airfield resources, such as Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.

Note that while most of the Japanese advantages show up on the tactical level (and are built into the Naval Thunder rules), the American advantages are almost entirely strategic. Looking at force compositions, the advantages seem overwhelmingly to favor the Japanese. Looking at how those forces could actually be used, the odds are much more balanced.

At minimum, this suggests two more strategic-level subsystems:

• A logistics system which forces the Japanese to leave many of their larger ships in harbor, aside from occasional sorties and offensive strikes.
• An intelligence system, which allows the Americans to gain essential information about Japanese task force composition (but not vice versa).