|  Great War
at Sea
Pacific Crossroads:
Japanese-American
Naval War Plans, 1917
During the first half of the 20th century,
the United States and the Japanese Empire
constantly made plans for a naval war against
the other rising power. Each believed that
the U.S. Navy would fight its way across
the Pacific Ocean, with important clashes
taking places in island chains like the Marianas
and the Carolines.
Pacific
Crossroads is the new introductory
boxed game for the Great
War at Sea series.
It's based on the actual plans of both the
United States and Japan for naval conflict
at the close of World War I and immediately
afterwards. Players try to seize and hold
bases to either enable or stop the American
drive across the Pacific.
  
While the game is intended for new players,
there's plenty here for old salts, too. New
ships like the American 1910 battle cruiser
design are present, as are the battle cruisers
the Americans feared Japan would acquire
from the Royal Navy. There's a lot of naval
warfare in this small package, which also
ushers in a new edition of the series rules.
The 22x17-inch operational map covers waters
around the Mariana and Caroline Islands and
the coast of northern New Guinea. Players
maneuver their fleets on this map and search
for one another with aircraft, submarines
and surface ships. When contact is made,
player moves to the tactical map.
The tactical map is a generic blue field
of hexagons, used to resolve surface combat.
There, ships maneuver and fight using their
gunnery and torpedo factors. Each player
rolls a number of dice according to the ship’s
capabilities, hitting on a result of 6. Gunnery
and torpedo damage tables give the results:
ships can suffer damage to engines, hull
or armament. The combat systems yield results
rapidly but in a historically accurate fashion,
giving a good balance of fun and insight.
You can learn how to play in just five minutes with
this demo.
 Links:
• Farewell!
• Free Downloadable Ship Data
• Modifiable Ship Data
• Battle Scenario Overview
• Operational Scenario Overview
• Designer's Preview
• Ships of the Crossroads
• 1910 Battle Cruisers
Stock Number APL0045
Status: This game is no longer available.
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