WW II at Sea: Ironbottom Sound - A South Pacific Story

From Avalanche Press:

The Solomons Campaign of 1942 saw the American and Japanese navies engage in the most intense naval combat of World War II. For months the two sides fought over Guadalcanal, a miserable jungle-covered island with a vital airbase.

Ironbottom Sound: A South Pacific Story continues the tale that we began in Second World War at Sea: South Pacific. Thirty-two new scenarios start with the possibilities of a Japanese-held airfield on Guadalcanal, then move through the first three chapters of South Pacific, adding analysis and more scenarios to each. Plus two new chapters, based on the proposed Japanese Operation FS and the November 1942 Battle of Tassafaronga.

South Pacific is a rich mixture of game play and history, but there is more to the story than we could fit in the game (which is already our largest). The U.S. Navy wrote its most glorious chapter in the Solomons, and it’s a story that deserves the attention we give it in Ironbottom Sound.

Includes the Solomons Naval Campaign: A South Pacific Historical Study Book

Following their victory at the June 1942 Battle of Midway, the American high command sought to take the fight to the Japanese. In August they began a campaign to take the strategic island of Guadalcanal and its almost-complete airfield from the Japanese. That touched off the hardest-fought sustained naval campaign of World War II, as Allied and Japanese ships and planes battled to control the seas and skies of the Solomon Islands.

Solomons Naval Campaign is a Historical Study of these air and sea battles, from the preliminary planning through the invasion of Guadalcanal, the attempts to reinforce the island, and finally the Japanese decision to evacuate the island after their useless tactical victory in the Battle of Tassafaronga in late November 1942.

There are plenty of books about this campaign; ours dives deeper into the sinews of war, to explain the events as a chain of decisions. We look at the resources of both sides, the ships and the planes and the men, and of course the battles, too.

Solomons Naval Campaign is a companion volume to our Second World War at Sea: South Pacific game and Ironbottom Sound scenario book. It’s not a game book, but it does explain the events seen in those games from the player’s perspective: what forces, some obvious and others less so, shaped the decisions made by the participants on both sides. It’s filled with history and stories; it’s a standalone book and you don’t need to know anything about the game to enjoy it.