Game Report Java Sea test / December 6th 2025

The refight of our previous game, somewhere North of Java, some time at the end of winter in 1942. Here are the opposing sides, 2 fairly evenly matched forces. In the previous game, the Long Lances had availed the IJN of a crushing victory, sending both  Houston to the bottom, alongside with a Clemson class DD 1 box from sinking. Would it happen again ?

Starting positions were according to NIMITZ rules, and both fleets were facing each other, still out of range. 10 ships a fleet make the 1’x1’ starting square of each fleet severely crowded, making each player forced to adopt a multicolumn placement…

This left little room for niceties, as both sides understood it would be like a bar room brawl, not unlike 1st Guadalcanal. IJN won advantage on the 1st 2 turns. 1st turn saw te fleets get closer, and things started in earnest no later than turn 2. 

The gunnery phase was quite bad for the ABDA : a single Japanese DD was hit (though the crit destroyed a torpedo mount), but De Ruyter, Exeter & Van Galen were hit, Van Galen ending crippled. Then it was a festival of Long Lances. Both Myoko & Haguro, both Jintsu and Sendaï, as well as a destroyers Siratsuyu and Samidare let loose with all they had at Houston.

Surprisingly, not a single hit was achieved, taking a lot of the fangs out of the IJN’s maws.

Turn 3 saw the ABDA win the advantage roll for the 1st time, and they would do so till the end of the game. While Myoko put an end to the sufferings of Van Galen in the secondary battery phase, the main battery phase saw  2 interesting duels take place.

The 1st one pitted  Encounter and Piet Hein vs Harusame & Murasame, seeing Murasame destroyed by a torpedo and Piet Hein severely damaged, Harusame & Encounter taking moderate damage. Light cruisers of both sides, each side supported by DDs, engaged on a duel at point blank range. This saw the end of De Ruyter in the gunnery phase, but a torpedo from a Clemson  class sent Jintsu to the bottom (Renzo Tanaka will have to find a new flagship !). Haguro and Houston traded desultory long range fire, with a plunging shell from Houston scoring a solid hit on Haguro however (destroying 4 structure boxes).

Turn 4 saw Sendaï & Java keep on their duel, Sendaï taking some damage in the process. The plucky Clemsons took on the Japanese heavies, losing USS Edwards but adding 2 more boxes destroyed & planting a 21’’ fish into Haguro, which was very close to being crippled. Shiratsuyu, Shigure and Samidare finished off Piet Hein, one of them being also destroyed by shots from Exeter & Houston.

The next turn saw a decrease in the violence of the struggle, as both sides started to disengage. Java & Sendaï however were once more heavily damaged, but remained afloat. Turn 6 was the last one, both sides disengaging, trading desultory & ineffective shots. The butcher’s bill was bad for everyone : ABDA lost De Ruyter, Piet Hein & Van Galen, took heavy damage to Java, light damage to Exeter. The IJN lost Jintsu, Samidare & Shiratsuyu, taking severe damage to Sendaï & Haguro.

We agreed on a draw, and stopped the game at that point, it could have gone either way, with perhaps a slight edge to the ABDA.