Devs cannot switch gears right now obviously, as the maps are probably already mostly complete, but still
I think it would have been better for us to have 1944-1945 Pacific. Featuring many more battles with a lot more equipment.
These battles would have different fresh locations, and would pose any historical inaccuracies. These mostly would be:
Invasion of the Philippines 1944 -1945 - Fighting in dense jungles, and the brutal urban combat of Manilla
Battle of Saipan 1944 - Fighting in dense jungles, airfields. Here the largest Banzai charge took place
Battle of Iwo Jima 1945 - Fighting on a small island with an airfield, many fortifications, underground facilities, beaches with Vulcanic ash, as well as the iconic fight for Mt. Suribachi
Battle for Okinawa 1945 - Fighting on many different locations, such as airfields, jungles, massive underground tunnel networks and so on.
I think we could have had more variety, and interesting maps. But i am still very happy and will play the pacific fully.
I think dev want to make it into a general pacific campaign which include all the battle in pacific. It is because the dev name it Pacific war instead of Guadal canal campaign which is different to all other campaigns naming convention.
That’s what I’m thinking too, there’s already a lot of campaign levels that aren’t from the Guadalcanal war, so i think they’ll probably expand into the late pacific wars but won’t add the more modern tanks and airplanes
The Australians didn’t actually fight in Burma, in Burma in 1942 the Japanese fought the British/Indian/Chinese forces, out of all of the potential Japanese conflicts this one has the most widely varied potential for kit especially for infantry kit, there was also of course initially the American mercenary squadron flying H 81’s.
The Australians mostly fought the Japanese in New Guinea, more or less exclusively in 42/43, although there was a small Australian contingent fighting in the Dutch East Indies and I think it was Sumatra, either that or Java one or the other, they were sat there in the middle of a tug-of-war between Churchill and the Australian prime minister who wanted troops returning from North Africa to be sent to Australia, Churchill had other ideas but in the end he wound up losing but not before a small number of Australians wound up being stranded in the Dutch East Indies.
The Dutch East Indies would be very interesting because you also have American aircraft and British aircraft and of course Dutch aircraft so potentially it could offer a very varied equipment set.
I very much suspect that they’re probably going to go with what will appeal to more of a mass market and that is probably going to be American versus Japanese forces on some sort of island hopping campaign.
The Japanese didn’t really fight asymmetrically not in the contemporary sense, they were experts at camouflage and entrenching but they established lines and they defended them for the most part, part of this kind of defence was of course counter-attacks which usually were a waste of energy.
But Japanese infantry equipment was extremely effective they did killing off a lot of allies with them, and their aircraft although outnumbered for the most part were competitive especially in a game sense, throughout the war.
They really only problem is with their tanks and that’s really only towards the end of the war.
44/45 would be too hard to balance properly. Japan had nothing comparable to the USA in terms of weaponry and tanks. Devs tried asymmetrical balance in Normandy and it kinda failed.
It’s not going to be Guadalcanal, or at least not exclusively not Guadalcanal. The presence of the LVT(A)(1) demonstrates as much. The armoured LVT furst saw service in early 1944 just after Tarrawa and was first put to paper during the Guadalcanal campaign, putting well outside the realm of acceptable historically accuracy for even the devs if they do Guadalacanal. Furthermore the devs have implied they were going to explore the Pacific as a whole, and not do a single battle as a campaign.
IMO, it is very likely it will expand to encompass the whole pacific, as you have the Owen gun which would only really be found in Bouganville or Papua New Guinea and the Johnson LMG which the Marines should only really have in the Solomon Islands, while you also have the lunge mine and the LVT(A)(1) which both saw their first uses 1944 in places like Saipan, Peleliu or the Philippines. Furthermore, the skin that you get for the LVT for preordering is one from an LVT that was on Okinawa.
FYI, Giretsu paratroopers (義烈空挺隊) was established in 1945 and they were used in commando operation to attack enemy airfield during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. (The predecessor unit was established in 1944.)
as an Aussie, I would hope the Owen gun would be featured in an Australian Unit
I like starting earlier in the timeline and then progressing to later war. Its much harder to enjoy playing equipment progressively downgrading than the other way round.
