Sea Zones make no sense

I think that they are often designed to create opportunities and threats rather than reflect any actual naval truth - and are probably all the better for that.

Naval operational range was vitally important in WW2. that is why the US had to have the campaign of islandhopping.

If you look at for example the IOWA class of US battleships, they had an operational range of 23000 KM.

The distance from San fransico to Tokyo is about 8200 km. If you assume it does not travel in a straight line, but does a zig zag pace to avoid submarine torpedoes, the distance will be about 12000 KM. However, it would be very stupid to travel just in the sortest route, they would be way to easy to find for japanese planes, so they would probably have to make a detour, so we can reasonably assume they would travel 14000-16000 KM to get there. When they get there, they would have to probably travel around alot to look for targets, I will add 700 KM/ day. For a 2 week raid, that works out to about 10 000 km. Then they will have to travel back again. This makes their total journey at about 40 000 KM.  This is why they operated from Hawaii, and later from Guam.

The seazones is a small sense of trying to capture scales and the limited ability of fleets to project power. You can project power from hawaii to the sea of japan. You can not do the same thing from San fransisco.

@Private:

I think that they are often designed to create opportunities and threats rather than reflect any actual naval truth - and are probably all the better for that.

You are correct for sure. This is a game, not an historical correct reenactment. Both rules and seazones are supposed to be gamey.  :-D

You might as well be asking the same thing about the land spaces… many of which are representative of a country or territory, not of an actual “one-territory=x-number of miles” formula.

Axis and allies is not meant to be a historically accurate hardcore realistic wargame… it’s a beer and pretzels casual game… and nomatter what anyone tells you about anything from A&A 1941 to A&A 1940 Global, it’s still a casual wargame-light.

If you want something more hardcore, that has more set ranges and realistic limitations, try smaller scale wargames (usually the kind with cardboard counters), or something like Avalon Hills Third Reich game… be careful what you’re asking for, cuz too much realism can suck the fun right out of a game… something on the scale of Axis and Allies, and the target of a fun easy game isn’t meant to be counting off fuel supplies and realistic operational ranges… that’s not the intent of a game like Axis and Allies.

I love the fact that you can play A&A out of the box by OOB rules or with house rules and added FMG and HBG pieces, make it as complex and historically acurate as you may want.

One thing about the sea zones (and land territories) that really jumps out at you when you place the right-side panel of the Pacific game to the left of the left-side panel of the Europe game (which is not where it’s actually supposed go) is how much their scales differ.  If you go to the thread where I have pictures of my custom table…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32700.0

…and if you look at these two pictures…

5 Connector Panel.jpg
6 Europe Left Panel.jpg

…where I’ve used strips of black electrical tape to create customized connections between those two panels, you’ll see that the most of the connecting lines are diagonal rather than horizontal, showing that the scale widens when you go in one direction and narrows when you go the other way.

The Pacific Ocean is a LOT larger than the Atlantic. The sea spaces need to be bigger for gameplay purposes or it would take twice as long to cross.