Red Sun Rising Over San Francisco - The Matrix Games version of Rising Sun

3V3 Team Scenario. Alternate History/Hypothetical.
Dec. 7th, 1945.

NOTE: PLAY WITH ARMOR FACING OFF
If you play with AF ON the Japanese Daihatsu landing craft have a defense of ZERO…instant elimination every time they get shot. With Armored Facing turned OFF it plays normally.

No VV, AF, or EA. EA if you are masochistic in nature and feel a need to bleed. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

ALTERNATE HISTORY 3v3 TEAM SCENARIO "Red Sun Over San Francisco" San Francisco Bay Area, United States Of America. [H2H/AXIS] [BRIDGEHEAD] [FIC] [WIF] [BZ]

The successful Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor devastated the Pacific assets of the US Navy. Shattered remnants of the US Pacific Fleets withdrew to the West Coast of the U.S. The majority of US Naval assets were captured at Pearl Harbor. When the Arizona sank and blocked the main channel, blocking their exit, they were sitting ducks. Soon all of these capital ships were flying the Rising Sun. By 1945 half of them had been converted to flat tops. Carriers were key to invading the USA.

The Japanese followed up in Oahu by landing 3 Divisions of crack troops. Hawaii fell. The Japanese, having broken our Naval codes, knew San Diego contained the majority of remaining USN capital ships, and several feints by the Japanese kept them there. It never mattered, San Francisco and the Bay Area were always their next target. After the Aleutians the entire Pacific Coastline fell like dominos. Until now.

This is a hypothetical scenario designed to see how difficult it would be to invade the rugged coast of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. If you grew up there climbing those hills you know what I’m talking about. This will not be an easy landing. It will be earned, strictly by the code of Bushido. The steel price, never the gold price.
The map is constructed from PERIOD CORRECT U.S.G.S. 7.5 minute quadrangle topographical maps dating from 1942 to 1946. My thanks to the University of California, Berkeley. Go Bears. Their archives include historical topographic maps, and are published under public domain.

NOTE: The terrain choices in Rising Sun do not have selections designed for Northern California. For those reasons I have used "Field" to represent not only true fields but the dry California chapparal that covers the hills. I have used "Palm" trees to simulate the groves of Eucalyptus trees, invasive imports from Australia. I have used "rice paddies" to simulate flooded crops and salt ponds. Most of the Bay Area at the time was devoted to farms, and specifically orchards, which were periodically flooded as a means of irrigation.

The Japanese and their allies will land elements of 9 Divisions along the Bay Area coast line. The U.S. troops are a mix of home guard, weary veterans, and green units. These groups are also salted, perhaps peppered, with veteran Marines who not only retained the ability to fight but are spoiling for payback. After the election of Wendell Willkie in 1940 the strong isolationist president failed to upgrade and update our Army and Navy. We were ill prepared for war.

Note the areas of military significance using the "Shift" key. The Naval might of the WW2 Bay Area was a far cry from the 4 million strong, peace loving, navel contemplating metropolis it is today. It was a hornet's nest of military bases, defense industries, airfields, Kaiser Shipyards, etc. The US Navy and the US Army existed in "close quarters" from Alameda NAS to the Presidio Army Base. Heavy coastal defenses are recreated with painstaking accuracy. Every bunker, pillbox, and emplacement. Passing under the Golden Gate will require crossing underwater minefields, submarine nets, and the well sighted shore guns of varying caliber from AA guns to massive 16" Twin mounts in deep concrete pillboxes.

The loss of England during Operation Sealion, along with the mild winter and subsequent defeat of Russia in Moscow, 1941, left the U.S., Canada and Australia standing together to face the combined power of the Axis. Germany reigns supreme in Europe, and Adolph has his lebensraum. Unchallenged in mainland Europe and Asia, they next target our East Coast. The US leads the surviving Allied nations against the Axis tripartite. No help will come from the eastern parts of the U.S., they are fending off the Germans, and weathering constant V3 (A9/A10) ballistic missile attacks.

The morning of December 7th 1945 followed a cold and black night of winter storms. The fog was in with a vengeance, creeping or possibly stomping in on colossal cat's feet, and you could hardly see past the hood of your car. Traffic snarled all night on the slick roads. Wet and nasty, classic San Francisco Bay weather in the Fall. The radios were acting up, as they often did during foul weather. Reports came in all night of strange sightings, but nothing confirmed. There was even an early report of enemy action from Fort Bragg and Bodega Bay, but only silence after that.

The listening station at Fort Point has been acting up all night as well after a mysterious explosion. The Brass, realizing something was up, start scrambling to assembling our defenses.

We were caught by a skillful act of counter-espionage. Losing the Naval War College and Cryptographers in Hawaii was a critical blow. The Japanese, soon learning we had broken their old Naval codes, leaked radio traffic for weeks of impending action around San Diego and the coastal defenses were concentrated in the south of California. While their misdirection pays dividends, they are still up against a formidable enemy, fighting for their homeland. This includes the majority of surviving US Marines on the West Coast, stationed at Camp Pendleton.

Do not discount the firepower and fighting ability of the US Marine. Late war, they are death on two legs.

With dawn, the sun rises in the early hours and begins to burn off the fog. What the Americans, Canadians and Australians see that morning shakes them. They see hundreds if not thousands of Japanese ships, including many who have already crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge into the North Bay.

The mainland US has never been invaded by its enemies until this day...December 7th...1945. Cannon fire begins to echo from the hillsides.
The Japanese are here in force. 4 years to the day since the Pearl Harbor invasion, Yamamoto's fleets have gathered off the California coast, and caught us by surprise. The war has come to American soil.

NOTES: Armor Facing OFF.
ROEs: While possible to load and unload DIRECTLY onto the bridges, it’s not likely. Specifically the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oakland-SF Bay Bridge. They would involve climbing steel pylons hundreds of feet high. The other bridges all had low sections, and my recommendation is to allow it on them but it’s your call. Remember, no bridges are permanently blocked, even with 12 wrecks, as you have engineer groups capable of removing those wrecks to clear the bridges.

Those familiar with the Bay Area will spot my “modifications” quickly. To wit, there was no bridge that crossed between San Rafael and Richmond. I added this to enhance gameplay, hence the moniker of “Puente Mysterio”. If it helps, that bridge exists now, more or less, and it’s the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge.