Battlestations: Midway/Steel Monsters

American Objectives
 * Destroy all Japanese warships

Japanese Objectives
 * Destroy all American warships

A deathmatch if there ever was one, Steel Monsters is all strictly heavy fighting - that is, you won't see anything smaller than a light cruiser in this fray. Basically, each player gets a battleship and a cruiser, and last team standing wins.

Regardless of which side you're playing, your first decision must be taken as a group - you have three options:
 * Have everyone head north, over the island, to keep your firepower intact
 * Have everyone head south, under the island, to keep your firepower intact
 * Hide behind the island, and wait for the enemy to come around first before picking a direction.

The most common strategy is to head either north or south. All three strategies work, but the circumstances vary greatly from game to game.

As with all naval battles, always attempt to "cross the T" with enemy warships. This means to engage the enemy warship from the front, allowing you to bring all guns to bear on the enemy while the enemy can only fire his forward guns.

Battleships normally have a range advantage of other ships, but since this battle is pretty much all battleships anyway, you're going to find exploiting your range to be quite difficult. Additionally, unlike the computer, you cannot fire over the island. Keep these in mind while duking it out.

The map doesn't look recognizable at first, but it is in fact a clone of the Java Sea as it appears in Rendezvous at the Java Sea.

Player Slots
🇨🇴 American Slots York (CA) - York Cleveland (CL) - Cleveland Atlanta (CL) - Atlanta Northampton (CA) - Northampton 🇨🇴 Japanese Slots Kuma (CL) - Kuma Takao (CA) - Takao Mogami (CA) - Mogami Tone (CA) - Tone 🇨🇴
 * King George V (BB) - Warspite
 * New York (BB) - New York
 * King George V (BB) - Prince of Wales
 * New York (BB) - Pennsylvania
 * Kongō (BB) - Haruna
 * Fusō (BB) - Fusō
 * Kongō (BB) - Kongō
 * Fusō (BB) - Yamashiro

American Strategy
The first thing you're going to want to do is pick a leader, who will then direct the fleet either north or south. The worst thing anyone can do is separate their firepower. Once the fleet moves either north or south, the battles themselves fall to the players.

Because of the nature of the map, there is little to no strategy aside from picking which direction to go. The idea is to simply sink the enemy fleet, so most of the time this battle will be in the hands of the players on an individual basis, not a leader as a whole.

The Americans have generally stronger ships, and everyone's already in position to fight, so go ahead and duke it out with the Japanese warships, Pirates of the Carribbean style.

There isn't much strategy to this fight, but be on the lookout for torpedoes. The Japanese heavy cruisers have a lot of them, so don't let them get in close with the battleships. Fight at long range and make sure all your repair teams are set to repair water damage. Ideally, you can use your own cruisers to keep theirs at bay, since yours have superior guns. If you position your cruiser next to your battleship right, you can make it more difficult for enemy gunners to get a bead on your battleship.

Well spread torpedoes can cause multiple leaks on your ship, and enough will sink battleships. All your personnel should be set on water repair duty all the time, except in the case one of your gun turrets is taken out. Above all, make sure to concentrate your firepower. Ideally, this should be on one of the two Fuso-class ships first, as they are much more powerful then the Kongo-Class

Japanese Strategy
As mentioned before, the first thing you're going to want to do is elect a leader who will then lead the attack either north or south of the island. A pincer can try to work but it requires skill from all team members, and it is generally difficult to employ, so stick with either a northern or a southern attack and stick to it. The worst thing people can do is split up and break formation - the concentration of firepower is essential in this map.

Aside from picking which direction to go, there isn't much strategy to this battle since the lines are drawn and you're directly in front of the enemy. The result of this battle, therefore, is dictated by who has superior seamanship. There is a small crook in the Japanese side of the island, that can fit a cruiser, or even a battleship behind. It would be a good idea to take advantage of, because it makes targeting this battleship hard, or even impossible, while it can do damage just fine.

An important thing to note is to always set your personnel to water duty. Do not forget. Fire does no damage outside single player anyway.

The two sides are evenly matched and the lines are drawn, so you have little choice but to go head-to-head with the Americans in this battle. You do have one advantage though - torpedoes. This gives you a bigger chance at closer ranges than the Americans do.

The Americans will do everything they can to avoid your torpedoes - therefore you must do everything in your power to ensure your torpedoes hit.

Grab your heavy cruisers and send them right on top of the American battleships and torpedo the living daylights out of them to eliminate them quickly. Your battleships match up evenly with the American heavy cruisers, so don't worry too much about them.