Operation Cherry Blossom

Players must reach the marine landing zone and defeat enemy forces.

Summary

Operation Cherry Blossom is a PvE Scenario which has the friendly task force tasked with reaching and defending a marine regiment that is embarking on a shore assault. The friendly force will then need to find and destroy enemy aerodromes. The allied force consists of 7 player ships.

Overview

The battle will unfold near the shores of Bougainville Island in Oceania. If you want to see the first rays of the rising sun again, you'll have to give it everything you've got in this encounter. Square off against Japanese forces, fighting under the cloak of night to repel their attack and provide cover for allied landings. At night, the detectability of all ships is significantly reduced, while dispersion is slightly increased. The Japanese forces rely on flare-like illumination shells and bombs that increase the detectability of a ship.

Your mission in the nighttime battle is to repel the Japanese attack, cover the departure of the allied ships from the shore, and defend the landings against seaborne strikes. Morning will arrive soon, and allied aircraft carriers will join your squadron at dawn. Get ready to repel enemy aircraft, progress with your offensive against the Japanese forces, and destroy enemy aerodromes.

Tasks

Task Priority	Details	Requirement	Pins Earned
Primary	“Destroy enemies and defend at least a single Marine Corps position.”	Enemy units destroyed with at least one USMC position defended.	N/A
Primary (Alternate)	“Destroy enemy aerodromes.”	Enemy aerodromes destroyed.	N/A
Secondary	“Defend both military transports.”	Both transport ships survive the first engagement.
Secondary	“Ensure that at least 4 allied ships survive.”	4 allied ships survive until the Victory screen.
Secondary	"Defend both allied regiment positions.”	Both allied positions are successfully defended.
Secondary	“Destroy 50 aircraft”	50 aircraft destroyed.
Secondary	“Destroy flagship Atago.”	Sink the Atago.

Gameplay Mechanics

At nighttime, the view range and detectability of ships change:

• The maximum visibility range of ships is limited to 17.5 km
• Ship detectability is reduced by 40%
• The dispersion of primary and secondary armament fire is increased by 20%
• The time of a ship's increased detectability after firing primary armament is reduced from 20 to 7 seconds.
• Ships within an "illumination bomb" flare's circle of illumination have their detection range increased to 17.5km

Walkthrough

When players spawn in, there will be two transports several kilometers ahead of them. The players' first task is to defend these ships from the incoming destroyers. There will be two Hatsuharus and two Shiratsuyus approaching from the north. For Tier IX and higher, these destroyers will be two Kitakazes and two Harugumos instead, and all will have torpedoes ready to use within 10 seconds of the match starting. Due to the night mechanics, the concealment range for the destroyers is about 3 km meaning players will need to be very close to spot the destroyers or use Surveillance Radar  or Hydroacoustic Search  to spot them from further away. A ship with radar can usually use it to spot all four destroyers starting from 5-20 seconds into the game depending on the range of the radar, so the ship with the longest radar or hydroacoustic search range should use their consumable first if available.

Once these destroyers are sunk, the next wave spawns in about 5-10 seconds later. The first ships you will see are two cruisers that focus on shelling the allied shore positions. For Tier VI-VIII, they are Myōkōs, and for Tier IX and higher they are Yoshinos They do not move, use consumables or activate AA until they take damage. It is best to allow the ships with bigger guns to fire first and possibly delete the closer cruiser while it is sitting still and easier to hit. The second cruiser will be sitting with its stern to the players and all guns facing the allied shore position. Once hit, it will make a 180° left turn towards the players. It is best to shoot at this ship as early as possible to get it to turn around, so the slow turret traverse will keep it from shelling the shore position for a while.

The enemy also sends several ships from the north to assist with the shelling of the regiments. For Tier VI-VIII, the ships are one Hatsuharu, one Fubuki, two Shiratsuyus, one Yahagi and one Aoba. For Tier IX and higher, the ships are one Kitakaze, one Yūgumo, two Harugumos, and two Azumas. To successfully defend the shore positions, at least 5 of these 8 ships need to be sunk before the HP of both shore positions reach 0. In order to save both regiments, 1-2 players (preferably with Hydroacoustic Search  to spot torpedoes) should aggressively dive into the bay to get the attention of and sink the enemy destroyers if no ship on the team has access to Surveillance Radar . Once the regiments are successfully defended, the remaining enemy ships will try to return to the harbor in the north while attacking the players.

With the compleation of the first main objective, an allied fleet consisting of two Fletcher-class destroyers, one Lexington-class aircraft carrier Saratoga and one Midway-class aircraft carrier Bunker Hill spawn where the players first spawned, and head towards the center of the map. To the right of the island at B6, one Hatsuharu and one Shiratsuyu for Tier VI-VIII or one Kitakaze and one Harugumo for Tier IX and higher will spawn in. These destroyers will move to attack the two allied aircraft carriers or any player between them and the aircraft carriers.

In the Bay, there will be one Atago that tries to flee south, but it will turn around near the edge of the map to attack the allies’ rear flank. Sinking this ship is a secondary objective so it should be one of the first ships focused when attacking the ships in the harbor. For Tier IX and higher, the Atago takes half damage from all damage types. For Tier VI-VIII there will also be one Akizuki, one Shiratsuyu, one Myōkō and one Mogami in the bay to defend the aerodromes. For Tier IX and higher, these ships will be one Harugumo, one Yamagiri, one Yoshino and one Clausewitz During the assault on the base at irregular intervals, starting from when the Atago first starts to leave, one of the following ships will spawn at random at A3 with 8 ships total available to spawn: Tier VI-VIII Yahagi, Furutaka, Aoba, Shiratsuyu, Kagerō. Tier IX and higher Harugumo, Yamagiri, Azuma

Some of these ships can spawn multiple times. The main objective here is to destroy the aerodromes, so destroying enemy ships should only be done to make it easier to destroy the aerodromes and not at the cost of the battle.

Tips

• Avoid flares and illumination shells to remain undetected as much as possible.
• Ships with decent AA capabilities will prove useful in accomplishing the secondary task of shooting down 50 planes.
• A ship with poor AA can block one of the Fletchers to borrow its AA bubble until the second wave of planes are shot down if they are in the center before the Fletchers break off to charge the bay.
• When shelling aerodromes, SAP and HE are recommended as they do not have much "armor" so most AP shells will only do over penetration damage (British light cruiser AP is an exception).
• The Midway provides a repair zone until 5 minutes remain in the battle. Use it if your ship gets badly damaged, but do not stay in it with full HP as it is far from the enemy ships, limiting the usefulness of most ships in the heal circle.
• The Aerodromes are invulnerable until the regiment positions are successfully defended, and take reduced damage until the Atago spawns in, so it is best to focus on destroying enemy ships until the first primary objective has been completed.
• With the introduction of support carriers like Yorktown, It is possible to save the regiments by laying a smoke screen on top of them, which will obscure them from the enemy ships.

Known Bugs

• The lighting is intended to be a gradual shift to day with concealment returning to normal values as this happens, but currently the lighting changes all at once around the time that detection ranges return to normal.

• The cruiser captain skill Top Grade Gunner is supposed to use the unmodified detection range of the ship, but instead uses the modified (and noticeably smaller) night detection range to trigger. Players must get closer in this map to activate the reduced main battery reload time even during the later daytime portion of the scenario.

Trivia

• The operation is based on the real battle at Empress Augusta Bay on November 2, 1943, where the Japanese squadron of Admiral Ōmori and the American task force of Rear Admiral Merrill clashed with each other.

• No enemy battleships or aircraft carriers spawn on the map so the torpedoes on Asashio are useless on this map.

• This scenario used to have permanent smoke concealment when it was released and Radar was necessary to perform well, but was changed to similar mechanics of storms where ships instead have increased detectability for only 7 seconds after firing instead of the normal 20 seconds in Update 0.11.8 when the scenario game mode received a major overhaul.

Gallery & Video

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