Best books for wargaming Pacific naval actions.

[olicana]

Hi, I’m looking for books covering historic Pacific naval actions, including OOBs, especially the smaller actions with less than 20 ships per side - preferably surface gunnery actions, preferably without much carrier interference.

I’m going to use Nimitz rules (which seem to be fun, and quick) so that side is sorted.

[carlos marighela]

Best OOB and scenario stuff? None other than the US Navy itself and it's free. Loads of useful maps and diagrams.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/publications/wwii-oni-combat-narratives.html

The actions around the Guadalcanal campaign, especially Savo Island will give you good surface action scenarios without too much interference from carriers. Lots of night actions including Savo Island itself.

For a general overview that's readable, Dan Van der Vat's Pacific Campaign is right up there.

[carlos marighela]

Oh and if you fancy expanding it beyond the USN. G Hermon Gill's Official Histories for the Royal Australian Navy are worth a read. Again, free online via the AWM website.

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1417314

[Admiral Hawke]

As Carlos writes, the obvious campaign is the Guadalcanal campaign which featured a series of night surface actions between August and November 1942: Savo Island, Cape Esperance, First Guadalcanal, Second Guadalcanal and Tassafaronga. These were mostly cruiser-destroyer actions, but there were battleships at the two Guadalcanal battles in November.

My favourite book on the Guadalcanal naval campaign is James D. Hornfischer’s superb 'Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal'. I can't recall whether he lists both Japanese and Allied orders of battle, or just the American ones. I tend to use Paul S. Dull’s 'A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941-1945' for  Japanese naval orders of battle.

Beyond the Guadalcanal campaign, there were further surface gunnery actions in the later Solomons campaign, such as Kula Gulf, Kolombangara and Empress Augusta Bay, but I don't know a great book about them (beyond Samuel Eliot Morison's official histories). Then there's the Battle of the Komandorski Islands in the North Pacific, which is well covered in Robert C. Stern's 'Big Gun Battles; Warship Duels of the Second World War'.

Perhaps the most fascinating is the desperate Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942 for which F.C. van Oosten's 'The Battle of the Java Sea' is excellent if you can find a copy, as is Jeffrey R. Cox's 'Rising Sun; Falling Skies'.

All of those battles would meet your criteria. I hope that helps.