"Solution to excessive Torpedo use (from land bases)"

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Mog.....

do you think there are enough votes in for the Poll yet?

Oh my God... I have created a Monster! [;)]

Joking aside I think we got rether big count of votes in poll (and I must say that I don't recall much more polls with such high voe numbers and such high thread visitation)...


Leo "Apollo11"

[mogami]

ORIGINAL: spence

OK - have finished backtracking through turns 12/08/41 to 2/2/42 (last turn played)...December 7th torpedo attacks unknown but attack was not that exceptional so figure 2 Daitai (42 torps included in total).

As of 2/2/42 there have been 704 aerial torpedo launches by B5s/G3s/G4s (around 20% of total production of aerial torpedos up to that time).

Hi Thanks. I have a PBEM game just reaching July 1943. A total of 16 Allied ships have been sunk by air torpedo all of them inside the SRA.
Of course this game defies many of the common topics.

Fighters lost in A2A
Allied 591 Japanese 656

Submaries lost
5 Allied 12 Japanese
Ships sunk by submarines
47 Japanese 7 Allied.

[el cid again]

Notice that you CANNOT score as well as the Japanese did - which should the AVERAGE score if the game were calibrated properly.

Why? Maybe the Japanese did as well as humanly possible in the historical event, and game results should reflect that kind of success only rarely. Then again, maybe the historical PH attack was a dismal failure and just about all game results should be better.

ANY complex operation or project can be improved upon - particularly with 20-20 hindsight. It is a principle of reverse engineering - we should always make a better product than the one we look at. On the very day of Pearl Harbor US officers were shaking their heads at mistakes made - not least was the failure to follow up. And Adm Yamamoto decided two days later they were right - that Japan should have - and actually still needed to - take Hawaii out in a much more fundamental way. It changes the entire character of the war if you take it out as a fleet base - if you get any fraction of the millions of tons of oil there (half the entire stockpile in Japan) - and US operations do not base halfway across the sea. Any serious analyst should be able to do better - although I admit that the plan was very well made and executed. A simulation designer needs to put the historical event in the CENTER of his sights - or he will never create a realistic simulation of anything. Diviation statistically from what happened is the heart of simulation. What happens is virtually never the limit of what could happen - unless there are 100% results. IF the Japanese sank EVERY ship - destroyed EVERY plane - destroyed EVERY workshop - I might have to agree with you. They did not come close.

[el cid again]

See, I absolutely disagree with this. Midway happened historically. Should that result be the "midpoint?"

IF a game begins at the moment that McClusky is in position, enemy CAP is out of position and out of ammunition, enemy AAA is depressed and out of ready shells, and the Japanese strike group is rearming on deck -

absolutely the result better be the midpoint. You might get 2 or 4 carriers in that attack - but the norm better be 3 - or your model is not simulating well.

On the other hand, players are not required to break every one of the rules of war when they plan ops - that is what Morison says - they broke em all at Midway. So if they don't do that - and your sim is accurate - they should NEVER do that badly.

I was talking about a game that begins magically on Dec 8 (Japan date) -
everyone in position for the Japanese plan to execute. In THAT situation I EXPECT AI to do as well on the average as they did historically - of the system is not properly "calibrated" - and were it mine - I would adjust it until it WAS the normal result.

[el cid again]

As far as I'm concerned, most people whose posts I have read in the "let's change this and let's mess with that" threads miss the fun of the game. You pays your money, and you takes your choice. Give 'em hell for 18 months. The hell with you after that. I want to be Yamamoto, Yamashita, and the rest, not production god

You do seem to think like an Imperial soldier - although not like Yamashita. I think he was their best hope - because he DID give precedence to logistics. It is the mark of a really great captain that he does not allow "military" factors to obscure strategic ones. IF there is any hope for Japan - it must lie on the road of being clever - not just glorious.

News flash: Japan did NOT go to war to lose. It may be the thinking of its leaders was flawed (I will agree with you if you want to say so) - but they felt NOT to fight was likely to end up worse for them. Until you understand why they felt that way, you are not able to represent them well: they were fighting to win - not to defeat the US on its own soil - but to win a local autonomy - and just as there were "more than enough" resources for an autarky - there was "more than enough" anti-colonial spirit in Asia to have created a position too expensive to take. Like most losers in most wars, Japan defeated itself - something we have managed to imitate since. No one is so big he cannot screw up his own cause - not even us - and certainly not a country a tenth our size. But they once won a war against an equally bigger opponant - and in THAT case they had a plan. WITHOUT a plan they were doomed. [A US president won the Nobel Peace Prize - executing the Japanese plan to end the Russo-Japanese war. It is a strange story - but true. They had an exit strategy then - but not in WWII. It is amazing: when they committed the last group of conscripts - 55 year olds - to the Battle of Mukden - they sent out the word to the diplomats "Execute the plan - end the war." And they did.]