Intel reports

[Canoerebel]

I have a better idea. Let's play with the actual intel that both side had...nah, we'd better not. Nobody would be willing to play Japan.

[d0mbo]

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

War History has a point the Japanese knew AF was short of water. [:D] [:D] [:'(]

But that message was sent in the clear by the allies! I think the game models this fine with the "radio traffic detected at xxx,xxx"! [:D]

[SuluSea]

ORIGINAL: d0mbo

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

War History has a point the Japanese knew AF was short of water. [:D] [:D] [:'(]

But that message was sent in the clear by the allies! I think the game models this fine with the "radio traffic detected at xxx,xxx"! [:D]

In total agreement with you Dombo, The Japanese got very little intel and in the case of Midway's water distilling Pearl wanted them to have it. If Tokyo had any capable intel at all they would have known that Guadalcanal was more than a reconnaissance in force and wouldn't have sent the Ichiki and Aoba into a buzzsaw. The same could be said for what the AIF had at Milne Bay to a lesser extent. There is no basis for War Historys claims and on page 53 of his manual provided
it shows he could be playing his game wrong by giving the japanese the same intelligence apparatus the Allies had atleast the way I read in the manual although my reading comprehension is woeful . [;)] A case could be made that Japanese get much more intel in this game than they had in WW2 because when they have the initiative all force strength is known.

[Barb]

Also I would like to see messages in Operations report that say for example, why ordered strike didnt fly (for example):
Unit XY aborted mission because of bad weather over target
Unit XY mission scrubbed because of low clouds over home airfield
Unit XY mission scrubbed because the pilots had hang over

Bombers from Unit XY turned back because escort fighters didnt arrived
Bombers from Unit XY turned back because of strong enemy opposition.

Sometimes one could miss such messages while watching replay, and on the other hand, sometimes they are not even written - so a comander doesnt know why his orders werent carried out...

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Puhis

It's easy to denigrade japanese intelligence, when most of the war time documents are lost and western historians can't read them anyway...

No..., what makes it easy to denigrate Japanese code breaking intelligence is it's total failure to provide Japanese commanders with any useful and timely information. It's easy to come up with "intel coups" that allowed the Allies to "bushwack" Japanese operations---Midway and the Bismarck Sea come to mind readily.

But where are the Japanese "intel victories"? Apparently "Tokyo Rose" knew about the Kiska landings..., but where is the evidence that the Imperial Navy had any warning? Seems at the vary least they would have sent additional subs to the area if they KNEW the landings were going to take place. Nothing!

Japanese code breaking sucked! End of story.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I have never seen an item that good.

That's because you didn't sacrifice a bucket of chicken to the random number gods.

BAWK! [X(]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: SuluSea
War History has a point the Japanese knew AF was short of water. [:D] [:D] [:'(]

Do you realize that 99.999% of the population has no idea what this means? Today, just a handful of historians, a few in the military, and a bunch of history buffs and AE (and similar games) people know.

Yes, we lucky few. The true, the proud, the dorkwads. [:D]

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: SuluSea
War History has a point the Japanese knew AF was short of water. [:D] [:D] [:'(]

Do you realize that 99.999% of the population has no idea what this means? Today, just a handful of historians, a few in the military, and a bunch of history buffs and AE (and similar games) people know.

Yes, we lucky few. The true, the proud, the dorkwads. [:D]

I suggest that we quit associating with those ignorant sods until they get their heads out of "reality" TV and start learning something about REALITY! If only there were enough of us for them to notice the boycott.... [8|]

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: SuluSea
War History has a point the Japanese knew AF was short of water. [:D] [:D] [:'(]

Do you realize that 99.999% of the population has no idea what this means? Today, just a handful of historians, a few in the military, and a bunch of history buffs and AE (and similar games) people know.

Yes. Really funny observation. If the ratio really is 1:100000, then there should be about 3000 potential AE players in the US [:D]

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

It's easy to come up with "intel coups" that allowed the Allies to "bushwack" Japanese operations---Midway and the Bismarck Sea come to mind readily.

Yamamoto......

[War History]

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

It's easy to come up with "intel coups" that allowed the Allies to "bushwack" Japanese operations---Midway and the Bismarck Sea come to mind readily.

Yamamoto......

Peleliu, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima (we will have it in 10 days with a minimum of casualties), First Salvo Island......

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: War History

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

It's easy to come up with "intel coups" that allowed the Allies to "bushwack" Japanese operations---Midway, shooting down Yamamoto, and the Bismarck Sea come to mind readily.

Peleliu, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima (we will have it in 10 days with a minimum of casualties), First Salvo Island......

Would you care to explain how ANY of your examples qualify as Japanese code breaking coups? Failures of Allied intel perhaps, but hardly Japanese code breaking successes. Savo Island? Yes, it was a Japanese tactical success, but hardly based on code breaking. The US landings their came as a total surprise to the Japs. And it was two months into the campaign for Guadalcanal before the Japs finally figured out that the Marines were there in Divisional strength. Their intel sucked!

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

It's easy to come up with "intel coups" that allowed the Allies to "bushwack" Japanese operations---Midway and the Bismarck Sea come to mind readily.

Yamamoto......

I'll rephrase, in case my one word message is not clear. The assassination of Isoruku Yamamoto was a direct result in extremely detailed information gathered from Allied code breakers.

[RUDOLF]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I have a better idea. Let's play with the actual intel that both side had...nah, we'd better not. Nobody would be willing to play Japan.

Not all the Intel they had was bad.

[War History]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: War History

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

It's easy to come up with "intel coups" that allowed the Allies to "bushwack" Japanese operations---Midway, shooting down Yamamoto, and the Bismarck Sea come to mind readily.

Peleliu, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima (we will have it in 10 days with a minimum of casualties), First Salvo Island......

Would you care to explain how ANY of your examples qualify as Japanese code breaking coups? Failures of Allied intel perhaps, but hardly Japanese code breaking successes. Savo Island? Yes, it was a Japanese tactical success, but hardly based on code breaking. The US landings their came as a total surprise to the Japs. And it was two months into the campaign for Guadalcanal before the Japs finally figured out that the Marines were there in Divisional strength. Their intel sucked!

Didn't say they were. Just examples of allied failures. Midway wasn't exactly a code breaking coup either truth be told, if it was Nimitz would have known about the Aleutian operations (which he didn't). If it wasn't for 1 code breaker remembering "AF" from months ago and Nimitz's faith in it being true (or perhaps he figured if Midway wasn't the target then no harm no foul), Midway would never have happened either.

Ed: What if "AO" had been Pearl Harbor instead of Dutch Harbor and "AF" was the diversion?

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: War History

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: War History







Peleliu, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima (we will have it in 10 days with a minimum of casualties), First Salvo Island......

Would you care to explain how ANY of your examples qualify as Japanese code breaking coups? Failures of Allied intel perhaps, but hardly Japanese code breaking successes. Savo Island? Yes, it was a Japanese tactical success, but hardly based on code breaking. The US landings their came as a total surprise to the Japs. And it was two months into the campaign for Guadalcanal before the Japs finally figured out that the Marines were there in Divisional strength. Their intel sucked!

Didn't say they were. Just examples of allied failures. Midway wasn't exactly a code breaking coup either truth be told, if it was Nimitz would have known about the Aleutian operations (which he didn't). If it wasn't for 1 code breaker remembering "AF" from months ago and Nimitz's faith in it being true (or perhaps he figured if Midway wasn't the target then no harm no foul), Midway would never have happened either.

Ummm..... The US knew every ship that was in the force. They knew the target was "AF". They didn't know "AF" was Midway, but thought it was. Having Midway broadcast, in plain language, that they were short of water, and reading the Japanese response was how they identified "AF". I'm fairly certain the US knew about the Aleutian diversion and chose to ignore it, but am not 100% certain. There wasn't someone who remembered what "AF" was, and Nimitz didn't have to have faith. They could read most of the Japanese codes, most of the time.

I don't know how you identify an intel success, but 99.99% of folks view the Midway operation an intel success.

The early '42 carrier raids on pacific islands were because the US knew the Japanese CV's were no where nearby. Coral Sea happened because the US knew that Lex and York would be facing an equal force, not the entire KB, etc etc etc etc etc etc.......

Hell, the first Japanese ship sunk in the war was a result of intel. Some submarine was sunk by a US submarine because it was right on schedule.

As Mike has been asking, name one instance where Japanese intel gave them a victory or success somewhere.

[witpqs]

War History,

I'm having trouble with your Midway bit. You say that Midway was not a code-breaking success, because if things were different than they were, then it wouldn't have been a success! Oh yeah, and there were some things about the operation that they didn't know, therefore it wasn't a success.

But when IJ figured out through various means that an invasion fleet was on the way, even though it was obvious that one would be eventually so they knew to watch for it, and even though there is no evidence that they figured it out from code-breaking as opposed to other intelligence methods, you say that is an example of a code-breaking success.

I think you are being inconsistent about things.

I do agree that IJ intel is probably weak in the game compared to IRL. However, Allied intel is definitely very weak in the game compared to IRL.

I don't know any way that you can fix it when playing the AI, but I have a suggestion for PBM, although it requires the cooperation of your Allied opponent. Set up a procedure where each turn you generate two random numbers. If the first one is above a certain value (agreed in advance with your opponent), you look at the second number. Index that second number against the database of Allied ships in the scenario. Give your opponent the name of the ship the number refers to, and he is required to give you it's current hex location.

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I don't know any way that you can fix it when playing the AI, but I have a suggestion for PBM, although it requires the cooperation of your Allied opponent. Set up a procedure where each turn you generate two random numbers. If the first one is above a certain value (agreed in advance with your opponent), you look at the second number. Index that second number against the database of Allied ships in the scenario. Give your opponent the name of the ship the number refers to, and he is required to give you it's current hex location.

I thought the example someone showed earlier (CV Zuikaku is headed to xx/yy) is pretty good intelligence. To be useful, only capital ships should (or mostly capital ships) be used, and maybe even give the exact TF composition. Maybe have those tidbits show up quite a bit more often in the game, since IRL Allied code breaking was pretty fantastic. That's pretty good intel. It could even be coded for the Japanese side to get 1/10th of the same data.

Anyway, my opinion of the games depiction of Allied codebreaking went up dramatically once I saw the CV Zuikaku example.

[War History]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

War History,

I'm having trouble with your Midway bit. You say that Midway was not a code-breaking success, because if things were different than they were, then it wouldn't have been a success! Oh yeah, and there were some things about the operation that they didn't know, therefore it wasn't a success.

But when IJ figured out through various means that an invasion fleet was on the way, even though it was obvious that one would be eventually so they knew to watch for it, and even though there is no evidence that they figured it out from code-breaking as opposed to other intelligence methods, you say that is an example of a code-breaking success.

I think you are being inconsistent about things.

I do agree that IJ intel is probably weak in the game compared to IRL. However, Allied intel is definitely very weak in the game compared to IRL.

I don't know any way that you can fix it when playing the AI, but I have a suggestion for PBM, although it requires the cooperation of your Allied opponent. Set up a procedure where each turn you generate two random numbers. If the first one is above a certain value (agreed in advance with your opponent), you look at the second number. Index that second number against the database of Allied ships in the scenario. Give your opponent the name of the ship the number refers to, and he is required to give you it's current hex location.

If Midway were indeed the "success" that everyone thinks it was, why didn't the allies know the names of the ships and their target of the Aleutian force? Wasn't this sent in the same codes as the Midway force? And where please is it written that the Midway force ship IDs were known and target? Not saying it doesn't exist, but I certainly have never seen it. Have you?

Midway was the presumed target "AF". It was estimated that 4 carriers would spearhead the assault. Now as for allied intel being weaker than historical, I would agree with that statement. The allies for the most part knew every Japanese formation and its commanders, where they were, where they were going (but not in all cases and not always when they needed this info). I am not disputing any of this.

My contention is that the Japanese player in the GAME deserves more than "heavy volume of radio signals at San Francisco". And the other examples of failures I pointed out to show that the allies indeed did not know everything, that their information was as faulty on occasion as it was accurate at other times. Seemingly some people seem to think everything the allies did in the war was based on rock solid intel, and this simply was not the case.

The simple FACT that Tokyo Rose on occasion after occasion reported forces that were heading to a beachead shows the Japanese player SHOULD BE awarded some kind of signals intel in the game. That FACT can not be disputed. (Ed: except by AFBs that dispute any kind of a change that would make the game more even or in other words "help" the Japanese player without justification for their opposition).

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: War History

My contention is that the Japanese player in the GAME deserves more than "heavy volume of radio signals at San Francisco". No he doesn't. Radio traffic analysis was pretty much the only souce of intel the Japanese had.And the other examples of failures I pointed out to show that the allies indeed did not know everything, that their information was as faulty on occasion as it was accurate at other times. Have you seen the "intel" the Allied player gets? It's hardly all inclusive, and certainly not as good as they recieved in real life.Seemingly some people seem to think everything the allies did in the war was based on rock solid intel, and this simply was not the case. I don't think you can show that anyone is asking for anything of the sort.

The simple FACT that Tokyo Rose on occasion after occasion reported forces that were heading to a beachead shows the Japanese player SHOULD BE awarded some kind of signals intel in the game. That FACT can not be disputed. (Ed: except by AFBs that dispute any kind of a change that would make the game more even or in other words "help" the Japanese player without justification for their opposition). The only FACT that can be proved in any way is that the Japanese NEVER in the entire war got any code breaking intelligence that they could make military use of. That is the fact...