IJA Code Breaking

[spence]

I've recently started reading "Neptune's Inferno" by J.D. Hornsfischer (also "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors". A sort of offhand comment in one of the early chapters caught my eye. The Japanese Army decoded something that indicated that the Americans had "broken" the IJN's operational codes prior to Midway. BUT, the IJA never passed the info on to the IJN.

Anybody got any other information on this?

[Terminus]

Sounds like another conspiracy theory...

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: spence

I've recently started reading "Neptune's Inferno" by J.D. Hornsfischer (also "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors". A sort of offhand comment in one of the early chapters caught my eye. The Japanese Army decoded something that indicated that the Americans had "broken" the IJN's operational codes prior to Midway. BUT, the IJA never passed the info on to the IJN.

Anybody got any other information on this?

Never heard anything about it..., but it would not be outside the realms of possibility given the extrordinary lack of cooperation between the IJA and the IJN. Probably the biggest single "break" a Japanese player gets in games is that there is no good way to simulate this strange situation. Might be an interesting scenario for someone to design..., have the computer AI play the Allies and the two players take the IJA and the IJN with seperate victory conditions.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: spence

I've recently started reading "Neptune's Inferno" by J.D. Hornsfischer (also "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors". A sort of offhand comment in one of the early chapters caught my eye. The Japanese Army decoded something that indicated that the Americans had "broken" the IJN's operational codes prior to Midway. BUT, the IJA never passed the info on to the IJN.

Anybody got any other information on this?

Never heard anything about it..., but it would not be outside the realms of possibility given the extrordinary lack of cooperation between the IJA and the IJN. Probably the biggest single "break" a Japanese player gets in games is that there is no good way to simulate this strange situation. Might be an interesting scenario for someone to design..., have the computer AI play the Allies and the two players take the IJA and the IJN with seperate victory conditions.

The separate victory conditions would be easy.[:)] Just two.

1. Which service gets to nominate the Prime Minister.
2. Which service gets the bigger budget allocation.

Alfred

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: spence

I've recently started reading "Neptune's Inferno" by J.D. Hornsfischer (also "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors". A sort of offhand comment in one of the early chapters caught my eye. The Japanese Army decoded something that indicated that the Americans had "broken" the IJN's operational codes prior to Midway. BUT, the IJA never passed the info on to the IJN.

Anybody got any other information on this?

Never heard anything about it..., but it would not be outside the realms of possibility given the extrordinary lack of cooperation between the IJA and the IJN.

> Mike, this is so very true - the real life reality of this lack of cooperation just staggers the imagination. Makes our own squabbles seem inconsequential in comparison.

Probably the biggest single "break" a Japanese player gets in games is that there is no good way to simulate this strange situation. Might be an interesting scenario for someone to design..., have the computer AI play the Allies and the two players take the IJA and the IJN with seperate victory conditions.

A very original idea, Sir!

Mac

[spence]

Sounds like another conspiracy theory...

Considering that the IJN told the IJA that they scored a great victory at Midway the historical record doesn't support an assertion that it's just another conspiracy theory.

[ilovestrategy]

I'm not surprised. Our navy and army were at odds but their conflict was nothing compared to the Nips. When the army finally found out what happened at Midway they were smug instead of being dismayed.

[rockmedic109]

Even today there is little cooperation among U.S. armed services.  Just look at their language.
 
Tell the Marines to secure a building, they assault it from the ground up.
Tell the Army to secure a building, they assault it from the roof down.
Tell the Navy to secure a building and they launch an alpha strike that wipes out the entire zip code.
Tell the Air Force to secure a building and they take out a 99 year lease.

[ilovestrategy]

That's like us on the Marines calling the Army " doggies", the Air Force "Propeller Heads", and the Navy "Squids"! [:D]

[Kapitanma]

I highly recommend you pick up Japanese Intelligence in WWII by Ken Kotani. It is definitely the best English language book on the WWII Japanese intelligence arm, and it holds up to many of the Japanese books on the subject(as they tend to be fairly dated). I think this book will really open up a lot of people here to the exploits of Japanese intelligence. It's an excellent read, and everyone interested in the Pacific War should give it a spin.

This is one of the points that is touched on. The Japanese intelligence service was competent on an tactical level, but poor structuring of the intelligence services meant that the data gathered was usually wasted, and disregarded entirely on a strategic level. The IJA was actually successful using SIGINT, and far ahead of the IJN in this regard. This was the reason they did not alert the IJN to their compromised ciphers even when they knew. They didn't want to give the Navy any of their techniques or information in order to keep Navy's influence down.