The Full Monty

[Aztek]

Either way the events of that morning are fascinating to study. The combination of incredibly bad Japanes luck and amazingingly good American luck changed the Pacific war in a matter of minutes.

One can only imagine the lump in Nagumos throat when he heard the screech of the dauntlesses after being told the fighters were too low or the elation of the marines on Wake after hearing of the decimation of the IJN fleet carriers.

The flyers of the American torpedo planes would have no idea their sacrifice would lead to the events that won the battle but the flyers of the Zeroes who slaughtered them and had no place to land would have that unnerving feeling of going from totally victorious to ditching in the sea.

If it were a fictional Hollywood movie the story would be a hard sell.

[mogami]

Hi, Hollywood has yet to make a version that does not include some additions (fabrications) to make the story interesting.
They find the true stroy rather boring.

[TIMJOT]

I disagree - with McClusky's dauntlesses the only bombers left when they arrived, if they'd got the same number of hits on empty IJN CVs - I think you'd find that all the IJN CVs would still be afloat (after those first hits they would have been faster, harder to hit still etc. More guns firing). Most importantly, the IJN CVs were destroyed by fire (or crippled so a sub could finish them like the ijn did for Yorktown) - without all those fuelled up planes and refuelling hoses and ordinance sitting around on the deck and in the hangars, the IJN damage control would have had a chance (whereas in real life they didn't).

I think the IJN would have won midway if they'd been able to launch with antiship weapons loaded (bombing cvs with bombs designed for hitting the island wouldn't have done the job I'm guessing) - their seaplane had already found their targets so small chance of them getting lost. They were better trained - lots of US navy wildcats had already been lost (except those on CAP).

Well, what I meant by 3 for 3 was 3 each sunk or put out of commision. No doubt without all those a/c and ordinanc their CVs would have been less likely to have sunk.

You also have to look at it the other way though. The full strike would have directed against the Yorktown only. While the USN strike would still would be directed at all 4 IJN CVs. The hits on the Kaga, Akagi and Soryu may not have sunk them but its likely they would have at least prevented flight deck operations. Leaving only Hiryu to deal with the 2 remaining USN CVs.

[Luskan]

You also have to look at it the other way though. The full strike would have directed against the Yorktown only.

Good point.

[Aztek]

Hmm that is a good point.

Yorktown would probably have been sunk or at least totally crippled.

2 out of the 4 japanese carriers perhaps unable to launch.


The afternoon would have been interesting with 2 US carriers with somewhat depleted airgroups launching with the remnants of midways air groups against maybe 2 Japanese CVS bulging with planes from the 2 damaged carriers for the second round.

Most likely by this point Nagumao would have been ignoring Midway completely.

Thats why we have these games to what if it to death

BTW Mogami your an inspiration to me and I can hardly wait for this beauty to come out and plan mt first Japanese turn.

Did you ever play any of the "Europa" games from GDW? I can only imagine how long you would have taken to move 3000 cardboard counters across the Russian landscape each turn.

[mogami]

Hi, I played "Drang nacht Osten" (I think that was the name.) piles of counters just for airbases.
It had more detail the SPI's War in Europe but I played WIE much more often.

[boomboom]

The man.I was at the Phillies game against St.louis,return of Scot rohlan.Miss the chat room.

[panda124c]

You do understand that this is still a game killer.

In UV for me an AVERAGE turn is 30 mins.

It's a much bigger war than UV, four hours to plan a turn for the entire Pacific and CBA. I don't see that as to bad. How many months and people did it take the Japanese to plan the Pearl Harbor 'Raid'? I just may have to hire a staff.
Can the game be broken up into Commands Areas where you can have different people playing different Commands????

[panda124c]

Hi, I seem to recall spending several hours just moving and fighting skirmishers in WV.
CNA OMG we played that for over a year and never finished. (I had an Italian pilot with 30 air victories)

The very best thing about computer games compared to board games aside from the quicker play is you do not actually have to be in the presence of your opponent. I've never got into a fist fight while playing a computer game.

During a game of SPI War in Europe (War the East and War in the West combined) I killed a stack of German armor in Russia and the German player burst into tears.

"Obvious blunder, I claim the obvious blunder redo rule" he started screaming.

When I ignored him he jumped onto my back while I was moving another stack and knocked the map to pieces.

I had to run around the room backing into the wall to get him off me and then we fought it out.

"This is the War Room you can't fight in here!"
One word Europa Series ok two words.

[panda124c]

I do not agree that inorder for a game to be considered a historical war game it must follow historical precedent, ie; no China offensive allowed in 1941 because there wasnt one historically. Its like saying no defence of the Malaya barrier can last beyond March 6th 42 because it didnt historically.

We see eye to eye on this point. I would go further and state that a realistic simulation strives to allow just this sort of experimentation within historical context, that without this ability the simulation fails. Keep in mind, though, that the underlying models are expected to be up to their work--lest they teach a bad lesson.

That's the crux of it, that any wargame's most appropriate control is history itself. When results from play begin to stray too far from that norm then one's conclusion has to be that the model is mistaken in one area or another.

I have to agree what we are looking for are possible results. If we see impossible results there is something wrong with the model. But I see no impossible results with China. If the Japanese player wishes to 'push his luck' and allocate resources to China let him. It's a long war and it may prove that this was a mistake, only the end of the game will tell. If the Japanese player wishes to skip Wake and go directly for Midway all he needs do is allocate his resources to do so, of course this will effect his ability to preform other actions.

The longer a time period a game covers the less like history it will be. So how can a game that covers the entire Pacific War be truly 'historical' after the first move???
For a truly 'historical game' the AI will take both sides and produce the exact results that history records.
The idea is to do better than history using the same resources.

I am aready drooling waiting of this game.

[Tristanjohn]

The point is, pbear, that an "accurate" or "realistic" simulation will allow for what-if situations (indeed, that is a primary purpose for these models) but will not encourage outrageous play, will be perfectly capable to punish such play, and thus a match with this kind of model will render a "reasonable" result (by definition) in the end.

To turn that around, when such a model renders outrageous results then we may suspect its integrity.

I wouldn't get too hung up with the term "historical" as it only confuses the main issue for too many people. We can, however, rightfully use history as a broad gauge as to whether a given model performs well or not.

[ladner]

Mogami...any chance of getting some additional info? Have enjoyed the AAR so far, well at least the parts that were actually about the game .

[wobbly]

Mogami...any chance of getting some additional info? Have enjoyed the AAR so far, well at least the parts that were actually about the game .

Exactly - I wondered what actually happened - was really enjoying it until we had another p1ssing contest.

[mogami]

Hi, I posting current AAR results in 'Air Model' thread

[Bosun]

Thanks,
As you know, I am an eager student...