Early Pearl Harbor Warning Scenario

[jmolyson]

I am working on a new Scenario 1 mod starting on December 1, 1941.

I would like to game the US taking action to receive the Japanese attack on December 7, that is, reacting in-theater to the pending enemy activity.

There was plenty of warning which was wasted by Admiral Stark, RAdm Turner and the Washington intelligence community, or at least some of it. What if they had warned Kimmel and Short in a timely manner specifically mentioning the Fleet Problems XIII and XXI. Both of these covered an aircraft carrier attack against Pearl.

My assumptions are:

1. I need to turn off Historical First Turn and December 7 Surprise in the Realism options.

2. I leave the Japanese as is (except for a few OB corrections I have noticed).

3. I move the Allied units to locations I think they would have redeployed to in response to the threat.

4. No one has previously published a similar scenario.

Thanks,

Your comments are welcome!

[Ian R]

Interesting, although putting the USN CVs in two or three separate TFs (per doctrine) to face off with the KB may not necessarily work out to their advantage. It may be better for an alerted PH (with the battle fleet running south of Hilo somewhere and staying out the way) to absorb the strike with its CAP up and bombers in the air for a counter. The carriers can make a mess of the Wake/Gilberts operations instead.

Where I think you really should invest some thought is in what happens in the PI and Malaya/Thailand.

1)Operation Matador - British/Indian brigades dug in on the beach at Singora etc, waiting to receive the IJA.


2) A more sensible air group posture in both areas.


3) Preposition the defences of the critical triangle on Luzon (with the command HQ in Bataan attracting extra supplies).


The IJ AI will probably not do very well against that, and will be hung up repeating scripts to try and take the "must have bases" that trigger the next phases of expansion. So the allied player (at least against the AI) should aim for auto-victory at the earliest possible opportunity as the benchmark.

For ease of reference:

It is not the specific script, not the particular scenario which matters. Any scenario/script (yes even Nasty Nasty Tier 3) will cease to be competitive if the Allied human player focuses on stopping at all cost computer Japan from capturing in 1942 these bases:

1. Singapore
2. Manila
3. Clark Field
4. Bataan
5. Palembang
6. Batavia
7. Soerbaja
8. Rangoon
9. Mandalay
10.Rabaul


These bases are absolutely essential for any computer script.

Not quite essential but still of great assistance in maintaining a competitive AI player is for these bases to also be captured by the computer.


11. Port Blair
12. Port Moresby
13. Tarawa
14. Shortlands
16. Lunga
17. Akyab

Alfred

[jmolyson]

I agree. My thought was to run the BB south and possibly engage one of the Japanese Gilbert TF. The carriers could also strike there or maybe hit the Marshalls.

The large fighter force in Hawaii could inflict heavy attrition on the KB airstrike, especially if warned by the radar station already in operation.

I would probably move less-essential vessels to Battleship Row harbor to attract the attackers away from the fuel farm and Navy Yard.

In the East, I would hold Force Z back and build the Dutch surface force around it. I would also aggressively mine the straits to attrite the Japanese forces moving south, the hit them with the combined ABDA surface force covered by Dutch fighters.

Singapore might be held longer; it was secondary to seizing the NEI.

I am worried that the game engine is wired so that the very-well trained USN and RN air and surface forces are hampered by some sort of "play balance" offset.

If Washington had gotten the word out soon the Japanese advance could incurred heavy attrition and been slowed. Or maybe not. That's what I would like to explored in this scenario.

[mind_messing]

What changes are needed separate from turning the Dec 7th surprise switch to OFF?

[jmolyson]

Mind-Messing:

I'm not sure any changes are necessary. What I need to know is:

(With the surprise turned on, the Japanese execute surprise attacks across the Pacific). If I turn the surprise off, does the Allied player now get to move first in the first turn?

If I change the Start Date to December 2, does the AI simply execute the same routine because December 2 is now Game Turn 1? Or does it wait 5 Game Turns before executing the December 7 attacks?

[Nomad]

I don't have a link, but if you start the scenario before Dec 7, 1941 then when you get to the Dec 7, 1941 turn wonky things happen. There are things that are hard coded into the Dec 7, 1941 turn.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Just curious - what early Pearl Harbor warnings have been wasted by Admiral Stark, RAdm Turner and the Washington intelligence community?

From what I have read so far about PH goes like this :

In US military and political circles the possibility of war with Japan has been well understood, a surprise carrier attack on Pearl Harbor was seen as a possibility as well - but it was considered very unlikely for a number of reasons by DC and the men on the spot, Kimmel and Short.

Consequently, there have been plenty of war warnings which have been sent to Kimmel and Short, but none specifically mentioned that Kido Butai will attack Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th or any other date - because it was not known outside certain Japanese military and political circles that war would start with a surprise carrier strike on PH.

Although various authors claim that messages have been intercepted and other indications received that pointed to an attack on PH, these claims do not stand up to closer scrutiny. For example, messages in question were not deciphered until after the attack, did not point explicitly to PH at all but to an attack in general nobody denied as possible, contain unproved assertions, assumptions or interpretations being tainted by Monday morning quarterbacking in hindsight, political or personal agendas and axes to grind etc. - the main reason for the "numerous sensational new evidence discovered" being that a good way to make money with history is to write a controversial book about PH.

The only intelligence tidbit available before the attack that actually indicated something may happen at PH on the morning of Dec 7th was the last part of 14-parts message to the Japanese embassy at DC which told the embassy staff at which time the ultimatum contained in the previous 13 parts should be presented. What this may mean for PH was not mentioned explicitly but readily deducted by US intelligence from the timing. The time between this discovery and the actual attack was only four hours or so, and a warning that something may happen was duly sent to PH - but delayed due to communications issues.


Now, if Stark, Turner or anyone else have wasted clear and indisputable indications that war would start with a carrier raid on PH on Dec 7th, I would like to learn more about this, since I haven't come across such wasted warnings in what I have read so far.

[edited for spelling]

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Just curious - what early Pearl Harbor warnings have been wasted by Admiral Stark, RAdm Turner and the Washington intelligence community?

From what I have read so far about PH goes like this :

In US military and political circles the possibility of war with Japan has been well understood, a surprise carrier attack on Pearl Harbor was seen as a possibility as well - but it was considered very unlikely for a number of reasons by DC and the men on the spot, Kimmel and Short.

Consequently, there have been plenty of war warnings which have been sent to Kimmel and Short, but none specifically mentioned that Kido Butai will attack Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th or any other date - because it was not known outside certain Japanese military and political circles that war would start with a surprise carrier strike on PH.

Although various authors claim that messages have been intercepted and other indications received that pointed to an attack on PH, these claims do not stand up to closer scrutiny. For example, messages in question were not deciphered until after the attack, did not point explicitly to PH at all but to an attack in general nobody denied as possible, contain unproved assertions, assumptions or interpretations being tainted by Monday morning quarterbacking in hindsight, political or personal agendas and axes to grind etc. - the main reason for the "numerous sensational new evidence discovered" being that a good way to make money with history is to write a controversial book about PH.

The only intelligence tidbit available before the attack that actually indicated something may happen at PH on the morning of Dec 7th was the last part of 14-parts message to the Japanese embassy at DC which told the embassy staff at which time the ultimatum contained in the previous 13 parts should be presented. What this may mean for PH was not mentioned explicitly but readily deducted by US intelligence from the timing. The time between this discovery and the actual attack was only four hours or so, and a warning that something may happen was duly sent to PH - but delayed due to communications issues.


Now, if Stark, Turner or anyone else have wasted clear and indisputable indications that war would start with a carrier raid on PH on Dec 7th, I would like to learn more about this, since I haven't come across such wasted warnings in what I have read so far.

[edited for spelling]

Actually, if the Lieutenant who received the information about the radar contact that happened a little after 7 am would have warned his superiors and he or his superiors would have had it plotted, it would have been seen that it would not have been those B-17 that were coming in from the mainland. That would go along with the DD Ward's report of a submarine that was attacked while attempting to enter Pearl Harbor, could have enabled an alert to be called and the radar continued to be manned with a good portable radio hopefully in time so that a CAP could have been put up and the bases been put on alert with ammo broken out.

I do not know how long it takes to put out the torpedo nets around those BBs but that could have been started as well.

The time to watch "Tora, Tora, Tora" is upon us again . . .

[jmolyson]

Nomad:

That's what I'm afraid of. It's an unfortunate limitation on what could be an interesting alternative history. I am afraid that the limitations would be coded to Turn 1, so could not be avoided no matter what start date you specified.

[spence]

One can speculate on such things but with the miserable experience ratings of ALL the American air groups it really doesn't matter within the game. The Japanese start off with an advantage. If they don't start off at the beginning of the game then they can quit (my experience so far).

[jmolyson]

Large Slow Target:

I suggest you read "and I Was There" (Rear Adm Layton) and "On the Treadmill to Pearl Harbor" by Adm J.O. Richardson.

When the U.S. embargoed oil to Japan, the Japanese knew that drastic action was necessary. It was obvious to them (and probably us) that only war would settle the question of continued Japanese operations in China. To continue to operate the Japanese war machine required oil. If the U.S. would not supply it, the Japanese would have to seize it. The obvious target was the NEI. The lines of communications between Japan and the NEI were flanked on the east by the Philippines and from the west by Royal Navy at Singapore. Both of these threats needed to be neutralized. Subsequently FDR moved the Battle Fleet from the West Coast to Pearl Harbor, from the Japanese viewpoint the gauntlet was thrown down. That added Pearl Harbor to the target list along with Singapore and the Philippines.

Signals Intelligence was a major source of USN information on the Japanese fleet. SIGINT noted the absence of radio traffic from the Kido Butai carriers after about November 30. SIGING cryptologic analysis was reading the diplomatic codes and a bit of the IJN operational traffic. There were clear indications that the Japanese were giving up on a diplomatic solution. The Japanese also already publicly expressed their frustration with the oil embargo, which threatened not only their China operations but also their national honor and survival. FDR and the State Department ignored the warning from Ambassador Grew and the Naval Attaches in Tokyo.

After all this information was analyzed by the Navy Department the Pacific Fleet intel resources received only a fraction of it. Enter Rear Admiral Turner, who was a dominant personality and self-appointed censor to the intelligence staff. That prevented a clear war warning from Washington, instead ambiguous messages were sent out. A function of national-level intelligence is to predict the actions of strategic adversaries and disseminate the analysis to threatened friendly forces. This didn't happen.

Japanese war strategy emphasized massive surprise attack at the very beginning of a war. The Army and Navy knew this. In the USN Fleet Problem XIII (1932) exercise and Fleet Problem XXI (1940) exercise the USN examined a surprise carrier attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack would come from an "unspecified" Asian power. Japan had the only navy besides the USN in the Pacific with aircraft carriers.

The success of the Fleet Problem XXI surprise attack was so startling that it induced Roosevelt to order the fleet to Pearl Harbor. Admiral Richardson objected that the fleet would be exposed, so FDR fired him. The CNO did not intervene. Yet neither FDR nor the CNO increased the air reconnaissance force at Pearl to detect an approaching attacker to protect the fleet in its new exposed position. FDR was focused on the Atlantic buildup, and Stark was focused on keeping FDR happy. Despite the successful British aerial torpedo attack on Taranto which crippled several Italian capital ships in a shallow harbor, no orders came from D.C. to maintain torpedo nets around the battle fleet at Pearl at all times because Pearl was shallow.

So the commanders (Kimmel and Short) at Pearl, both highly regarded by their peers, were left with incomplete information. The messages indicated possible Japanese operations in the Far East, not a carrier attack on Pearl itself. Navy and Army planes were crowded together at the center of airfields, protected from sabotage but not air attack. Fortunately, this anticipation that Japan would only act in the Far East meant that Enterprise and Lexington task forces were carrying aircraft to the sentry islands of Wake and Midway. Otherwise the disaster would have been much worse.

[jmolyson]

The failure to heed the warnings of both the Army radar and the Navy ships defending the harbor entrance were tactical blunders, neither would have prevented the crippling of the Battle Force. At best an aroused defense could have used a few minutes warning to go to Condition One on the ships making the salvage effort easier.

Unfortunately it is a fact of life that in peacetime junior officers are left in charge while their seniors enjoy a holiday off. When they detect a problem, they are often ignored.

[jmolyson]

The fact is the USN carrier air groups and the VP squadrons were very well trained and performed well in the weeks after the attack. Ditto for the carrier task force ships. The only criticism of Adm Kimmel voiced before the attack was that he trained the fleet too hard. Certainly this was reflected in the early successes of the Lexington and Enterprise TF.

The Army Air Force did not have an effective air warning system in place in Hawaii in 1941. Also the emphasis on sabotage prevention doomed it to immediate massive losses. The few AAF planes that got airborne performed well against the cream of the IJN aircrew, however.

If the game shows them all as unskilled, the game is wrong.

[btd64]

So your point is that the warning is followed through. When I played the RHS mod, you were allowed to use early warning and move some ships and put up a CAP. We played in teams. Caution though, RHS is for experienced players. So don't dive into the deep side yet....

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: jmolyson

The failure to heed the warnings of both the Army radar and the Navy ships defending the harbor entrance were tactical blunders, neither would have prevented the crippling of the Battle Force. At best an aroused defense could have used a few minutes warning to go to Condition One on the ships making the salvage effort easier.

Unfortunately it is a fact of life that in peacetime junior officers are left in charge while their seniors enjoy a holiday off. When they detect a problem, they are often ignored.

Sorry, but that analysis is complete horse-hooey. The mental transition from peace to war takes more than a few sightings of things that could have natural explanations. A trigger happy DD captain dropping DCs on a pod of dolphins? While a group of enlisted guys using some new fangled technology called "radar", spotted a flock of birds in an unexpected quadrant? That's it? You want to send an immediate "code red" to the entire Pacific Fleet for THAT? On a Sunday? Trust me, that WILL go into your permanent record, and you can kiss future promotions good-bye.

That's the reality and trying to pretend otherwise is Monday-morning quarterbacking at it's finest.

[jmolyson]

Dear Kull:

First of all, you can disagree with my analysis without belittling it. I think you need to get out the house more or maybe eat a bit more fiber.

I'll number these so you can keep up:

(1) In the real world, you often get only "a few sightings". If your enemy is good, and the Japanese were, the U.S. was lucky to get the previous Intel and we were lucky that the radar worked. The work of Ambassador Grew and the Naval Attache in Tokyo, the decryption of some Japanese communications by the cryptologists at Cavite, Pearl and in DC was GOOD.

(2) The Failure of the Navy Department to provided clearer analysis obscured rather than clarified the strategic situation and Japanese intent. Not getting a consolidated intelligence analysis out to the Battle Fleet and CINCUS was a BLUNDER.

(3) The failure to heed the accurate radar warning was due to lack of an established Filter Center to evaluate radar, sound and visual sightings. The Brits had this ready to go in 1939, we could have learned how to build one from them. That was a blunder, compounded by the assignment of an OIC that didn't report the contact up-channel. That was a blunder, especially because the Army was charged with defending the fleet while it was in harbor.

(4) There is no such thing as a "code red" in the military. Also even in peacetime there is no such thing as Sunday off. All the ships in harbor had adequate crews on board to sortie and defend themselves. A Fleet Alert should have issued and an Air Defense Alert by the Army.

(5) Ward was assigned to the 14th Naval District for the express purpose of local defense. She was not a Pacific Fleet asset. The Captain of the USS Ward was not a trigger-happy kid. He graduated from the Academy in 1927, and progressed through several tours of sea duty culminating with command of the Ward. The Ward itself had been on patrol duty and her crew experienced. They were also good shots, hitting the midget submarine with guns and depth charges. AND, Ward was patrolling the harbor entrance to prevent the passage of SUBMARINES, which in this case it did. 14th ND Duty Officer, who knew Ward was on the lookout for submarines, failed to act on Ward's submarine contact report. That was a blunder.

(6) If Washington had given more detailed war warnings, and if the Fleet Problem XXI findings and conclusions would have been more carefully reviewed from November 30, it is likely that the tactical blunders recounted above might have been avoided.

All this of course leads to my "horse-hooey" analysis that there were in fact blunders. Even if the blunders had been avoided, however, the Japanese would have executed the attack as planned. The Battle Fleet would have been crippled.

[jmolyson]

That's the reality and trying to pretend otherwise is Monday-morning quarterbacking at it's finest

This whole game is about Monday morning quarterbacking, that's what makes it fun!

[jmolyson]

So your point is that the warning is followed through. When I played the RHS mod, you were allowed to use early warning and move some ships and put up a CAP. We played in teams. Caution though, RHS is for experienced players. So don't dive into the deep side yet....

BTD:

I've been playing this game for over 10 years. I play stock though, not RHS and the other variants. I prefer to dig my own rabbit holes.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: jmolyson

Dear Kull:

First of all, you can disagree with my analysis without belittling it. I think you need to get out the house more or maybe eat a bit more fiber.

I'll number these so you can keep up:

(1) In the real world, you often get only "a few sightings". If your enemy is good, and the Japanese were, the U.S. was lucky to get the previous Intel and we were lucky that the radar worked. The work of Ambassador Grew and the Naval Attache in Tokyo, the decryption of some Japanese communications by the cryptologists at Cavite, Pearl and in DC was GOOD.

(2) The Failure of the Navy Department to provided clearer analysis obscured rather than clarified the strategic situation and Japanese intent. Not getting a consolidated intelligence analysis out to the Battle Fleet and CINCUS was a BLUNDER.

(3) The failure to heed the accurate radar warning was due to lack of an established Filter Center to evaluate radar, sound and visual sightings. The Brits had this ready to go in 1939, we could have learned how to build one from them. That was a blunder, compounded by the assignment of an OIC that didn't report the contact up-channel. That was a blunder, especially because the Army was charged with defending the fleet while it was in harbor.

(4) There is no such thing as a "code red" in the military. Also even in peacetime there is no such thing as Sunday off. All the ships in harbor had adequate crews on board to sortie and defend themselves. A Fleet Alert should have issued and an Air Defense Alert by the Army.

(5) Ward was assigned to the 14th Naval District for the express purpose of local defense. She was not a Pacific Fleet asset. The Captain of the USS Ward was not a trigger-happy kid. He graduated from the Academy in 1927, and progressed through several tours of sea duty culminating with command of the Ward. The Ward itself had been on patrol duty and her crew experienced. They were also good shots, hitting the midget submarine with guns and depth charges. AND, Ward was patrolling the harbor entrance to prevent the passage of SUBMARINES, which in this case it did. 14th ND Duty Officer, who knew Ward was on the lookout for submarines, failed to act on Ward's submarine contact report. That was a blunder.

(6) If Washington had given more detailed war warnings, and if the Fleet Problem XXI findings and conclusions would have been more carefully reviewed from November 30, it is likely that the tactical blunders recounted above might have been avoided.

All this of course leads to my "horse-hooey" analysis that there were in fact blunders. Even if the blunders had been avoided, however, the Japanese would have executed the attack as planned. The Battle Fleet would have been crippled.

Your analysis is "horse-hooey" because it assumes that somehow, someway, the military process ACTUALLY IN PLACE on the morning of December 7th could have reacted quickly enough to mitigate the impact of the attack, specifically this statement that YOU made:

At best an aroused defense could have used a few minutes warning to go to Condition One on the ships making the salvage effort easier.

My entire point is that nations at peace do not react quickly upon finding themselves, suddenly, on the verge of attack. In other words, the "aroused defense" that you postulate simply could not have happened. My initial response was rather tongue-in-cheek, going through the thought process of a hypothetical officer of the time as he considered whether to raise a fleet level alarm. That apparently didn't go over well, so let's go through this in more detail. Not because you are "slow", but to add weight to my argument.

1) DD Ward reported firing upon and sinking a submarine outside the harbor one hour prior to the attack. This message DID reach Admiral Kimmel almost 30 minutes prior to the start of the attack (so your statement that the message was not passed along is incorrect). However, Navy patrols had been on alert for some time, and - as is quite normal when men are keyed up for long periods and looking for something that does not exist - many of them reported "submarine contacts" which turned out to be false. Not surprisingly, this new report was thought to be yet another false sighting (i.e. "the boy who cried wolf"), and accordingly was not taken seriously. Even if it had been, a submarine seen outside the harbor could scarcely be considered an existential threat, and thus not worthy of a fleet-level alert.

2) Which leaves us with the radar sightings, which also occurred about an hour before the attack (although it seems they weren't reported for another 10-15 minutes). These came from a system utilizing technology that the Army command had no prior experience with, and in fact the Oahu SC-270s were only installed in mid-1941. The guys operating this particular system were crackerjack, from what I can tell (and yes that was my MOS, albeit not this model), but both were privates and they made their reports to an off-site lieutenant (those with military experience will understand the rank dynamics at play here) who additionally had been on the job for only 2 days and had no prior experience with radar. But even absent that, he was aware of the impending B-17 arrival and also knew of other aircraft on patrol around the island. It wasn't unreasonable to conclude that the radar guys were seeing something other than a massive Japanese aerial attack. And again, even if it had been reported upwards, nothing suggests that the peacetime Army would take this sketchy information over to the Navy (even ignoring the inter-service disconnects) and ask them to put the fleet on full alert. I think it's worth remembering that even the radar guys didn't know exactly what they were looking at, and called in first simply to report a sizable anomaly. Take off the technology blinders of this era for a moment (i.e. what radar screens "look like"), and examine the attachment showing the actual SC-270 scope that morning (more likely a later reconstruction), and tell me where in there does it scream "incoming Japs!" to the total exclusion of "incoming B-17s"?

As for all your other points, well who knows, but those were NOT in the post I responded to.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: jmolyson

Dear Kull:

First of all, you can disagree with my analysis without belittling it. I think you need to get out the house more or maybe eat a bit more fiber.

I'll number these so you can keep up:

I suggest that you stop the personal attacks. Be civil.