Ridiculous

[Reiryc]

Am I the only one here who is happy with the results? [:'(]

[Erik Rutins]

Good point regarding the Ground Attack missions. If you set the Midway battle up with all the right mission assignments, then I think the Japanese would indeed get hammered more often than not in WitP. I was discussing the force comparison in the first place and the series of circumstances that conspired to make a few US advantages remarkably decisive. I think that in WitP, it might not be unusual to see three Japanese carriers lost vs. two US in most Midway replays.

Joel, Gary and Mike are incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to the Pacific, so don't assume that they modeled only one possible type of result. It's not in Gary's style to not allow for all the historical possibilities. I don't think Midway type battles should be common, but I also don't think WitP makes them impossible - I'd say they are likely if the circumstances are right. Keep in mind you pretty much need a series of good "die rolls" to get the exact Midway results and that doesn't tend to happen often, but catching an enemy carrier force with a lot of planes on ground attack is definitely a gift.

Regards,

- Erik

[RAM]

ORIGINAL: brisd

I don't agree. Look at Coral Sea for example, several 1000 pounders and still the Japanese CV was damaged but not 'long gone'. If they were critical hits like Midway, sure. FOW is part of the problem, some of those hits were imagined.

to this I answer:

Fletcher had due reason to be worried, however. Lexington had intercepted radio traffic from a search plane, and knew he had been found. His force was in bright sunshine. Takagi had had his planes in the air since 0915 as well, and his attack planes were already spreading to search for their foes when the message came in. Shortly later, 69 planes were headed toward the U.S. forces. It was the U.S. however to strike first. Yorktown's 39 planes found their targets at 1050, and proceeded to attack. However, their attack was not timed well. Dive-bombers had to circle uselessly to wait for torpedo-planes, a fact which allowed Zuikaku to escape into a rain squall, and Shokaku to strengthen her air defense groups. When the attack finally began, Yorktown's planes hit twice with bombs, severely damaging Shokaku's bow and denying her air-operations, and destroying her plane-engine shops. Lexington's following strike, numerically reduced by a lack of fuel, did no damage at all, despite scoring a bomb hit. On the other side, three Wildcats fell in the defense of their bombers. Shokaku was dropped from the battle, but her launch capability was renewed, and forty-two of her planes landed on Zuikaku.


So we're now know the fact that those "several bombs" means only "three bombs".

lets go on a further note about the kind of damage she sustained and it's effects....


8 May 1942:
Battle of the Coral Sea. 0907-0915 severely damaged by three bomb hits. One tore open the port bow and started a fire in the forecastle. The second struck the end of the flight deck to starboard. The third hit the starboard side of the rear of the island, damaging gun tubs and the mainmast. Large fires break out, but evaded all torpedoes successfully. Escorted by USHIO and YUGURE, the carrier is detached at once and able to evacuate the battle area at full speed. 108 officers and men are killed by the fires and explosions, and another 40 wounded.

9 May 1942:
Reassigned to CarDiv 5, 1st Air Fleet. Detached to proceed immediately to the homeland at top speed. Now begins a dramatic dash past a cordon of American submarines alerted to intercept the cripple.

12 May 1942:
Rendevous with KUROSHIO, OYASHIO, and HAYASHIO in the Philippine Sea; USHIO and YUGURE released. Final leg home successfully avoids more submarines; however, with the high speeds and gashed bow, the ship takes on so much water she nearly capsizes en route.




Summing up, 3 1000lb bombs put enough damage on her to interrupt her ability to put planes in the air, and enough cumulative damage to put her on the verge on sinking in the returning trip.


If everyone could post some details on the average damage caused on a shokaku by 3 hits, we could see how much SYS damage she gets...seeing the evidente, it would be something like between 40-60 (Shokaku had her air operations interrupted but was able to sortie some of her planes to land on the Zuikaku) but somehow I suspect that if 10 1k-pounder bombs on the Zuikaku cause only 64 SYS damage, only three won't do it. And this ,seeing in detail WW2 information on damage bystood by carriers, is quite hard to believe.

In any case the 1000 pounders cause little or none flotation damage in the game so the ship in WITP, if hit by 3 1000lbers, would't have had to run the same risk of capsizing she ran in real life.



Finally, just for the record, ten 1000 pound bombs exploding into the vitals of a 30000 ton carrier should, if not directly cause the whole ship going off and literally vanish from the surface of the sea because of magazine explosions, AVGAS vapor explosions, stored planes going off,etc, at least shred it for good up to the point to rendering said ship unrecognizable and unusable for anything but scrapping.

[Black Cat]

If the Game is a Historic recreation then the US should be able to pull a Midway at least 50% of the time. So what if the Japanese player lost all his CV`s in `42, what`s the issue with that ?

FWIW, In 100`s of playings over the years of the full campaign in PacWar against the AI and PBEM I only saw the US get one " Midway "[X(], so clearly this design idea has carried over into WITP, and the odds seen as stacked against the US Player as it was in UV, at least until ` late `43, and I really don`t see the reason for this.

This is wrong and the net result of getting his US A** kicked all the time in both PBEM and AI play is the Allied player hides his CV`s near LBA until `43 or resorts to other gamey play like running Merchant ship TF`s in the CV TF`s hexs to spread out the hits.

[Caltone]

ORIGINAL: Black Cat

If the Game is a Historic recreation then the US should be able to pull a Midway at least 50% of the time. So what if the Japanese player lost all his CV`s in `42, what`s the issue with that ?

FWIW, In 100`s of playings over the years of the full campaign in PacWar against the AI and PBEM I only saw the US get one " Midway "[X(], so clearly this design idea has carried over into WITP, and the odds seen as stacked against the US Player as it was in UV, at least until ` late `43, and I really don`t see the reason for this.

Doesn't anyone understand from reading the thread, that to recreate the 'settings' at Midway, the Japanese player would have to set 1/2 of his strike on ground attack and effectively have NO CAP oppose the SBD's? When the people complaining say 'we never get a Midway' they seem to forget they are not getting this situation. Throw in the lateness of Tone's scout and lots of other niggles we cannot recreate and indeed a "Midway" result should be very rare in WitP.

That said, I'm curious too as to why Rob's strike did not launch.

[RAM]

ORIGINAL: Caltone
Doesn't anyone understand from reading the thread, that to recreate the 'settings' at Midway, the Japanese player would have to set 1/2 of his strike on ground attack and effectively have NO CAP oppose the SBD's?

I do understand it. But do you understand from reading history that to recreate the battle damage caused at midway, japanese Carriers should go down with much less ordnance hitting them??

because you are right about midway doesn't mean everything's perfect in WitP's carrier battle recreations

[Caltone]

ORIGINAL: RAM

I do understand it. But do you understand from reading history that to recreate the battle damage caused at midway, japanese Carriers should go down with much less ordnance hitting them??

because you are right about midway doesn't mean everything's perfect in WitP's carrier battle recreations

Quite frankly, that is just wrong. I don't know how long many of you have been playing WitP or if you played UV, but wait till you get a single critical hit with a bomb that detonates your magazine and you lose your CV to 1 hit. It's so bad the message in the combat resolution is even in CAPS [X(] AMMO EXPLOSION!!!

The damage model in the game is not perfect but it works. They have done very well to create game balance, playability, and maintain the factual basis that keeps us immersed for hours on end. This is a game afterall, and it has to be fun or no one would play it.

[RAM]

I got such message two times in a battle report on one of my DLs, and the ship has 76% damage.

hardly will sink it.


Also, I ran some turns on the tutorial 2 days ago, just for the fun of it, attacked Palau's port with a carrier force with all the CVs into it. Got several "ammo explosions" reports to my bombs (and several torpedo hits), but no CV sank at all.


in any case you only must raise your browser page a bit and read that 14 bombs and 10 bombs didn't finish the Shokaku and Zuikaku respectively. They may go down (the shokaku certainly seems like it), but if htey reach a port in time she -MAY- be saved.

Zuikaku most probably will survive those damages if put in port in a short time.



IRL they both would be nothing but burning, sinking, twisted pieces of metal...well, if they weren't pieces of scrap reaching tokyio from the explosive effects of AVGAS, fumes, planes and ammo stores going off all together....ten bombs going off into a ship loaded to the top with potentially explosive stuff don't make the ship "able to survive if lucky". They set the damned thing off and make her fly up to mars.

yet in the game if you get into a port it will again be a carrier after months of repairs. Not quite understandable.



Said that, I'll ad what I said already in other threads...I can live with it as the damage is too low for both sides and the game is stunningly exceptional...but the lesser degrees of damages and sinkings you see in WitP allow for a very agressive style of play that should not have worked IRL. I would like to see them a bit raised so 14 bomb hits in a carrier spell her doom immediately (as it would've been the case IRL)


HIstorically one single torpedo spelt doom for IJN Taiho. Do you genuinelly expect such result in the game?...
I admit, I've not seen enough of it to make a defitive opinion, but at this moment I'd say: no.

(But I'm open to change my mind if I see it's otherwise )

[Mr.Frag]

in any case you only must raise your browser page a bit and read that 14 bombs and 10 bombs didn't finish the Shokaku and Zuikaku respectively. They may go down (the shokaku certainly seems like it), but if htey reach a port in time she -MAY- be saved.

Zuikaku most probably will survive those damages if put in port in a short time.

a) FoW on the bomb hits ... nowhere near that many actually hit.

b) *neither* CV made it back to Rabaul

The remaining Allied CV coupled with aircraft from PM finished them both off as they no longer could fly any cap. The CVL was also lost as it just didn't have the aircraft left to deal with an angry USN CV out for revenge! [;)]

[RAM]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

a) FoW on the bomb hits ... nowhere near that many actually hit.

hmmmm bomb and torpedo hits you see in the battle animations are also covered by FoW?

didn't know that. I stand corrected if that's the case

b) *neither* CV made it back to Rabaul

*neither* CV should've made it for more than 3-4 hours after they were so massively hit [8D] (if the FoW covers the battle animations then ,as I said, I stand corrected)

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: RAM


I do understand it. But do you understand from reading history that to recreate the battle damage caused at midway, japanese Carriers should go down with much less ordnance hitting them??

because you are right about midway doesn't mean everything's perfect in WitP's carrier battle recreations

Part of Midway's "unique-ness" was that at the time the SBD's attacked KB, the carriers were at their most vulnerable at any time during the whole war. Not only were they in the process of launching their own strike, but thx to the indecision and reversed orders....bombs and torpedoes in the hangers had been improperly stored. Because of this, secondary explosions caused by the bomb hits started fires that could not be contained due to destroyed fire fighting equipment and the scheer intensity of the blazes.

USN GP 1000 bomb hits at this time were particularily sensitive and would not be penetrating to "vitals" such as magazines and av gas storage units (unless the target carrier has little to no armor) They tended to go off either on contact with the wooden flight deck or shortly after punching through it in the hanger. Thus the most common result would be massive damage above the primary hull. (flight and hanger deck area) This would kill air operability and imperil the ship via flames but not through flotation damage.

On the game-

Yes, a "midway" is very unlikely but it is possible. As with the real life players, it will primarily be made possible by how the player sets his forces. I have midway'd an opponent before. How? He made it possible. He set his bombers up for a "Special mission" hoping to take a base of mine by suprise. He was UNAWARE my carriers were in the area otherwise he'd have set them to standard naval attack as priority. (as most players will do)

As a result, i got in a full strike without reprisal and crippled two CV's for the loss of only a few bombers.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

Two basic problems, Robbie. 1) the "anti-Death Star" rule, especially in the one-sided
manner it is implemented in now, is STUPID! Either side in such a situation would have
done just what the Japanese did at PH---launched the strike in two waves. The game
doesn't quite handle such tactics, and is far too likely to "lose" squadrons instead of
having them arrive seperately---and it's weighted against the Allies.

Yes it is weighted more against the Allies because before 1943, the USN did have issues with coordinating their carrier strikes. The launching of multiple large strike waves is a different issue. Yes the game tends to lump what would in real life be multiple waves. This is a necessary fudge in this operational level wargame. In part the anti-DS rule was meant to curb this a bit too and the Japanese can be affected by it.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

Two basic problems, Robbie. 1) the "anti-Death Star" rule, especially in the one-sided
manner it is implemented in now, is STUPID! Either side in such a situation would have
done just what the Japanese did at PH---launched the strike in two waves. The game
doesn't quite handle such tactics, and is far too likely to "lose" squadrons instead of
having them arrive seperately---and it's weighted against the Allies.

Yes it is weighted more against the Allies because before 1943, the USN did have issues with coordinating their carrier strikes. The launching of multiple large strike waves is a different issue. Yes the game tends to lump what would in real life be multiple waves. This is a necessary fudge in this operational level wargame. In part the anti-DS rule was meant to curb this a bit too and the Japanese can be affected by it.

Coordination-of-strikes issues notwithstanding the Allies still got in their licks and fought the Japanese at better than 1-1 through 1942. The simple fact is this model doesn't want to portray that historical ratio.

Bottom line remains: the model's broken--and was designed to be so broken.

[Nikademus]

I get in my licks as Allied just fine....as long as i choose my battles carefully.

[John B]

We've really no historical data to guide on how US and Jap CVs would have shaped up to each other prior to May '42. Leaving Midway out of the equation as untypical, I'd agree that for the remainder of 1942 the opposing forces were pretty evenly matched. The difficulty with the campaign game, perhaps, is that a Midway-type US victory almost never happens, so as a result the US CVs are probably outnumbered for at least the rest of the year a lot more than they were historically, so this tilts the scales against them much more than was the case historically. So in fact, its harder in the game during at least this period for US CVs to encounter favourable or equal odds than it actually was in reality.

[Nikademus]

the Japanese player starts with the initiative. His basic problem (as shown in the AAR's) is two fold

1.) he can keep KB concentrated in which he will be very hard to beat and unless he is facing a sucicidal opponent, can often count on having air superiority conceeded to him in that one area he decides to commit too (unless the Allied player has LBA backup and wants to risk an "attrition battle")

The con side of this is that KB can only be in one place at one time and the usual strategy that the Allied player will (and often should) employ is a hit em where they aint strategy.
This can be very effective, not to mention vexing for the Japanese player's whose only real counter to this is to carefully advance only under the umbrella of LBA (as they did historically until Lunga that is) when KB is not avail or otherwise engaged.

2.) The Japan player can break up KB into respective carrier divisions to support multiple operations. Advantage here can be devastating. By doing so i was able to suprise Kid in the I/O with two CV + CVL's and destroy the British Eastern Fleet.

The con side is that once diluted, you give the Allies those 1-1 odds (or possibly even numerically favorable odds to the Allies) that most of the historical carrier battles were fought at....one in which the outcome is most certainly not assured. (Had my game with Kid not corrupted, we would have had a 4 on 4 carrier battle, one in which i (as Japan) probably would have lost at least a couple carriers but more importantly would have lost alot of aircraft and crews)

Its a tricky problem to be sure on which course of action to take. [;)]

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

I get in my licks as Allied just fine....as long as i choose my battles carefully.

That's just the point: history clearly shows the USN going immediately for Japan's jugular and doing just fine. At no juncture did the USN "hide" from the IJN, and through 1942 our results were nothing short of spectacular all things considered.

Sorry to say, the model remains broken.

Look. I'm not happy the model is broken. It brings me no joy to state this. Afterall, I play these games and want them to be the best. But broken the model is.

I'd love to see a few playtester types admit to this, get kicked out of that snug little club they chose to join and get on with their UV/WitP lives more productively. But maybe that's just me. I recognize that people must make their own life decisions. . . .

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: John B

We've really no historical data to guide on how US and Jap CVs would have shaped up to each other prior to May '42. Leaving Midway out of the equation as untypical, I'd agree that for the remainder of 1942 the opposing forces were pretty evenly matched. The difficulty with the campaign game, perhaps, is that a Midway-type US victory almost never happens, so as a result the US CVs are probably outnumbered for at least the rest of the year a lot more than they were historically, so this tilts the scales against them much more than was the case historically. So in fact, its harder in the game during at least this period for US CVs to encounter favourable or equal odds than it actually was in reality.

Midway is THE great problem in designing a game such as this. It DID occur historically,
and almost all Allied activity for the rest of 1942 was based on it HAVING occurred. But
it was a "fluke" if not a "miracle" and almost called for cooperation from both sides to
create the situation that caused it. Which means it's going to be a very rare occurance
in a well-designed game with two intelligent players. Problem is, without the "fluke" the
Allies CAN'T behave as they did historically WITH it..., and that makes many of the mid-
war "victory conditions" bogus. It's the kind of dichotomy that gives designers sleepless
nights. How do you design a "historical game" when you know that "history" is a very
unlikely occurance?

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: John B

We've really no historical data to guide on how US and Jap CVs would have shaped up to each other prior to May '42. Leaving Midway out of the equation as untypical, I'd agree that for the remainder of 1942 the opposing forces were pretty evenly matched. The difficulty with the campaign game, perhaps, is that a Midway-type US victory almost never happens, so as a result the US CVs are probably outnumbered for at least the rest of the year a lot more than they were historically, so this tilts the scales against them much more than was the case historically. So in fact, its harder in the game during at least this period for US CVs to encounter favourable or equal odds than it actually was in reality.

Midway is THE great problem in designing a game such as this. It DID occur historically,
and almost all Allied activity for the rest of 1942 was based on it HAVING occurred. But
it was a "fluke" if not a "miracle" and almost called for cooperation from both sides to
create the situation that caused it. Which means it's going to be a very rare occurance
in a well-designed game with two intelligent players. Problem is, without the "fluke" the
Allies CAN'T behave as they did historically WITH it..., and that makes many of the mid-
war "victory conditions" bogus. It's the kind of dichotomy that gives designers sleepless
nights. How do you design a "historical game" when you know that "history" is a very
unlikely occurance?

The same way they design Gettysburg and Waterloo games. A couple of ideas occur to me, such as limiting search results (that's too simplistic on its face--a more sophisiticated method is called for per Carrier Strike) and letting intel play (at this scale of 12-hour pulses within daily turns the present intel setup's a joke) a much more major role in operations, and especially from the Allied side.

Anyway, the game still doesn't get the naval air model right for whatever the reasons.

[Nikademus]

yep. Any smart player is going to do his best to avoid creating a 'Midway' As i mentioned, have only acheived one once and that was against an opponent who was trying something cute (night attack) and was NOT expecting enemy carriers to arrive as soon as they did.

result: "midway"

it was glorious. [:'(]

Almost achieved it a second time against Pry....tried to suprise his six carriers with four of my US ones. I was hoping that he was out of fuel (this was before the Avgas rule) but didn't quite get it. Still, i managed to suprise him in the sense that he didn't think i could react so fast to his intrusion and give better than i got and badly damaged KB in return for light damage on two of my CV's.