Matrix Games Forums

I think it's an amusing point to make that, part of the utility of these types of games, is to find out whether Coral Sea, Midway, Savo Island, etc. actually -were- luck or not...

-F-

It is Hopeless. It is easier to simply disagree with Mdeihl
that to try and change his mind. He is perfectly willing to
have a game where Japan is routinely trounced.

Originally posted by Chiteng
It is Hopeless. It is easier to simply disagree with Mdeihl
that to try and change his mind. He is perfectly willing to
have a game where Japan is routinely trounced.

I don't think it's hopeless. mdeihl just seems to want a game
where CHANCE plays a bigger role---as in his comments on
the Pearl Harbor strike. Why not give it to him? There was a
GOOD chance that one or both of the US CV's COULD have been
at PH on the morning of the 7th (Enterprise arrived that evening).
So while he's screaming about the Japanese not being certain of
obtaining suprise, why not offer him the possibility of the suprise
going either or both ways.

He's not always wrong.., and some of his points are legitimate.
But he rarely seems willing to admite that anyone else might
have a legitimate point as well. That makes him obtuse...

Posted by Mdiehl

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.

Nice info but....

The only direct threat to the Shokaku's survival from damage received during battle was the fires (IIRC) caused by the same bomb hit that tore the gash in the bow. The damage parties did their job and the fires were successfully controlled. There is no doubt that the overall damage was serious but not approaching anything that could be fatal. She was crippled but fully afloat.

The gashed bow was minor damage. It did not reduce her survivability (she could manuever and move at full speed) in the battle and put her in no direct danger of sinking.

The fact that then running her with the gashed bow in a high speed dash virtually the full way back to Japan did cause her to ship enough water at one point to be in danger of sinking, isn't surprising. However, I can't see how decisions (days after the battle) on how to handle a ship with a gashed bow and the circumstances (like long periods in sub infested waters) that influenced those decisions, can be included in whether or not a ship was "darned near sunk" directly from the damage received in battle.

If your point about the Shokaku was that it was a "miracle" that she survived the long journey through sub infested waters while operating at such high speeds that her gashed bow put her at risk, I won't disagree. :p

Posted by Chiteng

It is Hopeless.

I don't think it is. I wanted to know what he based his opinion on when he stated his possible outcome of the Coral Sea battle.

I at least got some type of answer from him on why he thought it was a miracle the Shokaku survived.

Don't know if my interpretation of his answer is correct but you take what you can get.

Originally posted by Mike Scholl
I don't think it's hopeless. mdeihl just seems to want a game
where CHANCE plays a bigger role---as in his comments on
the Pearl Harbor strike. Why not give it to him? There was a
GOOD chance that one or both of the US CV's COULD have been
at PH on the morning of the 7th (Enterprise arrived that evening).
So while he's screaming about the Japanese not being certain of
obtaining suprise, why not offer him the possibility of the suprise
going either or both ways.

He's not always wrong.., and some of his points are legitimate.
But he rarely seems willing to admite that anyone else might
have a legitimate point as well. That makes him obtuse...

Well for one thing...w/o the prospect of an unbroken string of
'victories' the already VERY long odds against Japan become
insurmountable. That might be nice if your NOT the Japs.
But I sure wont play them =)

As for PH, the assumption than Nagumo cannot simply change his mind, is a very interesting assumption.

After the first strike, the need for security is a bit diminished.
The USN is now aware that it is under attack. That means that there is no reason to NOT send out search planes.
To postualte that they would not, is quite curious.

The sheer numbers suggest that no matter what happened
that the weight of Japanese aircraft would sink the US CV
that happened to be there. Regardless of potencial losses.

Also Mdeihl is prone to overlook the 'shock of war' effect.
This is often called surprise. In 'How to Make War' (JFD)
JFD goes into great length to quantify the effect of surprise.
He suggests in the last edition of the book that there is a GREAT
effect that has the net result of enhancing the effectiveness
of the attacker.(ie Japan) JFD also uses the Jap attack as an example.

But let us look at other things that Mdeihl doesnt complain about:

B-17 and how they are treated in UV.
The grossly understated attrition of aircraft in UV.
(actual attrition averaged 10% per month. much higher than combat losses)
BTW the aircraft attrition I am refering to DIDNT kill the pilots,
the planes were simply scrapped after landing.
He is willing to maginalize Jap victories claiming that they were
atypical, and yet he is willing to call extreme USN victories the norm.

He sees nothing wrong with using Coastal Subs ahistoricly
but he rails against using Kido Butai ahistoricly.

The reality is that the USN subs of either type accomplished VERY
little in the first months of the war.

His bias is obvious. It would not bother me so much except
he ALSO resorts to character assassination when someone
counters his arguments.

That places the entire issue beyond the parameters of honest
debate, into attacks on credibility. He wants his view to dominate.

I bough PacWar when it came out..and I stopped playing it when I realized it was immpossible to re-create Savo Island or Tass.

I would hope that WitP would do a better job.

Interesting little detour through the US CV actions, but what about the original issue? How much damage to PH dock facilities can a first strike cause, and how long do they take to repair? Mogami?



BTW as an engineer myself (although not either Civil, or Naval) I do think that certain ascertions about the speed of repair of dock facilities are being overstated. As part of my study of the GG strategic bombing games (Battle of Britain, and Bombing the Reich), I have come to some general conclusions about bomb damage modelling.

Bomb damage on shore installations (e.g. factories, port installations, airfields etc) should be divided into 2 parts: I call them 'light' and 'heavy' (not to be confused with a level of damage - note to self, think of something better to call them). Light type damage is all those elements that can be caused by almost any bomb (100lb, incendiary, 500lb GP, whatever). It represents blowing roofs off, knocking down domestic house type walls, electricity supplies, small craters in roads, fires etc. It is reasonably easy to cause, and reasonably easy to patch up, given supplies of material, labour etc. (Here I agree with mdiehl)
Heavy type damage comes in two flavours. Type 1 is things like machine tools, which are inherently hard to destroy (being basically a lump of cast iron in this period) and needing big bombs to do it. For example 1000lb GP and up, 4000lb HC (RAF weapon) etc. Type 1 also includes unique facilities that are 'small', but vital, say floating docks. Type 2 is anything that is well protected (say a hardened shelter like a U Boat pen). The level of protection defines the smallest bomb that will damage it.

Any target can now be thought of as a 'light' constituant, and a 'heavy' constituant, with a rating for the 'heavy' that sets the smallest bomb that will damage it. The output of the facility could be throught of as 'light effectiveness times heavy effectiveness'. The key thing about damage is that light damage (as said earlier) is quick to repair. Heavy damage is slow to impossible to repair.

Some examples may help. Lets take an airfield, a ball bearing (or heavy engineering) plant and, oh lets say a dock yard . An airfield is almost exclusively 'light'. So any damage to an airfield will be quick to repair, but the airfield is relatively easy to damage. A small part (the engineering hanger, the fuel store etc) is much harder to repair, but the field can improvise and operate anyway to an extent. Only if (by great luck, or a really heavy raid by level bombers) the heavy bit gets hit (say >2% chance) does the airfield performance really get hurt for long.

A ball bearing plant might be 50% light, 50% heavy (say), and the heavy will be 1000lb bombs and up. This means a really successful B17 raid with 500lb bombs could completely 'destroy' the plant (reduce the light to 100% damage, and hence output to zero). But the damage would repair quite quickly. A raid with bigger bombs would be required to take it out for good. (Any resemblance to Schwinefurt is purely deliberate!)
Now, lets take our dock yard. Or lets take 2 in fact, St Nazaire conventional dock yard, and the U boat pens. U boats pens first, target characteristics say 20% light, 80% heavy (type 2!) with 12000lb Tallboys to damage. You can see that conventional raids will be a nuisance, and could slow things down for a few days, but most bombs are going to hit the pens, and do nothing. The 20% light may be a bit generous, but represent all the auxilliary buildings. IIRC, the Germans got round this by just moving them in to the pens, so you probably get 20/80 as built, but upgraded to 1:99 or something (i.e. immune to anything other than specials!)
St Nazaire conventional docks is still a special case because it had a unique feature: the Normandie dry dock. This was actually destroyed by a Commando raid, but this one raid knocked out the whole port for weeks, and the dry dock for the rest of the war. (In answer to someone who asked where to aim on a dry dock, the answer is the dock gate, with the pumping gear and generators as a second choice). This gives St N as maybe a 95% light target ( it doesn't matter too much, because it is a unique case). Most damage can be repaired quickly, but if someone gets lucky and hits the dock gate, or a pump, etc, it could be out for a long time.

This principle can be used for most targets. It enables the different characteristics of differenr targets to be modelled, and gives a sort of 'critical hit' result for each target type, as well as rewarding heavy bombers against CV air power.

Now, back to PH. I do not know enough about the facilities, but I would suggest that there IS a level of facility that cannot just be repaired by bulldozing the crater and 'relaying the track'. It may be the fuel tanks, or more likely the pumping station. It might be the power supplies, or the dry dock gates, or the floating dock, or whatever. However, you should find it difficult to knock PH out for long, but equally there MUST be a chance that you can do something really vital. Say PH is a 90:10 target, and taking Mogami's 86% damage from before. Split equally, the damage would give 14% output, the evening of the raid. More realistically you would give more damage to the light, and say give only 10% to the heavy. This would give full 'light' recovery in say 1-2 weeks, but in that time the heavy wont have moved, so total port output would be still 90% of the maximum. The remaining 10% would come back much more slowly. In UV terms maybe a step every time 10000 supply points dock or something. However, if the IJN get very lucky, and (v rarely) do 50 or 80% damage to the heavy facilities....PH only at 50%, or 20% effectiveness for months anyone...?

A single (linear) damage level cannot model the real factors in damage repair well enough IMHO

This is a bit of a ramble, but it represents a way of balancing mdiehl and his 'replace in a week' vs others feeling that you can hurt PH to strategic effect.

That's an excellent quick summary and I like it. You basically emphasize all of the points that I've tried to make in this argument. The key to understanding my "back in a few weeks" (to two months, tops) is that the IJN did not field anything like a 1000 bomb at the time. So all the talk about substantially ruining machine tools, hardened targets made of concrete and so forth is moot.

About dry docks: the commando raid you spoke of was, IIRC, the HMS Campbelltown (ex USS Buchanan, a Clemson class DD) raid. The DD slammed into the dry dock gate at 15 knots and subsequently detonated in place with a concealed charge of roughly 30 tons of explosive. A suite of delayed torpedoes laid in the dock ahead of Cambelltown were activated that destroyed the inner dry dock gate. Some 400 mized nationality dockworkers, and 40 German naval engineers were in the vicinity of Campbelltown when the charge detonated. All were killed.

That's a world apart from a Val plunging through flak and accurately dropping an 800 pound pea trying to hit a critical juncture on a dry dock gate. Quite apart from the thoroughly blasted dry dock, there was a substantial hunk of ex-4 stacker sitting square in the middle of the thing. To top it off, half the expert civil engineers and and a good chunk of the expert dockworkers in the area were blown to pieces when the hidden charge went off.

Originally posted by mdiehl
That's an excellent quick summary and I like it. You basically emphasize all of the points that I've tried to make in this argument. The key to understanding my "back in a few weeks" (to two months, tops) is that the IJN did not field anything like a 1000 bomb at the time. So all the talk about substantially ruining machine tools, hardened targets made of concrete and so forth is moot.

About dry docks: the commando raid you spoke of was, IIRC, the HMS Campbelltown (ex USS Buchanan, a Clemson class DD) raid. The DD slammed into the dry dock gate at 15 knots and subsequently detonated in place with a concealed charge of roughly 30 tons of explosive. A suite of delayed torpedoes laid in the dock ahead of Cambelltown were activated that destroyed the inner dry dock gate. Some 400 mized nationality dockworkers, and 40 German naval engineers were in the vicinity of Campbelltown when the charge detonated. All were killed.

That's a world apart from a Val plunging through flak and accurately dropping an 800 pound pea trying to hit a critical juncture on a dry dock gate. Quite apart from the thoroughly blasted dry dock, there was a substantial hunk of ex-4 stacker sitting square in the middle of the thing. To top it off, half the expert civil engineers and and a good chunk of the expert dockworkers in the area were blown to pieces when the hidden charge went off.

Actually not. When dealing with 'what if' we have the freedom
to postulate 1/2 ton bombs among other things.
It is after all 'what if'.

In addition, the idea of trying to harm Peral Harbor rather
than simply damage BB remains an idea. It is only defeated
if we allow Mdeihl to convince Matrix that it was immpossible.
I certainly dont think it was immpossible =)

Quite a few game designers dont think it was immpossible,
and quite a few published authors and historians dont think it was immpossible.

But because Mdeihl doesnt wish to see such a game feature,
we are all supposed to roll over. Well I wont =)

Oh hey, thanks Mike. BTW I'm happy to admit someone else has a valid point when they actually have one. It doesn't make me obtuse, it tends to make me accurate.

Drongo - You basically read my response right on Shokaku. IIRC there is a book somewhere on Shokaku's escape to Japan. Tony Tulley's TROM simply states that Sho nearly capsized. That's an understatement. I regard Sho as the "damage control fight" that was won, and Lexington as the one that was lost. In both circumstances, initial damage was insufficient to sink the CV, and in both circumstances a small turn of luck coming down to a couple of guys in a compartment made the difference.

I neglected to mention in my last post: not only did the Japanese lack a 1000 pound bomb for naval use, at the time of PH, but they also lacked a CV-based plane that could carry such a bomb. The D3A did not have the internal bay that it would have needed to mount such a weapon and keep its wheels on the deck.

Originally posted by mdiehl
Oh hey, thanks Mike. BTW I'm happy to admit someone else has a valid point when they actually have one. It doesn't make me obtuse, it tends to make me accurate.

Drongo - You basically read my response right on Shokaku. IIRC there is a book somewhere on Shokaku's escape to Japan. Tony Tulley's TROM simply states that Sho nearly capsized. That's an understatement. I regard Sho as the "damage control fight" that was won, and Lexington as the one that was lost. In both circumstances, initial damage was insufficient to sink the CV, and in both circumstances a small turn of luck coming down to a couple of guys in a compartment made the difference.

I neglected to mention in my last post: not only did the Japanese lack a 1000 pound bomb for naval use, at the time of PH, but they also lacked a CV-based plane that could carry such a bomb. The D3A did not have the lift, nor the internal bay that it would have needed to mount such a weapon and keep its wheels on the deck.

So? The Val is not The Kate.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
The IJN was never prepared to handle an ambush. In the absence of radar, having a strike armed to the nines with AP bombs and torpedoes sitting on the decks is just as bad as having one armed to the nines with GP. In the PH op, the Japanese TF did not mount search and did not fly CAP, both for the reason that they did not want their aircraft observed to give away the position of the TF. The only way Nagumo would have launched a 3rd strike was if his subordinates could convince him that US CVs were nowhere nearby. Then he'd have handled the hypothetical 3rd & 4th waves in the same way as the first two... with losses incrementally greater than during wave 2.
-----------------------------------------------------

Mdiehl, My point was that had the scout plane not malfunction, then then the USN CV is sited before the order to rearm, there is no rearming and instead the naval strike is launched. What you likely get is the two opposeing strikes passing each other as Coral Sea and Santa Cruz. You get a full 4 CV strike against the Yorktown that likely sinks her. You corrspondingly get the 3 CV strike against the Kaga, Akagi, Soryu, which certainly get hits but, may or may not sink all. Since you no longer have the chain of events, ( arm-disarm-arm-disarm-arm ) that caused the general breakdown of safty protocols, which resulted open gas lines and torps, bombs, being unstowed.

The question isnt what Nagumo would do, that has been answered. The question is what someone else might have done. One more time. Genda's plan for a 3rd strike called for CVs in reserve ready for naval attack. extra CAP, and a full search pattern by scout planes. The extreme measures for concealment were no longer applicable.

I am not one who believes a 3rd strike would have been significantly successful. I just do not accept that it follows that a decision for a third strike likely results in another Midway.

Originally posted by mdiehl

The IJN CVs at Midway would have sunk without all the extra munitions in the bonfire. On Lexington, one man flipped a switch, contrary to extant damage control doctrine, which started a fire. Any comparison between the accidental sinking of Lexington and the hammering taken by K,A,H and S at Midway is inappropriate.

I disagree, The Shokaku recieved 3 1000lbs hits and survived at Coral sea. The Zuiho recieved 4 1000lbs hits at Santa Cruz and survived. The Zuikaku, Junyo, Ryuho, and Chiyoda recieved multiple bomb hits at Philipine Sea and all survived. I would say that it would be unlikely absent exploding munitions it is unlikely all three would have went down. Those CV were not just sunk by a few bomb hits they were sunk by donzens of exploding bombs and torpedos.

My comments that what mdiehl wanted was a greater amount
of uncertanty (chance) was descriptive. Personally, I would find
it acceptable if there was a small chance of the Japanese NOT
achieving suprise at PH if accompanied by a chance of catching
one or both of the US CV's in port. But I reccognize that THE
MAJOR PROBLEM with this approach is how do you get a Japanese
player to do turn two if all the chances went against him on turn one? It's pretty much accepted that the Japanese player is
trading a chance to have fun early knowing that he's probably
going to have a depressing experiance later in the game. But if
all the chance goes against him it could be depressing from turn
two.

The only workable answer I can see if for only the Japanese
to get the benefits of chance. The Americans should still win in
the end with their overwhelming growth. But a lot of players
are going to complain if the US isn't treated equally, so mdiehl's
wishes are probably going to remain just wishes.

Mike,

I think you are spot on here. If the US have a chance to surprise the attacking IJN and sink a few of their CVs then the game is as good as over on turn one.

But while I think mdeihl goes to far suggesting the two US CVs could comfortably 'Midway' the Japanese there has to be some risk if the Japanese hang around. Having had the experience of IJN CVs hanging around for weeks on end off Noumea in UV it can be quite a pain. There must be some thing to discourage this or at least introduce an element of risk.

Quite frankly I would rather start on the day after Pearl with Nagumo sailing away - a rash Japanese player can always turn around him around It would stop the chance of the B-17s flattening the Pescadores fields too and get the game off to a traditional (if bad for the allies) start without either side losing anything vital in the first turn.

Originally posted by Hoplosternum

Quite frankly I would rather start on the day after Pearl with Nagumo sailing away - a rash Japanese player can always turn around him around It would stop the chance of the B-17s flattening the Pescadores fields too and get the game off to a traditional (if bad for the allies) start without either side losing anything vital in the first turn.

I would think the chance of 18 B-17 flattening Pescardores fields would be slim to none. The other 18 should be stationed on Mindanoa and out of range on turn one and since there is no mid turn order fase that I know of, would thus not be able to take part on day one. Even if you had all 36, I would not be too concern about it. There were dozens of field on Formosa. I know the game scale will not allow for this, but the airbase level on Formosa should be the highest possible, which makes it unlikely that such a small number of B-17s would do much damage

Regardless, there is no reason an allied player shouldnt be allowed to use those B-17s anyway he sees fit on turn one.

Oh hey, thanks Mike. BTW I'm happy to admit someone else has a valid point when they actually have one. It doesn't make me obtuse, it tends to make me accurate.

-------------------------------------------------

You both could be wrong, so how does that make you accurate?

Non sequitur. The fact that my opposition is wrong does not necessarily make my POV wrong. Generally I don't take a really entrenched position on anything about which I do not know quite a lot. Usually it boils down to me making observations about facts while the opposition quotes the synthetic comments in some secondary source. The latter makes for entertaining reading but does not get you anywhere when you model a game at the level of detail attempted by Matrix.

Originally posted by mdiehl
Non sequitur. The fact that my opposition is wrong does not necessarily make my POV wrong. Generally I don't take a really entrenched position on anything about which I do not know quite a lot. Usually it boils down to me making observations about facts while the opposition quotes the synthetic comments in some secondary source. The latter makes for entertaining reading but does not get you anywhere when you model a game at the level of detail attempted by Matrix.

You have not proven me wrong =)
Simply claiming I am doesnt mean anything =)
I suggest that YOU are wrong.

-mdiehl

I believe you know the point that I'm making.

Lets say--
Your opponent's POV is wrong.
Your (mdiehl)'s POV is wrong.
A third, as yet unstated, POV is right.
How does your acquiescence to your opponents POV equate to "making you accurate"?
If you'd said it makes you open minded, I wouldn't have written in the first place.