Yamamoto's Plan; The Execution

[witpqs]

Nik,

I could swear that in the past I've seen others on the forum say it was true. What are you saying happened?

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: spence

Comparing the Japanese recieving 1944 US Fleet defensive doctrine and Combat Air Centers in 1941, with the Allies having an advantage in pilot recovery, is a "red herring" of the first magnitude.

IRL the deficiencies of Japan fleet (CV) defense doctrine were demonstrated in every 1942 carrier battle. The deficiencies in USN fleet (CV) doctrine were also demonstrated. The doctrines were different in 1942 with the US having a large lead in the conceptualization of fleet defense and a smaller lead in the technology needed to implement the concepts. By 1944 the IJN had advanced their technology and changed their tactical defense doctrine but had yet to concretely advance towards the idea of a Fighter Direction Center. Once aloft their CAP was essentially the same CAP as in 1942 dependent entirely upon the individual skills of its pilots and subject to the same vagaries of weather, enemy attacks and loss of situational awareness as occurred in those battles.

The USN had acted on demonstrated deficiencies and in large part corrected them. The KB CAP's massacre of a single squadron of unsupported and obsolete torpedo bombers (its most notable claim to fame) is not in the same league or in any way comparable to the TF 58 CAP's massacre of multiple combined arms strikes from Japanese carriers and land bases on different threat axes at the Philippine Sea (the Marianas Turkey Shoot). USN fleet defense doctrine as practiced in that battle was superior to anything ever even envisioned by the IJN (except for a few otherwise unemployed ship captains studying solutions to fleet defense problems of a non-existent fleet in 1945).

IJN and USN dive bomber pilots were about equally skilled in late 1941. IJN torpedo bomber pilots were about twice as good as USN pilots. Fighter pilots were about equal. Doctrinally, the USN was much superior at air defence, while the IJN was better at organising attacks.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Nik,

I could swear that in the past I've seen others on the forum say it was true. What are you saying happened?

The A2A routines in the original UV were similar in terms of losses (aka "bloodiness") to what one sees now (it was a tad bit bloodier and the speed variable was more pronounced, so much that even exp 10 F4U pilots could wipe the walls with exp 99 Zero pilots for example). Several patches in, the developers attempted to address complaints on excessive losses, producing a version of UV that greatly toned down the losses. (Far beyond what one sees even in mods like my own) Included in the patch was a new combat message that would display during the A2A routine that said " [insert figher plane type] running low on ammo"

Ammo of course has never been specifically tracked in the code, it being an abtraction in the overall resolution. The msg made for nice eye candy and helped "explain" the reduced bloodiness of the patch.

After a few weeks, player complaints did lead to Matrix retweaking the routines in a newer patch which made things more bloody. After that there was a famous patch that made things ultra bloody, which itself was then toned back after another round of complaints.

At the time, my own thoughts were mixed on the patch that toned down losses greatly. While I thought it was a step in the right direction, and for carrier battles in particular led to some good and interesting results, ultimately I had to agree with those who said it was too much. Basically the patch made CAP's all but useless as even small scale air raids could get through large scale CAP's most of the time with few losses. Smaller CAP's of course might as well have not even flown. They'd never intercept anything. (for example a 12 plane CAP) Those results were what led to a littany of complaints and Matrix responded.

[witpqs]

I just looked at the database editor. In the aircraft section the weapons do have an 'Ammo' column, but all entries are grayed out 'NA'. When you look at the device record, there is no ammo field at all. It's like they half put it in. Understandably confusing.

[DuckofTindalos]

It's like that because the interface OF THE EDITOR has to work for everything, including ships which is what the "ammo" column is for. Nothing to do with ammunition on aircraft.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

The good news is the code exists - and can easily be reenabled.

The even better news is that you've never seen the code, and thus have no idea what you're talking about.

Do you have a mental problem? Since the early version of the engine had ammunition limits, people didn't like them, and it was edited into ineffectiveness, we know for a certainty the code exists, and it works. If you have a 1.0 version of UV you may even play with it. What has saying that to do with seeing the code?

I am a computer engineer, trained in the days that it was practical to work in machine code, when there could be no secrets whatever about any hardware or software if you read it at that level. They don't teach that any more - and outside of the engineering of specific technical items - it isn't how we do things any more. The programs have become far too complicated - and they hand off many tasks to things outside the program which never used to be possible. Trying to follow code in this age - particularly undocumented code - is a nightmare - and not worth the effort. So what we now do is a bit like being a medical doctor - we make "educated guesses" about what is going on - based on a detailed technical understanding of principles and specific tests. In this age - a test technician - such as I am - may have a better sense of how a program works than even a programmer assigned to work on the code has. Typically a programmer is immersed in a particular task and has much less a sense of the overall way the program works than a tester does. It is quite common for a programmer of this particular code to say "you have worked out the way it works pretty closely" - and it is also common for a programmer to say "I thought I knew how that worked, after looking at it for six months, but I saw a line yesterday that changes everything." This code is not truely modular, and branches can bypass the routine you think is going to handle this or that matter - and unless and until you find the branch - you cannot know about it. The fact is that I have a very clear sense of what I am talking about - and you are as wrong to assume otherwise as you are about almost everything else you assume and say.

Why are you wasting time engaging in personal attacks - which are not only forbidden but which you have agreed not to do - and when they contribute nothing whatever to understanding any issue in the thread? Are you not interested in anything contributory? If not, what is your purpose in intruding on RHS threads only to distract with non-contributory comments?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: el cid again
In truth, the designers loaded the game with lots of "bonuses" - on both sides. The vast majority of them say the ALLIES are better. A really big one is the Japanese attrition: Japan is doomed to lose more aircraft than the Allies do - never mind it does not have as many to lose - in this game system. Normally the biggest category of loss is attrition - even if they win the other categories in a military sense. Mike Wood disclosed to the Forum the Japanese have less chance of rescue of a pilot when his plane goes down. The game is loaded with this sort of modifiers - and that vast majority favor the Allies.

The difference being in what types of "bonuses" were earned historically, and what are "gifts from the Gods" (designers). The Allies made strenuous efforts to recover thier downed pilots..., the Japanese virtually none. Can you show me where EVEN ONE of the Japanese subs sent to PH was tasked as a "ditching point" for damaged A/C coming back from the raid?

Comparing the Japanese recieving 1944 US Fleet defensive doctrine and Combat Air Centers in 1941, with the Allies having an advantage in pilot recovery, is a "red herring" of the first magnitude. Come on, Sid..., you are better than that.

The Japanese back up plan for pilots who could not regain the carrier force (say to lack of fuel or inability to know its bearing at some point in time) is covered in Advance Force Pearl Harbor. One fighter pilot actually went to the location - and caused a very confused incident in Hawaiian history - which caused the matter to get some attention. It does appear that one of the 25 submarines was tasked to pick up such fliers, and there is also a case of a Japanese submarine that was tasked to pick up German nationals serving as "other kind of people" (i.e. non-Japanese agents) - it was in sight when they were arrested by the FBI.

You did not read what I wrote about air defense closely. I write technical and legal documents and I use words precisely. I did not go into great detail and say who was better when in what sense. The comparison was a general one - and limited to basics. By the standards of my day, everyone in WWII had "primitive" AAW centers. I was only saying that the Japanese had the idea before the first shots were fired - and that is a long way from nothing at all.

I think you are doing the red herring thing to allege the designers gave bonusus that are "gifts from the Gods." They certainly tried hard to get it right - and they gave the Allies the better rating almost every time. You alleged the game engine was biased for the Japanese - and it is not. We may quibble about this or that bonus - but the effort was made - and most of the time they gave it to the Allies. And most of the time that is also correct. Even if you disagree with this or that bonus - and even if I agreed with you - it would not change that your charge they biased the system deliberately and knowingly is unjustified. The system works rather better than I thought it possibly could. We can make it work better. And Matrix is still supporting this product - has even increased support for this product - after more time than is normal for such a game. So it will get better still. The programmers are unable to defend themselves from charges of this sort - but clearly the charge is unjustified.

[DuckofTindalos]

I'm pointing out that you've never seen so much as a line of WitP or UV code and therefore you have absolutely no way of knowing what's in it or not, nor have you ever had any shred of influence over the development of either game beyond that which is available to any single forum member (i.e. very little). Stop pretending otherwise, Sid.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I wonder if most of this in WITP is really due to the absence of ammunition limitations on air to air combat.

This is a problem.

And note this is OUR fault!! I mean the FORUM's fault.

A bit of Matrix history is in order. When the engine was done for UV, there WERE ammunition limits on planes!
Players objected - I was as usual a voice in the dark saying "you won't like it if they take it out" - and Matrix listened to the din.

This is incorrect....and you were nowhere around at the time.

It is easy to check - look in the Forum. Only look for El Cid instead of El Cid Again.

Why would you say such a thing? In the first place - on principle - I would not say something that isn't true. My time is too valuable - and it would be too easy to check up on.

At that time that I was "nowhere around" Matrix took at least three of my ideas:

a) They made AKs able to load fuel - they won't in 1.0 of UV - and at exactly the 2:1 load cost penalty I suggested

b) They removed from the OB US APDs appearing long before they were built

c) They changed a submarine that had its mine tubes removed before entering the theater but which in the game appeared with them

There are probably other things - it was some years ago - but I was as active as can be at the time - and I played people who I met on the Forum as well. I even talked to David Heath by telephone about the plan for WITP - because the proposal was to use the 60 mile per hex scale was technically flawed. 30 miles makes sense in terms of visual and radar horizons. But he said it appeared that machines lacked the memory and storage to do WITP on that scale - at that time.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: spence

A war game should not impose on players the same things real leaders did wrong. If you are uncomfortable that players might change choices with effect, you should read history, and not do true simulation - which permits diviation from history.

A simulation should pose the same problems for the Leader/Player as in IRL but should not allow that Leader/Player to function as each individual on that leader/player's side: That is that all the cyber-PVT Tanakas should behave as a real life PVT Tanaka would have and follow the rules, training and doctrine for privates in the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941 as they were, not as the leader/player might wish it to be. The same goes for the KB. Everything of their prewar experience, training and doctrine was devoted to the offensive use of carrier air and virtually no thought was given to defense other than to trust to the skill of their pilots.

This starts out with a valid general principle to which I subscribe. But note that IRL I have witnessed real military organizations breaking the rules. My first such experience was to witness Lt Col Breckenridge (son of a WWII Medal of Honor winner and general officer, who he said did exactly the same thing) call a "brainstorming session" of his entire command - in the largest room (one of the two messdecks on USS Francis Marion) available. His two companies (with some Navy attachments like beachjumpers, swift boats and our landing party - which is why I was present) eventually "captured" two regiments of the Second Marine Division and were declared "in control" of Vieagus island - in spite of nominally only being a "token opposition force" - leading to the early retirement of the division commander. He didn't do things by doctrine or training: for example three marines were tasked to "kill" an enemy platoon on the high ground position he believed must be occupied - the highest ground on the island. He offered real (you get to keep the stripe and pay) promotions if three actually did it - and they did. A detail pre-battle planning session - like the one led on Formosa by Col Tsuji - including civilians, soldiers and sailors - really could produce a Malaya campaign plan that was quite successful - even if in the main it was not SOP for IJA. So we should not - as modders - tie the hands of players too much. The WITP engine does not allow us to do things real commanders could do - that I cannot task carrier air units the way they are IRL is mind boggling to me - and the engine itself insures we don't get down to the level of a private soldier.

The statement "no thought whatsoever was given to (air) defense" is false. It would only take one person thinking one thought to make it false - a dangerous generalization. The anti-air warfare problem is divided into two parts - fighters and surface weapons - and this was always clear to all the major navies of the period. On the other hand, NONE of the major navies gave sufficient priority to EITHER. Witness the way fleet air defense evolved in ALL of them during the war: if anyone had it right it would not have changed so much. The differences between IJN, USN and RN on this matter are much more differences of degree than differences of kind. It is not even true that the Japanese were in every detail "behind" the Western navies, although it is true that they were generally not "ahead." A discussion of this sort of thing is inherantly interesting to me - if you want to get into the nitty gritty. But a flat statement "no thought whatsoever" is not true, fair, reasonable, and it wholly prevents a useful consideration of any aspect of the matter. By my standards, fleet air defense in RN and USN were abominable, and some of the ideas about moving heavy fleet units without fighter cover or adequate AA weapons led to disasters IRL - and only good luck prevented much more of the same. This is not a case of "the US had it all and the Japanese had nothing" - such a position is close to the prevailing attitudes in the US about Japan at the time - and it is completely misleading.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

The good news is the code exists - and can easily be reenabled.

The even better news is that you've never seen the code, and thus have no idea what you're talking about.

Do you have a mental problem?

It is a very little known fact, known only to those persons cognizant with 22nd century artificial intelligence, that my grandmother was the advisor and mentor to John von Neumann; indeed, I am a namesake of her most famous admirer.

It is also proved by historians in Viipuri and Helsinki, that Motti Talvia and Ari Turunen are the only people that have been able to decipher John’s cryptic notations on the whichness of why, as they pertain to artificial intelligence. Mrs Talvia and Turunen are Finnish and, as I am sure you do not know, the Finnish language is the most undecipherable, in the entire world. Mrs Talvia and Turunen developed their notes in a version of Finno-Balt, that only 7 people in the world are qualified to translate (I, of course, am one of these, because I once saw Motti when he was in the US as an exchange banker in 1974).

Because I know so much about the code, I think it is totally disrespectful, in major degree, for anyone to doubt what I have to say, particularly since so many computer experts have begged me over the years to help them with their problems.

You don’t have a clue. Seen the code; know the code. You don’t have a clue. Thorazine is still on the market. Suggest you get a prescription.

[el cid again]

The old standard in "programming" (in the days humans calculated every air to air engagement by hand) was that "ammunition limits" were to track how many times a fighter attacked. This rule said a fighter could (on a statistical average) have enough ammunition for three full value attacks and one half value attack - after which it could not shoot even if engaged. I don't remember the bomber rule - but presumably a large bomber could shoot more times than a fighter - perhaps ten times for a four engine plane - and perhaps five times for a single engine plane. Since players ran each strike real time, they could elect to "abort" when they ran out of ammunition. There is no reason whatever this sort of thing could not be programmed in code - and while I do not remember any more what was said - I have the impression something very similar was invoved with the original air combat model. A fighter would not fight on forever, even if a hundred or more waves came in - but it would go home after the first few.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

It is easy to check - look in the Forum. Only look for El Cid instead of El Cid Again.

Why would you say such a thing? In the first place - on principle - I would not say something that isn't true. My time is too valuable - and it would be too easy to check up on.

Thats very reassuring.

At that time that I was "nowhere around" Matrix took at least three of my ideas: <snip>

- I even talked to David Heath by telephone about the plan for WITP - because the proposal was to use the 60 mile per hex scale was technically flawed. 30 miles makes sense in terms of visual and radar horizons. But he said it appeared that machines lacked the memory and storage to do WITP on that scale - at that time.

And i'm the Easter Bunny. Pleased to meet you.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

The old standard in "programming" (in the days humans calculated every air to air engagement by hand) was that "ammunition limits" were to track how many times a fighter attacked.

I believe I said....several times now, that ammunition limits were abstractly factored in the game. The increase/decrease of the losses has never been based on any one facet. To use a crude analogy, its more like changing the speed of an LP from 16 to 33 to 78 speed.

There is no reason whatever this sort of thing could not be programmed in code - and while I do not remember any more what was said - I have the impression something very similar was invoved with the original air combat model.

You are free to have your impressions, as long as its clearly stated its your impression, vs. fact. Your "history" remains flawed. There were no "ammunition limits" that matrix simply removed due to popular pressure.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

It is easy to check - look in the Forum. Only look for El Cid instead of El Cid Again.

Why would you say such a thing? In the first place - on principle - I would not say something that isn't true. My time is too valuable - and it would be too easy to check up on.

That's interesting. There is in fact an El Cid... He joined in January 2006 and sounds like he might actually be Spanish, like the real historical figure.

Don't bother, Sid...

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

And i'm the Easter Bunny. Pleased to meet you.

And a very violent Easter Bunny at that...[:D]

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

And i'm the Easter Bunny. Pleased to meet you.

Dude !! I've been doin the Tooth thing for eons. Every frikkin night, some little whiner wants a quarter. Can you help me get down to at least once a month, maybe ??

[DuckofTindalos]

I even talked to David Heath by telephone about the plan for WITP - because the proposal was to use the 60 mile per hex scale was technically flawed. 30 miles makes sense in terms of visual and radar horizons. But he said it appeared that machines lacked the memory and storage to do WITP on that scale - at that time.

That's really interesting, considering the David Heath is the publisher of WitP, not the developer, and therefore would have had very little influence on what scale the map would be at, nor any interest in influencing it.

PROVE IT!