Matrix Games Forums

Originally posted by Drongo
Posted by Chiteng


Gentlemen?

If you feel Pasternasti's posts are taking the form of personal attacks upon you, I think it's really then up to you to report him.

IMO, he's just trying to get a reaction from you and you're just obliging him. Why don't you just stop responding to every comment and try ignoring them.

What he says has no real bearing on the merits of your arguement on whatever the hell this thread was about. People will make up their own mind to agree/disagree/get confused, regardless of what that mischievous little rascal says.

Because I am forbidden to send anything to the Mods.
No I will NOT ignore him. If you wish to see this forum
degraded into AoW, then that is what will happen.
I have done NOTHING to provoke Pasternaski in any way.
He is simply showing up, attacking, and contributes nothing.

This is the same guy who calls people insane when the simply
request a game option that he doesnt like.

It should be obvious that I could easily retaliate in kind, but then 'I' would be the one breaking Matrix policy.

Posted by Chiteng

Because I am forbidden to send anything to the Mods.

Well, you're ****ed then.

No I will NOT ignore him.

Your choice.

I have done NOTHING to provoke Pasternaski in any way.
He is simply showing up, attacking, and contributes nothing.

...and often confuses me with his weird musings.

Yep, that sounds like Pasternasti. :p

Because I am forbidden to send anything to the Mods.

Originally posted by Drongo
Posted by Chiteng


Well, you're ****ed then.


Your choice.


...and often confuses me with his weird musings.

Yep, that sounds like Pasternasti. :p

I dont agree that I am ****ed then.

I can fight back with the tools I have.
None of which will contribute to the developement
of WitP.

Originally posted by denisonh

Matrix games has effectively told me that they do not wish
me to contact the Mods on the issues of other posters.
I would not dream of violating Matrix policy.

However, This forum is NOT AoW, and it does have rules.

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi Well there are chores in WITP that do not exist in UV. (Production, supply and repair/refit) The map is considerably larger. In UV I can look at both my opponentents bases and my own rather quickly in WITP it takes longer. (Can't be surprised by enemy buildups because your in too much of a hurry to read your intell reports and go look at bases (for recon updates)
But I would say that an example for how long turns will take I should be placed on the long side (Dan/U2 will have to answer for the short side)
When I quote 30 minutes I am including the time it takes for the replay. However I also expect turns where I spend several hours

How do WitP turns compare with PacWar. Some of those went very quickly but others required quite a bit of time.

Pacwar was so much more automated. (i.e) no need to hassle with the air groups. They mostly flew by themselves once you had set em.

Originally posted by Zakhal
Pacwar was so much more automated. (i.e) no need to hassle with the air groups. They mostly flew by themselves once you had set em.

Hi, The thing that drove me crazy in Pacwar was the airgroups. I would spend months training a group only to watch it dash it's self to pieces as soon as I put in on a forward base. You could not place fighter groups in range of enemy bases. (They'd just commit suicide.) I much prefer the CAP setting to "Daylight"
I found I had to deploy groups by range rather then any other rating. Short range fighters up front where they could not reach any enemy base. (Bombers the same way)

Originally posted by mdiehl
Nagumo's mistake was far more fundamental, although it was less his fault than the operational planners'. He mission-overtasked his CVs. Given the state of a/c handling in the IJN, and CAP/CAC in both the IJN and USN in 1st half of 1942, having one command unit (TF) handle airfield suppression, CAP and anti-interdiction strikes was way too much for the local command structure and CV crews to handle. Midway would have happened anywhere that Japan forced a TF to simultaneously handle so many mutually exclusive tasks simlutaneously.

Every time I look at this battle, I ask myself why didn't Yamamoto's staff task the CVL's for airfield suppression?

Nagumo's Carrier Striking Force should really have been limited to Interdiction duties, not pounding 2 square miles of white sand and gooney birds...

Possibly because the CVLs were too darned slow. The Big Idea with the 4 fast CVs was to hit Midway, wipe it out and reposition in response to an American CV raid presumed to set out after the heavy lifting at Midway was done. When they gamed it on the assumption that the US CVs were ready and waiting, the IJN players lost. That should have taught Nagumo and Co that they had an inadequate force structure for the job. And with all the really big hints that the US knew what was afoot, it was supremely stupid of Yamamoto to assume that the US would be taken by surprise by the move.

What I wonder is why they did not use 2 CVs to pound Midway, and hold two in reserve in a separate TF to interdict the American CVs. I keep coming back to the same conclusion. They were either too arrogant or too stupid to make adequate provisions for resistence.

It's one of the reasons why I hold the Japanese to be the masters of the set-piece battle. Any unforeseen circumstance usually so disrupted their rhythm that things immediately fell apart en toto when the predicted order of battle did not come to pass.

It was a doctrinal thing as deeply embedded as their focus on Type 93 torpedos in night action. Only where IJN torpedo doctrine was very good, particularly at the CA level, their CV doctrine was terrible. They made the same mistake at Pearl Harbor but got away with it because the USN CVs were not in a position to make them pay. They also made the same mistake at Coral Sea, diverting Sho and Zui to deal with the American TFs away from their original mission of smashing the Port Moresby air defense. Shoho by herself, with her six A6Ms assisted by 30 more at the end of their rope from Rabaul was not going to accomplish that, even were there no chance of interference from Allied naval units. That's why they had to scrub the Moresby invasion after Sho and Zui were neutered, even though the US CVs were known to be leaving the field.

Originally posted by mdiehl
Possibly because the CVLs were too darned slow. The Big Idea with the 4 fast CVs was to hit Midway, wipe it out and reposition in response to an American CV raid presumed to set out after the heavy lifting at Midway was done. When they gamed it on the assumption that the US CVs were ready and waiting, the IJN players lost. That should have taught Nagumo and Co that they had an inadequate force structure for the job. And with all the really big hints that the US knew what was afoot, it was supremely stupid of Yamamoto to assume that the US would be taken by surprise by the move.

What I wonder is why they did not use 2 CVs to pound Midway, and hold two in reserve in a separate TF to interdict the American CVs. I keep coming back to the same conclusion. They were either too arrogant or too stupid to make adequate provisions for resistence.

It's one of the reasons why I hold the Japanese to be the masters of the set-piece battle. Any unforeseen circumstance usually so disrupted their rhythm that things immediately fell apart en toto when the predicted order of battle did not come to pass.

It was a doctrinal thing as deeply embedded as their focus on Type 93 torpedos in night action. Only where IJN torpedo doctrine was very good, particularly at the CA level, their CV doctrine was terrible. They made the same mistake at Pearl Harbor but got away with it because the USN CVs were not in a position to make them pay. They also made the same mistake at Coral Sea, diverting Sho and Zui to deal with the American TFs away from their original mission of smashing the Port Moresby air defense. Shoho by herself, with her six A6Ms assisted by 30 more at the end of their rope from Rabaul was not going to accomplish that, even were there no chance of interference from Allied naval units. That's why they had to scrub the Moresby invasion after Sho and Zui were neutered, even though the US CVs were known to be leaving the field.

Not that I am sating your wrong, but....

A miniscule strike did sink the Yorktown.
It is possible that they felt that the Midway base could not be
put out of action by simply two CV. Just a suggestion.

Yamaguchi went on record favoring an all out strike with total
commitment, rather than the 1/2 way measure taken.

Who knows? Nagumo is dead and he left no memoirs.

Originally posted by Chiteng
Not that I am sating your wrong, but....

A miniscule strike did sink the Yorktown.
It is possible that they felt that the Midway base could not be
put out of action by simply two CV. Just a suggestion.

Yamaguchi went on record favoring an all out strike with total
commitment, rather than the 1/2 way measure taken.

Who knows? Nagumo is dead and he left no memoirs.

Yorktown would not have sunk from those two airstrikes alone. It took two more torpedoes from I-168 to kill her.

I'm going to have to pull out all my Midway books again...

Hi, Also Yorktown was not 100 percent healthy to start with.

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, Also Yorktown was not 100 percent healthy to start with.

Nor was she sinking =)
In game terms it is hard to say where Yorktown was at Midway.

SYS=92 FLT=65 FIRE=20

Yorktown was sunk two days after all the air action by a submarine. Without the I-168 in the area, Yorktown would have made it home.

What's interesting to me is Morrison's criticism of Fletcher @ Guadalcanal. Morrison seems to me not to have understood the elements of carrier ops very well. He faults Fletcher for retiring to refuel his DDs. IMO a necessary action because Fletcher was acting on (wrong) intel that put IJN CVs in the area. The potential presence of IJN CVs would have put Fletcher's CVs in the same quandry as Nagumo at Midway: accept mission creep and try to simultaneously cover your own TF, deal with Japanese CVs, and provide air-interdiction against enemy TFs around Guadalcanal, or, deal with the presumed IJN CVs. Since the CVs were a threat to both the landing force and Fletcher's CVs, Fletcher's move makes more sense to me than Morrison's monday morning QB. It's a better move with respect to Carrier Ops in general and it simultaneously negates the effects of any (again, incorrectly presumed) IJN CVs in the area. That leaves the surface group to provide cover against other IJN surface units. It was a reasonable assumption on Fletcher's part to assume that Crace & the rest could take care of themselves in a surface action.

Morrison's monday morning QB only makes sense when I put him in the context. He only served in action late in the war when the US had extensive numerical superiority in CVs and supporting CVEs and CVLs that permitted decent mission multitasking.

I think Fletcher got hit with a bad rap beginning with the fiasco that was (not) relief of Wake Is. in Dec. 41. He was accused by others (especially Morison) of, "wasting time fueling instead of pressing on in the relief of Wake".

The real fault at Wake in Dec 41 lay with Adm Pye for failing to develop a coherent plan and recalling the relief for prematurely. Lexington, Saratoga, and Enterprise could have faced Soryu and Hiryu on better than even terms.

I think we had a whole discussion on Fletcher in another thead.

Originally posted by mdiehl
Yorktown was sunk two days after all the air action by a submarine. Without the I-168 in the area, Yorktown would have made it home.

What's interesting to me is Morrison's criticism of Fletcher @ Guadalcanal. Morrison seems to me not to have understood the elements of carrier ops very well. He faults Fletcher for retiring to refuel his DDs. IMO a necessary action because Fletcher was acting on (wrong) intel that put IJN CVs in the area. The potential presence of IJN CVs would have put Fletcher's CVs in the same quandry as Nagumo at Midway: accept mission creep and try to simultaneously cover your own TF, deal with Japanese CVs, and provide air-interdiction against enemy TFs around Guadalcanal, or, deal with the presumed IJN CVs. Since the CVs were a threat to both the landing force and Fletcher's CVs, Fletcher's move makes more sense to me than Morrison's monday morning QB. It's a better move with respect to Carrier Ops in general and it simultaneously negates the effects of any (again, incorrectly presumed) IJN CVs in the area. That leaves the surface group to provide cover against other IJN surface units. It was a reasonable assumption on Fletcher's part to assume that Crace & the rest could take care of themselves in a surface action.

Morrison's monday morning QB only makes sense when I put him in the context. He only served in action late in the war when the US had extensive numerical superiority in CVs and supporting CVEs and CVLs that permitted decent mission multitasking.

Of course Morrison was involved in the navy conflict early on. He was at Torch landings and at Guadalcanal soon after it was secured. He was pretty close to the action. His criticism of Fletcher stems from Ghormley's assessment that the main problem of Watchtower was the protection of the transports during the landing and off-loading of supplies. But Fletcher determined to leave after two days due to his DDs fuel problems (which were non-existent at the time) and his lack of fighter support(he still had one more fighter than he had at Midway). Morrison rather claims that Fletcher's over-cautiousness was due to the fact that he had already lost two carriers and wasn't about to lose anymore. I bet if you ask any of the survivng Marines at Guadalcanal, they would be more than happy to give their opinion of Fletcher.

I'm not sure the surviving Marines' opinion is worth much unless they know alot about carrier ops. It remains the case that Fletcher was concerned about the potential for enemy CVs and submarines. Given the repeated torpedoing of Saratgoa in the same area, the loss of Wasp to subs, and the general consequences that befell overtasked CVs when enemy CVs were in strike range, there is no doubt to me that Fletcher made the right move.

The Transports' withdrawal that so greatly vexxed the USMC was primarily a result of the Savo Isl debacle. One can hardly fault Fletcher for expecting the CAs to do their job.

Originally posted by mdiehl
I'm not sure the surviving Marines' opinion is worth much unless they know alot about carrier ops. It remains the case that Fletcher was concerned about the potential for enemy CVs and submarines. Given the repeated torpedoing of Saratgoa in the same area, the loss of Wasp to subs, and the general consequences that befell overtasked CVs when enemy CVs were in strike range, there is no doubt to me that Fletcher made the right move.

The Transports' withdrawal that so greatly vexxed the USMC was primarily a result of the Savo Isl debacle. One can hardly fault Fletcher for expecting the CAs to do their job.

Also, Saratoga and Wasp weren't torpedoed until late August and September respectively, long after Savo and Eastern Solomons.