Matrix Games Forums

Originally posted by gonzo:
If Yammamoto felt the Midway operation was compromised in any way why did he let his fleet fall into a trap? There is no indication in anything that I have ever read that mentions the Japanese suspected their codes were being broken.

Gonzo

I don't know or he know that the operation was compromised. But if he know, he has go on with the Operation, because it was his plan, and if he canceled it, he lost his face (honour), and that was for him and his country worst then lost the whole fleet.

Gonzo,

Realizing 'AFTER THE FACT' that an Operation
was compromised hardly helps that operation.

There are so many vignettes of Nappy being a jerk which one would you like to hear?
How about him ramming the head of his most
valuable subordinate into a wall? Repeatedly.

And yet he could be magnaimous beyond reason
and pardon the same man who tried to assassinate him 6 hours before.


I am saying that:
Yamamoto was shrewd enough in my opinion,
to know that the Midway operation had been
compromised. It is YOU who extend that past
that simple statement.

Do you think he could tell the IJN to change
all its codes on a simple HUNCH?
I suggest to you that he could NOT do that!
Knowing/feeling something on instinct, is a far cry from being able to prove it.
This is a man who could play 5 games of bridge at the same time and win them all.
He could easily tell when someone was off
the baseline of probability.

The accounts of army men who left Guadalcanal
to appeal to him for assistance in reinforcing/supplying the island:

Have him sitting in his stateroom meditating
and then agreeing to try again. Knowing
full well that it would fail.

Are you saying that had YOU been in his shoes,
you would NOT have wondered what went wrong
at Midway? Or would you blame it all on Nagumo?

If you insist on straight-jacketing historical persona into ONLY what YOU feel
is a substanciated model, I suggest to you
that you will never get an accurate picture.

Men are not simple puppets. All we get is
brief windows into events usually abridged.

Gonzo,

Arguing history is the single most subjective enterprise I know of.
Only the Stock Market comes close.

If you dont see that well OK.

God knows what you do when you read two contradictory accounts of the same event.

Dear all,

I read the replies on the shore batteries, but no one was mentioning that they should have a limited field of fire! This game is so big in scale, how shall you limit that batteries are only able to fire at sea targets? I don't know wether that works, but that is the major thing aboutthese batteries. The same thing, by the way, which stopped the Germans from using the "real big ones" at the Normandy. These guns were only able to fire in a specific field of fire. And don't call it stupid up until you checked why....

Jo,

I really don't think even a Japanese commander, particularly the Western influenced, Yamamoto, would carry out an attack that he new to be compromised in order to "save face." A Japanese commander might be shamed by losing a battle and decide to end his life, but halting an attack that was doomed to failure because of a breach of security is not the same. Hell, if he were so worried about losing face he could have continued the battle with his surface fleet and tried to land troops on the island. There is a very good chance he would have succeeded since the US air groups were severely depleted and the US surface units terribly outnumbered.

Chiteng,
In your response to Gonzo's post:

Overall I must say your post's are very harsh and not in the spirit that one normally finds here. Don't take everything so personally.

On the main topic.

Yamamoto certainly could have had all the codes changed on a whim. He was commander of the Combined Fleet and had the juice to accomplish such a task. Since ommunications security is THE most important facet of warfare, he would have taken it seriously and fixed the problem. If there was any chance the codes were compromised they would have quickly been altered. (It's not as if JN-25 was the only code the Japanese had switching was simple as was proven by the switch made just before the battle commenced.)

As far as history being subjective I have no idea what you mean. -- History is not subjective. People's interpretations of events might be, such as the Japanese rewriting their history books to place that country in a better light, but the events themselves are pretty straightforward. Even more so when discussing recent historical events like WWII because the historical record is so complete. We know what happened and where and for the most part the why is also understood. Whether or not certain decisions were good or bad may be endlessly argued, but as far as the events themselves that is pretty black and white.

Skeets,
Just a couple quick comments with regard to your post. One, just an FYI, the Naval War College played out several war games with the assumption that Yamamoto pushed ahead with his surface assets and invaded Midway. I don't know the exact numbers, but something like 3 out of 4 games showed the Japanese taking the Island and the US losing a lot of ships...
Secondly, I understand your point about communications security, and I agree the japanese would have changed the codes, but I personally believe logisitics win wars, not comm security. Just a personal opinion, but one I believe is supported in many circles. Feel free to disagree or comment.
Chris Parisi

Skeets,

So you are saying that WWII and its decisions
were black and white?

Sorry but I must disagree.

Can you tell me who the Rote Kapella was?
Can you tell me who Lucy was?
Can you tell me if Dulles was guilty of even half the crap he is accused of?
Can you tell me if the US president
delibretly sacrificed the Pacific Fleet?
(Something that Kimmel believed btw)

Can you tell me if Churchill delibretly
fed false information to the Germans about
where the V-1(s) were landing to get the
Germans to mis-direct them into falling short
(and incidently of the lower classes)

No you cant, no one can. These are issues
of imponderability. Let alone delibrete
cover-ups.

For example: I feel Nixon knew ahead of time
and authorized the Watergate breakin.
To say that in public where I live, is to provoke an argument.

People change the historical record to suit
their intrests. I trust nothing. I read quite
a bit. I will form my OWN opinion thank you.

For Yamamoto to change the codes 'ON A WHIM'
would have people asking him,(just like you are now)why?

Sure and CNO he could FORCE the issue, that
isnt arguable, however there would be a cost to doing that. I never said that he knew
AHEAD of time the Midway operation was
compromised. I said that I felt that he knew
it HAD BEEN.

It doesnt take much insight to know when you have failed your objective. After action analysis was a forte of Yamamoto.

I suggest that if you are willing to accept the 'historical record' you must be very confused when trying to reconcile Soviet
accounts with German.

Chiteng,

Your last post proved my point about your attitude in here and I will no longer correspond with you.

Mad,

I also read about the Naval War College gaming out that Midway scenario, but because it was in Tom Clancy's Hunt For Red October, which, of course, is a novel I was not 100% sure it was true. While I trust most of what is said in his books as the truth, I was not sure about that topic. Thanks for confirming it.

And yes logistics wins wars, but if the enemy knows where you supply convoys are you are in deep trouble.

Coast Defense units shoot at naval units but I don't think they have much if any impact on land combat in the hex so I think we have your concern covered.

Joel

Back to the main topic of this thread: Can we incorporate some of the things I mentioned originally into the new game???

---There will be coast defense guns.
---There will be minesweepers and minelayers.

But what about some of the other ideas?
--Doolittle? can we replicate it
--Yamammoto assination?
--Lucy spy ring? (this is somewhat of what Chiteng has been talking about)
--the list is at the beginning

I would really like to see some of these ideas in the new game.

Skeets,

Suit yourself *shrug*

Your implied rebuke is ignored.
I have done and did nothing wrong.
I was asked to explain an opinion I hold.
I was (by my standards) respectful.
You must not contend with usenet newsgroups
much.

In any case I didnt use profanity and I explained in detail why I disagreed.

I am not responcible for your sensibilities.

All I see is someone that instead of responding to the issue at hand, tries to
turn the responce into a personal attack.
That type of responce I see a great deal
sadly, on say Everquest newsgroups.

Everybody ease up please.

We are all adults here.

If you have an opinion express it.
If you want to debate anothers opinion feel free.
If someone wants to debate your opinion so be it; thats what America is all about.

FYI - If you read Stephen Ambrose's account of D-Day youy owill discover that the reason for the "big guns" inaccuracy was NOT field of fire problems but rather the loss of their forward spotters. Keep in mind that the Arkansas and Nevada were ANCHORED off Normandy and the best the Germans could do was a few bracketing salvoes. Without forward spottersthe big guns were firing blind.
Also, I agree that Yamamoto had to know that his codes were compromised to some extent. He was no fool and had to know that something was amiss. Call it a hunch, but he probably figured that the routine code changes would take care of the problem.

One other thing I just thought of. Sure Yamamoto could have gone ahead with the capture of Midway. The guns of the Yamato would have laid waste to such a tiny speck. However, the reason for the whole operation was to draw out and destroy the American CV's. Since Spruance refused to put himself in a gun versus gun situation, this was not possible and after a fruitless night search, the Combined Fleet pointed bows west and headed home.

I agree with Showboat about Midway. Even if Midway was captured it would have been a liability. The Americans would have isolated the bases with subs and aircraft. Guadalcanal would have gone on as scheduled. The only thing that would have been different is that there may have been an attempt to retake the island (like Attu and Kiska). However since this was not done with Wake it may not have happened at Midway.

ALSO:

I agree that without spotters shore guns are limited. However, they need to be in the game to prevent the Japs from coming up and blasting Bataan and Singapore unmolested (and for that case the US from doing the same to Tokyo).

Originally posted by Chiteng:
For example: I feel Nixon knew ahead of time and authorized the Watergate breakin.

Actually, I think Yamamoto knew about Watergate ahead of time, Churchill authorized it, and FDR sacrificed them because he thaught his codes were comprimized.

Just kidding. I am not making fun of you, I actually agree with you, just trying to cool things down in here with a little bad humor.


Ringbolt

Dan,
I agree that the shore guns have a place in these games, but I think it's a minimal role. Japan could, with the assets it had at the time, basically sail up and blast Bataan and Singapore, IMO. Granted they may lose a ship or two, or at least take damage, but I think they had the ability to project enough seapower against those targets that it wouldn't matter. Historically, it was easier for them to approach overland though, so I guess its a moot point...

I have a theory that JFK committed suicide!
Let's get back to the game, please.
I would love to see many new features in this game like Doolittle's raid but I'm hoping the major routines are worked on.
Search is paramount, combat, logistics.
Will the ground units include more detail combat options like assault, probe, flank, etc. that a player can choose his units to attempt?
Will the units include more types of equipment?
Will search include coastwatchers and submarine based seaplane bases?
Can submarines be employed into a strategic mode to combat merchant shipping while others put on the game board in a tactical mode? I personally find putting subs 'in a hex' to try to catch routine convoys as a detractor. It's an area patrol in any case. I'd rather put some subs into a 'pool' that attacks routine convoys and put a few into actual operations like raids, patrol plane bases, pick up pilots, etc.
Combat routines like he shoots, I shoot are bad. In the game, you can get skewed results. Sure it doesn't happen perfectly at the same time but it sure doesn't happen where ship 1 shoots. Ship one on the other side shoots (Oh by the way, two turrets shot up). Ship two shoots, and so on.
Just some ideas I think have been mentioned before.

I agree with the comments on the combat routines but I feel that its safe to say that the Matrix Designers will be addressing those descrepancies. Back in the days of PACWAR and C Stike things were a bit limited. The pool idea is a good one. And one last comment on shore batteries - they should be included, they would be limited in what they could do (immovable, spotters, fields of fire, etc.), but these defenses had some HUGE cannons (a few 18 inchers at singapore) and would seriously damage anything they hit.