neil@progress.COM (Neil Galarneau) (01/12/91)
From: neil@progress.COM (Neil Galarneau) demon@desire.wright.edu writes: > Two items of caution: >1) Good Point >2) In 1942 the Japanese held war games to predict the outcome of the Midway >operation. The US player allocated his carriers NW of Midway and decimated >the Japanese forces, sinking two carriers and severely damaging a third. The >Japanese player protested the rules and the referees agreed. Two Japanese >carriers were refloated and the Japanese declared the winners. So much for >war games. The enemy will never react the way you plan... >Brett >bkottmann@falcon.aamrl.wpafb.af.mil In _The Art of Wargaming_, Peter Perla has this to say about the incident referred to above: In the tabletop maneuvers, for example, a situation developed in which the Nagumo Force [the carriers] underwent a bombing attack by enemy land-based aircraft while its own planes were off attacking Midway. In accordance with the rules, ... umpire cast dice to determine the bombing results and ruled that there had been 9 hits on the enemy carriers. Admiral Ugaki, however, arbitrarily reduced the number of enemy hits to only 3 ... even this ruling was subsequently cancelled ...[resulting in 0 hits] ...The lack of preparation was illustrated by an incident which occurred during the Midway maneuvers. There, the somewhat reckless manner in which the Nagumo force operated evoked criticism, and the question was raised as to what plan the Force had in mind to meet the contingency that an enemy carrier task force might appear on its flank while it was executing its scheduled attack on Midway. ... Admiral Ugaki himself cautioned that greater consideration must be given to this possibility. Indeed, in the actual battle, this was precisely what happened. (Mitsuo Fuchida and Okumiya Masatake, _Midway, The Battle that Doomed Japan_ pp. 95-97) Most accounts of the Japanese Midway games latch onto the changes made to the rulings of the umpires as a prime example of the dangers of introducing bias into wargames. ... But the point that is too often missed is that contained in Fuchida's last paragraph. The game raised the crucial issue of the possibility of an ambush from the north; the operators ignored the warning, a warning re-iterated by the oft-maligned Ugaki. Ugaki's change of the umpire's evaluation of the effectiveness of the U.S. land-based-bomber attack was not necessarily blind arrogance. In the actual battle, B-17s attacked the Japanese force on more than one occasion and failed to score a single hit! ... Ignoring or changing the results of a few die rolls did not constitute the failure of Japanese wargaming in the case of Midway; ignoring the questions and issues raised by the play did. pages 46 and 47 Even if the enemy doesn't react the way you plan, wargaming can still raise issues that need to be dealt with. Neil neil@progress.com
welty@sol.crd.ge.com (richard welty) (01/14/91)
From: welty@sol.crd.ge.com (richard welty)
In article <1991Jan12.011223.23612@cbnews.att.com>, Neil Galarneau writes:
* Ugaki's change of the umpire's evaluation of the
* effectiveness of the U.S. land-based-bomber attack was not necessarily
* blind arrogance. In the actual battle, B-17s attacked the Japanese
* force on more than one occasion and failed to score a single hit!
keep in mind, however, that at this point in time, there was no
established combat record for b-17s against shipping, and there
were a lot of people who believed that they would prove effective.
secondly, there were other aircraft besides b-17s based on midway,
including a few new Grumman TBF Avengers; these were ineffective
during the battle due to inexperienced crews, but later in the war
proved to be good torpedo bombers.
the obvious question then becomes, what was Ugaki's justification
for making the ruling he did?
richard
--
richard welty 518-387-6346, GE R&D, K1-5C39, Niskayuna, New York
welty@sol.crd.ge.com ...!crdgw1!sol.crd.ge.com!welty
Lewis.crd.ge.com may be leaving the network; please direct email to
welty@sol.crd.ge.com in the near future -- the manglementswilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams) (01/15/91)
From: swilliam@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Williams) > In the actual battle, B-17s attacked the Japanese force on more than > one occasion and failed to score a single hit! As I understand, the B-17s were dropping the bombs way up from the 30,000 foot altitude. Naturally, it is extremely hard to hit a moving target (ship) from that altitude, especially when the ship is steaming at 30 knots. This brings up the question: Has a B-17 ever scored a hit on a moving ship from the 30,000 foot altitude?
welty@sol.crd.ge.com (richard welty) (01/18/91)
From: welty@sol.crd.ge.com (richard welty)
In article <1991Jan15.022331.24901@cbnews.att.com>, Williams writes:
*This brings up the question: Has a B-17 ever scored a hit on a moving
*ship from the 30,000 foot altitude?
i don't recall if it was a b-17 or not, but a high-level bomber
did succeed once. everyone involved was quite suprised, including
the bomber crew.
richard
--
richard welty 518-387-6346, GE R&D, K1-5C39, Niskayuna, New York
welty@sol.crd.ge.com ...!crdgw1!sol.crd.ge.com!welty
Lewis.crd.ge.com may be leaving the network; please direct email to
welty@sol.crd.ge.com in the near future -- the manglementmst@relay.EU.net (Markus Stumptner) (01/19/91)
From: vexpert!mst@relay.EU.net (Markus Stumptner) >From article <1991Jan12.011223.23612@cbnews.att.com>, by neil@progress.COM (Neil Galarneau): > In _The Art of Wargaming_, Peter Perla has this to say about the incident > referred to above: > [...] > [ref. by Fuchida and Masatake deleted] > > ... Ignoring or changing the results of a few die rolls did not > constitute the failure of Japanese wargaming in the case of Midway; > ignoring the questions and issues raised by the play did. There is a similar story about a later phase of the war in Morison's _History of US Naval Operations in WWII_, volume VI (somewhere around p. 15). I don't have the book at hand, but this is how the story goes: Yokoyama, the Japanese military attache in Washington, was interned at the beginning of the war, but hat free access to the US press. He was exchanged and arrived in Japan by ship in August, 1942. He was led away from the pier without being given a chance to see the latest war news (this was a week after the US invasion on Guadalcanal). The General Staff intended him to play the commander of the US side in a wargame that simulated the full next two years of the war, since they assumed he would be familiar with the latest US strategy and doctrine. The game assumed that the Japanese had secured Guadalcanal, so he had to start from farther back (Hawaii and Espiritu Santo). Morison claims that he closely predicted the strategy of MacArthur and Nimitz in the Solomons. In the game, the US side retook the Philippines in October, 1944. When Yokoyama was asked after the war about the reactions, questions, and comments of the Naval General Staff to the game-winning team at the time, he said, "They told us to keep our mouths shut." Markus Stumptner mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at Technical University of Vienna vexpert!mst@uunet.uu.net Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria ...mcsun!vexpert!mst