Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Zeta16

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

While we are talking about things that "never happened", let's bring up the Japanese players who use their
BB's (not BC's) all over the Pacific to exploit the failings of the "bombardment" rules. Please show me ONE
example of this actually happening in the War. Japanese Naval doctrine was to keep these in home waters
for the "Decisive Naval Battle". Japanese players a-historically use them all over to pound ports and airfields.
And then complain bitterly when the Allied players use massed 4-engined bombers to exploit another weakness
in the games programming.

There are plenty of "exploits" in the game on both sides that call for work. Let's get them all into play and work
on some fixes.

Then since the allies never attack from Darwin into the DEI that should never happen. Come on, there where a lot of things that did not happen in the war that people do. So if we are always going to pick on the Japanese lets conform the allies to do what they did in the war too. This is a game people will do things that did not happen, however 4E bombers being more lethel is a game issue not play issue.

You miss the point entirely. The air attack rules make it far to easy and rewarding too use large 4-engined bomber
formations for Anti-shipping attacks. The bombardment rules make them far too easy and rewarding to blast every-
thing on any coast.. Both are exploits of poorly designed rules and combat results. If Darwin is correctly shown
without Rail connections and difficult to supply in any meaningful quantity, and the Allies want to expend the shipping
resources to try and support an effort there, I have no problem with it. In the game as released, an Allied Offensive
from that area IS another exploit of a poor design choice, and belongs on the same list as the level bomber and bomb-
bardment foolishness. All need to be fixed.

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ORIGINAL: Feinder

I was actually waiting for somebody to say, "Sure the B-17s attacked ships, tied up at anchore or docked or whatever.

(*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*)

There are on 10 instances where the word "harbor" is mentioned in the above list of activities. Now, I certainly don't believe that all of the other attacks were made against shipping in the open water. But you people insult the crews of the heavies when you imply they never attacked anything but anchored targets. The simple fact remains that, majority of attacks were carried out against shipping that was in open water.

What you could have said, which would be entirely correct, is that

The the number attacks against enemy shipping in the open water began to decrease by the end of 1942.

You will note that in your "harbor" example, that the the instances of shipping be attack in the harbor occurred in
July
Aug
Oct x2
Nov x3
Dec x3

You think that might have something to do with the fact that, much of the shipping around New Guinea / Solomons had come to a halt by then, and most of the targets -were- stuck in the harbors...?

-F-

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ORIGINAL: Zeta16
Well I have come to think that there is not going to be any great changes to the game. It is pretty much in it's complete state. One way to make things closer to the truth is to make a limit to the amount of planes on a base, not just limited to base forces. Say level x 50 plus 50 per field is the max. For the Japanese make the 2e torp planes fly on pnly from base size 6 or higher as it is a bigger base with torp and make the range trops can be used a smaller range. Land combat who knows that is not why I play the game. Also I am not Japanese fanboy. I have 4 PBEMs as the Allies and 2 as Japan. If you play the game with in historical guidelines it works great.

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ORIGINAL: SpitfireIX

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ORIGINAL: Zeta16

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

While we are talking about things that "never happened", let's bring up the Japanese players who use their
BB's (not BC's) all over the Pacific to exploit the failings of the "bombardment" rules. Please show me ONE
example of this actually happening in the War. Japanese Naval doctrine was to keep these in home waters
for the "Decisive Naval Battle". Japanese players a-historically use them all over to pound ports and airfields.
And then complain bitterly when the Allied players use massed 4-engined bombers to exploit another weakness
in the games programming.

There are plenty of "exploits" in the game on both sides that call for work. Let's get them all into play and work
on some fixes.

Then since the allies never attack from Darwin into the DEI that should never happen. Come on, there where a lot of things that did not happen in the war that people do. So if we are always going to pick on the Japanese lets conform the allies to do what they did in the war too. This is a game people will do things that did not happen, however 4E bombers being more lethel is a game issue not play issue.

When it comes to ahistorical strategies and tactics, I believe the test that needs to be applied is "could the real-life commanders reasonably have taken the action in question, given the knowlege they had at the time?" Japanese sub doctrine, for example, represents deeply ingrained cultural issues within the IJN; Tokyo's simply issuing orders to "attack more merchantmen and fewer warships" would have had little effect, because the sub commanders had all been infused with the ideas of Bushido, which teaches that a warrior's only worthy adversary is another warrior.

There will always be gray areas, of course; I'd say Japanese BB bombardment is one of those. Yes, the idea of preserving the BBs for the final climactic battle with the US fleet was a major factor in Japanese doctrine; however, as the war progressed, both sides did attempt to modify doctrine (with varying degrees of success) as circumstances and experience dictated.

Another issue to be considered is, of course, hindsight. No game can perfectly eliminate this; and no player, no matter how hard he might try, can totally avoid having his knowledge of history color his decision-making process. Some people enjoy the Monday-morning quarterback style of play; others choose to attempt, as far a possible, to play the role of the historical commander. These are largely issues of personal preference, and (in a multi-player game) should be discussed with ones opponent or opponents ahead of time.

Finally, there is the issue of what is "gamey" and what is simply unorthodox. This can also have gray areas. To expound on an example that has been brought up before, suppose that, for whatever reason, the Doolittle Raid had not taken place IRL. Now suppose that WitP had more detailed carrier operation rules, allowing some land-based planes to take off from (and maybe even land on; this did happen very rarely) CVs, based on the aircraft's flight characteristics and the length of the CV's deck. Suppose also that the Japanese player took a huge political-point hit (and the Allies got a big boost) if Tokyo were bombed in 1942. The first time an Allied player managed to launch a squadron of B-25s on a suicide mission against Tokyo, some players would undoubtedly decry the action as "gamey," "unrealistic," etc. So what is and is not an "exploit" is not always black-and-white (sometimes it is, though).

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Finally, there is the issue of what is "gamey" and what is simply unorthodox. This can also have gray areas. To expound on an example that has been brought up before, suppose that, for whatever reason, the Doolittle Raid had not taken place IRL. Now suppose that WitP had more detailed carrier operation rules, allowing some land-based planes to take off from (and maybe even land on; this did happen very rarely) CVs, based on the aircraft's flight characteristics and the length of the CV's deck. Suppose also that the Japanese player took a huge political-point hit (and the Allies got a big boost) if Tokyo were bombed in 1942. The first time an Allied player managed to launch a squadron of B-25s on a suicide mission against Tokyo, some players would undoubtedly decry the action as "gamey," "unrealistic," etc. So what is and is not an "exploit" is not always black-and-white (sometimes it is, though).

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ORIGINAL: irrelevant

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Yes, the idea of preserving the BBs for the final climactic battle with the US fleet was a major factor in Japanese doctrine

Another thing to consider here, IJN clearly considered the Kongos to be in a different class than their battle line ships (which of course they were). The Kongos were the red-headed step children of the Combined Fleet, usable for just about any mission and apparently thought of as being more or less expendible (at least until a couple of them got expended).

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ORIGINAL: Feinder

I really like the idea of making tying the number of air-support required, to the number of engines.

Not sure how do-able it is. But I -really- like the idea.

-F-

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ORIGINAL: Halsey

Poor Mike Wood. He'll never get a break!

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ORIGINAL: Milman

We need airfield to be like factories . For example wake airfield size=50 (only 50 planes can be put on that airfield) . If you vant to expand you do that like you do with factories . Cost of expand may be changed to 500 sup. +- . When you attack airfield you damage him like factory . And there should be rules for penalties on using damaged airfield and let say if airfield is 50% damaged no air ops from them . But I don't think that they will do that but this can be good idea for future game or WITP 2 .

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size=50 (only 50 planes can be put on that airfield)

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ORIGINAL: Milman

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size=50 (only 50 planes can be put on that airfield)

This means that you can't put 51 or more planes on wake island . Right now I think that you can put 1000 planes on aitfield size 4 , and they will fly (with penalties) . so it isn't the same as the situation which we have now in WITP .

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ORIGINAL: Halsey

I'm sure he's looking forward to upcoming patches for GGWAW.