Ludi1867

On my third attempt at playing the PBEM file I succeeded in avoiding a segmentation error. Greece and Yugoslavia both surrendered again, but I did try something different. The major change in the replay was that, when the decision event to “prepare for Operation Barabarossa” question was asked, I answere “No” this time. I had answered yes the first two times (and I really am getting close to invading Russia, so WANTED to answer yes this time but thought I should check to see if answering differently would avoid the segmentation error.) So perhaps the error is more related to decision events than surrender scripts. In any event, the errors are certainly unwelcome.

Not sure if this is the proper place for a tech error report on a mod, but will start here and hope for guidance. I have been playing the second Honch mod (creation date in Aug 09) PBEM for a while now, and have experienced two segmentation error crashes. The first occurred when France surrendered (Vichy armistice selected). Replaying the turn got past that crash. A second crash - Yugoslavia surrendered this time - has been more troublesome. The segmentation error has occurred again after reloading and trying again. This is using version 1.03 of PDE as the base engine. The mod is quite different from the base game, and quite well done in many ways, so having this error is a tad frustrating. Any suggestions that may salvage the game are welcome.

I have to agree completely with Borsook here – having a German U-boat EVADE from one side of the Straits of Gibraltar to the other can only be seen as a glitch or incomprehensible from a historical perspective. Bill 101 is correct in noting that German U-boats did operate in the Mediterranean during the Second World War. 62 U-boats are thought to have attempted to enter the Med from the Atlantic. Nine were sunk in the attempt, and 21 aborted. So just over 30 U-boats did enter. None (zero) of these U-boats ever travelled from the Med to the Atlantic, so the traffic was effectively one way only. xwormwood correctly notes a few of the incidents these U-boats were involved in. Overall U-boats achieved a number of notable successes in the Med, but losses were high and whether the success was worth the effort is subject to debate. In game terms there is no way to willfully move a U-boat from the Atlantic through the straits of Gibraltar to the Med UNLESS the Axis control the port of Gibraltar (or the port is reduced to strength zero). I suspect, although I cannot say with certainty, that neither condition obtains in the evasion Borsook is referring to. For a U-boat to go through ‘hyperspace’ while evading and consequently travel from the Atlantic through an Allied controlled non-zero strength port of Gibraltar to the Mediterranean is simply bizarre, and I am a little surprised that it has been defended by the first two replies here. Essentially the proponents of the status quo are arguing that the game engine is just fine, players should simply accept the vagaries of fate because there actually were U-boats in the Med during the war. This argument conflates history with an unrealistic game engine, and sounds plausible but is actually quite wrong. There may be some merit to allowing players to willfully PLAN to pass a U-boat through the Straits of Gibraltar, but to have it happen by accident through the rather arcane mechanics of the current U-boat evasion process is simply hard to understand. To address the issue easily would be to prevent U-boats inadvertently travelling through hyperspace to enter a different body of water if that required passage through a non Axis controlled port (ie an Allied Gibraltar). This seems far more reasonable, and consistent with the historical record, than allowing U-boats to fly through the straits by accident. It might also be worth considering allowing U-boats to pass through an Allied controlled Gibraltar (at the potential cost of 1 to 3 strength points, which seems a reasonable variation on the historical loss level of 15%), and say a 33% chance of succeeding (to account for the high number of U-boats turned back). This would have to be done as an ‘event’, as the only place on the map where this seems a plausible possibility is the Straits of Gibraltar. However, this is not a really important addition to the game. An interesting web site on this subject (and the best short summary I have found) is at http://formontana.net/uboats.html For an understanding of how traumatic many U-boat crews saw the transit of the Straits of Gibraltar, a viewing of the movie Das Boot is worthwhile. This is probably a little too Hollywood-ish to be taken as literal truth (an ex-U-boat officer I discussed this with quite hated the depth charge depictions in the movie, for example, saying they were completely unrealistic), but it does suggest that passing through the Straits was neither lightly attempted nor easily accomplished.

The continual upgrades to the SC2 WaW engine have gradually improved the model quite a bit, but the naval war still seems to have the most problematic aspects. I have encountered three problems in recent games. Though minor, they are still irritating. One – Inadvertent Oceanic Transfer The use of entry arrows to allow movement from, for example, the Atlantic to the Red Sea, is a sensible improvisation. The ability of a sub to be invisible until ‘discovered’ when an opposing unit runs into a hidden submarine (or U-boat) is also reasonable. However, there are times when a unit being ‘ambushed’ by a submarine inadvertently ends up on an entry point for inter-oceanic transfer. This is even more likely to happen when the ‘interesting’ fiction of a submarine being able to evade and disappear from an attack requires a prolonged hunt in the vicinity of the transfer arrows. Just recently I had to ‘re-locate’ a strength one U-boat and did it using one of my last units in the area – an under strength Destroyer. I successfully found and killed the evading U-boat, but my success was followed by the victorious warship disappearing into the inter-ocean worm hole at the end of the turn. This seems to be a clear travesty of both intent and game design here. One method of preventing this would be to require a player to confirm all interocean transfers at the end of a turn (for all units ending the turn on an arrow). Seems like a lot of work though. A second method might be to NOT transfer any unit that ends its turn in an arrow as a result of contact with an opposing unit, or perhaps requiring confirmation that any unit that contacts an opposing unit at the end of its turn really intends to proceed to an interocean transfer. This is a minor issue, but when it happens it can be darned annoying. Two – British Transports unable to use western Red Sea and Persian Gulf Interocean transfer arrows in Operation Neptune Operation Neptune is a very interesting scenario. However, the naval aspects – when playing against a human, as opposed to the AI – are very challenging for the Allied player. In my efforts to support an Allied campaign in the Middle East in the face of the huge Axis navy, I have had occasion to use the interocean transfer arrows south of Cuba extensively for my US forces. However, an effort to send some of my few remaining British forces by these arrows has NOT worked. I cannot understand why this is so – British transports can use the arrows near Africa, and there seems no physical nor political reason within the game scenario that would preclude British transports using the arrows south of Cuba. But British transports stubbornly sit on top of those arrows and do not transfer. Again, this is comparatively minor – the scenario will not be won or lost on this technicality. But it does seem wrong. Three – Axis Naval Inter-Sea Transfer from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf in Operation Neptune. As the Axis player I have been able to shift Axis ships from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, but only ONE of the two arrows seems to function….again, a minor issue, but what gives?

Hi All This will be my last post on this topic. I am honestly puzzled by Scottsmm's stance, as supporting the status quo in the game so completely means accepting that the Hawaiian garrison not be included in the game. As has been pointed out a number of times, this garrison was substantial. It was well trained. It was well equipped. It had a reasonably small area to defend. And it is not in the game, aside from perhaps the strength 5 AA unit. At the same time a comparatively small Japanese unit, the SNLF off Wake Island at game start, representing not more than 2000 men, is a strength 10 Special Forces unit. Now, this strikes me as unbalanced. I am glad Scottsmm has done some minor research. I suspect that any serious Japanese effort at invading Hawaii would have adjusted US priorities in the short term. Germany first has become such a repeated aspect of US planning that it is generally forgotten that, in practice, the US actually allocated far more resources to the Pacific than strict adherence to the Germany first policy mandated. The reasons for this are more than you are going to find in an "in depth" wikipedia article, however, so perhaps look into some really detailed histories of the war. The Germany first issue is really beside the point. The USN contribution to the Atlantic war in the first six months of so after Germany declared war on the US was neither very effective nor very large. Many units did transfer to the Pacific. It might even have been helpful to the Allies if the USN had been more marginalized at first in the Atlantic, as Ernie King made some major errors for the first few months in the anti-U-boat effort (he improved pretty quickly, especially once he put Frog Low on the issue, and by May 1943 the USN really had its act together in the Battle of the Atlantic. But not at the outset.) I digress. No, the US could have found a lot of forces closer to home, and if the Japanese player is so careless as to venture close to the west coast, then PT already has the possibility of a substantial US forces popping up. But right now an invasion of Hawaii does not trigger this. I would question that assumption, as it seems to me that an invasion of Hawaii would have been seen as very dangerous on the US mainland. While Hollywood is not a great source, the movie 1941 actually doesn't do that bad a job at capturing the general level of hysteria shortly after the war started. I'm sure the late great John Belushi exaggerated a bit now and then, but there was indeed a fair amount of concern on the US west coast after Pearl Harbor. An invasion of Hawaii by Japan would have raised these fears to a fever pitch, and I think the raising of militia units might well have been a reasonable result. In any event, the US had the mobilization strength to both announce a Germany first policy and then pursue a pretty aggressive Pacific path. So, Scottsmm, you can support the absence of the Hawaiian garrison and all the other aspects of the status quo in PT, but I find the current assessments regarding the Hawaiian garrison hard to agree with.

Hi All This will be my last post on this topic. I am honestly puzzled by Scottsmm's stance, as supporting the status quo in the game so completely means accepting that the Hawaiian garrison not be included in the game. As has been pointed out a number of times, this garrison was substantial. It was well trained. It was well equipped. It had a reasonably small area to defend. And it is not in the game, aside from perhaps the strength 5 AA unit. At the same time a comparatively small Japanese unit, the SNLF off Wake Island at game start, representing not more than 2000 men, is a strength 10 Special Forces unit. Now, I may be thick, but this strikes me as potentially unbalanced. I am glad you have done some minor research. I suspect that any serious Japanese effort at invading Hawaii would have adjusted US priorities in the short term. Germany first has become such a repeated aspect of US planning that it is generally forgotten that, in practice, the US actually allocated far more resources to the Pacific than strict adherence to the Germany first policy mandated. The reasons for this are more than you are going to find in an "in depth" wikipedia article, however, so perhaps look into some really detailed histories of the war. The Germany first issue is really beside the point. The USN contribution to the Atlantic war in the first six months of so after Germany declared war on the US was neither very effective nor very large. Many units did transfer to the Pacific. It might even have been helpful to the Allies if the USN had been more marginalized at first in the Atlantic, as Ernie King made some major errors for the first few months in the anti-U-boat effort (he improved pretty quickly, especially once he put Frog Low on the issue, and by May 1943 the USN really had its act together in the Battle of the Atlantic. But not at the outset.) But I digress. No, the US could have found a lot of forces closer to home, and if the Japanese player is so careless as to venture forces close to the west coast, then PT already has the possibility of a substantial US forces popping up. But right now an invasion of Hawaii does not trigger this. I would question that assumption, as it seems to me that an invasion of Hawaii would have been seen as very dangerous on the US mainland. While Hollywood is not a great source, the movie 1941 actually doesn't do that bad a job at capturing the general level of hysteria shortly after the war started. I'm sure the late great John Belushi exaggerated a bit now and then, but there was indeed a fair amount of concern on the US west coast after Pearl Harbor. An invasion of Hawaii by Japan would have raised these fears to a fever pitch, and I think the raising of militia units might well have been a reasonable result. But basically, the US had the mobilization strength to both announce a Germany first policy and then pursue a pretty aggressive Pacific path. So, Scottsmm, you can support the absence of the Hawaiian garrison and all the other aspects of the status quo in PT, but I find the current assessments regarding the Hawaiian garrison hard to agree with.

Hi Scottsmm I appreciate your effort to explain how easy it would be for Japan to take Hawaii, but all I can suggest is that you really do not understand the problems at all. The USN did not disappear on 7 December 1941. There were significant naval forces remaining, including in the Atlantic. There were more than enough forces for the USN to contest Japanese naval control of the waters in the Hawaiian op area, most importantly because the IJN would have been hard pressed to maintain a large presence in that area for any significant period. In particular, in a real war the Japanese would have been in the very difficult position of having to hazard their transports without the likely prospect of being able to have them put into a port. The IJN was not good at naval logistics, especially where they did not have a port to work with. I would invite you to review such works as Evans and Peattie’s Kaigun if you want to see how bad the IJN was in fleet logistic aspects. The game makes this aspect far easier than the reality. I state this not to argue the game should be changed, but to point out that historical reality is far different from what you are suggesting. Now, there actually is a pretty good historical example of a campaign like this. The Japanese effort to retake Guadalcanal is very instructive as an example. Guadalcanal is MUCH closer to Japan and Japanese bases such as Rabaul and Truk. Yet the Japanese had great difficulty in pushing supplies through to Guadalcanal. The battle of Midway certainly undercut Japanese naval forces, but did not eliminate them by any stretch, and the proximity of Guadalcanal can be considered a force multiplier that allowed Japan to use their remaining naval forces aggressively, whereas the USN found Guadalcanal a LONG way from the west coast or even Hawaii. The USN had real difficulty in pushing aircraft into Henderson Field, but even the relatively small air forces that were pushed in caused major problems for the IJN – including when their aircraft carriers were in the area. Oahu has two ports, of which Pearl Harbor is by far the better. However, both ports are pretty close together, and this would have made their defence easier. A Japanese landing over the beach was really the only viable Japanese option, but that would have put their forces in a very bad supply position. Your dismissal of the two US divisions fails to grasp how huge the Japanese logistical challenge would have been. On Guadalcanal one Marine division held off significant numbers of Japanese for long periods, despite Japanese naval control of the waters off the island at night. The Japanese land forces suffered incredible supply hardships, which significantly contributed to their eventual defeat. Your argument is therefore faulty on several levels. The IJN did NOT have complete command of the sea after Pearl Harbor – in fact, even their great success resulted in attrition to the air fleets of those carriers involved of about ten percent, after only one attack! How long could the Japanese have maintained their carriers in the area without a port to provide new aircraft? In reality only a small escort went with the carriers to support the attack – because the Japanese had neither the oil nor the tankers to support a large force. How long could the majority of the Japanese fleet actually have stayed in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands? Not long. In reality, as opposed to the game, the US west coast is SIGNIFICANTLY closer to Hawaii than Japan, and this would have facilitated both aggressive strikes on Japanese naval efforts – especially vulnerable tankers and oilers – as well as flying in aircraft to contest Japanese efforts at air control. You can argue that Hawaii would have been “fairly easily taken by the Japanese in the early part of the war”, but your argument fails to account for the significant US naval forces available still available after the Pearl Harbor attack, the strong US garrison on Hawaii, the favourable strategic position of the islands far from any Japanese facilities but not all that far from the US west coast, and the very weak logistics infrastructure of the IJN, which would have been incredibly stretched to even try and throw a small force ashore in Hawaii.

Hi Scottsmm Your comments on the AI problems are all reasonably valid, but most AI problems are easily fixed - play a human. They might also be bettered discussed in an AI thread. Your view that the Hawaii defence is reasonably portrayed in the current SC2PT is one I totally disagree with. The air attack on the fleet at Pearl Harbor was quite effective. It would be orders of magnitude harder to attack Oahu amphibiously. I do not think I am exaggerating. I have done a lot of studying of amphibious assault and the challenges associated, and they are not really shown in PT. I do not assess that the current defences shown in PT reflect the historical reality at Oahu either. The Japanese had to conduct only ONE amphibious assault in the Pacific. All the other landings were not assaults, but unopposed landings over the beach. The two regular divisions at Oahu - well trained and well equipped - that were the historical garrison would likely have required some form of amphibious assault. The Japanese had very poor amphibious assault capability, and the history of their single effort at it, the landing at Wake Island, shows how weak their capability really was. PT glosses over the problems of amphibious assault and the logistical challenges associated with projecting ground and air forces over long distances. To some degree, as it does simplify the game, this is reasonable. But the inadequate garrison at Hawaii combined with the simplifications of logistics and amphibious force projection result in a situation where you might even think your argument is reasonable. I really disagree, and the many historical sources I have consulted do not seem to indicate anything more than the slenderest of possibilities for a successful Japanese landing at Hawaii. I am not arguing that Hawaii should be invulnerable, but the current lack of any reasonable garrison is not historical in the least. Your suggesting that the successful air attack on the fleet means that a landing might have worked is like saying the successful British attack on the Italian fleet in Taranto (the model for Pearl Harbor) means the British could have succeeded in landing on Italy in November 1940. Comparing aerial assaults and amphibious assaults is very hard to do, and I would not agree that success in one can be generalized to suggest that it would lead to success in the other.

Hi Willy There may be a language barrier here. I never intended my comment to be taken as all posters on this forum are juvenile – of course they aren’t. My comment was very specifically focused on the long 12 page thread on the outer islands. Some of the posts there really are hard to describe as anything but less than mature – the word juvenile is more succinct, though. The point I was trying to make was that there was so much baggage on that topic that I was reluctant to engage on it. I have since made a couple of the points that I had in mind here, but overall my view is that the whole outer island aspect of SC2PT is, in a word, sub-optimal. Part of addressing that MIGHT include addressing the naval supply issue. But I really did not want to get into that fight. Admonishing me to “please respect other players opinions” is a puzzling comment. What if their comments do not deserve respect? We clearly have different standards, and I will drop it at that.

Hi Bill As always, your responses are interesting. I am not really arguing (too hard) to make ASW much harder than it is for the Japanese – the game’s current approximations do sort of work, and it probably is not worthwhile to change the ASW engine too much. But how long does it take a US submarine to get from the west coast of the US to the Sea of Japan? Ten turns? It is far too long, in my view, and I would think that this COULD be addressed by a change in the pro-submarine warfare mode. Hunt and Hide modes really offer comparatively little in this game – the Japanese have little point in using Hide because there are no convoy routes for them to attack (which does also kind of make sense, given Japanese submarine doctrine, but I really think there might be ways to give players the option of adjusting this by providing the Japanese with an Anti-shipping research option, some convoy lines to attack – between the US and Sydney seems a real possibility. And, as you note, the Japanese constraints are such that most players will not bother). But a Fleet Submarine and Anti-Shipping mode, that SIGNIFICANTLY increased the speed of sub’s in anti-shipping mode, might address the real speed shortfall that US submarines (in particular) face at the moment. Or perhaps add one to speed for every advanced submarine tech advance. Hi Willy For a post that you claim not to be argumentative, I would say you failed! I well realize that SC2PT is an effort to provide a simplified model of the Pacific war. I think it does a pretty good job on the land portion. I quite like all the previous ETO games based on this model. I am starting to quite enjoy Patton Drives East, which is essentially the PT engine based in the ETO (or is it vice versa?!). Of course, navies are a small part of the ETO, which is probably a major reason why PDE is easier to like than PT. There are, at the moment, simply too many absurd possibilities in SC2PT with regards to the naval war. Hopefully, some day, a reasonable way of addressing the issues without resort to excessive complication can be achieved. My point, although perhaps elaborated at greater length than you want, is that the day is not here yet in SC2PT. Your comment on supply is probably more important than you realize. The supply assumptions and simplifications that ‘work’ in continental warfare do not work all that well in the naval model. One great example of this is the ability to operate aircraft groups (fighters, bombers, or tactical bombers) to ANY location that has at least five supply. For those locations with access to continental rail supply systems or clear access to safe shipping and ports, that is probably reasonable. However, it is far less reasonable for isolated Pacific Islands that just happen to have a working port, where friendly merchant ships would be in grave danger to go. In one of my current PBEM games, I have lost Pearl Harbor as the Ally, but I am merrily operating aircraft into Wake Island, Guam, etc (the Japanese player used the amphibs ‘intended’ for those invasions to take Hawaii). The game engine currently allows this – in fact, I would argue, the vulnerability of Hawaii actively seems to invite the Japanese player to take actions like this. I am afraid that operating aircraft like this is probably too weird and unexplainable in terms of physics, let alone history, to hold my interest. That DOES NOT mean that I have to follow your line of thought and wait for WaW or turn to War in the Pacific. (That kind of ‘argumentative leap’, by the way, is a classic way to conduct an argument by extrapolating a point to absurdity. But of course you were not trying to be argumentative). There are a number of other options around, including returning to the ETO (where this engine works reasonably well), trying other models (Supremacy at Sea) or hoping (and I actually do rather hope that this happens) that Hubert and Bill find a better way to deal with the naval aspects of the game. I would think that finding a simple but effective way to model naval supply is critical to this improvement. That is just my view, and I may be wrong, but I see nothing wrong with my logic. The first effort at naval supply, reduce supply by one a turn after leaving port, proved too problematic. The next effort, in PT, that only consumed supply for combat, is certainly simple – which IS a definite plus – but is also very problematic for other reasons. In particular, removing most concerns about naval supply renders many aspects of naval strategy (as opposed to tactics, which the game is not too bad at modeling) rather pointless. And the Pacific part of the Pacific war, as opposed to China, Burma, India, etc, was very much a naval war. So you are welcome to continue not arguing all you want Willy. But try to at least be constructive when you are not arguing – Bill does constructive very well, if you need an example of how to go about it.

Hi Bill Appreciate your comment, and you have been invariably polite and responsive so I should not be so irritable. I think my irritation is a result of frustration. I want this to be a great game, but I am having significant problems with the naval system. I think I have a reasonable understanding of why some of the design decisions have been made, and these decisions have an interrelated quality that makes discussing them one at a time challenging, but overall the naval system is simply not very good. The land system seems to work better. So far I have played the campaign a number of times both versus the AI and PBEM, and I have played the majority of the scenarios against the AI. The land part of the campaign and the land centred scenarios seem to work reasonably well, but any naval aspect of PT is awkward at best. One example and this is in a way at the heart of many of the design compromises and simplifications of the naval system, is ship speed in the game. As I explained in my review, ship speeds are quite a bit lower in the game than would be expected in most situations. Now this does make planning carefully rather important, but it also changes naval thinking and planning dramatically both obviously and not so obviously. The obvious way is that slow speed means you have to plan where you are going to move units well in advance. This is a good reason, and your quoting me in your reply to one thread reinforces my belief that that is part of the thinking. The not so obvious way that this affects naval thinking and planning is that, because moving at such slow speeds facilitates the decision/assumption that naval supply is “taken care of”, players never have to worry about moving support vessels up to provide re-supply. And this ‘simplification’ of naval supply, which the game has adopted, changes naval attitudes completely. One of the main reasons that naval commanders were reluctant to bypass islands was that transports and oilers moving past garrisoned islands would be vulnerable. As forces and technology improved it became possible to “neutralize” (destroy any anti-shipping air or naval capability resident on) bypassed islands, but this was not really possible at the outset of the war. SC2PT avoids the whole supply shipping problem by making ports the basis of supply, without worrying about the problem of getting transports and oilers to those ports. This results in a whole series of really bizarre possibilities that occur all too often in the game – liberation of isolated islands deep in enemy territory, followed immediately by operating air units to the vicinity of the liberated port, or landings on the mainland of Japan itself without clearing out or neutralizing major islands along the resupply routes. Another hard to swallow speed decision is the pseudo tactical nature of ship speeds in the game. What do I mean by pseudo tactical? Well, over a ten day period there is really little difference in the speed provided for carriers or destroyers or submarines, but the game somewhat arbitrarily gives them rather different speeds. In fact, in operational/strategic terms, destroyers are probably slower than submarines in most situations. This may sound strange to readers who do not have the experience or historical knowledge, but it is true. Destroyers can be very fast tactically, but that speed comes at a cost in range and operational options. Moving fast in a destroyer from the period ABSOLUTELY requires the ability to resupply frequently – which the game makes easy but in the real history was not so simple at all. (USN mastery of abeam replenishment is sometimes referred to as one of the key USN secret weapons of the war) Submarines, on the other hand, actually have outstanding operational speed when employed in an anti-shipping role, as they have remarkable independent fuel capacity. Their speed in a Fleet Support role is more constrained, as Fleet Support generally means operating in the vicinity of enemy warships, and operating in the vicinity of enemy warships generally requires caution and frequent submergence on the part of submersibles (which is all the units in SC2PT are). So, PERHAPS, the speed of submarines depicted in the game might be appropriate for submarines in the Fleet Support mode. But of course there is no real differentiation between Fleet Support and Anti-Shipping roles in the game, which means that all submarines toddle along at very slow speeds. The Hide versus Hunt modes now available, which represented a very major improvement to the SC2 naval engine, is really not enough in the Pacific. Why? The IJN almost never used their fairly capable submarines in an anti-shipping role. This stems from doctrinal and/or cultural reasons – there were no real technical issues involved. But the fact remains that few Japanese submarines bothered to waste torpedoes on merchant ships, and the IJN as a whole was loath to send submarines on such missions, endeavouring valiantly to always use them in a fleet support role. The book Kaigun explains this, and many other aspects of Japanese naval thinking, much better than I can here, and you can either check the sources or take my word for it. It is one of those strange but true aspects of the war. US submariners, on the other hand, were employed – immediately from the start of the war - primarily in an anti-shipping role, but switched easily to Fleet Support whenever opportunity or circumstances allowed. The US submarine capability is closer to what is modeled badly in PT, but the fact remains is that even US submarines are hard to use well – they take forever to get to the convoy lines (note speed comments above) and then are comparatively vulnerable to Japanese ASW. In fact, Japanese ASW was generally quite poor, improving only modestly through the war. The US lost 52 submarines to the Japanese during the war. That is a fair number, and was certainly a grim fate for all those US submariners. But the Germans lost over 700 U-boats to Allied action (648 while on war patrol) during the war – more than TWELVE times as many. Just these facts alone highlight the major difference in quality between Japanese and Allied ASW – the Allies were orders of magnitude more capable in this aspect of naval warfare. Some might argue that it was just a matter of brute force – the Allies had so many ships and aircraft. They would be wrong – there was much more involved on the Allied side, and the Japanese really were quite bad at ASW for a host of reasons. Perhaps doing some major changes to the way submarines are handled to reflect different modes for Fleet Support (pretty much what is in the game now) and Anti-Shipping (moves twice as fast but has half the anti-ship strength) might help. There is a mild effort to reflect this in the current iteration of PT. Japanese ASW R&D costs more than Allied (125 vice 100 MPP), but this really avoids the core issues, which are the inadequacies of Japanese submarine doctrine in both ASW and anti-shipping, as well as the slow speed of submarines at ALL times. Overall Sc2PT does a lousy job modeling the Pacific sub war. So, excessively simplified naval supply, awkward speeds for naval units, an excessively crude modeling of submarines, among other shortcomings, means that PT really does not do a very good job at all of recreating naval warfare at the operational/strategic level. When incredible errors, such as the excessive vulnerability of Pearl Harbor are added to the mix, it just starts to get very frustrating. (And, since I am on a roll here, why are there four port squares in Hawaii, which is equal to the entire west coast of the US? I know Pearl Harbor is a reasonable port, but it is really not all that big –San Diego, Seattle and San Francisco are all certainly bigger LA probably is too, but I am not as personally familiar with it. If it is to ease upgrade and repair of USN warships, a major and relatively tedious process in the game, given that carriers have to do aircraft and hull one at a time, then that decision is a MAJOR error, because it makes Pearl Harbor both more important to the USN – and, in fact, easier for the Japanese to capture.)

Hi Bill Yes, the Nevada still appears at what I would term a ridiculous moment in version 1.01. I did a quick hot seat game check to verify and check some parameters of the appearance. The quickest a Japanese unit can be landed in the game (using the Wake Island invasion amphib) is four turns after game start (The supporting fleet can usually empty the naval base by turn 3, but the amphib cannot move fast enough to land that turn). If that unit lands on turn 4 and takes the naval base only then the Nevada still appears at the end of the next Allied turn. Now, if the Japanese unit lands later than turn 4 then the Nevada will already have reappeared, and therefore it is not quite so ridiculous (although how that much effort would have gone into salvage if the US was being blockaded by the majority of the IJN is hard to see.) I am a little surprised that this is your only reaction. In the process of studying the anomaly of how easy it is for Japan to capture the naval base on Hawaii, I have found a few other aspects of the map and the game that are problematic. The game map is clearly an effort to ‘represent’ the Pacific as opposed to be an accurate map, but there are some very large discrepancies. I first started to notice this when I moved the destroyed starting next to Tokyo toward Hawaii. In three turns the IJN Wakaba can be very close to Honolulu – in fact, I think it is only 44 squares or so between Honolulu (the square south of the city, to be consistent with actual geography). (note – it is difficult to get an exact count because of the map size and scrolling requirements, but 44 is either right or pretty close). Then I tried moving the carrrier out of San Francisco to Honolulu, and that turned out to be 40 squares. That is a little bit shorter, but the real difference in distance is massive – it should be well over 60 squares for the trip from Tokyo, while 40 is about right for the trip from San Fran. So, Pearl Harbor appears to be an appropriate distance OUT from the US coast, while it is significantly closer to Japan than the reality. All these design decisions – not to garrison Hawaii anywhere close to historical reality, to place a major Japanese battleship fleet along with the carriers northwest of Hawaii against historical reality, skew the map so as to make that island closer to Japan than should probably be the case, make the capture of Pacific islands such as Wake etc relatively unimportant, and remove the supply challenge of moving lots of ships long distances – all make the game both simpler to play BUT also skew history so as to make the invasion of Hawaii seem a relative walk in the park. In particular the Japanese would have been very hard pressed to maintain a steady flow of aviation gas and munitions to carriers over 3000 miles from the nearest base, and it is this steady flow of oilers and munitions supply vessels that would have been the achilles heel of any effort to really invade Hawaii. But move Hawaii a thousand miles closer to Japan, remove the supply problem and it is pretty easy to keep pounding against the small US forces available at game outset, especially (in this game!) when US Atlantic fleet assets are not going to be shifted even in the face of a real threat to Pearl Harbor. (The three British carriers available in the Atlantic may still not have been shifted either – they were not historically, despite a USN request for one of them for the central Pacific in early 1942. But the RN lived to rue their mistaken response to Ernie King’s request.)

Hi Scott The naval loop to Hawaii is something I should have added to the list of inconsistencies - if Hawaii falls the loop should obviously be taken out. In reality the loop is only a convenience. It really doesn't add any value to the game except removing the drudgery of moving units to Hawaii - and if you don't own Hawaii you shouldn't be able to use it. In fact, the loop should default to whoever owns Hawaii, although it should probably take about five turns to get to Hawaii from Japan (3353 Nautical miles from Tokyo to Honolulu vice 2270 NM from San Diego to the same destination). However, if you add a fortification and a land garrison to the naval port, the chance of Japan taking Hawaii will lower significantly and hopefully make the loop discussion less relevant.

At campaign start there is a strength 5 Marine Air Wing (fighter) in the naval base (town), and a strength 5 AA unit in Honolulu (city). Soon after game start a Marine land unit appears, but it is placed in Hilo. The overall result of these campaign design decisions is to leave Hawaii very vulnerable to the concentrated naval forces that start (a historically in the case of the battleships) near the island chain. It is relatively easy for the Japanese player to move the 1st Maizuru SNLF that starts SSW of Wake Island east and land it into the naval base – which can usually be emptied by concentrated air and naval gunfire – by the fourth Japanese turn. Capturing the remainder of Hawaii is not that easy, but far from all that challenging. Does this comparative vulnerability of Hawaii reflect historical reality? There are serious problems with how easily this can be accomplished in the current iteration of Operation Z. First, there was a significant garrison on Oahu. “In 1941 Oahu had a strong garrison of about 25,000 troops. Armed with all the tools of modern warfare, kept rugged and alert by constant field exercises, these soldiers were expertly trained in the defense of the Island.” G. Prange, At Dawn We Slept, page 97. This is a little smaller than the US force size in the Philippines, though not by all that much if you exclude the Filipino troops, and significantly larger than the rather poorly trained and integrated garrison at Hong Kong. So, yes, there was a very good garrison at Oahu. Second, the SNLF represented by the unit south of Wake was not very large. The original landing on Wake, with only 450 Japanese marines, was repulsed. A second landing with 1500 IJN marines succeeded. Rolling the two units together still only gives you 2000 troops, which is still larger than the average pre-war SNLF (1200). So at the MOST, this represents a small marine force transported a very long distance past an occupied Wake Island and an occupied Midway to land in Hawaii. The third problem is that there is so little penalty (or advantage) to currently capturing the various isolated islands in the Pacific. They do have some limited utility as sources of supply and repair after naval battles, but in comparison to the historical importance of many of these islands this is very minor. So there is no currently no reason for Japan to capture Wake or Midway Island, and this means that they might as well use that embarked amphib for something. (I was going to put in a suggestion for perhaps adjusting the treatment of the islands, but after wading through the 12 pages of posts on the subject, many quite juvenile and supported by no discernible historical research, that I do not feel it worthwhile now). My recommended solution. The naval base on Hawaii should be made a fortification in the game, and a strength 8 infantry unit be placed inside the fortification. If considered necessary, perhaps this unit could be made immobile – it was not intended for expeditionary ops but to defend the base. The 2nd Marine Air Wing can be placed in the square to the SW. Associated minor issues. After the Japanese land in the naval base, certain scripted events continue to occur. Battleships are re floated (and easily re-sunk), the Doolittle raid happens (!), etc. There is very limited American reaction – the Hawaiian National Guard appears on the shore north of Honolulu, but is rather exposed and vulnerable there, especially as by this point the Japanese can resupply from the southernmost port. The patch indicates there are more things that are supposed to happen, but I have not come across these extra events. A major event such as a Japanese landing in Hawaii would have been a significant event in the war, and it is difficult to see Torch going forward – instead major US resources would have shifted to the Pacific. But not in SC2PT, apparently. Recommended adjustments. Battleships should not be re floated and the Doolittle raid should not happen while the naval base is occupied, but be deferred until the naval base is recaptured by US forces. The California national guard should be raised if Pearl Harbor is captured.

Hi Scottsmm I figured it was done pretty quickly. It does, nonetheless, make the war much more winnable for the Japanese. So in terms of playability it certainly is entertaining. I also figured that some of the strange AI behaviour was more the base game than your mod, so not to worry. Just thought I would let you know that someone played it!

Hi John Not sure if this is getting the topic back on track, or just a new – and very interesting – topic. Reconnaissance is a vital part of naval warfare. You have to find something to kill it. It is also a very difficult process, and there was generally never enough search assets available. Seamonkey notes one of the aircraft the Japanese used for recce. There were others, such as the Kawanishi flying boat (Mavis was the Allied code name, I think). The Allies used PBY flying boats extensively, as well as 4 engine bombers when available. The rub is that it takes a LOT of aircraft to do thorough searches of large areas. An 1100 mile nautical range sounds impressive, but the search radius for such an aircraft is much less, perhaps a maximum of 400 miles or so for a reasonably narrow search. To do a 360 search would take a fair number of aircraft. SC mechanics only give you a radius based on range, which can become quite large with long range research, more than 8 squares for some units. But even 8 squares means a LOT of area – 400 miles in all directions. So making the capability integral to all garrisons is probably too simplistic and unreasonable. Search assets were usually tasked to sectors as required, and a couple of recce units, represented by a flying boat for the Japanese and a PBY for the Allies, are more reasonable in the context of SC2PT. More than that and the advantages of these units become potentially overwhelming. The units would also have to have negligible attack. This is not to say that these aircraft were incapable of conducting deadly attacks. Rather, the nature of recce seldom provides good opportunities for attacks. Recce aircraft work either alone or (for carrier scouts during the war) perhaps as a duo. That is the only way that significant amounts of water could be searched. But effective attacks usually require mass, so these units would probably have very low, or no, attack values. Anyway, an interesting idea, and certainly closer to track than discussion of aviation museums!

I did a trial as the Japanese of this mod. I found it entertaining, in a Dr Evil, Moo Haa Haa kind of way, but this mod must clearly be an effort to give the Japanese a better chance - I started thinking of the Mod as "Japan on Steroids". I played at neutral (no computer experience, etc) - not because that is a great idea, but because I have only played the base Op Z scenario at that level (once), and eked out a tactical victory, and that was my baseline for comparison. I quit playing this scenario in November 1944, at which point I had secured a Strategic Victory (Delhi and Canberra were mine, as I had forced India and Australia to surrender by this point). It got a little too bizarre trying to play past this point - a few turns earlier, despite all western and northern Australia being captured much earlier, a tiny US landing had occured in the DEI (one corps and an HQ), transports kept showing up just off French Polynesia (now part of the Japanese empire), and US landings in Japan were being attempted, without first gaining the Marianas and the airfields there. Now, I am sure that much of that is just the basic AI doing strange things, but the basic point is that the Japanese were very powerful by this point, and it was just getting tedious. When I quit there had been 150 Allied land casualties to 2 Japanese, 30 Allied air casualties to no Japanese, and 22 RN, 86 USN and 8 IJN losses. I could easily make this harder for the Japanese against the AI by increasing difficulty, but the basic comparison shows how much more powerful the Japanese in this mod are than the basic packaged scenario. So history is out the window, but playability seems interesting. One example of the lack of realism is that at one point I had about 16-18 land units embarked in transports (mainly en route from India to Oz). Now. the entire Japanese merchant marine could not have done that during the war, let alone continue to carry oil and raw materials from the new possessions back to Japan. The game engine makes this kind of thing so easy that its easy to forget the realities behind it. In the basic Op Z the Japanese player does not have so many units that this kind of situation should ever arise. But in this mod, with the Japanese forces given so many extra units, it is all too easy. There were oddities that may be directly related to the mod. The created corps garrisoning the cities in Manchuria could be upgraded at no cost. Having these garrisons is a great benefit to the Japanese player, but perhaps free upgrades is a little over the top! This next one may be the basic AI. When I was adjacent to Port Hedland, Australia, and about to assault, the Australian garrison embarked in an amphib. Needless to say, that made attacking Port Hedland far easier than it should have been. Overall the mod is playable, and fun in a kind of bizarro alternative history kind of way, but it provides far too many additional forces to the Japanese to be considered even modestly close to the historical campaign, in my view.

Hi Happycat and fortycreek I guess we are WAY off topic now, but I do appreciate your comments. In any event, I’m not sure there is anything more useful to say about that minor issue with the RCAF unit in the game. I have seen the Hamilton Lancaster – but usually it’s only on TV doing flyovers at a TiCats football game! The Lancaster display they have at the National Aviation Museum is quite interesting – they have part of a fuselage set up with crew inside and a walkway alongside the cockpit, with clear areas to see inside – but its not the whole plane and it is most definitely not flying! It certainly does show how cramped these aircraft were, though. I have not seen a He-111 yet, Happycat, but I did see a B-17 at yet another great warbird collection last fall – in Palm Springs, CA. The air museum there has quite a good collection, especially of Pacific warbirds, which is very appropriate to this forum, at least! If you ever get a chance to go to the area, I would definitely recommend a visit. And both of you aren’t that far from Ottawa – Hamilton is only about five or six hours away by car, and Fredericton is about fifteen (I used to drive from Halifax to Kingston in a day in my younger years – Fredericton is closer to Ottawa than that!). The National Aviation Museum really is quite worthwhile.

Hi Happycat Glad that my clarification helped clear things up. I appreciate the link - I was aware the Bolingbroke was the main bomber deployed to the Aleutians, but I had not looked it up on the net, so a quick reference was handy. I had a chance to look at a Bolingbroke a few years back at the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa. The Bolingbroke was not one of the planes out in the main area, but sort of stuck toward the back (it might have been one of the open houses they hold on Canada Day, which provide much better access to a lot of the collection than during 'normal' days I went to the Aviation Museum a fair amount when I lived in the area). The old Bolingbroke was not all that impressive to look at, especially when there were bigger aircraft to compare it to! My main source of information was Volume II of the official history of the RCAF (The Creation of a National Air Force by WAB Douglas). The Pacific war is not all that big a part of this book (a few more than 60 pages out of 600 or so), but it is nicely covered and does give a pretty good idea of what happened.

The problem with a diplomatic peace in the ETO was not so much Churchill and the UK as the distrust between the western Allies and Russia. Comments such as Blashy’s saying that “USA and UK were just as greedy in keeping their world influence as Germany was in making their own” is superficial at best, and morally reprehensible at worst. Most great powers are very interested in preserving or asserting their own interests. The difference between the USA and UK in the Second World War and Nazi Germany was that the latter not only wanted to aggressively adjust the status quo in their favour – putatively to redress the ‘stab in the back’ Versailles treaty, a red herring that has done far better over the years than the facts would suggest should be the case – but more ominously to introduce a new form of governance in all their occupied areas (as well as in their own native country) that promoted the active extermination of groups that did not conform to their ideals – the Jews, of course, but also homosexuals and mentally deficient or handicapped individuals. This active policy of extermination of non-desirables is a barbaric approach that should never be equated with western governments, as morally ambiguous as some policies, such as area bombing, might be argued to have been. That said, the western powers were quite concerned through most of the war about the attitude of the Soviet Union. Indeed, Churchill’s influence waned significantly in the last year of the war, as Roosevelt sought (unsuccessfully) to achieve an “understanding” with Stalin. Trying to determine how a conditional peace could have been achieved when the “allies” were so mistrustful of each other that unconditional surrender was the only workable compromise is hard to see in the ETO. All that aside, the possibility of a negotiated settlement in China in SC2PT does have merit. The one addition I would suggest is that Japan would also be required to maintain a significant garrison in China – the reason negotiated peace was a possibility was the chaotic state of Chinese politics, but that same chaos would have resulted in a resumption of hostilities if too many Japanese forces left the country.

Hi Happycat You are right that there are some other aspects that are also possible historical anomalies, and that this one is minor (note the title of the thread!). It is certainly not a gamebreaker, but it is definitely historically inaccurate. The solution I proposed may be awkward, however, and there may be better ways to address the problem within the existing game system, as is currently done with similar units. What similar units? Historically, the RCAF bomber is analagous to the US west coast militia - it was very much intended for the defence of the west coast of North America ONLY (the deployment of some RCAF units to the Alaskan campaign actually proved politically difficult in Canada). In the game, the US west coast militia only appears if the Japanese start operating close to North America (not sure how close, it has only happened once so far for me). So rather then restricting the RCAF bomber to North America, another approach would be to keep it "hidden" via the scripts (as is the case with US militia units) until Japanese actions trigger it. Even if the RCAF bomber remains hidden unless provoked into the game by Japanese aggressive actions, it is still possible to deploy Canadian units into many places in the Pacific. The Allied player (under the British forces) has the option to build many different units (although not bombers). I do not see this option being exercised very often - there are usually much better ways to spend British MPPs - but this is certainly consistent with historical reality. With enough pressure Canada could have deployed units into the Pacific, but the main theatre of operations for Canada was Europe, and the only way this would have changed would have been if Britain had been willing to spend quite a bit to change things. And Britain had generally better options to spend its scarce resources on British, Indian or Australian units. So, yes, this is minor, and it is not a game breaker, but the current depiction of RCAF bombers being easily deployed willy-nilly around the Pacific is completely historically incorrect - and reasonably easily fixed. And since it is not a gamebreaker, why not fix something that is both small and completely wrong?

New Decision Event Suggestion for SC2PT Operation Z One of the key problems that any Japanese advance into India encounters is the lack of a rail connection from Thailand to Burma. This reflects the situation at the outbreak of war in the Pacific. Japanese plans to overcome this shortfall were prepared well before the outbreak of war. At great effort, and with the expenditure of the lives of approximately 60,000 slave labourers and 16,000 Allied prisoners of war, the Japanese completed a rail line from Thailand to Burma in 14 months. A useful addition to this scenario would be a decision event reflecting this possibility. The effort to build this rail line was significant, not only in lives lost. Bridge structures from the Dutch East Indies were dismantled and then used on this line (some 600 bridges were needed, including the notorious ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’). The Decision Event could have parameters such as “Yes, Build the Thailand-Burma rail line, but lose 10 MPP a turn while building and 5 MPP from the Dutch East Indies forever” (rail line complete in, perhaps, ten or twenty Japanese turns?)” or “No, do not build the railroad (no loss of MPP).

In previous SC2 editions the RCAF bomber that arrives in the Allied order of battle is not allowed to forward deploy outside North America. Yet in SC2PT “Operation Z” the RCAF bomber can be found in New Guinea, Samoa or almost any place at all. This is highly unrealistic from a historical perspective, and – given the general play balance in the scenario that favours the Allies – makes no sense from a game design perspective. The RCAF did participate in the Aleutians campaign – a much subordinate to the US part, to be sure – and late in the war 2 transport squadrons were sent to SE Asia. As the war in Europe ended plans to prepare a Heavy Bomber force for Pacific Operations were being worked on, but the war in Japan ended before much happened in this respect. So why is the RCAF bomber group not confined to North America in SC2PT? There is neither historical nor play balance reason to suggest that it should be allowed to be deployed as desired in the Pacific. The RCAF Bomber should be confined to North America.

Hi SeaMonkey and Timskorn I appreciate both of your comments on the issue. I understand the concern SeaMonkey raises, and there is validity to his perspective – the unknown is an important part of a game, and being surprised can be a good thing. On the other hand, it can be difficult to grasp why some things happen even after they happen, and then how to prevent them happening again in the future can also be challenging. Repeated play, studying the scripts and reading the forum for clues are the only options available at the moment. The pop up from Japanese HQ regarding Soviet concerns in Manchuria is actually an innovative effort to address this problem, in a way. I think the information could be presented a little better perhaps, but it is at least acknowledging that this kind of information should at least sometimes be made available to a player. Perhaps a blended approach might be possible. Before some action or inaction triggers a rise in prep for war, or causes partisans to appear (I hadn’t thought of that example, Timskorn, but it is rather similar), perhaps little or no information is available. But once something happens – prep for war of a neutral starts to rise, a partisan appears, etc – then information on what happened, why, and what might be done to either prevent its recurrence or reduce the probability of recurrence could then be made available. In other words, once an event is triggered, the information display would then be triggered. For diplomatic events, the diplomacy screen provides a good potential spot to place the information, perhaps. I am not sure how partisans might be handled, but there is probably a way there too.

Hi Scottsmm You make a valid point, and perhaps I should elaborate a bit. The Russian prep for war pop up is certainly one of the situations I am referring to. There are certainly quite a few similar problems in earlier SC2 WaW campaigns: Italian prep for war being affected by Allied garrisons in the Med; Spanish prep for war potentially being affected by the USN operating too close to Spain; and Russian prep for war if the eastern German border is not garrisoned PROPERLY (ie neither too few units nor too many). In other words this type of problem seems to be a repititive one in the SC system. You may be correct in that the pop up issue in SC2PT might be corrected in the next patch. However, that raises the question of how it will be addressed. More precise pop ups would help. Perhaps the pop ups will return each turn until the situation is addressed or the player turns them off. Or perhaps a dedicated place to check for this information could be created in the diplomacy screen, which is what I am suggesting. I am not that concerned with which solution is put in place, but my view is that there seems to be a consistent vagueness in the SC engine when it comes to this type of information. Therefore I am suggesting a response that might be more broadly applied to all types of SC games, that would give players more information with which to make their decisions. (without their being psychic!)