Yamamotos Intent 5 June 1942

I've seen statements the Japanese were using Tokyo time in their logbooks and on their radio messages. Not been able to check that. AFAIK the date/times on the map I posted are all local time.

Either local time or Hawaii time, US logbooks are in Hawaii time. Regardless the point above about the 6th meant the 6th of June from the US perspective. That is the day the carrier air groups were pounding on the Japanese cruisers. They didn't accomplish anything significant on the 5th except for attacking a lone Japanese destroyer and missing with every bomb and losing a SBD in the process (LT Sam Adams).
 
Hoping to game this out with miniatures this summer. Actually a variant with the US battle fleet such as it was, covering Spruances force on the morning of the 5th. The assumption or PoD being Yamamoto does not cancel the previous orders in factor of retirement.

This would change some details on the morning of the 5th, but those will ultimately be up to the players & how they decide to proceed from midnight 4/5 June.
 
Hoping to game this out with miniatures this summer. Actually a variant with the US battle fleet such as it was, covering Spruances force on the morning of the 5th. The assumption or PoD being Yamamoto does not cancel the previous orders in factor of retirement.

This would change some details on the morning of the 5th, but those will ultimately be up to the players & how they decide to proceed from midnight 4/5 June.

Oh my. That should be a fun time. Which rules will you be using?

The daylight surface action I'm envisioning has both sides roughly equal in cruisers. The USN has the greater number of destroyers. And the Japanese have a pair of battlecruisers, which by themselves are a match for the US cruisers. I'm assuming that Kondo's cruisers are with Nagumo's screening force, and that both sides - oh, just the Americans have their carriers to the rear with a minimal DD force. No IJN carriers left, so all of Nagumo's DDs can join the fight, less those loaded with survivors.

Neither the USN nor the IJN knows about the US torpedo problems, so a massed torpedo attack by the US DDs would be a legitimate tactic and threat. The players know the reality, though do the IJN players want to take the risk of a torpedo having a good day? Might depend on how the players feel about their dice.
 
If I can I & the guy assisting me will pass lightly over the torpedo problems & other details that were not clearly understood by either side at the time. I used to umpire a lot of double blind games & learned something about planting the historical assumptions and doctrines in players minds when setting things up. Will be really great if neither side has a clear a'priori knowledge of the others OB at Midway. Just lay the historical intel on them. That can produce some really unexpected results on the game table.

I do have some information on USN doctrine for operating the surface warships & surface action, but if anyone has any details on that to contribute, or for the IJN please post.
 
Was able to game a hypothetical surface action a few weeks ago. It was more in the nature of a schematic, than a developing battle. The assumption was the two groups are simultaneously sighted by air reconissance shortly after dawn, the consolidated surface fleets turn towards each other, and are close enough they come within visual distance within two hours. The two fleets included all three IJN battleships, the four Kongo class BC & the accompanying IJN cruisers. The US Fleet had seven BB Standards, six cruisers. The destroyers were not represented one for one, but reduced for simplicity. Also for simplicity we waived away any air action.

The two fleets were placed in a tight battle formation and approached head on as they crossed to horizon into sighting distance, about 11 Nautical Miles. Both fleets continued straight for another few minutes, the began maneuvering for broadside fire and tactical advantage. We called the game after 42 minutes of combat. The two fleets were inside five NM of each other. As I expected the Kongos did not take much punishment before succumbing. The cruisers of both sides took heavy damage across the board as well. That left essentially three IJN BB including the Yamamoto, vs seven US BB. The US BB took some damage from the Japanese gunfire. However three series of IJN torpedo attacks sank half the US cruisers and put three of the seven US Standards out of action. When called the game left both sides severely damaged basically with three BB each and one or two cruisers effective.

The torpedo results seemed very ahistorical. of 97 torpedoes launched there was a hit rate of 25%. That is way above the actual IJN hit rate for the Long Lance torpedo, actually between 5% & 10%. This may in part have been because the Japanese side launched its torpedoes at a relatively close range of five NM or less. That was well under what I understand of the doctrinal range in daylight battles.

A second ahistoicality is the USN had to few destroyers present. Had we been a bit more through in our research the strength would have been 3-4 times what we had on the table.

A few question revolve around how to rate the training level of some of the USN BB. We gave them a median average rating across the board. No allowance for those with a reputation for elite crews, or substandard. The same for the IJN, except for the Yamamoto which was rated as 'green'. That affected its gun accuracy & effectively took it out of the long and medium range battle.

Altogether this test took seven hours to actually run, with another six to seven hours preparation time using two people. I'm hoping to run another briefer test in August modeling a initial encounter by a few cruisers in the outer scout screen.
 
I've seen statements the Japanese were using Tokyo time in their logbooks and on their radio messages. Not been able to check that. AFAIK the date/times on the map I posted are all local time.

As a rule, the Japanese always used Tokyo (home of the Emperor) time. I read interviews with WWII historians, for talk the the "confusion" it caused once Japanese documents and interviews with survivors started getting published post war.
 
I am debating whether to sell the miniatures I have to switch to standard counters. I love the mini's, and still have many to paint up and detail (1/2400) scale. But I also know that at some point, my kids will have to deal with all my stuff. They aren't going to be thinking about selling it all off, nor for getting what its worth out of it. Are you using counters or miniatures?
 
Miniatures, 1/2400 . A friend has a large set & we were able match everything but the destroyers. Unfortunately we had a limit on tables, so the scale was crowded down to 10cm to a NM.
 
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