FREE GAME: WWII Pacific Logistics - Fleet Train (Louis Coatney)

Just when I thought there was not much to LinkedIn somebody goes and posted an interesting game link! Click bait it is not, thank you Lou Coatney (see link to his website - not LinkedIn, below):   

https://www.coatneyhistory.com/FleetTrain.htm

Remember the quote: "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics."

Four Books on Midway

Stemming from an interest that was cultivated from an early exposure to XTR's (Command Magazine) Victory at Midway, I have been fascinated by this battle (see below, and still my most favourite wargame - that is a game plus an excellent reference magazine): 

Since then I have been collecting books about the battle. My four specific reference books being.

Book 1: Midway The Battle That Doomed Japan, the Japanese Navy Story. Albeit acquired and read late in the day (of my interests) but early in the literature review (1954), it is a classic - but suffers from deep political motivations (written for a post war Japanese and Western audience). Extremely interesting as it gave an insight into the Japanese view, from a surviving protagonist, but projected myths about the battle that are still persistent today.   

Book 2: Midway - Incredible Victory. A somewhat popularist follow on from the above, but from an American perspective, that is dramatic in its recounting of the battle. It seems to set the pace and scene for most wargames of the battle. A fight against incredible odds and patriotic American sacrifice, There was great patriotism but the actual combatants were more evenly matched than portrayed. Nevertheless it does convey the tension of the times,

Book 3: The Battle of Midway - The Battle that Turned the Tide of the Pacific War. To my mind not much separates this from Incredible Victory - but it is a different recount of the same battle, again from the US perspective, which fleshes the narrative and lists all the moving parts (essential for a wargamer). 

(The) Book 4: Shattered Sword - The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. Quite frankly this book blew away the "I already know the story" cobwebs right out of my mind. "Myth busting" and with access to IJN archive material it gives a definitive account from both sides, explaining the who, what, how and why. It places Midway in the context of what it was, an USN "ambush" that the IJN sleep walked into. It also places the nature of the IJN wargaming into its correct context, a tick box exercise. The IJN set themselves up to fail because they expected the USN not to interfere with their (overly) complex plan. Amazing detail, surfacing truths that had already been exposed for years in Japan's academic world.  

Read it. The description above in no way diminishes the US heroism but frames the Japanese operations (because you cannot forget about the Aleutians). With the IJN so focused on Midway they gave the USN a "first strike" opportunity it so gratefully took. The relatively inexperienced USN pilots pulled it off, not in a prefect fashion, but the end results speak for themselves. Japan lost the strategic initiative - but there was much gruelling fighting still to be done.     

PS: Yes I also have the Osprey Midway book, and yes there are hundreds of other "good" books on Midway (it is a very popular battle), but these are the four on myselves. Please read Shattered Sword, it is far ad away the BEST and the most DEFINITIVE account of the battle - but this is only my humble opinion (as well as many better souls). Enjoy!

Early WWII USN Naval Action - Four Stacker (USS Edsell), The Dancing Mouse takes on the IJN!

The early war USN Pacific actions stand between heroic, tragic and those that stray into the foolhardy. Caught strategically off guard the American (and ABDA command in particular) found themselves in precarious positions, consider the plight of the four stacker USS Edsell (see below, it seems that the most interesting posting in the USN in 1941, was one in teh Asiatic Fleet [please click link below]): 

https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-067/h-067-1.html

This picture tells a thousand words and helps one to appreciate the enormity of the mismatch (see below, the last photograph of the USS Edsell [please click link below], those are 14" [battleship] and 8" [heavy cruiser] shell splashes): 

https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-003/h-003-6.html

A more worrying interlude from the present, history in the making, is this Orwellian edict and disclaimer .. makes you think you don't know what you have got, until you lost the lot! They are going to put that tree in a Tree Museum.

Content on this website has been revised or removed to align with the President’s executive orders and DoD priorities in accordance with DoD Instruction 5400.17 “Official Use of Social Media for Public Affairs Purposes.”

The Essex Class - Basing the War Battle Winners

Their time has come, the war winning class of USN aircraft carriers which made it simply impossible for the IJN to get back into the war after Midway. Fast Carrier battlegroups dominated the 1944-45 Pacific Theatre of Operation (PTO) in TF 58 (see below, these are eight of the beauties that came crisply from teh Navwar 1/3000 moulds):  

Sadly Navwar experienced mould degradation and the remaining nine (see below) I received needed some tender loving care (TLC) in the form of the miracle Vallejo Plastic Putty. Navwar discontinued the mould shortly after I placed my order (several years ago now), but Davco still do a 1/3000 model (see below, my seventeen [of a total class of twenty four] that were commissioned during WWII (see below, it may seem slightly obsessive, but blame the appeal of the Orange Conway encyclopaedia and Avalon Hill's "Victory in teh Pacific" - and in one sense having started collecting these models some twenty seven years ago, in for a penny in for a pound):

From late 1942 onwards the USN replaced the CV fleet she had going into teh war more than twice over which is simply phenomenal. A strategic Pacific Game seems destined to follow in teh footsteps of War Plan Orange at a future Conference of Wargamers (CoW). Some sea texturing and model painting is needed before then though. 

USN WW2 "Heavy Metal" Battleships 1/3000

The USN certainly had a lot of heavy metal on the books at the start of WW2. Admittedly most of it was left in a re-conditioned burning state after the Pearl Harbour attack (rebuilding if not sunk), but the pre-war building program brought on stream some very useful battlewagons in 1942-43, critical certainly for Guadalcanal operations (see below, Pearl Harbour "targets" left and being the "pre-war new design stream" as in the North Carolina [2] and South Dakota [4] classes [and a hypothetical USS Montana] on teh right):  

Late 1943-144 the "new breed" of Iowa class ships started arriving, along with the rebuilt boys who had caught it at Pearl Harbour (see below, column one being the Pearl Harbour and Atlantic Fleet, column two being the "reconstructed" Pearl Harbour battleships [the ships serving in the Atlantic avoided this indignity], column three being the "pre-war new design stream" as in the North Carolina [2] and South Dakota [4] classes [and a hypothetical USS Montana] and finally column four the scary 16" Iowa Class [4] and Alaska [2] large cruiser/battlecruisers):  

This is a phenomenal industrial ship building production rate (something the IJN could not think of matching), considering it was alongside the construction of the Essex class fleet aircraft carriers (a total of seventeen during the war and seven more shortly after in late 1940's) and there was also the ten Independence light aircraft carriers. Build baby build was obviously the US motto! 

1/3000 WW2 USN and IJN Destroyer Basing

There are big ships and there are small ships, but in the end (or rather to start with) they all have to be based. With this in mind I turned to a dusty pile of "silver shame" and did the task that wargamers like the least .. started basing (see below, these are IJN Destroyers that now at least have started on their journey to the wargame table - there was quite a lot of them): 

Most of this kit came from both sides came from the Navwar Philippine Sea Battle Pack (which I bought at the start of this century, ahem), but both sides have also been supplemented along the way to fill gaps, particularly going back to some of the early Pacific War battles in 1941-42 (see below, flotillas of USN Destroyers): 

I thought I would give a shout out to some destroyers that caught me eye, the valiant survivors of the USN Destroyer Fleet of WWI that through long service saw "two world wars" (see below, the US Wilkes class - nice little models): 

These destroyers were also famous for making up practically all of the "50 Destroyers" (aka the "town class") transferred to the RN to help fight the Battle of the Atlantic (so technically I could happily use them for two navies, USN and RN). More basing and organising to follow!

iPhone "Pacific War2 Game - Nice Little Time Waster

This is not a simulation or accurate representation of Pacific Warfare, but it is a lovely timewasting piece of fun that is a little bit like a battlefield problem solver, with nice graphics that give good representations of the ships I am currently basing and painting in 1/3000 scale (based on the Microsoft Unity 3D game engine). It is an old game running on an old iPhone but gives me screen time fun (see below, sadly the IJN saw to it that this USN Essex class carrier did not make it through the war): 

I have already done the journey from Pearl Harbour in Hawaii, across the Pacific to Japan as the USN, so I am return tripping back from Japan back to Pearl Harbour as the IJN, hence the screenshots of sinking USN ships (see below,  a USN Baltimore class cruiser is now no more): 

What can I say, I like moving the ships around the seas shooting them at each other, the "variable range" estimation means that even when a ship has radar you can miss, though as you "go pro" it becomes a shooting gallery. The thing I have hardest trouble with is that the carriers start the game under the guns of enemy battleships and cruisers. Yes that is really silly (and not Pacific War), but it is the same for both sides. However, seeing as the Human Player goes first, you at least go down fighting, and if you can get another ship closer to the enemy it takes the pressure off. The AI is poor which is why it is nice to play it. The US gets a Gato sub which is lethal (and an atom bomb as a shock weapon), but the IJN player gets long lance torpedoes, Kamikaze and the Yamato. The hardest task the IJN player has to do is sink the US sub with a destroyer (depth charges), thankfully after the "beginner's series of scenarios" the US just show up with big surface things (cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers) things which you can easily see and hit!

Verdict: I can recommend it for its "therapeutic" value because nine times out of ten you will win.