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In the recent(ish) movie Midway there is a scene where the IJN is wargaming the upcoming attack, and they get their asses kicked since some cheeky junior office

by jabl 5y ago

In the recent(ish) movie Midway there is a scene where the IJN is wargaming the upcoming attack, and they get their asses kicked since some cheeky junior officer playing the Americans doesn't keep the carriers waiting in Pearl Harbor but rather NE of Midway (which is what later happened in reality). So they reprimand that officer and restart the game with the clause that the US carriers must stay at Pearl until the attack on Midway island starts. Don't know whether such a wargaming episode happened in reality.

mcguire 5y ago
Yes, it did. See Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. (One additional feature often seen in the story is the part where the umpire "resurrects" the two Japanese carriers which were "sunk" in the attack---that part is usually overplayed, since it would be a waste of time to continue the game without the two carriers and there were still questions to be answered.)
- jabl 5y ago
  I keep hearing good things about that book. Alas, my interest in Midway only seems to go so far and I'm finding myself unwilling to commit to actually reading that book. Oh well, maybe one day..
  - credit_guy 5y ago
    I don't have much time lately to actually read books, so I listen to them on my bike ride to and from work. I have had "Shattered Sword" as a paperback book for more than 10 years, and never read more than 2 pages in it. Once I started listening to the audiobook, I pretty much had to finish it. It's about 24 hours of audio. Longer than it would take to read it, but if you don't find time to read it, it's quite a good substitute.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      I cannot recommend audio books highly enough. I've been promising my daughter to read Harry Potter for years, but only with the audiobook have I been able to fit it into my schedule. I also finished The Martian on audiobook, which was probably the most riveting book that I've read since childhood.
enkid 5y ago
I mean, if you know the adversaries plan, it's pretty easy to come up with something that wrecks it, which is what it sounds like that officer did. What the Japanese didn't know was that the Americans also knew the plan.
- TwoNineA 5y ago
  Americans also got lucky that George Best and Wade McClusky were able to hit the carriers knowning that most attempts in the battle so far have utterly failed.
  - jabl 5y ago
    It seems that the Americans were very lucky at Midway indeed, with the dive bombers avoiding running into fighters, and the hangar decks filled with loaded and fuelled bombers waiting to be spotted once the attacks were over. Which made them extremely vulnerable to anything hitting the hangar decks, and even a few hits were enough to doom the ships. Not entirely unsurprising that upon entering the jet age the USN demanded their own expensive but less flammable brew JP-5 instead of "standard" jet fuel (which itself is much less dangerous than the aviation gasoline that was the cause of many WWII carriers burning).
    - SkyMarshal 5y ago
      The amount of luck involved in the US victory at Midway is astonishing. About the only part of it not due to luck was the codebreaking that tipped off the US about the coming Midway attack, the heroic efforts of the dock workers in getting the damaged Yorktown fixed and back to sea in 72hrs, and persistence of the aviators who finally broke through the Japanese defenses and hit the carriers. This video series from the Japanese perspective is pretty good and shows all the luck involved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&list=PLLeOB_bZlkeZUj_gD_ACWGK6geCl-LMZx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&list=PLLeOB_bZlk...
      - ghaff 5y ago
        You can probably argue that the Americans' singular lack of essentially any success early on was a bit unlucky. But the ultimate decisiveness of Midway was very much a case of everything going right at a couple points for the US. Probably wouldn't have altered the course of the war given US manufacturing power (and the upcoming atomic bomb). But keeping Midway saved an airfield much closer to Japan than Hawaii was.
cbm-vic-20 5y ago
The "World War 2 in Real Time" series follows the events of the war 79 years after they happened. Midway happened 79 years ago this week, so this week's episode should be good.. https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo/videos
anamax 5y ago
The big problem for the Japanese at Midway was that they only had 4 carriers. With 6 carriers, all of the the Japanese wouldn't have had to decide between protecting their carriers vs attacking US carriers vs attacking Midway. They could have done it all. Heck, even one more carrier, for a total of 5, would have significantly reduced the task-overload. That's why the original Japanese plan for Midway had 6 carriers. So, why didn't they follow the plan? The answer is the Battle of Coral Sea, a month earlier. While the US lost one carrier (Lexington) and almost lost Yorktown, one Japanese carrier was significantly damaged while another lost most of its aircrew. Japanese doctrine at the time didn't transfer pilots between carriers, so Coral Sea took two carriers from Midway. If the Japanese had transferred pilots from the damaged carrier to the carrier without an aircrew, the Japanese could have had 5 carriers. Five carriers would have likely resulted in a Japanese win at Midway. That said, the US would win the war in the Pacific as long as it sank a Japanese carrier for every 2-3 it lost.

by jabl 5y ago

mcguire 5y ago

Yes, it did. See Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. (One additional feature often seen in the story is the part where the umpire "resurrects" the two Japanese carriers which were "sunk" in the attack---that part is usually overplayed, since it would be a waste of time to continue the game without the two carriers and there were still questions to be answered.)

jabl 5y ago
I keep hearing good things about that book. Alas, my interest in Midway only seems to go so far and I'm finding myself unwilling to commit to actually reading that book. Oh well, maybe one day..
- credit_guy 5y ago
  I don't have much time lately to actually read books, so I listen to them on my bike ride to and from work. I have had "Shattered Sword" as a paperback book for more than 10 years, and never read more than 2 pages in it. Once I started listening to the audiobook, I pretty much had to finish it. It's about 24 hours of audio. Longer than it would take to read it, but if you don't find time to read it, it's quite a good substitute.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    I cannot recommend audio books highly enough. I've been promising my daughter to read Harry Potter for years, but only with the audiobook have I been able to fit it into my schedule. I also finished The Martian on audiobook, which was probably the most riveting book that I've read since childhood.

enkid 5y ago

I mean, if you know the adversaries plan, it's pretty easy to come up with something that wrecks it, which is what it sounds like that officer did. What the Japanese didn't know was that the Americans also knew the plan.

TwoNineA 5y ago
Americans also got lucky that George Best and Wade McClusky were able to hit the carriers knowning that most attempts in the battle so far have utterly failed.
- jabl 5y ago
  It seems that the Americans were very lucky at Midway indeed, with the dive bombers avoiding running into fighters, and the hangar decks filled with loaded and fuelled bombers waiting to be spotted once the attacks were over. Which made them extremely vulnerable to anything hitting the hangar decks, and even a few hits were enough to doom the ships. Not entirely unsurprising that upon entering the jet age the USN demanded their own expensive but less flammable brew JP-5 instead of "standard" jet fuel (which itself is much less dangerous than the aviation gasoline that was the cause of many WWII carriers burning).
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    The amount of luck involved in the US victory at Midway is astonishing. About the only part of it not due to luck was the codebreaking that tipped off the US about the coming Midway attack, the heroic efforts of the dock workers in getting the damaged Yorktown fixed and back to sea in 72hrs, and persistence of the aviators who finally broke through the Japanese defenses and hit the carriers. This video series from the Japanese perspective is pretty good and shows all the luck involved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&list=PLLeOB_bZlkeZUj_gD_ACWGK6geCl-LMZx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd8_vO5zrjo&list=PLLeOB_bZlk...
    - ghaff 5y ago
      You can probably argue that the Americans' singular lack of essentially any success early on was a bit unlucky. But the ultimate decisiveness of Midway was very much a case of everything going right at a couple points for the US. Probably wouldn't have altered the course of the war given US manufacturing power (and the upcoming atomic bomb). But keeping Midway saved an airfield much closer to Japan than Hawaii was.

cbm-vic-20 5y ago

The "World War 2 in Real Time" series follows the events of the war 79 years after they happened. Midway happened 79 years ago this week, so this week's episode should be good.. https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo/videos

anamax 5y ago

The big problem for the Japanese at Midway was that they only had 4 carriers. With 6 carriers, all of the the Japanese wouldn't have had to decide between protecting their carriers vs attacking US carriers vs attacking Midway. They could have done it all. Heck, even one more carrier, for a total of 5, would have significantly reduced the task-overload. That's why the original Japanese plan for Midway had 6 carriers. So, why didn't they follow the plan? The answer is the Battle of Coral Sea, a month earlier. While the US lost one carrier (Lexington) and almost lost Yorktown, one Japanese carrier was significantly damaged while another lost most of its aircrew. Japanese doctrine at the time didn't transfer pilots between carriers, so Coral Sea took two carriers from Midway. If the Japanese had transferred pilots from the damaged carrier to the carrier without an aircrew, the Japanese could have had 5 carriers. Five carriers would have likely resulted in a Japanese win at Midway. That said, the US would win the war in the Pacific as long as it sank a Japanese carrier for every 2-3 it lost.