In Harm's Way, again

The HMAS Perth (left) and the USS Houston land an early hit on the light cruiser Natori

Another excellent session report from Andy Rucker on his Blog.

I don't have much to add, except to congratulate him on a very convincing victory. Yeah, the Japanese Long Lances were very disappointing, but he took good advantage of the  opportunity and had this been the historical outcome the event would have been remembered as a very glorious chapter in the naval histories of Australia, Netherlands and the USA.

While the Allied squadron was wiped out, just as it was historically, they devastated the invasion fleet and sunk several Japanese warships including a heavy cruiser! This would have been a notable victory at a time when Allied fortunes were riding low.

A Final Sting -- Bluff Cove 1982

Sir Tristam loaded on a heavy lift vessel for transport back to Britain in 1983 after the war.

While heavy losses had forced the Argentine Air Force to slacken its raids on the British in the Falkland Islands, the threat was not entirely neutralized,a s the events of June 8 would show.

While the British were trying to keep up the pace of their advance on Stanley by ferrying troops in landing ships closer to the front, the Argentinians launched two strikes from the mainland. While both strikes were spotted by British submarines on picket off the coast, the early warning wasn't enough to thwart the aattck.

The first, and most destructive run was by five A-4 Skyhawks (out of 8 launched) that surprised the British landing ships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristam and supporting craft at Bluff Cove. Both British landing ships were hit and heavily damaged with 51 killed and 46 wounded. The Sir Galahad was dmaged too badly to save and the Sir Tristam had to be carried back to England on a heavy lift ship after the war for extensive repairs, so both ships were, in effect, "sunk." None of the attacking planes waslost.

A following wave of four Skyhawks was less fortunate, as the British defenders were now alerted and three of the four planes were downed by misisles and Harriers without causing any damage.

The second strike was comprised of five Dagger aircraft (of six launched) that attacked the frigate Plymouth  in Flatland Sound. Four 1,000 pound bombs hit the ship and it would certainly have been lost if any of them had exploded. Instead the four duds severely damaged the frigate. None of the attacking planes were lost.

Now THIS is what I'm talking about -- Memoir '44

This summer, August apparently, Days of Wonder is going to have a new expansion for Memoir '44 -- and a doozy it is shaping up to be!

It's essentially a box of figures, with 17 new scenarios for using them. And what cool stuff it is, with Polish cavalry, French infantry and Finnish ski troops. All sorts of armored vehicles and new artillery pieces. It has a half dozen plastic landing craft! (No more counters and badges).  Therea re also reissues of the Tiger tanks, trucks and other pieces from some earlier expansions that are now out of print. There's more than 180 figures all told. Maybe the days of a box of plastic aren't quite over yet.

Red Dawn 21?

Fortress America by Fantasy Flight Games

Those old enough will remember the pulp fiction Red Scare 1984 movie Red dawn, which implausibly postulated a surprise invasion of an isolated United States (Including paratroopers landing outside a high school in Colorado) by the Soviet Union, Cuba and Nicaraugua.

Around the same time Milton Bradley came out with Fortress America (an elaboration of SPI's Invasion America) which assumed a slightly more militarily plausible scenario that involved basically the whole world ganging up on the USA with a Chinese-led Asian alliance attacking the West Coast, a union of South American nations coming up through Mexico and a Euro-Soviet coalition hitting the East Coast.

While a great fantasy and an entertaining game idea, the plausibility factor was pretty low, to say the least.

Now there's a new version of the classic game coming out and it's interesting to me how this new recasting of the background seems somewhat more plausible than the 80s version did. The first decade of the 21st Century was not a good one for the USA and its relations with much of the world. America's approach to the War on Terror, for example, has had a negative impact on public opinion in many quarters. While some of the damage has been reversed under the new administration, one can hardly say that it's an approach that's settled in. The opposition party and its main candidate has openly called for a return to the more bellicose and unilateralist approach that  shook our allies and emboldened our enemies. It's certainly possible to imagine a return to that policy depending upon the outcome of November.

And even if the current administration is returned to power, the drone campaign it's been waging across the globe is inherently an affront to international norms of sovereignty. The US gets away with it for now because its so enormously powerful, its targets are generally weak and unpopular and no one else has the ability to do it. All of these, however, are factors subject to change. No useful weapon remains the exclusive domain of a nation and more than one commenter has pointed out that American enthusiasm for drone warfare is likely to wane once we start being on the receiving end of it.

America's run of hegemonic power has been very unusual in world historical terms because it has been and remains essentially unchallenged.  The usual pattern in history is for the other great powers to combine when any one power threatened to achieve hegemony. At its peak, during the Pax Britannica, Britain was content to have a naval power equal to the next two navies combined. And, of course, it had a small army that was no threat to any continental power. Today the USN is stronger than the navies of the entire rest of the world put together. No possible combination of powers is competitive. And, of course, the reality is that most of the other significant navies are US allies. The US Army, while not the largest in the world, is still very large and even more capable and is clearly capable of destroying any middle rank regional power.

The world has generally seemed to view the American hegemony as relatively benign, as  such things go, and there's been relatively little push-back so far. But things can change in politics and the insularity of Americans and particularly of certain strains of current political thought could cause foreign powers to rethink their acceptance of the status quo.

The in-game scenario that assumes the world combines to thwart a US suddenly invulnerable to missile attack isn't the strongest such scenario, but it's probably the most acceptable one for a wide audience. There was a little bit of a brouhaha when the game came out when an alternative and edgier background scenario was leaked.  One might legitimately wonder if the controversy was because it struck a little too close to the truth for people's comfort.

In any case, it's worth remembering that, as rich as America is, it's not richer than the rest of the world put together.  Figures vary, but the US share of the world's GDP is around 25% or so -- by far the single largest. But, obviously, the rest of the world does have a 3-1 edge in GDP and even if a significant portion remained neutral, there are quite a few combination of powers that could add up to more than the US in raw economic output. And, of course, from a population standpoint the US is hopeless, being outnumbered more than 20 to 1.

Back when the first edition of Fortress America came out the ideological battle lines were clear: Freedom vs. Communism. And we in the US were clearly the "Good Guys."

Now no global ideological struggle is really underway (The Islamist Jihad having very little growth potential or appeal outside a particular cultural milieu. If it were not for oil it would be insignificant) and in the wake of waterboarding, renditions, Gitmo, drone strikes and "preventive war" it's not necessarily clear that we're the unambiguous good guys. So I wouldn't be surprised to see come mainstream commentary about this game when it starts hitting the store shelves in a week or so.

Oh, and there's a remake of Red Dawn due out this year, too.  This time with North Koreans (?!) invading the US! (Changed post production from China -- another case of being, perhaps, too close to the truth?) Frankly, I think the Nicaraguans were more plausible! Coincidence? I think not!

USS Yorktown under attack during the Battle of Midway

Today is the 70th anniversary of the first and most critical day of the Battle of Midway.

On the one hand, the battle is among the best remembered of the war because of its obvious importance and the high drama of the situation and how it played out.  You had an enormous Japanese fleet, heretofore highly successful, being defeated in the most dramatic fashion possible by the outnumbered, plucky Ameircans.

that's certainly the popular image anyway, as shown by Hollywood  in the movie Midway and in popular books such as Incredible Victory and Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan.

Of course more recent scholarship, most vividly in Shattered Sword, shows that it wasn't quite as one-sided a situation as all that and that the odds were not as much against the United States as the raw numbers might suggest.

This is no news to wargamers, of course. Midway is one of the original, classic wargame situations in the hobby, ever since the seminal Avalon Hill game Midway appeared in 1964. The appeal of Midway, from a wargaming standpoint, is that it's not only an important battle, but a remarkable even one. Yes, the Japanese had a large fleet, but at the critical point the two sides were very comparable in strength. The Japanese carrier task force was comprised of four fleet carriers carrying 225 aircraft escorted by five battleships and cruisers while the American task force was comprised of three fleet carriers with 233 aircraft and an escort including eight cruisers. The island of Midway formed a fourth "aircraft carrier" with another 81 combat aircraft.

Each side had advantages. For the Japanese this included highly trained and experienced aircrew with  first-rate planes using  advanced carrier doctrine and techniques. For the Americans there was the advantage of code-breaking and superior damage control. While the Japanese held an advantage in plane quality generally, the American Wildcats were learning to hold their own against the Zero and the Dauntless Divebombers were excellent.

Perhaps nothing helped the Americans more than their good luck and some good leadership. The key decision by Wade McClusky leading the Enterprise divebombers to follow an errant Japanese destroyer to the carriers and the fortuitous timing of the various uncoordinated American attacks created the conditions for victory.

But no one can read the details of how this all happened without seeing that it could very easily have turned out the other way. The Hornet divebombers strike, for example, completely missed the Japanese fleet and ended up landing on midway. If the Enterprise strike had done likewise then only the Yorktown's strike would have ended up finding the Japanese fleet. That attack sunk the Kaga. Historically the counterstrike by the Hiryu was enough to sink the Yorktown, but what would have happened if there had been three surviving Japanese carriers available to launch? We can't know for sure, of course, but Capt. Wayne Hughes analysis in the book Fleet Tactics suggests that under the conditions of 1942 carrier battles each carrier deck load could be expected to sink or disable one opposing carrier on average. So it's quite likely that the US might have lost all three of the Yorktown class ships on the afternoon of June 4th. 

Midway itself probably would not have fallen, as the projected Japanese invasion force seems wholly inadequate to defeat the marines present on the base, but the Japanese would have been well-placed to follow up their success. Certainly there would have been no Guadalcanal campaign as the United States would have had to husband its remaining carrier assets (primarily the Saratoga and the Wasp) until the Essex class ships started to arrive.

The Japanese naval aviation would also have been in much better shape as there would have been no heavy attrition in the Solomons and the carrier pilots would have been kept aboard their carriers.

As to whether the Japanese would have ultimately prevailed, it's hard to say. They still had to cope with the fact that their industrial strength was inadequate to compete with America over the long haul, but they would have had many opportunities to make the long and challenging drive across there Pacific and even longer and more challenging affair -- at least until the atom bomb weighed in.

For me, personally, Midway has always been one of my favorite topics in wargaming. My very first wargame was Avalon Hill's Midway, which I still think is one of the best classic wargames. I also have a half-dozen other Midway wargames as well.

The Battle of Goose Green -- 28 May, 1982

Battle of Goose Green from 2 Para Falklands by Maj. Gen. John Frost

The final act in the Falklands drama opened at Goose Green on May 28, 1982, as the British 2 Parachute Battalion, supported by fire support from the frigate HMS Arrow and half a battery of 105mm field artillery attacked the Argentine garrison at the settlement of Goose Green, which lies on the narrow isthmus connecting the northern and southern portions of East Falkland Island.

At first glance the two sides appear evenly matched. 2 Para was comprised of three para companies, a "patrol" company and a support company. This totaled about 450 men.

The Argentine garrison was largely comprised of the 12th Infantry "regiment" (actually battalion sized) with three infantry companies and support company. Attached in support were some air force personnel, some AA guns and half a battery of 105 mm howitzers. The fighting men in the Argentine garrison totaled about 600, with another 900 logistics, air force ground personnel and others present.

In land combat, however, numbers can be very deceiving and, in fact, the British force was far more powerful than the Argentinians. In Clash of Arms South Atlantic War Second Edition supplement there are rules for resolving ground combats based on the work of Col. Trevor N. Dupuy and his Quantified Judgment Model for predicting the outcome of ground battles.

Dupuy's work was -- and is -- controversial in its methodology, but the fact remains that Gulf War predictions based on the QJM method were far closer to the actual result than most other predictions that appeared in the media.

The Ground Combat Strengths of the supplement were calculated using a modified version of the QJM and those GCS figures show an enormous superiority for the British. In fact, the Base GCS of the British force of 15.95 is more than 2 and half times greater than the 6.30 of the Argentine defenders. This implies are fairly quick and decisive victory for the British with relatively light casualties and so it proved in the actual event.

The Argentine garrison was defeated in a day's fighting and the entire lot captured. The British lost 17 killed and 33 wounded while 55 Argentinians were killed and 86 wounded with the balance of the force -- more than 1,000 -- captured.

A notable casualty was the 2 Para commander, Lt. Col. "H" Jones. In fact, the ratio of leader casualties to private soldiers lost between the two forces is very suggestive as to the difference in quality between these elite British troops and their regular Argentine opponents.

Out of the 17 British killed in action, no fewer than a dozen were leaders ( 5 officers and 7 NCOs). In contrast the vast majority of the Argentinian soldiers killed were lower ranking enlisted soldiers -- 43 of them. Coincidentally the Argentinians also had 12 leaders killed -- three officers and nine NCOs.

This quality difference would manifests itself again during the final climactic battle at Port Stanley in a little more than two weeks time.

Bringing out the big guns -- Interesting video

War at Sea session report

Check out this excellent session report.

A sample

Game 1 Turn 6

At this point, it was pretty clear this was going to be the last turn; Seth advanced both Prince of Wales towards the center, and the crippled Tirpitz could not get away. In the end, I managed to get enough torp hits to sink one more battleship, but alas a final salvo from the lesser damaged Prince of Wales sent the Tirpitz to the bottom. British victory!

Well, yeah, I picked the game I won. If you want to see the game I lost, see Andy's blog!

All out effort on Independence Day -- Falklands 1982

Stunning photo from the HMS Broadsword showing two A-4 Skyhawks on a low-level bomb run through flak attacking the ship on May 25th, 1982.

The Argentinian high command decided to cap off a week of raids against the ships in San Carlos waters with an all-out effort on May 25th, Argentina's Independence Day.

The raids were not as large as the first ones a few days earlier, but they were just as intense, and in the end just as deadly for the British fleet, with the destroyer HMS Coventry and the container ship-turned aircraft transport Atlantic Conveyor sunk and the frigate HMS Broadsword damaged.

Sadly for  the Argentine war effort, however, this level of effort was unsustainable. Three more jets were lost on May 25th, which, when added to the four lost the day before and two lost on May 23, left the Argentine land-based air arm well and truly decimated. There would only be a handful of raids for the rest of the war, as reflected in the loss rates. Only six more high-performance planes would be lost before the final surrender.

Explosions rip through the HMS Coventry after several bombs hit the ship on May 25th. The photo was taken from the HMS Broadsword.

Perhaps even worse for the Argentinians, the May 25th attack that took out the Atlantic Conveyor used up the last of their small stock of highly effective Exocet missiles. Despite strenuous efforts by the Argentinians to somehow find a few more of the air-launched versions of the missile from sources as diverse as Iraq, Libya ad Peru, British counter efforts helped all those efforts fall short. Given that the British were losing a ship for every 2-3 Exocet missiles expended, having a few more of them could have proven decisive.


The loss of the Atlantic Conveyor meat the loss of all but one of the task force's heavy lift CH-47 helicopters, which would soon be felt keenly.

With the Argentine Navy and Air Force largely neutralized, the war was about to move into its final and decisive phase as the British and Argentinian ground forces confronted each other. Despite all the high technology of guided missiles, high-performance aircraft and advanced warships, the war was about to be decided, as wars usually are, at the end of a bayonet wielded by riflemen.

Flopping "Battleship" to torpedo Hasbro?

Rihanna? Really?

 Probably not, although this Forces article suggests that the venerable toymaker can;t help but be disappointed by the failure of the high-budget Aliens vs. Navy flick to wow critics or audiences.

Hasbro has had high hopes that movie based on classics like Battleship, Clue and Monopoly might boost interest in their sagging board games, much like how the transformers movies have juiced that toy line.

I've wondered since I heard about the projects how this could possibly work, knowing the way Hollywood treats outside intellectual properties like books, plays and short stories. I think, for the most part, Hollywood adaptations of non-original screenplays do violence to the creative vision that's responsible for their success. This is why people were so pleasantly surprised by how well Peter Jackson handled The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I think I can speak for most fans when I say we were very relieved when the first movie came out because he didn't screw it up. Yes, yes, yes, the fans can quibble about decisions here and there, but everybody realized that there was no way to make a literal translation of Tolkien's dense books into movies. But Jackson understood and respected the books, and so was able to make changes that kept true to the good professor's vision, even when he had to depart from the story.

Battleship, however, is much more typical of Hollywood's treatment. They basically just kept the title and created a regular special-effects dominated aliens movie. Now, "battleship" the game, is hardly some high concept product, so there was a lot of room to work with. But it's not an alien themed game.

The key thing, I think, is to recognize that the heart of "Battleship" is the guess and outguess interplay and a movie that captured that dynamic might succeed. I think it would be possible to make a Monopoly movie -- but not  as a  remake of Wall Street.  No, the movie would need to highlight the wheeling and dealing of the game in the context of a cinematic treatment. I think of the way the musical Chess successfully captured the drama surrounding international chess matches during the Cold War to make an entertaining story.

Essentially, however, the classic Hasbro board games don't feature a strong in-game narrative that would translate well into a Hollywood style movie. Among the Hasbro game properties that DO have strong narrative potential would be Dungeons and Dragons, Diplomacy and even Axis & Allies, but none have the kind of wide public name recognition of Battleship or Monopoly and probably can't attract Hollywood interest.Some of the old AH titles like Monster Menace America might work.

I think Hasbro fundamentally misunderstood why the Transformers movies worked. The transformers are cool visual toys and the movies were able to  parlay that into a cool visual movie. Board games are more like books in that the action tends to be in the mind, not the eye.

I think Hasbro is barking up the wrong tree.

Operation Sutton -- 1982

 

HMS Ardent after being hit

Operation Sutton

30 years ago today the British commenced Operation Sutton, the landing of troops to retake the Falkland Islands, seized by Argentina seven weeks earlier. That the British were able to organize and execute such an operation over such an enormous distance and on such short notice is a testimony to the professionalism of their military. It’s probable that the only other country capable of doing something like this is the United States – and possibly France.

The British plan was to land a brigade’s worth of troops in the protected anchorage of San Carlos Bay, which lies between West and East Falkland Islands. After securing a beached the British would move across East Falkland Island to capture Port Stanley and end the war.

While the Argentinean Navy had been neutralized in the wake of the Belgrano sinking and the Argentine Army had little ability to interfere with the British landings, their air force and naval aviation were a significant threat and wasted no time in reacting vigorously to the British landing. The first British troops came ashore about 4 a.m. and by dawn the landing ships were already being attacked by light aircraft based in the Falklands.

The most significant air attacks, however, came from the mainland, arriving in three waves.

The first wave, eight Daggers and six A-4 Skyhawks arriving around 10:30 a.m., damaged the frigates Argonaut and Antrim. In both cases the ships were hit by bombs which did not explode, but still caused important damage to the ships. Apparently the Argentine planes attacked at such a low altitude that the bombs didn’t have time to arm properly. The frigates Brilliant and Broadsword were also damaged less seriously by cannon fire.

The second wave of 14 Skyhawks, which came in around 1 p.m., didn’t actually succeed in making it to the anchorage. Eight of the planes aborted due to weather or mechanical problems and the other six were intercepted by Sea Harriers which shot down two and damaged a third.

The third wave, 11 daggers and six Skyhawks, succeed in landing several hits on the frigate HMS Ardent, sinking her.

While the Argentine airmen were valorous and did significant damage to the British force, including sinking one ship, the cost was heavy, with five Daggers and five Skyhawks from the mainland shot down. Four of the Daggers were brought down by Sidewinder missiles from Sea Harriers, while the fifth was shot down by a missile from one of the frigates. All five of the Skyhawks lost were downed by Sea Harriers as well. The Argentines also lost four other aircraft that day, and the British two.

As I recall, the intensity of the air-naval battle caught the world by surprise and was a sobering lesson in how bloody modern warfare can be when waged full-out between first-class opponents. Most warfare in the last five decades and been either between third world combatants or between a first world military and third world or non-state actors. In either case, the public in first world countries is not prepared for the kinds of losses that are likely if there’s a future high-intensity conflict between capable modern militaries. It’s quite possible that the casualty toll for a United States war with China over a Taiwan, for example, would exceed the total losses of both Iraq Wars and Afghanistan within hours.

By the evening of May 21st, both sides knew they were in for a tough and costly fight, although the most important fact was that the British were firmly established ashore and the Argentine air attacks, while damaging, had not been severe enough to threaten the landing. At a 10 to one ratio of bombers lost to warships sunk, the Argentineans would run out of planes before the British ran out of ships. Tactics would need to be adjusted.

Ain't it the truth

Very true

Pebble Island Raid -- Falklands 30 years ago

The cratering of the runway and some destroyed aircraft are visible in this post-raid damage assessment photo.

The raid on Pebble Island was a textbook commando raid by the British, who pretty much invented the  modern commando in World War II (the very word 'commando' comes from the ground-breaking Commando units formed by the British in the Second World War). The raid was conducted by the S.A.S. (Speical Air Service) another British speical forces unit that traces its origins to Worl dWar II.

Pebble Island is one of the smaller islands in the Falklands group, just north of West Falkland Island. It's importance lay in a two-runway grass airstrip that the Argentinians had taken over. They established a small air presence at the strip, with a half-dozen Pucara ground attack aircraft, four T-34C trainers, which also had ground attack capability and a transport plane. There was also a radar site. All this presented an obvious threat to the British invasion fleet which was planning to pass just a  few miles away on its way to land troops at San Carlos.

About 45 SAS troopers, supported by naval gunfire from two frigates were given the task of landing near the airfield and attacking it to neutralize the radar site and aircraft.

The raid was a complete success, with all 11 aircraft, the radar site destroyed, runway cratered and the SAS extricated with no fatalities or serious injuries.  At least one Argentinian officer fell leading his troops, but total Argentinian personnel losses aren't reported.

Ogre crush! Kickstarter ends at over $900.000!

The Ogre Kickstarter project was simply an amazing episode in the history of the hobby.

For those who don't know, Ogre was a small, pocket-sized game first published in 1977 for, I think $2.95 -- which is about $11.17 in today's dollars, according to the CPI calculator.

The basic premise of this classic game is that warfare of the future features, besides tanks, hovercraft and power-suited infantry, these enormous robot tanks called Ogres. The basic scenario pits one of these against a more conventional force ina classic one-against-many situation. Sequels called G.E.V. (for Ground Effect Vehicle -- what the hovercraft are called) and Shockwave added more units and maps and scenarios.

Later editions included a deluxe version and a miniatures game, but all of it has been out of print since the late 1980s as Steve Jackson moved on to other projects such as GURPS, Illuminati and, most famously, Munchkin.

People have been pestering Jackson for years to come out with a  new edition and  he finally decided to move on the project this year after years of development work and running the numbers. Notably this was always going to be a real "deluxe" or "designer's" edition with lots of extra stuff in it, including basically all the material from the base Ogre plus GEV and Shockwave. Jackson's game company doesn't have a pre-order system set up and so, in order to gauge the level of interest, he used the Kickstarter system.

Kickstarter is a cloud financing system geared mostly toward creative projects that has been used by some game designers. Probably the most well-known before Ogre was D-Day Dice.

Jackson was thinking he could sell 3,00 copies at $100 dollars apiece. In order to create a pseudo-preorder system he set a  goal of $20,000 to get the project going with what are called "stretch" goals in Kickstarter for additional  "swag."

By the end of the 30-day drive the Ogre project had more than 5,500 backers and raised more than $925.000!! Wow.

Battle of McDowell -- 150 years ago

May 8 also saw a significant engagement during the American Civil War as Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson defeated Union Gen' Fremont in a small, but  important fight at McDowell bear the beginning of his classic Valley campaign.

The two sides were evenly matched with around 6,000 troops each and Confederate losses were actually somewhat higher -- but Fremont's force retreated, freeing Jackson to turn on the other federal forces in the valley and defeat them in turn, later in the month.

The Other Shoe drops -- Lexington sunk 70 years ago

USS Lexington afire after being hit during the Battle of Coral Sea on May 8, 1942.

 
On the morning of May 8 both carrier forces spotted each other and launched strikes, and while both strikes found their opponents the more experienced Japanese aviators got the better of the exchange.  Both the USS Yorktown and the USS Lexington were hit, while only the Shokaku was hit in return.

While the Shokaku and the Yorktown ended up surviving their hits, the Lexington was hit by at least two bombs and, more critically, by two torpedoes. As it turned out in the Pacific war, torpedoes were the bane  of American aircraft carriers. Every US fleet carrier that was lost was lost after receiving torpedo hits.

While the Japanese got the better of the tactical exchange, however, from a strategic standpoint things were quite different. The Americans hurriedly repaired the Yorktown and it was available for the Battle of Midway less than a month later. Meanwhile the Shokaku's damage took much longer to repair and the Zuikaku, while undamaged, had taken such heavy losses in its air group that it also missed out the key Battle of Midway. Overall, the Japanese would have been much better served by skipping the whole affair. Having all six fleet carriers for Midway would have been a big advantage, even if the Americans retained the Lexington. The US Navy in mid-1942 had not developed doctrine or experience in operating carriers together (indeed, the pairing of the Enterprise and Hornet at Midway was an innovation for the Americans) so having four carriers would have been an awkward situation. In contrast, the Japanese had highly honed their capability to operate all six fleet carriers as a unified force. A 6-4 edge in carriers would have been much better than the 4-3 advantage they had in the actual event.

In June a new Essex-class carrier being built in Massachusetts was renamed the Lexington (CV-16) in honor of the lost ship. The other three fleet carriers lost later in 1942 -- the Yorktown, Hornet and Wasp -- would likewise be memorialized by new Essex class ships (CV-10, CV-12 and CV-18, respectively).

Battle of Coral Sea - 1942

The Shoho under attack during the Battle of Coral Sea, May 7, 1942

The Battle of Coral Sea started on this date, 70 years ago. Notable as the first naval battle in history where the opposing ships never sighted each other, the first day was marked by a number of blunders by both sides that included attacks on friendly ships, massive strikes launched against minor targets and even confused aircraft trying to join landing patterns on opposing carriers.

The score ended up being in the US favor as the sun set. While the fleet tanker Neosho and destroyer Sims were sunk, the Japanese lost the aircraft carrier Shoho and called off their planned amphibious landing at Port Moresby.

The Shoho was attacked by more than 90 aircraft that gave the Americans some dramatic photographs and the catch phrase "Scratch one flattop!'

Coral Sea is well covered by wargames, among them are SOPAC from the Second World War at Sea, The Fires of Midway and the classic Avalon Hill game Midway through its Coral Sea expansion kit.

Stonewall and Little Mac, a study in contrasts from 150 years ago

Battle of Williamsburg from The Civil War Preservation Trust

During the first week of May, 1862, 150 years ago, two military campaigns were unfolding in Virginia that offer and interesting study in contrasts. Although about 175 miles apart as the crow flies -- and considerably further as the soldier marched -- Maj. Gen. George B. "Little Mac" McClellan's Peninsula Campaign and Maj. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's Valley campaign were intimately related and, before the campaigns ended, became intertwined.

Detail from OTR map showing the area around Williamsburg

The two campaigns are each the subject of a game in the classic Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series from Avalon Hill. Stonewall in the Valley, Volume IV in the game series, covers "The Full Campaign in the Shenandoah from March to June 1862. On to Richmond, Volume VI in the series, covers "The Peninsula Campaign April-July 1862.

The first thing one notes about these two game is the extraordinary length of time they cover in a game system that otherwise typically deals with campaigns measured in a few weeks. While each contains a number of scenarios depicting specific phases and incidents in the long campaigns, the grand campaign game needs to cope with not just a long period of time, but also the fact of the other campaign. One solution is to play both games simultaneously and that is an option covered -- but that takes up  a lot of space (five 22" by 32" maps) and time (SIV up to 14 hours and OTR up to 2 days).

More practical is to play each game on its own and use the in-game rules that account for the influence of the off-map campaigns.

Jackson's valley campaign is generally considered a masterpiece of maneuver warfare, as he tied down larger Union forces for most of the time and in the end was able to redeploy to the Richmond are to take part in that campaign as well. While Jackson didn't win every fight and he didn't always live up to expectations once he arrived with Lee's army, for the most part the key characteristic of his conduct was energy. 

In contrast, McClellan's defining characteristic, I think, was not so much lethargy as detachment. One thing that has always struck me about McClellan's conduct on the battlefield was how rarely he seemed to actually be near the fighting. I see no reason to think that this had to do with a lack of never but instead I think it reflected McClellan's view of his role -- as an overall coordinator and policy setter rather than a tactical commander. I don't think he was necessarily wrong in this as he was overzealous about it.  He usually seemed to be too far from the action to properly do the coordination part of his job and his corps commanders were, as  a result, pretty much on their own. The Battle of Williamsburg on May 5 illustrates this. While his subordinates fought a sharp fight, and several of them started to make their reputations here (Hooker as a division commander, Hancock "The Superb" as  a brigade commander) Little Mac was miles away and had little control over what was happening. As a result the Rebel arny managed to extricate itself from what could have been a tight spot.

In early May, however, these defining characteristics had not yet manifested themselves entirely.  Jackson was just starting his series of marches that would take the breath away from his opponents and earn his troops the sobriquet of "foot cavalry. And, while McClellan was already showing the "slows" that would come to define him to posterity, it wasn't yet clear how many opportunities it would cost him and the nation. After all, Johnston retreated from Williamsburg and McClellan's plan to get to Richmond seemed to be working.

Stay tuned.

Argentina strikes back -- The Sheffield hit 30 years ago

HMS Sheffield hit, May 4, 1982

Any illusions that the war would be entirely one-sided for the British were shattered on May 4 when word came that the HMS Sheffield had been hit by an Exocet missile. While the ship remained afloat, it had to be abandoned ad a fire raged out of control and it would eventually sink under tow. Twenty crew were killed and another two dozen wounded.

The loss came as the Sheffield was on radar picket duty west of the British task force. Radar picket duty is a necessary, but very dangerous, duty, as the US Navy discovered during the closing months of World War II when dozens of escorts were damaged and destroyed by Kamizake attacks.

Fortunately for the British , the Argentinians didn't have dozens  of Exocets. Indeed, they had just five of the air-launched versions and just five Super Etendard attack planes to carry them. This was another negative consequence of the Argentinian decision to rush the start of the war. Had they waited until September they would have had a total of at least 10 Exocets and 14 planes to carry them.

In  a very well-planned and executed mission the Argentinian Navy aviators in two Super Etendard, supported by a Neptune recon plane, were able to fire two missiles and escape without being engaged. One missile apparently failed to find a target but the second w=one hit the Sheffeild, which wasn't prepared properly for defending against a missile attack. It's shipboard radars and air defenses never spotted the threat and the only warning it got was from voice shouts after Mark 1 eyeballs spotted the incoming missile just seconds before it hit. 

It seems evident that the missile did not explode, but rocket fuel and other combustibles combined to fuel a fire that burned out the ship.

It's interesting to go back and read the accounts from the time of the incident. I have the Osprey special editions on the Falklands War (Men-At-Arms No. 133-135) and the Sunday Times of London's "War in the Falklands -- The Full Story," all published in 1982 shortly after the close of the war. While not bad, considering how quickly they were done, they do make a number of claims that turned out to not be true -- and suffer from minimal input form the Argentinian side.

The Harpoon4 supplement South Atlantic War 2nd Ed., which is my main source, was published in 2002 and had the advantage of much better information and much more information from the Argentinian side. One difference, for example, is the supposed role of the Argentinian submarine sin the incident.  At the time, the British ships reported "torpedo wakes" near the stricken Sheffield. The Osprey book asserts that "It seems probable that both of the Argentine Type 209 submarines were in the vicinity. Some reason exists to believe that one of them may have been hit, and perhaps sunk, by a Stingray torpedo released from a Sea King helicopter.

We now know that there were in fact no Argentinian subs present that day and, in fact, only one of the Type 209 submarines was even operational. A nice illustration of the news truism that the first reports are always wrong.

More losses for Argentina in the Falklands War 30 years ago

The damage to the Alferez Sobral bridge area

 The first few days of serious fighting were costly for the Argentinian military, especially the Navy. Besides losing more than 300 men when the ARA general Belgrano went down on May 2, a small Argentinian warship called the Alferez Sobral suffered disproportionate casualties from some non-fatal hits from Sea Skua air-to0surface missiles fired by Btitsh helicopters when it was spotted while searching for downed aircrew from earlier fighting.

A total of four Sea Skua were fired and it appears three of the hit. One did not serious damage, as it hit the Sobral's lifeboat and blew it to bits. But two of the missiles hit near the bridge and killed 8 men, including the captain, and wounded at least 8 more -- for a loss rate of nearly 20%.

One thing this episode points out is the limitations of a wargame, even a very detailed one such as Harpoon4. According to the Harpoon4 rules, each Sea Skua should do 6 damage points so three hits should have left the 24-damage point Sobral nearly crippled with 75% damage before considering the effects of any critical hits.

In fact, though, one of the "hits" destroyed an accessory of the ship, its lifeboat, and did no structural damage at all. The effect of the two hits on the bridge also seems to be less than expected, as well. This reminds me of a discussion in a Harpoon Sitrep a few years back where Larry Bond discussed the surface-to-surface missile hit by Palestinian militants on the Israeli patrol boat INS Hanit in 2006. According to the Harpoon4 models the ship should have been devastated by a hit from the powerful missile used. While four crew were killed and there was a fire, the ship seemed to have escaped serious  structural damage.  Bond's analysis of open source photos led him to believe that the missile struck an exposed crane on the deck, which was missing in post-attack photos. He admitted that this sort of fluke hit  was hard to model in Harpoon4 and said that he basically just ignored that sort of thing in the game -- a not entirely satisfactory answer.

When I've run Harpoon4 scenarios I've experimented with various random reductions in effectiveness (While a better-than-expected result is also possible, I assume that is generally accounted for by the critical hit rules and in my opinion most weapons perform worse than expected and that's the bias I introduce into the game.)

Based on the photographic evidence and the lack of any apparent reduction in the ship;s speed, it appears that the actual damage done to the Sobral was less than 6 damage points in Harpoon4 terms. This implies that the Sea Skua's did less than half the expected amount of damage, even discounting entirely the lifeboat "hit" which might have been a "miss" in game terms.

In any case, a lesson worth bearing in mind when considering the likely effectiveness of any new weapons is that the most likely outcome is disappointment.