Lord David the Denied
Mongoose
Tell us about the Falklands campaign, DM. Any time sort of nowish would be fine...
A quick battle "overview"
- Thread starter Soulmage
- Start date
I ran a falklands campaign a few years back, played over two sessions (the first covered the approach of the Task Force and had 6 players, the second covered the landings and had 35 players plus a refereeing team of myself plus two assistants). There was a fascinating case of what we thought was misidentification. The Brits were engaged in landings in San Carlos. A medical convoy consisting of the hospital ship Uganda plus three converted survey ships was heading in to Falkland Sound from the South. At the same time an Argentinean Canberra strike was approaching from the South West, and they sotted the hospital ships at extreme range. The Argetinean player decided to attack. We set the convoy up on the table and sat him 3 metres away from the obviously white ships with big red crosses and asked him how he wanted to attack, so he allocated his bombers and carried on. Then we sat him down 1.5 metres away and asked him if he wanted to change anything *expecting him to pull away and continue on to the islands), but he went i anyway and hit two of the ships.
In the post-campaign analysis we quizzed him on this, and the obvious propaganda and diplomatic coup that this had handed the British. He said he knew straight away what he was attacking but reckoned if he'd fown his bombers into Falkland Sound the Shars or Sea Dart would have splashed him immediately, so he preferred to attack soemthing that couldn't shootback!
An amazing campaign, run in a (long) day, and notable for several incidents as well as the one above (including a duel between Lynx helos and Argentinean FACs and a submarine, the successful bombing of Invincible (although the bomb was a dud), and the Argentineans working out the location of one of the Brit Task Groups as their picket ships were systematically sunk by Exocets from the Leanders - talk about "flaming datums!)
In the post-campaign analysis we quizzed him on this, and the obvious propaganda and diplomatic coup that this had handed the British. He said he knew straight away what he was attacking but reckoned if he'd fown his bombers into Falkland Sound the Shars or Sea Dart would have splashed him immediately, so he preferred to attack soemthing that couldn't shootback!
An amazing campaign, run in a (long) day, and notable for several incidents as well as the one above (including a duel between Lynx helos and Argentinean FACs and a submarine, the successful bombing of Invincible (although the bomb was a dud), and the Argentineans working out the location of one of the Brit Task Groups as their picket ships were systematically sunk by Exocets from the Leanders - talk about "flaming datums!)
"Yes, I realize this, but didn't (almost) all Naval Vessels of the time carry scout/recce aircraft? Couldn't they simply grab some binoculars and get a visible conirmation?"
Actually, according to "Sea of Thunder" (an excellent book itself, by the way - I got it for Christmas and picked it up yesterday but I've already devoured my way through 3/4ths of the book!) Kurita was ordered by Japanese High Command to detach a huge number of his float planes (I don't remember how many, but the vast majority) to support land based operations. I presume, although I don't know, more would have been wrecked in the giant US air strike the day before.
You also have to realize that, at least according to the aforementioned book, which offers a fairly complex profile of Kurita and his history along with that of several other officers involved, Kurita wasn't big on the operation to begin with. He was one of the few Japanese naval officers who realized the war was a lost cause at this point and didn't like throwing away the young men under his command in suicidal attacks with no chance of victory. If you think about it, even if he had pressed the attack it was unlikely he would have scored much of a success in broader terms, just killed more sailors aboard the Taffys, transports, and (perhaps) his own ships. A few Jeep carriers were hardly a critical part of the war effort as they were easily replacable, and IIRC the transports and even ammunition carriers had almost all been unloaded - in fact the Japanese admirals scoffed at being assigned to attack them instead of the main American fleet, and thought them an unworthy and useless target. Merchant shipping was something the Americans could produce en masse and sinking empty transports would barely have delayed the American campaign.
Actually, according to "Sea of Thunder" (an excellent book itself, by the way - I got it for Christmas and picked it up yesterday but I've already devoured my way through 3/4ths of the book!) Kurita was ordered by Japanese High Command to detach a huge number of his float planes (I don't remember how many, but the vast majority) to support land based operations. I presume, although I don't know, more would have been wrecked in the giant US air strike the day before.
You also have to realize that, at least according to the aforementioned book, which offers a fairly complex profile of Kurita and his history along with that of several other officers involved, Kurita wasn't big on the operation to begin with. He was one of the few Japanese naval officers who realized the war was a lost cause at this point and didn't like throwing away the young men under his command in suicidal attacks with no chance of victory. If you think about it, even if he had pressed the attack it was unlikely he would have scored much of a success in broader terms, just killed more sailors aboard the Taffys, transports, and (perhaps) his own ships. A few Jeep carriers were hardly a critical part of the war effort as they were easily replacable, and IIRC the transports and even ammunition carriers had almost all been unloaded - in fact the Japanese admirals scoffed at being assigned to attack them instead of the main American fleet, and thought them an unworthy and useless target. Merchant shipping was something the Americans could produce en masse and sinking empty transports would barely have delayed the American campaign.
I'll have to look for that book, as it makes sense. The 200,000 U.S. troops had already been landed by the time the Center Force was making its headlong dash for Leyte Gulf, so it wouldn't have made much of a military victory. Halsey's embarrassment would however have been subtantially increased for whatever propaganda value it might have had. Even as it was, history didn't look kindly at Halsey's decisions.
chaos0xomega
Mongoose
He didn't want to waste lives and yet he led a fleet of all that remained of the Imperial Navy in a naval kamikaze attack? Sure he was ordered too, but if he knew the war was more or less over he could have done Sepukku(or however you spell it, sure he got to live 'til 75 or whatever but did he know that would happen?) or simply gone out to sea, then refused the orders and surrender.