The Battle of Midway Americans

[WallyTWest]

Hello, I’m "translating" the battle of midways forces. Thought this would help some American fleets.

The Battle of Midway Americans

Taskforce 17
USS Yorktown - Yorktown Class (W/ Damage from Coral Sea)
USS Astoria - New Orleans Class
USS Portland - Portland Class
Hammond, Anderson, Gwin, Morris, Russell, Hughes – Destroyers

Taskforce 16
USS Enterprise, USS Hornet – Yorktown Class
USS Atlanta – Atlanta Class
USS Minneapolis, USS New Orleans, USS Vincennes – New Orleans Class
USS Phelps, USS Worden, USS Monaghan, USS Aylwin, USS Balch, USS Conyngham, USS Benham, USS Ellet, USS Maury - Destroyers

Submarines
Group 1
USS Cachalot, USS Flying Fish, USS Tambor, USS Trout, USS Grayling, USS Nautilus, USS Grouper, USS Dolphin, USS Gato, USS Cuttlefish, USS Gudgeon, USS Grenadier

Group 2
USS Narwhal, USS Plunger, USS Trigger

Group 3
USS Tarpon, USS Finback, USS Pike, USS Growler

Plus Aircraft form Midway Itself. (Actual numbers in wiki link.)



The Destroyers seem to be a mix of chassis, “Simm” and “Gleaves” Class Destroyers in group 17 for example. (The Hughes being the only “Gleaves” in G.17) It seems appropriate to just grab whatever destroyer counter or models you have on hand.

I’m finding that the Americans where a little outnumbered and suffered massive flight causalities. A strait-up representation of the ships fighting one another is not entirely accurate either. Rather it was a collection of 3 or so V.A.S. scale battles. (Note the disproportionate number of subs? Anyone know what that was about? Any thoughts about how to devide it or make it into a playable single/set of games? Perhaps a 4'x16' or 6'x12' battle w/ the tip of Midway Island Modeled? Why the complete absance of Battleships?)

I’m working on a IJN counterpart list but I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what has already been written. That is taking a little longer to write up as it’s a bit confusing placing their deployment and battle-strength.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_order_of_battle

Question – Has anyone written a list of “Ship Class” translations of the Davco 1/3000 range to V.A.S.? I wouldn’t mind doing it but it would save some time if someone already had.

http://www.warweb.com/wwii-ships-usa-c-70_162_1676_1693_1700.html?osCsid=75e1cc928ec23d358b88b3034398513b

Thankyou. Please Post.

Be cool, game hard.

Liam
Dover NH @ Elite Hobbies
WallyTWest@aol.com

 

[resQscooter]

OK here's a start...

Alaska- class CB
Alywin- Farragut class DD
Appalachian- class amphibious force flagship
Ashland- class LSD
Astoria- N.O. class CA
Atlanta- class CL
Augusta- Northhampton class CA
Baltimore- class CA
Barr- Charles Lawrence class DE
Bogue- class CVE
Buckley- class DE
Casablanca- class CVE
Cimarron- class fleet oiler
Clark- Porter class DD
Cleveland- class CL
Commencement Bay- class CVE
Craven- Gridley class DD
Dobbin- class destroyer tender
Essex- Class CV
Gato- class SS
Gen A. W. Greely- military transport
Gen. John Pope- milltary transport
Independance- Forrestal class CVA/CV
Indianapolis- Portland class CA
Iowa- class BB

will do some more tomorrow

 

[DM]

The scale of the battle of Midway is way beyond the scope of a tabletop VAS battle. To do it justice it needs to be run as an operational level campaign. The link below is to a campaign pack I generated for Midway for use with General Quarters, but it should give you some ideas (I'm currently working on an operational level campaign system for VAS)

http://www.btinternet.com/~david.manley/naval/genquar/midway.zip

On the statting of ships there is a considerable effort going on at the moment to generate complete ship lists for all the countries featured in the rules for the supplement, plus ships of a few others that may make it into the supplement or (more likely) for S&P.

 

[Fitzwalrus]

IIRC the decision was made to exclude BB's from the US force because the USN knew this was going to be a carrier fight (carrier ambush, actually), and there weren't enough fast US battleships available to stand up to the Japanese battleline anyway.

Midway was an enormous gamble on the part of the USN, but one they had to take: the lack of BB's may also have had something to do with trying to maintain some semblance of a West Coast fleet should things go badly wrong at Midway.

Again IIRC the large number of US submarines were there as "scout lines" set across the likely directions of approach for the Japanese fleet in order to give as much advance notice of their approach and location as possible. The Japanese did the same thing off Pearl to watch for the US carriers, but the CV's got underway and out of the area before the Japanese patrol line was fully established and so weren't detected.

 

[WallyTWest]

Everytime I learn somthing new about Midway all I can think is how crazy the whole fight was. My grandfather refused to talk about it while he was alive, its given me a whole new respect for his time in the navy. (He was a torpedo bomber off the Yorktown. Apparently he had a rough time of it, everyone he knew died that day.)

How the heck am I suposed to bring this to a gaming table? The more I learn the more disrespectfull it seems. With V.A.S. nerfing flyers it makes midway a tactical imposibility. Everything about how it was set up says says the americians didnt have a chance.... =(

 

[DM]

Everything about how it was set up says says the americians didnt have a chance

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, may I humbly suggest reading "Shattered Sword" by Parshall and Tully? They have written what is probably the ultimate analysis of the battle of Midway and demonstrate quite clearly that the US held all the aces (e.g. more aircraft, much better command and control, a significant intelligence advantage, superior ship design and operation).

http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889230/sr=8-1/qid=1171001083/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-7534313-4703112?ie=UTF8&s=books

I have to say, from a wargaming perspective I aree with them. I've campaigned the battle sebveral times, both as a player and an umpire. The US come out on top nine times out of ten (which si annoying as 'm currently playing the Japanese in a Midway PBeM campaign!)

 

[captainsmirk]

Didn't the Japanese actually fight a wargame of it before they started out to help with planning and they lost in that until the umpires stopped it and declared the result void?


Nick

 

[Reaverman]

The Japanese also thought they were actually ambushing the American fleet, but the Americans and managed to decode Japanese messages. As one Admiral put it; "The Japanese are going to come through the garden gate with a bunch of flowers, and we are going to be behind him to chop his head off with an axe"

 

[Reaverman]

Everytime I learn somthing new about Midway all I can think is how crazy the whole fight was. My grandfather refused to talk about it while he was alive, its given me a whole new respect for his time in the navy. (He was a torpedo bomber off the Yorktown. Apparently he had a rough time of it, everyone he knew died that day.)

How the heck am I suposed to bring this to a gaming table? The more I learn the more disrespectfull it seems. With V.A.S. nerfing flyers it makes midway a tactical imposibility. Everything about how it was set up says says the americians didnt have a chance.... =(

Yes, I keep saying that. But some people on here, seem intent on having BB vs BB battles. The pacific war marked the the advent of the carriers, and the use of air power.

 

[DM]

Didn't the Japanese actually fight a wargame of it before they started out to help with planning and they lost in that until the umpires stopped it and declared the result void?

Yes, thats right. One of a few bizarre military planning stories from history (my favourite is one about a battle plan that was developed by dipping a mouse's feet in ink and having it run across a map of the battlefield!)