WW II in the Pacific and Wargaming

[shodan]

I think I've played ever world war II game available and have not yet found the perfect game.   While complicated and time consuming I really like War in the Pacific Admirals Edition.  Can't get in to most hex based counter games but really want to just can't hold my interest though - among those flashpoint campaigns red thunder is the best to me.   I own hearts of iron 3 and supreme ruler ultimate too, but just can't get in to either.   Like the hex games I really want to like HOI3 but tried multiple times and can't get in to it, same with Supreme Ruler, the tactical combat is so bad it ruins everything great about the game.
I also like Combat Mission games in increments.  Anyone else own so many games but not yet found the perfect game, I spend about an hour a week looking for the perfect war game I never heard of but have yet to find it - I too would prefer the ww2 theater like the OP.   

[FarAway Sooner]

  I knew a guy (he's now been dead for 30 years) who was on the Divisional intelligence staff of a US armored division.  Being a young whippersnapper, I once asked him how the US defeated those superior German tanks.  He said, "We always knew where they were and we always had gas."

  Later I found out more.  He also killed some Germans with his .45, which he found very upsetting  AND (at a different level), the German armored formations were very easy to track by radio intell/sigint, whereas American armored formations could (and did) completely absolutely and totally disappear from the radio emissions world and run silent run deep if they needed to.

Yeah.  I think the Germans learned a lot of good habits, but they also picked up some very bad habits fighting the Russians.

In an interesting comparison, when the RAF brought a bunch of veteran pilots back to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese in late 1942, they tried to use the same dogfight tactics that had worked against the Germans and got butchered. 

There's just no winning if you're trying to out-turn a Zero.  Go head-to-head with it, trading bullet-for-bullet the way the Americans learned to do, and you'll win most of the time.  What drives success in one situation can prove lethal in another.

[JasonPratt]

I knew a guy (he's now been dead for 30 years) who was on the Divisional intelligence staff of a US armored division.  Being a young whippersnapper, I once asked him how the US defeated those superior German tanks.  He said, "We always knew where they were and we always had gas."

  Later I found out more.  He also killed some Germans with his .45, which he found very upsetting  AND (at a different level), the German armored formations were very easy to track by radio intell/sigint, whereas American armored formations could (and did) completely absolutely and totally disappear from the radio emissions world and run silent run deep if they needed to.

Yep, there you go. Eisenhower in Crusade in Europe made a similar point about how the command and control structure for the Allies, despite their multinational composition, was vastly much better than the screwy, competitive, and murderously suspicious C&C for the Nazis.

[Sir Slash]

Hey shodan. Welcome to the Grogs if we haven't already said 'Hello'. I've always lusted after the perfect WWII strategic game and haven't found it yet either. The top of my list currently is the Decisive Campaigns series though War in the West looks like a winner too but I've not tried it. There just doesn't seem to be the perfect combo of Air, Land and Sea elements in any game.

[MengJiao]

  I knew a guy (he's now been dead for 30 years) who was on the Divisional intelligence staff of a US armored division.  Being a young whippersnapper, I once asked him how the US defeated those superior German tanks.  He said, "We always knew where they were and we always had gas."

  Later I found out more.  He also killed some Germans with his .45, which he found very upsetting  AND (at a different level), the German armored formations were very easy to track by radio intell/sigint, whereas American armored formations could (and did) completely absolutely and totally disappear from the radio emissions world and run silent run deep if they needed to.

Yeah.  I think the Germans learned a lot of good habits, but they also picked up some very bad habits fighting the Russians.

  Apparently, when the Germans evolved their armored doctrine in the 1930s, radio was all the rage and they were ahead in Communications and
in sigint And this paid off hugely up until late 1942, when the allies pretty much all the sudden pulled ahead -- having learned it all the hard way from the Germans.  The Russians were notoriously inept at using their radios through all of 1941 and most of 1942, but then they too suddenly got much better at the whole comms and sigint game.  In the five-volume "Stalingrad Trilogy" (Gantz), one on-going theme in STAVKA's attempts to get things working is a steady insistance on getting army commanders to use their communications as needed.  Though some times that amounted to :  Where is the commander?  Can you tell him that STAVKA is going to call him soon?

[magnus]

My take on this is a little different than some here.

Take a globe of 1939 and look at the US,GB and the USSR and even throw in China.

Than explain to me how two small countries almost won WWII? With both of them not really having too much in the way of minerals or oil.

We can Monday morning quarterback all we like, but they had to be doing something right.

If Hitler goes for Moscow in September instead of Kiev, I think they win or at least get a peace where the USSR is behind the Urals.

Of course what would have happened if the did not have the disgusting idiotic racial policy that they did. Would the scientists stay in a greater Germany and build it for them?

The abscence of the racial policy would have probably made the war in the east that much easier.

[JasonPratt]

I saw "five-volume Stalingrad Trilogy", and then I saw "Gantz" and I knew why such a thing exits.  :D

[bbmike]

See,    FarAway Sooner? Even this thread devolved into a discussion on non-Pacific WWII. Is all hope lost?  :(

[shodan]

Hey shodan. Welcome to the Grogs if we haven't already said 'Hello'. I've always lusted after the perfect WWII strategic game and haven't found it yet either. The top of my list currently is the Decisive Campaigns series though War in the West looks like a winner too but I've not tried it. There just doesn't seem to be the perfect combo of Air, Land and Sea elements in any game.

Thanks Slash, yep I keep looking though like I'm going to find something new one of these times :)

[magnus]

Have you tried any of the Schwerpunkt games?

[Sir Slash]

I haven't. Are they any good?

[shodan]

No but I am familiar with them from reviews and looking at the games site, thanks for the suggestion.   

I just can't get in to hex games and counters, maybe it's the graphics or the static feeling.   Most of the hex games really don't seem big enough, counters just line up on the front and reach from coast to coast - I've tried many times to enjoy war in the east style games but they just don't hold my interest for long, I've just come to the conclusion outside of flashpoint campaigns I don't like hex based war games.

I'm really looking forward to operational art of war iv with updated graphics but I understand they just pushed development time out further due to issues.   

I think the perfect game for me would be a combination of hearts of iron 3, war in the pacific, supreme ruler ultimate all mixed in.   What I like about WITPAE is it does not feel like a hex game even though it is and I love the battle animations even if I escape out of them a lot of the time, it breaks up the hex game feel.    Supreme ruler is awesome but the combat is horrific and ruins the whole game, and hearts of iron 3 has a lot to offer too but here I just can't get in to the hex combat and if you don't play a major power it feels like it's pointless in playing.   Other games like battle academy 2 are good, just not as deep or complex as I'd like.

[jomni]

See,    FarAway Sooner? Even this thread devolved into a discussion on non-Pacific WWII. Is all hope lost?  :(

I hear you. No one really likes to talk about and play the Pacific.

[FarAway Sooner]

The Japanese had sexy destroyers.  Destroyers.  Not cruisers.  Not battlewagons.  Not dive-bombers.  Destroyers.

Like a Sherman, who wants to command a single destroyer in a naval warfare sim?

[MengJiao]

My take on this is a little different than some here.

Take a globe of 1939 and look at the US,GB and the USSR and even throw in China.

Than explain to me how two small countries almost won WWII? With both of them not really having too much in the way of minerals or oil.

We can Monday morning quarterback all we like, but they had to be doing something right.

If Hitler goes for Moscow in September instead of Kiev, I think they win or at least get a peace where the USSR is behind the Urals.

Of course what would have happened if the did not have the disgusting idiotic racial policy that they did. Would the scientists stay in a greater Germany and build it for them?

The abscence of the racial policy would have probably made the war in the east that much easier.

You are looking at the whole thing from the wrong end of the telescope; the small nations attacked because their policies doomed them unless they attacked.  They trapped themselves by being militarists long before they went to war.

For example, the best move for the Germans to have made, would have been to pay what they owed the USA and accepted some inflation in the early 1930s.  They could have built up their economy and kept their trade going despite the depression.  Instead they chose to simultaneously make every possible bad move: avoid inflation, not trade advantageously with the USA AND build up their military on a fast-crumbling economy.  The racial policies were just icing on the cake of totally bad economic decisions.

But the Pacific is much more balanced and interesting.  Japan had played its cards from 1894 on very well.  The China thing was a mistake, but they had things humminng in Manchuria, Korea and the surrounding puppet Chinese warlords.  Again, of course a deal with the USA would have been the best move, but they were nowhere near as pre-destined to total defeat as was Germany.  For example, Germany would have had to have made its deal with the USA in 1931 while Japan could have made some good deals in 1941.  I think McArthur thought they were going to deal, but he was more rational than the Japanese turned out to be.