James Swett dies -- ace Wildcat pilot

[Grotius]

Sad news today about a great US pilot. Anyone know if he's in the WITP database?

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_11539722?source=rss

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Sad news today about a great US pilot. Anyone know if he's in the WITP database?

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_11539722?source=rss

Very, very sad news indeed.

TOMLABEL

[Redd]

Very sad indeed. Wish I left behind even half that level of deed when I go, but shurely that is not to pass. Many  condolences.[:(]

[patrickl]

Salute the courageous man. [&o] RIP.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

IIRC he was featured on "History" channel in series called "Dogfight" (I remember watching it some time ago)... his feat was truly admiring although he was 99% "green" pilot...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Yamato hugger]

I had a long talk with him one day at an airshow years ago when I was doing research for the pacific war game I was working on at the time. I had questions on actual mission execution, who took off when, how they met up ect ect. He was the one that turned me on to Barrett Tillmans books. He said they were the best in the business and he was right.

He was such an easy going and good hearted person. He will be missed.

[Long Lance]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

I had a long talk with him one day at an airshow years ago when I was doing research for the pacific war game I was working on at the time. I had questions on actual mission execution, who took off when, how they met up ect ect. He was the one that turned me on to Barrett Tillmans books. He said they were the best in the business and he was right.

He was such an easy going and good hearted person. He will be missed.

Sorry, OT, but just curious: Which Pacwar-game were you working on?

[Japan]

After watching a very interesting program about "war heroes" at our national television I noticed a strange and interesting thing,
very many of them had drawn the conclusion that their efforts was not worth it, several of them regret that they survived as they then had to live throu and see what their country had become.  
I have to admit i felt a bit sorry for them when watching that program.

Lets hope this man had other views, and that it in his eyes was worth his sacrifices and his friends lives.  Rest in peace.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

IIRC he was featured on "History" channel in series called "Dogfight" (I remember watching it some time ago)...

Yes, and the episode included the following engagement:

"... Over Tulagi island, Mr. Swett saw about 20 lightly armored Japanese Val dive bombers trying to target Allied ships. He made his first attack within 300 yards of a dive bomber, marking his first kill, and followed quickly with bursts of fire on two more Vals — sending both spiraling down in flames."

The show said the Vals rigidly kept formation discipline, so for Swett, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: Long Lance

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

I had a long talk with him one day at an airshow years ago when I was doing research for the pacific war game I was working on at the time. I had questions on actual mission execution, who took off when, how they met up ect ect. He was the one that turned me on to Barrett Tillmans books. He said they were the best in the business and he was right.

He was such an easy going and good hearted person. He will be missed.

Sorry, OT, but just curious: Which Pacwar-game were you working on?

My own.

The map I had was very close to the one that Andy has (mine were 50 mile hexes). Every hex was named and had its maximum base rating and troop maximums bases on available land area. Meaning a player could build bases anywhere.

I didnt include China or Russia because for the most part none of them did anything but sit and look at one another. The Japanese offensive in 1944 pretty much proves to me that had the Japs wanted to over-run southern China they could have at any time but they didnt need or want to. Only when the allies tried basing B-29s there did they consider it worth the effort to take it out, so I just eliminated it outright. I think WitP and other games of the genre dont fully model this properly. Why didnt the Japs over run it in 1937 when they had such an easy time of it in 1944? Must have been a reason and no game out there takes that into account.

I didnt include India. My map had Calcutta at the far edge of the screen. With the exception of the Indian ocean raid by the KB (minus Kaga) the Japanese didnt have designs on this area and frankly didnt have the manpower. India had the 4th largest army in the world and most of it was in India as garrison forces.

My map only went as far east as Tahiti. Beyond that the Japs couldnt reasonably hope to maintain supply levels to their troops.

I had somewhere around 40 weather zones. I looked at actual rain data for several cities adn based the local weather effects on their real weather effects.

My air to air routines were based not on factors (this number of cannons vs this manueverability), but rather on actual combat losses for a given period of time. Example May 42 the A6M has roughly a 17% chance of a shoot-down on a F4F. I had modifiers for pilot kills (I didnt rate them in skills like WitP does). Every 4 month period of the war things changed. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not. I kept track of gun ammo giving each plane only so many possible shots. I didnt have squadron sizes, I allowed the players to assign as many aircraft as they wanted to a given air unit.

I didnt have 6000 merchant ships. I handled rear area supply and troop movement between HQs (replacements also). When a unit was available at a HQ near the front it would appear on the map (say at Townsville for example) and then could be loaded on ships and moved in from there.

Subs were assigned to sea zones and if these off map movements passed through a give sea area the subs there would get a shot at them. ASW forces were similarly assigned to these zones and modified the results.

Ground units were regiments with a seperate "regiment" as a division HQ, so any 3 regiments could be used to form a division (and broken down that way as well). I allowed units that went to the ETO to be used in the Pacific (at a VP cost) and I allowed units that went to the Pacific to be allowed to go to the ETO (gaining points for the allied player). Same with ship deployments (most of the BBs at Pearl spent most of the war in the ETO).

Ground units had a "step reduction" system similar to a lot of old fashioned board games rather than keeping track of individual tanks and guns. I didnt have production modeled directly as WitP does but I altered the Jap replacement rate based of how much resources got through.

Basically what I did was designed a board game and was putting it on the computer. My approach was that the Pacific war was a strategic war of tactical battles and thats the way I went at it. SSI released Pacific War about that time which was very close to what I was doing, so I stopped working on it.

[Long Lance]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: Long Lance

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

I had a long talk with him one day at an airshow years ago when I was doing research for the pacific war game I was working on at the time. I had questions on actual mission execution, who took off when, how they met up ect ect. He was the one that turned me on to Barrett Tillmans books. He said they were the best in the business and he was right.

He was such an easy going and good hearted person. He will be missed.

Sorry, OT, but just curious: Which Pacwar-game were you working on?

My own.

The map I had was very close to the one that Andy has (mine were 50 mile hexes). Every hex was named and had its maximum base rating and troop maximums bases on available land area. Meaning a player could build bases anywhere.

I didnt include China or Russia because for the most part none of them did anything but sit and look at one another. The Japanese offensive in 1944 pretty much proves to me that had the Japs wanted to over-run southern China they could have at any time but they didnt need or want to. Only when the allies tried basing B-29s there did they consider it worth the effort to take it out, so I just eliminated it outright. I think WitP and other games of the genre dont fully model this properly. Why didnt the Japs over run it in 1937 when they had such an easy time of it in 1944? Must have been a reason and no game out there takes that into account.

I didnt include India. My map had Calcutta at the far edge of the screen. With the exception of the Indian ocean raid by the KB (minus Kaga) the Japanese didnt have designs on this area and frankly didnt have the manpower. India had the 4th largest army in the world and most of it was in India as garrison forces.

My map only went as far east as Tahiti. Beyond that the Japs couldnt reasonably hope to maintain supply levels to their troops.

I had somewhere around 40 weather zones. I looked at actual rain data for several cities adn based the local weather effects on their real weather effects.

My air to air routines were based not on factors (this number of cannons vs this manueverability), but rather on actual combat losses for a given period of time. Example May 42 the A6M has roughly a 17% chance of a shoot-down on a F4F. I had modifiers for pilot kills (I didnt rate them in skills like WitP does). Every 4 month period of the war things changed. Sometimes subtle, sometimes not. I kept track of gun ammo giving each plane only so many possible shots. I didnt have squadron sizes, I allowed the players to assign as many aircraft as they wanted to a given air unit.

I didnt have 6000 merchant ships. I handled rear area supply and troop movement between HQs (replacements also). When a unit was available at a HQ near the front it would appear on the map (say at Townsville for example) and then could be loaded on ships and moved in from there.

Subs were assigned to sea zones and if these off map movements passed through a give sea area the subs there would get a shot at them. ASW forces were similarly assigned to these zones and modified the results.

Ground units were regiments with a seperate "regiment" as a division HQ, so any 3 regiments could be used to form a division (and broken down that way as well). I allowed units that went to the ETO to be used in the Pacific (at a VP cost) and I allowed units that went to the Pacific to be allowed to go to the ETO (gaining points for the allied player). Same with ship deployments (most of the BBs at Pearl spent most of the war in the ETO).

Ground units had a "step reduction" system similar to a lot of old fashioned board games rather than keeping track of individual tanks and guns. I didnt have production modeled directly as WitP does but I altered the Jap replacement rate based of how much resources got through.

Basically what I did was designed a board game and was putting it on the computer. My approach was that the Pacific war was a strategic war of tactical battles and thats the way I went at it. SSI released Pacific War about that time which was very close to what I was doing, so I stopped working on it.

That sounds cool. If you some day think things over and decide to finish this, put me on the preorder list of YH's WitP light.

But beware: I see a lot of dicussions if a Zero should really have XX % chanche for a kill at a given time[:D].

[Yamato hugger]

Well thats one reason I chose to keep it arbitrary. As I said, I looked at real shoot down data for a given period of time. In cases where 2 planes didnt meet, I used an over-lap method (ie lets say for example that for a given period P40Es never fought a A5M, but P-40Bs did. So based on the difference between a P-40E vs an A6M and a P-40B vs an A6M, from this I could project a P-40E vs an A5M.).

I believe in keeping things simple. The more complex you get the more complex you have to get and its a death spiral right into the ground.