Allied intelligence in WITP:AE

[Yaab]

Playing WITP:AE as the Allies I have always been astounded at the level of detail of Allied intelligence reports compared to what the Japanese get. Was the Allied intelligence this detailed from the beginning of the war? I would imagine, that in the real life , there was a progression of the level of detail, starting from very crude reports in the beginning of the war to very detailed ones in late war. Shouldn't it be reflected in the game?

[jmalter]

The Allied intel effort was fairly good before the war's start (of course they missed the 7 Dec 41 attacks) & improved throughout the war. There were many rise / fall events, such as capturing enemy documents, or new variants of IJ codes. For example, USN code-breakers accurately predicted Yamamoto's Midway / Aleutians attack, but immediately before the battle, the IJN introduced a change to their JN-25 navy code, & things went dark for a while.

IMO, IJ players are 'orrid short-changed in the game, historically the IJ had fairly good radio-monitoring & traffic-analysis capability, IIRC they also penetrated some Allied merchant-shipping codes.

My favorite book in this area is John Prados' "Combined Fleet Decoded". He details the efforts of both sides, & includes not only radio intelligence (monitoring, analysis & code-breaking), but also physical intelligence (spying, aerial & submarine photography, prisoner interrogation, analysis of captured aircraft, info from salvaged enemy ships, translation & dissemination of captured documents) & training (language schools & radio monitors). Indeed, he begins his narrative w/ the 1923 Kanto earthquake, describing USN language officers' response to the disaster.

Of particular interest is Prados' description of the way each side integrated intel into their command-structure. The Allies developed a global monitoring network, shared info (not w/o some initial mistrust in the code-breaking capacity), & established joint combat information centers - devoting enormous resources to the task. The Japanese never treated intel w/ the same respect, IJ intel departments didn't have an equivalent seat at the table w/ their command staffs, they mostly performed a library function.

IMO the game-designers got it mostly right, but they missed an opportunity to add more chrome to the game. The IJ could receive the occaisional intel bonanza, especially in the 'planning for an attack' category. The Allied intel could have been altered to decrease when the historical IJ code-changes occurred, & increase after a successful amphibious assault (to reflect captured code-books).

[Trugrit]

Yes, allied intelligence was this good from the beginning of the war.
The game has a fairly good intel model overall.

The allied intelligence was far superior to the Japanese.
Like everything else in the war the allies had better resources

Overview:
http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Vo-Z/Worl ... Codes.html

http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Nt-Pa/Ope ... Magic.html

OZ:
http://www.ozatwar.com/sigint/sigint.htm

Bottom Line overall:
“A number of Japanese Diplomatic, Naval and Military codes were being broken by the early 1930's. The Japanese became aware that their codes were vulnerable and they attempted to improve their enciphering systems. They abandoned their ordinary codes for military and diplomatic messages and changed to an Enigma machine-encoding system which they thought was more secure.

The Enigma system had been used by the Germans in the 1920s. In 1931 the Japanese Navy introduced a cypering machine known as Type 91. It was later known as "The Red Machine". A few years later a more complex encoder was introduced which was known as "The J Machine" which the Americans labelled as the "Purple Machine".

By 1939, the American had also started to break Japan's Diplomatic code which was known as "Purple". They had fully mastered it by 1941.

The Japanese Naval Code, known as JN-25 was being monitored by the British and Americans for a number of years before the War in the SWPA area started.

By 1939, the British had the capability to read parts of the JN-25 Naval Code.
The Americans were also able to read parts of JN-25 by 1941.”

Bottom Line on JN-25:
“The Combat Intelligence Unit worked tirelessly, but the unit had some help from the Japanese themselves. For example, messages, primarily radio transmissions, often began with such stylized phrases as "I have the honor to inform your excellency" and with the names of ships, locations, commanders, the time and date, and similar repeated information that could be easily verified; many referred to military and other officials by formal, stylized titles. These weaknesses, combined with the fact that the Japanese introduced changes to the code only every three to six months, gave American cryptanalysts a toehold into the code.

Soon they were able to read the code, which consisted of strings of five digits. Thus, for example, the string 97850 meant submarine, although because JN–25 was really a cipher, the cryptanalyst had to subtract a value from the string of digits to arrive at the correct meaning. Making this task somewhat easier for Americans, the Japanese changed their cipher key infrequently.”

Add to this something called “fist”. Each individual radio operator when he sends by
Key has individual quirks that are identifiable when he keys the set.
In many cases the allies would know which ship the message was coming
from even before it was completely sent.

Purple:
http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Pr-Re/Purple-Machine.html

Red and Blue:
http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Pr-Re/Red-Code.html

[Yaab]

Thanks. Right now the Allied reports strike me as too uniform in their level of detail. I would welcome some randomisation of it, especially at the start of the war, just to reflect the initial Allied disarray.

[jmalter]

nice post, Trugrit, thanks for the links.

The 'radio-war' is fascinating, & the efforts of code-breaking centers (such as Bletchley Park & Station Hypo) are only a small part of the story. Code-breaking depended on radio-monitoring - listening to IJ radio transmissions, then encoding them & sending them on up the chain by radio or teletype, where they'd be decoded, analysed, archived, compared, evaluated, sent on, then mebbe eventually decoded from their original Japanese, translated, & added to the knowledge-base.

The complexity of the entire operation is mind-boggling to me. Not only did intercept-listeners have to be trained to the Japanese-specific Morse code, every stage of the process depended on accurate, error-free reception & transmission of content-free messages consisting of 5-digit number groups. Some thousands of Allied personnel (including many women) were involved in the process, where any small mistake in coding, transmission or reception could mung the process.

IBM punch-card technology was used extensively, yet in the early days, the USN supply of blank punch-cards didn't meet their needs, they'd have to glom add'l cards from the Army, meanwhile their tech-savvy guys would be doing unauthorized modifications to their leased-from-IBM card-sorter machines, aiding the war-effort w/ a late-night soldering-iron intervention.

[wdolson]

I have read that the Japanese were aware of the radio operator fist phenomenon and one of the deceptions that kept the Pearl harbor raid secret was that the radio operators for the carriers stayed behind in Japan and sent fake radio traffic. The carriers obeyed radio silence on the run in. To the crypto people in Hawaii, it looked like the KB was still in home waters until it was too late.

Japan had such a thing about being an honorable warrior with an emphasis on the offensive. Doing secondary jobs supporting the war effort was seen as weak and fit young men who might have excelled at cryptography or some other support role went to front line service instead. Americans and British also had few qualms about using talented women in any support role that fitted them. Both countries used women extensively in their crypto work and some of the women were quite good at it.

Along a similar vein, the Japanese had some rudimentary radar soon after Pearl Harbor and they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse. You have probably seen pictures of mid-war USN aircraft with radar antennas under the wings. PBYs started getting the Yagi radar in 1941 and carrier borne bombers got it in late 1942 and early 1943. That type of radar antenna was invented by a Japanese college professor named Yagi.

The Japanese had the technology to, at minimum, be one generation behind the US and the UK, but they didn't have the institutional will to make full use of this new technology until it was too late. The USN, like the British during the BoB saw that radar showed great promise in directing CAP during an attack. Early on there were a lot of problems getting CAP to the right place at the right time. Some of these were technological, early radar was not great at giving you the altitude of a blip and they were still learning how the atmosphere could mess up results. But most of the problem was human. The USN developed a director system that would vector the fighters onto a target. The directors had to learn their trade and learn how to give the most useful information to the pilots. For example some early fighter directors would give directions in reference to the ship, which was an easy point of reference for the operator, but if the fighter pilot didn't have the ship in view, it was mostly useless.

For the Japanese it wasn't honorable to go into technological fields in the military, and commanders were more suspicious of new fangled technologies than their Allied counterparts, so while the basic technologies were there, they languished because there wasn't the burning drive to turn the new technologies into the most potent thing possible.

Bill

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Thanks. Right now the Allied reports strike me as too uniform in their level of detail. I would welcome some randomisation of it, especially at the start of the war, just to reflect the initial Allied disarray.

But they are not uniform at all. Sometimes you get some valuable information and sometimes zilch.

[spence]

The Allied SIGINT Report hardly begins to approximate the advantages that accrued to Allied operations as in real life. Many IJN warships were attacked by submarines because they received ULTRA information allowing real time exploitation; e.g. "HIJMS ITCHYKU located at xx.x N, xxx.x E at xxxxZ proceeding course xxx at speed xx, destination: port city. Good hunting". With that level of detail the submarines could not help but be successful. By 1944, the biggest problem the USN/Allies had was having enough personnel to decrypt all the intel that they gathered fast enough to make operational use of it.

In addition, each Japanese merchant ship sent a daily position report at noon in a simple and completely compromised cypher. Even without decrypting the message radio direction finding could give an approximate position for a potential target.

There are some really good examples of the type of info available (including decrypts) to the Allies in the TROMs of various IJN ships...a lot of escort types...not sure but it seems there was a decrypting unit acting in direct operational support of USN subs.

[tigercub]

Wdolson they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse!


I take it they dove on the Ships and recovered stuff?

Tigercub

[Lecivius]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Along a similar vein, the Japanese had some rudimentary radar soon after Pearl Harbor and they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse.

Bill

I never heard a whisper of this before. Every day someone posts something here I have never heard off. Now I'm curious. Off to the internet!

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Along a similar vein, the Japanese had some rudimentary radar soon after Pearl Harbor and they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse.

Bill

I never heard a whisper of this before. Every day someone posts something here I have never heard off. Now I'm curious. Off to the internet!

http://www.network54.com/Forum/594514/m ... +++%3B-%29

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=152950

[Lecivius]

It would appear, from a cursory web search, that the Japanese never did actually dive on the PoW, although they did mark it. There is also a lot of web talk about both being salvaged in recent years, to the point of explosives used on both wrecks. Sad [:(]

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/s ... php?t=3945

There is a link at the bottom of this thread to some very impressive prints of various warships, including Force Z. Interesting stuff. Back to the internet!

<edit>
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/ships/hms/ ... wales.html

Another link, to some fascinating reading. Pay attention to the .pdf's to the right of this web page. Great technical info, and some awesome pictures & drawings.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I have read that the Japanese were aware of the radio operator fist phenomenon and one of the deceptions that kept the Pearl harbor raid secret was that the radio operators for the carriers stayed behind in Japan and sent fake radio traffic. The carriers obeyed radio silence on the run in. To the crypto people in Hawaii, it looked like the KB was still in home waters until it was too late.

Japan had such a thing about being an honorable warrior with an emphasis on the offensive. Doing secondary jobs supporting the war effort was seen as weak and fit young men who might have excelled at cryptography or some other support role went to front line service instead. Americans and British also had few qualms about using talented women in any support role that fitted them. Both countries used women extensively in their crypto work and some of the women were quite good at it.

Along a similar vein, the Japanese had some rudimentary radar soon after Pearl Harbor and they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse. You have probably seen pictures of mid-war USN aircraft with radar antennas under the wings. PBYs started getting the Yagi radar in 1941 and carrier borne bombers got it in late 1942 and early 1943. That type of radar antenna was invented by a Japanese college professor named Yagi.

The Japanese had the technology to, at minimum, be one generation behind the US and the UK, but they didn't have the institutional will to make full use of this new technology until it was too late. The USN, like the British during the BoB saw that radar showed great promise in directing CAP during an attack. Early on there were a lot of problems getting CAP to the right place at the right time. Some of these were technological, early radar was not great at giving you the altitude of a blip and they were still learning how the atmosphere could mess up results. But most of the problem was human. The USN developed a director system that would vector the fighters onto a target. The directors had to learn their trade and learn how to give the most useful information to the pilots. For example some early fighter directors would give directions in reference to the ship, which was an easy point of reference for the operator, but if the fighter pilot didn't have the ship in view, it was mostly useless.

For the Japanese it wasn't honorable to go into technological fields in the military, and commanders were more suspicious of new fangled technologies than their Allied counterparts, so while the basic technologies were there, they languished because there wasn't the burning drive to turn the new technologies into the most potent thing possible.

Bill

Bill, it was not only the technology but the industrial infrastructure that was lacking. Japanese electronics just were not reliable-especially the vacuum tubes needed for effective radar. Most important is that Japan never developed a PPI screen, which any sailor or pilot will tell you is critical for quickly evaluating radar data. (at least until the digital revolution) Every war movie made that involves ships has a scene where they are watching a PPI screen. Having radar without a PPI is like having a sports car with wooden wheels. Yeah, its a sports car but you are not going to do much with it...[;)]

[Symon]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Along a similar vein, the Japanese had some rudimentary radar soon after Pearl Harbor and they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse. You have probably seen pictures of mid-war USN aircraft with radar antennas under the wings. PBYs started getting the Yagi radar in 1941 and carrier borne bombers got it in late 1942 and early 1943. That type of radar antenna was invented by a Japanese college professor named Yagi.
Bill

You are talking from a Wikipoedia perspective. Wargamer attitudes do not trump reality. Technology was a slowly introduced item and a slowly utilized upgrade in exceptional units, early war. Early war radars sucked, sucked, do you hear, sucked. And Japan was even worse. Do you people really believe that game radar crap ?

Oh, sigh, Bill, I thought better of you. Ciao. JWE

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Symon

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Along a similar vein, the Japanese had some rudimentary radar soon after Pearl Harbor and they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse. You have probably seen pictures of mid-war USN aircraft with radar antennas under the wings. PBYs started getting the Yagi radar in 1941 and carrier borne bombers got it in late 1942 and early 1943. That type of radar antenna was invented by a Japanese college professor named Yagi.
Bill

You are talking from a Wikipoedia perspective. Wargamer attitudes do not trump reality. Technology was a slowly introduced item and a slowly utilized upgrade in exceptional units, early war. Early war radars sucked, sucked, do you hear, sucked. And Japan was even worse. Do you people really believe that game radar crap ?

Oh, sigh, Bill, I thought better of you. Ciao. JWE

Not only did RADAR suck , but the operators and commanders really didn't understand how to employ and operate them. Moosbrugger and Burke were probably the 1st , but it wouldn't be till early 45 that real comprehension would set in. But it still wasn't completely mastered till the 50's. Otherwise events like "the battle of the pips" would have never occurred. Even as late as the 1960's some USN officers didn't get it. And as late as 1950 you'd still find RADAR operators sitting "sidesaddle" (because they were afraid their sets would render them sterile![X(]).

The PPI scan WAS a huge improvement , but in many ways it led to tactical misuse. And still does. Because it looks like a map , untrained or poorly trained people still think it's easy to interpret. It's not. It hides a multitude of traps. Now the operator not only has to interpret the display , now he has to convince his junior officer supervisor of his readings. And the other scans are still used in specialized RADAR uses.

No my feelings as a 20+ year Naval Airborne RADAR operator is the game got it right (again) whether by intention or happenstance.


Besides , even in the 1980's there were incidents involving poor use of RADAR. USS Vincennes anyone? [:(]

[Lecivius]

From reading Wiki (I know [8|]) and other sources (and I have no idea on the authority of some of these sites), the Japanese were only 3-5 years behind the US. But the US was behind Britain, who shared their technology with the US with the onset of hostilities. There was an effort on the Japanese part to search the wrecks, but only the Repulse was actually dove on. Documented items retrieved was a 4.5 AA DP gun, ammo, and 'other items', thought to include the radar sets recently installed. They also retrieved some radar gear from Corregidor. The U.S. sets were not as advanced as the gear on the PoW, or the Repulse.

Professor Hidetsugu Yagi was very prominent in magnetron pulse radiation, among a great many other things (great reading by itself!). But Japanese military mindset was so hard core that even when his name came up in intelligence briefings, Japanese military leaders did not know he was actually a Japanese citizen [X(]

That information kind of puts Japanese intelligence in perspective.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Most important is that Japan never developed a PPI screen, which any sailor or pilot will tell you is critical for quickly evaluating radar data. (at least until the digital revolution) Every war movie made that involves ships has a scene where they are watching a PPI screen. Having radar without a PPI is like having a sports car with wooden wheels. Yeah, its a sports car but you are not going to do much with it...[;)]

USN subs used the SJ surface search radar for the first year (summer 1942-summer 1943) with an A-scope before the PPI was developed. The A-scope gave range but no bearing data. It was still highly useful for getting instant range data into the TDC without having to wait for the target to generate a range with mo board methods and multiple observations, or depend on target ID books and the stadimeter, both of which can involve human error. Tracking and approach still had to be at visual ranges though. The PPI and much improved antennae solved that and allowed the end-around tactic to come into its own.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
Along a similar vein, the Japanese had some rudimentary radar soon after Pearl Harbor and they recovered even more advanced radar technology from the PoW and Repulse. You have probably seen pictures of mid-war USN aircraft with radar antennas under the wings. PBYs started getting the Yagi radar in 1941 and carrier borne bombers got it in late 1942 and early 1943. That type of radar antenna was invented by a Japanese college professor named Yagi.
Bill

ORIGINAL: Symon
You are talking from a Wikipoedia perspective. Wargamer attitudes do not trump reality. Technology was a slowly introduced item and a slowly utilized upgrade in exceptional units, early war. Early war radars sucked, sucked, do you hear, sucked. And Japan was even worse. Do you people really believe that game radar crap ?

Oh, sigh, Bill, I thought better of you. Ciao. JWE

Did you actually read what i wrote? I thought I essentially said what you did.

Bill

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Bill, it was not only the technology but the industrial infrastructure that was lacking. Japanese electronics just were not reliable-especially the vacuum tubes needed for effective radar. Most important is that Japan never developed a PPI screen, which any sailor or pilot will tell you is critical for quickly evaluating radar data. (at least until the digital revolution) Every war movie made that involves ships has a scene where they are watching a PPI screen. Having radar without a PPI is like having a sports car with wooden wheels. Yeah, its a sports car but you are not going to do much with it...[;)]

A good user interface makes technology a lot easier to use and more accessible to more people. Pre-PPI radar could give the operator good information, but he needed to be very well trained in interpreting what he was given. A more intuitive presentation allowed less trained operators to use the equipment, though as A1Steve pointed out, there are pitfalls to PPI.

Bill

[spence]

Gyroscope input to the PPI provides degrees True bearings - something close to a "God's eye view" of the battlefield. But were gyroscopic inputs to the early PPIs part of the package? I don't know. Relative bearings (from the bow of the ship) are useful but require a good deal of human input on a "paper plot" to interpret. We practiced precision navigation through a simulated (maybe) minefield at GITMO using sextant angles and relative bearings. It takes some serious practice and the conning officer pretty much depends on the accuracy of the navigation team because he can't really use his "seaman's eye" to make sense of the situation.(in this case IIRC the PPI picture on the radar is used to check the accuracy of the bridge navigation team). That makes the radar data of a non=PPI scope not something which the commander can easily visualize. During a battle the heading of the ship might rapidly change overtaxing even the trained operators ability to interpret the radar data as well.

Of course radar is not as subject to poor weather and darkness as the Mark 1, Mod 0 Eyeball from which IJN commanders derived their data during surface battles.