Mersing (Gambit) Gamey?

[DesertWolf101]

Because the British were closely observing and tracking Japanese movements as they made their way towards Thailand/Malaya. The first loss of the Pacific War was actually a British PBY - happened even before the Pearl Harbor attack occurred. It's one thing to attack Manila from the air from Formosa and Pearl Harbor from the middle of an empty ocean, it's entirely a different proposition to approach a large port/airfiled with extensive maritime and air traffic extending into the South China Sea and still maintain the element of surprise. If the Japanese were moving on Mersing in force there is simply no way the British would have been caught napping.

I thought that an Australian Hudson was shot down about 1.5 hours before the Pearl Harbor attack started.

Besides, the Japanese were attacked by air during the night.

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/resource ... -1941-1945

A British PBY shadowing the Japanese convoys was shot down by Japanese Zeros before the Japanese landed at Kota and triggered the Allied attacks.

Edit:
I looked it up to give more detail. The British PBY in question was shot down off the coast of Cambodia and was crewed by Australian pilot Patrick Bedell and his crew. Zeros out of Japanese bases in Vietnam shot it down when it got to close to a convoy heading towards Malaysia. The PBY was shot down before it could transmit a distress call.

[RangerJoe]

Because the British were closely observing and tracking Japanese movements as they made their way towards Thailand/Malaya. The first loss of the Pacific War was actually a British PBY - happened even before the Pearl Harbor attack occurred. It's one thing to attack Manila from the air from Formosa and Pearl Harbor from the middle of an empty ocean, it's entirely a different proposition to approach a large port/airfiled with extensive maritime and air traffic extending into the South China Sea and still maintain the element of surprise. If the Japanese were moving on Mersing in force there is simply no way the British would have been caught napping.

I thought that an Australian Hudson was shot down about 1.5 hours before the Pearl Harbor attack started.

Besides, the Japanese were attacked by air during the night.

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/resource ... -1941-1945

A British PBY shadowing the Japanese convoys was shot down by Japanese Zeros before the Japanese landed at Kota and triggered the Allied attacks.

Edit:
I looked it up to give more detail. The British PBY in question was shot down off the coast of Cambodia and was crewed by Australian pilot Patrick Bedell and his crew. Zeros out of Japanese bases in Vietnam shot it down when it got to close to a convoy heading towards Malaysia. The PBY was shot down before it could transmit a distress call.

I did not know that but I knew about the Hudson that was shot down. Unfortunately it is apparent that the Americans did not know about this nor did they actually check on what the ships with the code words for the Japanese carriers were doing. The carriers swapped code words with destroyers. Also, the "hand" for the radio operators can be compared to see if it is the same radio operator sending the coded messages.

[Yaab]

Hudson pilot: "Reconning a TF? Isn't that dangerous? How many fighters do the Japanese have over there?"
Intel guy: "Zero"

[Encircled]

Mersing Day 1 - gamey

Mersing Day 2 - not gamey

You know exactly where all the allied units are, and exactly how they can or can't react, so you have to bear in mind that advantage you have

Its like carrier hunting on Turn 1, or bombing Sydney, or San Diego

thank you
i would never consider carrier hunting or anything east coast, pearl harbor or past singapore

I hope that you mean West Coast!

He's very ambitious!

[Yaab]

some things that fall into the gamey category :
- using lower numbered TF's and airgroups to get an advantage (although that might have been fixed, who knows)

I guess TF/airgroup numbering is how the game code resolves who goes first in a given turn. Read this post by wdolson
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7#p3576687

"As the bases got built up and the raids began to weaken, I started sweeping with some of my fighters. Most of the early sweepers were Corsairs which did rack up a high total. VMF-111 had something like 8 of the top 10 aces, but it was just luck of the draw. Because it was earlier in the OOB, it probably swept first most of the time and got into the most enemy fighters. I was careful to keep pilot fatigue low and even stood them down for a day or two. This did reduce losses.

I use low IDs for airgroups that perform Sweep missions
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6#p3577886

[tolsdorff]

....

I guess TF/airgroup numbering is how the game code resolves who goes first in a given turn. Read this post by wdolson
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7#p3576687

"As the bases got built up and the raids began to weaken, I started sweeping with some of my fighters. Most of the early sweepers were Corsairs which did rack up a high total. VMF-111 had something like 8 of the top 10 aces, but it was just luck of the draw. Because it was earlier in the OOB, it probably swept first most of the time and got into the most enemy fighters. I was careful to keep pilot fatigue low and even stood them down for a day or two. This did reduce losses.

I use low IDs for airgroups that perform Sweep missions
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6#p3577886

yeah. if both players are aware it is not a problem as well.
I was never aware until some AAR a long time ago. I remember more players not knowing about it, but my memory might be wrong.
Randomizing the order of airgroupst might have been better. All by itself it should not be that hard to code, just randomly shuffling the id's in a list. but who knows what that part of the code looks like.

[Uncivil Engineer]

I think it is considered gamey due to the alarm that would be raised if the majority of the IJN sailed into that area. It could not be a surprise attack and would have been tracked for days just as the historical troop movements were. The entire carrier force definitely would have alerted the British and Americans and caused them to be proactive rather than hoping the Japanese moves were just a consolidation of their position in Thailand.

Tracked for days? Just like they tracked the Pearl Harbor attack force of 6 CVs!

[RangerJoe]

I think it is considered gamey due to the alarm that would be raised if the majority of the IJN sailed into that area. It could not be a surprise attack and would have been tracked for days just as the historical troop movements were. The entire carrier force definitely would have alerted the British and Americans and caused them to be proactive rather than hoping the Japanese moves were just a consolidation of their position in Thailand.

Tracked for days? Just like they tracked the Pearl Harbor attack force of 6 CVs!

They did track the troop convoys but they did NOT track the KB. The code words for those CVs were switched with code words for destroyers.

[varsovie]

....

I guess TF/airgroup numbering is how the game code resolves who goes first in a given turn. Read this post by wdolson
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7#p3576687

"As the bases got built up and the raids began to weaken, I started sweeping with some of my fighters. Most of the early sweepers were Corsairs which did rack up a high total. VMF-111 had something like 8 of the top 10 aces, but it was just luck of the draw. Because it was earlier in the OOB, it probably swept first most of the time and got into the most enemy fighters. I was careful to keep pilot fatigue low and even stood them down for a day or two. This did reduce losses.

I use low IDs for airgroups that perform Sweep missions
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6#p3577886

yeah. if both players are aware it is not a problem as well.
I was never aware until some AAR a long time ago. I remember more players not knowing about it, but my memory might be wrong.
Randomizing the order of airgroupst might have been better. All by itself it should not be that hard to code, just randomly shuffling the id's in a list. but who knows what that part of the code looks like.

It might be simple4 to have a table to assign a play order to IDs instead of switching IDs. Also could be possible to reshuffle the order every turn or every month.

Actually abusing game mechanics to gain an unforseen advantage is the definition of gamey.