Portsmouth Naval Dockyard from the Spinnaker Tower

Portsmouth Naval Dockyard from the Spinnaker Tower, November 2014

It is difficult to identify everything in the picture (and I'm not sure I have all of the Type 45's in frame), But what I could identify by eye included 4 Type 45's, Ark Royal, Bristol, some Type 23's (don't recall the number, it may have been only one), and possibly some others (virtually impossible to see is a ship with a red hull and buff funnel between Bristol and one of the Type 45's, presumably Endurance).

In addition there is Warrior in the foreground, Victory without most of its' masts etc, the Mary Rose Museum in the middle ground, and the Type 45 Systems Integration Facility on top of Portsdown Hill in the far background.

Draft of Cruiser Battle Damage Paper Available

The draft of my paper on modelling the survival probability of ships subject to battle damage has been posted here.

The blurp on the posting site is:

Modelling the Ability of Warships to Survive Battle Damage

This is the sequel to the earlier paper on battle damage survival modelling. In this paper I focus on WW2 cruisers hit by torpedoes, and extends the data set from RN cruisers (as used in the earlier paper) to cruisers of all of the major naval combatant powers: UK, US, Japan and Italy. 

The results for cruisers are better (in a technical sense) than those in the earlier paper, and probably as good as they are going to get using the present methodology.

More Info: This is an early draft, I have not yet decided where to send it.

Publication Date: Jul 2014

Research Interests: 

Statistics, Operations Research, Naval Warfare, Naval History, Combat Modelling,and 2 more

Warrior from the Hard 2014-07-05

Photographed while waiting to collect my daughter from her shift in Boathouse #7. Taken on my mobile, which together with the unfavourable lighting at 18:00 explains the poor quality

Barry Parker's: The Physics of War; from arrows to atoms

While browsing on Amazon for something completely different (a layman’s guide to sonar signal processing to be precise) I came across the book in the title for this post. Looking at the "Look Inside" I noticed a section on American Civil War submarine, which I immediately scrolled down to. This comprised about 1 page of text which I found appallingly vague, inaccurate or banal. To be specific:

I will start with the first paragraph:
“The first submarines also saw action during the Civil War. Actually, the first submarine had been built many years before the war, in 1776 in England. It was a one-man , hand-cranked machine. And the American inventor Robert Fulton had constructed a submarine for the French navy.”

First sentence: The earliest recorded submarine was built by Corneilius Drebble for the Royal Navy in the1620’s to a design of 1559 by William Bourne. Allegedly, capable of staying submerged for 3 hours and was rowed from Westminster to Greenwich and back. Also James I is alleged to have been on-board for a test dive.

The first attempted use of a submarine in combat was with David Bushnell’s, an American "Patriot", Turtle. Allegedly used in 1776 to attack HMS Eagle, Lord Howes flagship, in New York harbour. This attack failed due to inability to attach the charge for disputed reasons. This event appears to be what Parker has garbled in the second sentence of the paragraph. The last sentence of the paragraph appears to be the only one with any resemblance to received history, and it was named Nautilus.

Second Paragraph:
More or less accurate, what is being referred to here are not true submarines being semi submersibles requiring the smoke stack and a low casing always above the water. They were not necessarily all called David, their generic name was Davids after the first of their type, records are sketchy so we do not know what they were actually named if at all.

Third Paragraph:
Hunley, Hunley Hunley …. Not Hurley (one typo is excusable, but please not repeated three times)

Summary
What we have here is basically poor research and possibly poor proof reading, and since this is one tiny section how can we have any confidence in the story being told in the rest of the work.

References:
If you are seeking references:
1. Google for “history of the submarine” and/or “Drebble”, “Bushnell”, “Fulton”, “David class torpedo boats”, “Hunley” etc.
2. Wikipedia has good pages on all of this.
3. My own talk on the history of underwater warfare for the BAE Systems internal Torpedo Engineering Course... but most of you will never have access to that :(

Post Script:
Having now read somewhat more of this work (2004-07-26) it seems that the historical parts are poorly researched, full of errors and half truths, but the physics is generally OK. For what that is worth.

Johan Elg's paper on the Wargaming for Midway

Recently I acquired a new follower on my academia.edu account: Johan Elg. Looking at his profile I discovered that he has published a paper (1) , in Swedish, on the Midway wargames. The blurp on Johan's academia.edu site says of this paper (in English):

This is a chapter on how wargaming was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy in their planning process leading up to the battle of Midway in June 1942. The text uses Japanese sources such as the diary of Admiral Ugaki Matome, responsible for the wargaming sessions, and the official Japanese military history work on World War II. The text indicates that much of the previous critique of this particular wargaming are rather superficial and also from certain sources. For example, it does not put the actual use of wargames in the proper context as the wargaming sessions were well integrated in planning conferences. Neither does it put the actions of the main character leading the wargaming sessions into the proper context as that individual had no less than 3-4 different roles. Furthermore, recommendations made post-game imply that the wargames did in fact indicate the weaknesses of the plan, especially concering how the Japanese were to recieve notice of when the US Fleet left Pearl harbor and approached Midway. Finally, actual combat results from the wargames are very much in line with what an historical analysis would rule as likely results, based on all four major US-Japanese carrier battles of 1942. 

Not being able to read Swedish I cannot comment on the actual paper (yet), but with deft use of Google translate I may eventually resolve this problem, but for now here is Google rendering of the introduction:

Introduction 

The concept of war games includes several types of games and used with many diver-mitered ends. One of these is to act as support for the planning of a military operation consumes. It remains debatable whether war game can really be said to be of specific benefit to military operations. With the benefit is meant briefly the results and data to wargame creates during the planning process that precedes a military operation. Are these results indicative or misleading? In other words, there is a problem whether and to what extent results  from the wargame can be validated. It can also be discussed whether war game properly used in these contexts.

The immediate objective of this text is that starting from a known examples problematize the use and benefit of wargame support to military operations. This case, involving the Japanese planning for the Midway operation (June 1942) is a literature frequent examples of wargames. The example has other advantages, it shows including the extensive planning that preceded the operation. Furthermore, it is also this war game maybe also one of the most contested. One view often put forward concerning the Japanese wargame before Midway was that war game predicted what would happen, but this was ignored by managers. In addition, sometimes means that the war game was heavily biased in favor of one of the two sides. In short, the Japanese side of war gaming has sometimes been described as "a joke". Such an assessment may well tend to get a general assessment of the usefulness of war game. Thus, there is reason to look further into why the current example has criticized and thereby illuminate the any possible benefit a war game can contribute to a military operation.

Indeed, several cases are studied in order to more accurately demonstrate the potential benefits that the implementation of wargames have faced military operations. But because space in this text is limited, and so to some extent objective, only one case chosen to be studied. The naval battle of Midway is generally seen as one of the most important events in the Pacific during World War II. Thus, there is a substantial amount of literature dealing especially the naval battle, but also its context and consequences. This text has mainly used the sources commonly found in an analysis of Midway, for example Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan written by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya in the early 1950s and who are critical of the Japanese planning and, in particular, the war game was conducted. As a counterweight to Fuchida's book has Ugaki Matome's diary used. Ugaki was the game leader in the games that this chapter focuses on. These sources have been supplemented by the official Japanese history portrayal Rekishi ShOS ho Middowee Kaisen of 1971, and with subsequent publications such as Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully from 2005. Someone comprehensive literature analysis of all the texts written about the naval battle of Midway will not be made. However, there is a need to sometimes clarify and clarify the context in which the current source is coming from. This is done in cases where the source material shows divergent interpretations

The chapter is divided into two sections. The first part describes clearly the historical development, various types of war games and central perspectives and models in the field. Among other things, describes the differences between the free and the rigid war game. The analysis is focused on the war game that has a bearing on military operations, and in particular the planning of a military operation. Consequently not included wargame whose purpose is primarily educational, research or amusement. Furthermore, the focus is primarily on the wargame deals with the operational level and neither the military strategy or the lower band level will be discussed more deeply. The second part of the text (Midway) constitutes the main empirical contribution that builds on the first part more theoretical and descriptive anchor

References

1. Elg, J., Krigsspel och militära operationer:den japanska planeringen införMidway 1942, from War Studies Yearbook 2007 (Swedish Defence College)

Conqueror Report of Proceedings, Operation Corporate

I was looking for the SDSR from 2010 on the MoD website today I noticed that the Report on Proceedings for Conqueror and Antrim for Corporate (the Falkland's Campaign) were available (and had been since 2012 apparently). I have been browsing through that of Conqueor and it is well worth a look:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hms-conqueror-op-corporate-report-of-proceedings

While at it here is a link for the Antrim's report of proceedings:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hms-antrim-op-corporate-report-of-proceedings

Article on Mk24 Mine - FIDO published

My article on the Mk-24 Mine aka FIDO, homing torpedo of 1943, has now been published in Battle Fleet and a copy posted to my Academia.edu site. (the copy on Academia.edu is slightly different from that publish as I keep adding material as I find it).

This needs to be updated to reflect the additional data reported in "Aircraft vs Submarine", Alfred Price, where reports of late war FIDO use against schnorkeling submarines spotterd fleetingly on radar and subsequently prosecuted with sono-buoys and FIDO.

Pearl Harbour Statistics

Having recently aquired a copy of Alan Zimm's book [1] about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour (PH) on the 7th of December 1941 to check what he said about the Japanese gaming in preparation for the Midway campaign, I have been browsing through the rest of the book.

Chapter 9 was one of the first sections of the book to attract my attention as much of the material in it is central to many of my interests. This chapter is primarily about what might have been the outcome if some of the circumstances of the attack had been slightly different from what did occur, in particular what might have been the outcome if PH had 40 minutes warning of the impending attack. This analysis is built on the statistics of what did occur, and it is these I want to look at.

Historical Data:
1. Japanese losses were 29 aircraft, 9 from the first wave and 20 from the second.
2. Of the second wave between 8 and 11 were downed by the 14 defending fighters that were effective in getting airbourne (8xP40's and 6xP36's), compared to the 9 official kills recognised by the USAAF.
3. Airfield AA (anti-aircraft fire of all types) accounted for between 2 and 4

Then subtracting the above kill figures from the total Japanese lossess Alan allocates between 14 and 19 kills to fleet AA fire, which he then shows is at the lower end of the number of kills that might have been expected based on statistics for the Pacific in 1942 and the Pacific War in general.

The major flaw I find with this, and the subsequent what-if analysis is that he accepts the numbers for air-to-air kills. It is well know that claimed and confirmed air-to-air kills were greatly inflated [2]. The overclaiming typically could be by factors of between 2 and 10. A concrete example of an extreme case of this is the exchange ratio between F86 Sabres and Mig15's in Korea, where the claimed exchange ratio is ~10:1 which in a Rand study of 2008 the actual exchange rate is estimated to have been more like ~1.8:1 and may have been as low ar 1.3:1 against Soviet pilots of comparable experience to the USAF pilots [3].

Applying a moderate factor of 3 correction to the claimed air-to-air victories reduces the number of Japanese lost this way to ~3. Which leaves 22-24 kills for fleet AA, which is closer to "typical" number to be expected. This may-or-may not make a substantive difference to the final result of the 40 minutes warning calculation, but in the words of LtCmdr Ericson "It's not vital, but you might as well get it right" [4] or rather try to get it right.

References
1. Zimm, A.D., Attack on Pearl Harbor, Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions, Casemate, 2011
2. Wikipedia Contributors, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_and_overclaiming_of_aerial_victories_during_World_War_II, retrieved: 27 March 2014 07:50 UTC
3. Wikipedia Contributors, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_F-86_Sabre, retrieved: 27 March 2014 07:50 UTC
4. Monsarrat, N., The Cruel Sea, Cassell and Co, 1951.

Draft article on Mk 24 Mine/Torpedo aka FIDO completed

I have just completed and sent off a late draft of the FIDO article I have been preparing for what seems like forever to Battlefleet, the journal of the Naval Wargames Society. After this is published I will post a copy on my academia.edu site. There is a possibility that I might prepare a presentation based on this article for this years DSTL symposium on Historical Analysis, we will have to wait and see if this pans out.

As a taster though: One of the things discussed in the paper is the effectiveness of FIDO and to do that we need to be able to compare  its contribution to an attack compared to what an aircraft could have carried in its place. In order to make such a comparison I needed data on the kill probability of depth charges as a function of number in a stick. Fortunately this data is included in Waddington's: ‘Operations Research in World War 2’, some of which I have reproduced in the form of a table which is shown below:

# of DCs	Prob of Kill	Prob of Damage or Kill
2	18%	24%
4	31%	40%
6	45%	53%
8	57%	~70% (extrapolated)

Table 1: Effectivness of a stick of DCs as function of stick size June-October 1943 from Waddington [7]