-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 1
fjarlq/midway
Folders and files
Name | Name | Last commit message | Last commit date | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Repository files navigation
MIDWAY(PUBLIC) MIDWAY(PUBLIC) USAGE % Midway [-b bad weather] HISTORY In the early summer of 1942 the Imperial Japanese Navy was full of pride. In the first six months of war they had already conquered most of Asia and Micronesia. There seemed to be no stopping the "Yellow Tide" as it was called in the United States. In the summer of 1942, then, the Imperial War Machine was found to be casting its lustful eye upon the Western Pacific and even the West coast of North America. The American Pacific Fleet had been nearly annihilated at Pearl Harbor and could muster little resistance to a Japanese offensive. Against the 11 Battleships of the Japanese Navy, the United States had none. Against the 12 Heavy Cruisers, 7. Light Cruisers: 9 to 1. And of the most powerful but yet unappreciated ships, the Japanese had 8 Aircraft Carriers to the United States' 3. Nevertheless, the 3 US Carriers were a perpetual thorn in the Japanese Lion's side. At the Battle of Coral Sea in April, the US Carriers Enterprise, Yorktown, and Lexington put two Japanese fleet Carriers out of action and sank the light Carrier Shoho. The Lexington was sunk, but the Japanese had suffered their first set-back. In an effort to crush the American Carriers once and for all, Admiral Yamamoto assembled the largest fleet the world had ever seen, and set sail for Midway Island, a morsel to eat on the way to California. His flagship was the gigantic Yamato, still the largest Battleship ever built. Admiral Nagumo in the Akagi had command of 4 fleet Carriers and was in charge of reducing the small Sand Island fortress to a smoking seashell. The future would have been grim for the American Pacific fleet had not Admiral Nimitz been eating his Wheaties. For several months his CS majors had been busy cracking the Japanese code. Thus, he knew the approximate location of the coming attack and deployed his three Carriers and their escort ships north of Midway. On the morning of June 3, 1942 a PBY Catalina from Midway sighted the Light Cruiser Jintsu and a high level bombing attack with B-17's was commenced. Not all the B-17's found the Jintsu but turned north. To their surprise they found Admiral Nagumo's 4 Aircraft Carriers and dropped 20,000 lbs. of bombs without scoring a single hit. They killed a lot of fish though! Nagumo armed all of his Mitsubishi 97 bombers with 500 lb. bombs and sent wave after wave to attack Midway Island. Midway somehow survived and Nagumo needed another attack to finish the job. He had no knowledge of the nearby American Carriers which were at that moment launching planes for his own Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu. He ordered his reserve planes to rearm with bombs for Midway while the first attack squadron was still flying home. He had been saving these planes for any American ships which might have been discovered during the bombardment of Midway. Another fateful decision he made was to wait for the first wave to land and refuel before launching his second attack. Thus all of his planes were on deck being refueled and rearmed when the Yorktown's torpedo and dive bombers poured out of the sky. The Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu were reduced to burning hulks within minutes, and Nagumo went down with his ship. Only the little Hiryu was missed in the thunderous assault and could launch planes. This she did and the pilots followed the returning American planes home to the Yorktown. The Yorktown with only two Cruisers for support fell prey to three 500 lb. bombs and was slowed from 21 to 6 knots. The Enterprise launched her 4 remaining Douglass SBD Dauntless dive bombers for the Hiryu. By some miracle, all four found the Hiryu and scored hits. The Hiryu had to be scuttled and the Captain committed Hara-Kiri. The Yorktown was hit by two aerial torpedoes by another squadron from the Hiryu and started to list severely. Admiral Fletcher ordered his crew to abandon ship but the Yorktown refused to sink. He sent salvage crews on board and ordered a tug from Pearl Harbor to tow the Yorktown to port. The Americans would have won a tremendous victory at Midway instead of their merely wonderful victory had not a submarine torpedoed the listing Yorktown and sent her to the bottom. As it was, Yamamoto was struck a monumental blow. He realized even the Godzilla Yamato was defenseless without air cover. He turned his fleet back to Japan and faced the wrath of the Emperor. EPILOGUE The United States built a formidable Navy in two years which was composed of some old Battleships and about 100 fleet and light Carriers. The largest sea battle of the war was fought in the Phillippines at Leyte Gulf in 1944. The Yamato's sister ship was torpedoed 12 times by Carrier planes and sent to the bottom. The Enterprise was the only American Carrier from the original 4 to survive the entire war. She fought in every major battle from Coral Sea to Leyte Gulf. "Haul ass with Halsey," was the old war cry. INSTRUCTIONS When you play Midway, you are in command of a ship which can move, fire its big guns, and fire its anti-aircraft guns. If you have choosen an Aircraft Carrier, you will have fighters, torpedo bombers, and dive bombers to launch. Launching Planes: c: Combat Air Patrol: You can send as many fighters as you like on patrol around the ship. When your ship is attacked, they will take a big bite out of the attackers before they get you. f: Launch Fighters: It is a good idea to send fighter cover first when launching an attack on an enemy carrier, otherwise next to nothing will get through her CAP. When you launch fighters you will be asked, "Target? ", at which point you type the name of the enemy ship you wish to attack. The names must be capitalized, just like they are printed on the screen. b: Launch Dive Bombers: Bombers are good to launch next. When they get within four squares of their target, they drop bombs which have a 50/50 chance of doing damage. A 'square' corresponds to 1 nautical mile. Dive bombers are ineffective against fighters. t: Launch Torpedo Bombers: Torpedo Bombers launch their fish at a range of 7 squares and are fun because they usually hit everything in sight. Torpedo Planes have rear gunners who can shoot down a fighter now and then. s: Launch Scout: Scout planes are the eyes of the fleet. They spot the bad guys before they spot you. It is necessary to spot a target before you can attack it! Scout planes subtract from your Torpedo Planes. When launching scout planes, the program will ask you for a course. You should respond by typing a number from 0 to 360, where 0 is north and 90 is east, etc. @: Launch Random Scouts: You can send as many scouts as you like on random scouting missions. They fly a random walk. r: Recall Planes: If you decide that it would be better to break radio silence than to let your planes fly on their way, you can signal them to return home with this command. Recovering Planes: Planes are supposed to come back automatically after attacking their target. If their mother ship has been sunk, they will try to land on their flagship. Shooting down planes: If you think the bad guys are getting a little too close, you can fire your anti-aircraft guns with the direction keys yu k io \ | / h - + - l / | \ nm j ,. A '*' that hits adjacent to any plane (+ or -) destroys it. Example: + +* A hit! ^ + | + | + * A miss! ||| | Some ships have more anti-aircraft guns than others, naturally. Moving: Ships move at the rate of one square per turn. Scout planes move a fast 15 squares per turn, and heavy attack planes lumber along at leisurely 10 squares per turn. Scout planes discover enemy ships if they fly within 50 squares of one. Attacking planes will do the same if within 30 squares. Ships don't spot each other until they are 25 squares apart. It's a big ocean out there! To steer your ship, use the direction keys: YU K IO \ | / H - + - L / | \ NM J <> Flagships: The first ship in each task force is the flagship. All the other ships follow it around. A nice reason to play one is that if you get sunk, you can transfer your flag. A not-so-nice reason is that enemies shoot at flagships first. When a flagship is sunk the next ship in line, if there is one left, becomes the flagship. Firing Guns: Battleships and Cruiser and some Carriers have big guns which can be used against other surface vessels. To fire your guns, type a carriage return. If there is an enemy flagship within range (25 squares), he will feel your teeth. Automatic Mode: If you think the battle is going slowly, type an 'a' to put the game into automatic mode. Your ship will continue on its present course and the game will progress rather quickly until you resume manual control with an interrupt (^?). You can turn off the screen for even faster automatic mode with the command 'A'. This 'silent running' mode is also terminated with an interrupt (^?). If you type 'w' then the program will go into 'A' super-crunch mode until something is printed on the 'notes' portion of the screen. This command lets you go into automatic mode without the fear of being sunk before you can type an interrupt. 'w' will also be terminated by a interrupt (^?) in case you want to look around. Scanning: If you want to look at another ship and watch it sink or something, type 'S'. It will ask you for the ship's name. The data at the bottom of the screen as well as the display will show the scanned ship's current status. Display: The lovely display has 10 different scales, 0-9. Each higher scale shows twice as much ocean as the one preceding it. Scale 0 shows things as they really are, one space on the screen is one square wide. At scale 9, one space on the screen is 512 squares wide. All ship's names are printed on scales lower than 4. Only enemy ship's names are printed over scale 3. Also, only flagships are printed over scale 3. There are numerous other things that depend on the chosen scale, but I'm getting tired of writing this doc file. The display shows how many bomb or shell hits the ship you are looking at can take under the label 'hits.' The number of torpedo hits it can take is recorded under the label 'torps.' The ship's points (for sinking enemy ships) and her row, col are also printed. I know I forgot something. Statistical Data: At the beginning of the game, every Carrier of the Japanese Imperial Navy launches planes for Midway. This combined force numbers 79 Fighters 121 Dive Bombers 130 Torpedo Bombers for a total assault of 330 planes. It is amazing that Midway can survive it at all! Incidentally, when all the planes are in the air and attacking something, the program has to move over 400 planes, ships, and torpedoes each turn! A programming marvel! Midway Quick Reference Command Table: 'h': 'l': 'j': /* flack */ 'k': 'i': 'o': '.': ',': 'n': 'm': 'y': 'u': 'H': 'L': 'J': /* move */ 'K': 'I': 'O': '>': '<': 'N': 'M': 'Y': 'U': '\n': /* fire guns */ 'c': 's': 't': /* launch */ 'f': 'b': '@': 'r': 'a': /* automatic */ 'A': /* silent super-crunch mode */ 'w': /* wait for action */ '0': '1': '2': '3': '4': '5': /* scales */ '6': '7': '8': '9': 'S': /* scan */ '^L': /* redraw */ 'q': /* play rogue */ Midway Symbol Table: '+': /* American planes */ '-': /* Japanese planes */ '?': /* friendly scout planes */ '*': /* anti-aircraft explosions */ '#': /* bomb, shell or torpedo explosions */ '.': /* unexploded topedoes */ Riggle's Book of Fighting Ships: ^ -/ Aircraft: 24 to 78. /+\ /++| /--\ |+I /++// |+++> Carriers: 7000 to 27000 tons. |+I |+// \--/ Guns: 0 to 3. \_/ - AA: 2 to 4. ^ / Aircraft: 1 to 3. | // /-- ||| //// ----> Battleships: 29000 to 73000 tons. ||||| /// \-- Guns: 7 to 10 \|||/ \// AA: 2 to 3. ^ | / - | / ----> Heavy Cruisers: 9000 to 10000 tons. ||| // - Guns: 3 to 4. | // AA: 1 to 2. ^ ' | / --> Light Cruisers: 5000 to 6000 tons. | / Guns: 1 to 2. AA: 1. xxxx Aircraft: 90. x\-/x x|o|x Island: 250000 tons. x/-\x Guns: 5. xxxxx AA: 10. AUTHOR Dave Riggle BUGS Interrupting automatic mode messes up the screen sometimes. Use ^L to fix it.
About
Dave Riggle's simulation of the Battle of Midway
Resources
Stars
Watchers
Forks
Releases
No releases published
Packages 0
No packages published