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Threw a bit of additional material on the front end of the Russel Islands, to try and get a better flavour across on just how major an event this is (the FFO Midway).

I understand that Shane and Frank are still working on this (Shane is quite ill right now, too), so of course it's tentative.

Cheers: Mark

Aaron, you have no credibility to state what you have. You had an opportunity to develop such credibility through working on a self-contained campaign, but refused to consider that option. I have no quibble with that, it's your call entirely and I'll do it later in due course with Russ.

You have then flamed people who have never been anything but civil to you despite your outbursts over time, and who were quite happy to assist you in developing credibility as a researcher and writer within this project.

What on earth makes you think you can simply take my work, which is coherent and internally consistent across the five levels of war and the Japanese war economy, and also validated by research, and alter it to suit your own views?

It is not acceptable in view of the nature of the discussions presumably taking place between Shane and Frank, and from the basis of common courtesy.

You will note that the additions I have made have a purpose - to introduce to the reader that this is the turning point of the Pacific War. Readers with sufficient knowledge and sophistication have already noticed this (see Russ's comments on the matter).

Warfare is as more a matter of defeating the grand strategy and strategy of the enemy than a matter of 'beancounting the losses'. It consistently surprises me that so many people (especially those old enough to recall Vietnam) still fail to comprehend this - the USA won nearly every battle in that war, but their grand strategic plans and their strategic plans were thoroughly defeated by Hanoi. So they lost the war.

Similarly, in this, the Japanese grand strategy lies in ruins, as does their implementation strategy. Their operational art, operations management and tactics remain truly formidable, but you can track an extremely rapid US operational skill and tactical skill increase from August to December 1942 in FFO.

As I have said earlier, if people want to 'sex up stories' with additional losses, fine - but to keep to what we can realistically model, we have to stick close to OTL knowledge so as to be able to control the variables. This is not possible without following an approved and sensible framework because we simply know too little about the Japanese to be able to control the variables resulting from 'sexing up stories' with loss rates more reflective of OTL US capabilities in 1944 than their know capabilities in 1942.

SO, those 'sexed up story losses' have to be compensated for, to stop the back end of FFO becoming TBO-like sci-fi. But in doing so we'd have to inject artificial and economically ridiculous additional IJN construction - which carries its own distortions.

If I am forced to do so, I will simply adjust the Japanese construction schedules with a deliberate, open, and clearly flagged "Imposed Construction Artificiality", and continue as long as I feel it worthwhile to do so.

You see, I'd still be the one expected to make all of this work and to carry the load of adverse criticism from people who would clearly identify the artificialities. Meanwhile, the ones demanding 'proof' of their ahistoric belief of ineffable US superiority in all places and at all times would be demanding ever more IJN losses to satiate their need to reinforce those beliefs and criticising me for not pandering to their frankly stupid whims.

Well, that is simply not going to happen. No thanks - I am never going to do that.

I will not do that for one simple reason. I am in FFO to learn things - for me, it is a research project from which I personally derive a very great deal of new knowledge. The production of stories for the consumption of others is a minor part of FFO for me: time consuming and increasingly unrewarding.

I can dispense with this part of FFO without difficulty or regret -and I can do this right now if I so choose.

I would be quite happy to produce nothing more than the briefest of timelines with nothing at all for broader readership except:

"Dec 42. Battle of the Russel Islands. Combined Fleet defeated by Allies. Japanese lose chance of retaining Guadalcanal. Allied losses exceed Japanese losses."

So why do I waste so much of my valuable time to write up these thousands of words? The reason - the ONLY reason - is that I feel it would be selfish of me not to share some of what I am learning. At present, it is the infrequent but coolly rational comments of precisely four people (you know who you are) who make this effort even faintly worthwhile.

Mark