I guess Ido is making a reference to the erroneous report of Formosa air battles.
It's normally bad when the enemy realizes you're so wildly delusional that he tries to lure you into a trap based on it. They seriously almost sent in surface ships to attack "cripples" after this battle until someone with a shred of sense left called them back.
Correct me if I am not wrong but didn't Admiral Halsey got a hold of that report and made a humorous declaration about the ships sunk had been recovered and are back in action
All the navies of the world used telegraph. There really wasn't the technology at the time to encrypt a live telephone conversation, but a telegraph could be thrown through a cypher like Enigma, thus making communications hypothetically secure. (And at close range, they used Morse to signal using lights since that was basically impossible to intercept unless you physically got in a line between the messenger ship and the recipient.)
Plus, unlike KanColle, keep in mind, the captain of a ship isn't necessarily sitting in the radio room waiting for a call at all hours, and the admiralty didn't necessarily want to have small talk with the radioman while they waited for the captain to finish his shower.
Ahhh... LBAS strikes and overclaiming. Why do those two go together so well?
You think I'm kidding? Even the US had trouble with it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's where "Haruna is alright" came from.
There's a difference between Imperial Japanese kill claims and everyone else. Everyone knew soldiers always claim more kills than actually occurred. Most militaries tried to reduce the problem by requiring more evidence to confirm a kill. On average this resulted in two "confirmed" claims for each actual kill. The Japanese just took their soldiers at their word and divided the kill claims by two. This tended to result in ten "confirmed" claims for each actual kill. The only other force that was anywhere near this bad was the Waffen SS. Himmler allowed SS officers to make up evidence for kills, and the SS encouraged enlisted men to donate their kill credits to their commander. That's how you get battle reports where the tank company fights for 24 hours but only commander's tank gets any kill credits.
AOBA NEWSNA
CHIASHI
GARAUSHIOHATSU
SHIMOAKEBONOUnderstand it in 4 panels!ARMYExtra, extra!!The Formosa Air Battle is a
GREAT SUCCESS!!Second Striking Force, weigh anchor!The battle results:
Carriers, 19; Battleships, 4; Light Cruisers, 7; etcThe battle results were incorrect!Command!There's a shitton of enemies!Darn it!
The report was wrong?Ah, whatever.FINThe enemy's field strength has been shattered by more than a half!!This for reals?
That's kinda too much success, yeah?Got a bad feeling...What?The enemy still has good strength!We'll confirm its veracity!Just keep it quiet to the army and the citizens!AOBAAAA!A
BUQUMAKOOMAYep, the correction is still wrong.
