Midway (2019) - Japanese Midway War Games

Midway (2019) - Japanese Midway War Games
A scene portraying the War gaming conducted by the Japanese Combined Fleet prior to the Midway Operation. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Etsushi Toyokawa) arrives at a war game underway by Admiral Chuichi Nagumo (Jun Kunimura).

According to "Shattered Sword" by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, the IJN officers in charge of playing the Red Forces (US Navy) submitted a course of action that closely resembled the tactics that would be used by the Americans in the actual battle where the US carriers had arrived sooner then anticipated and hit the Japanese flank while they were bombing Midway. This resulted in heavy damage to the Japanese carriers, however these results were overturned by the referee to follow Admiral Yamamoto's plan assuming the US carriers were to arrive at a later time. There was no indications that the US carriers were near Midway thanks to US deception efforts.

Despite having the concerns of US carriers possibly arriving early raised during the war gaming exercises there appears to be no solid planning to address this potential shortcoming. The war games conducted by the Japanese for the Midway Operation was seen as formality rather then an actual exercise in addressing potential shortcomings of the operation.