The Evil Empire Option: Standard Merchant Ships

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Far as I know, the Type 2 Ho-I mated a short barrel Type 99 75mm gun to a Type 97-Kai turret. It was a fire support vehicle rather than an anti-tank vehicle, and since the Type 99 refers to 1939, and the Germans had no 75mm anti-tank guns in 1939, I'd say it's somewhat unlikely that this was a German weapon. Could have been the German short-barrel 75mm gun as mounted on the Pz IV, but I doubt it...

31 Ho-I were built in real life starting in 1944, thanks to very low priority, but what-if's are always nice...[:)]

OK - where did 1939 come from? The gun in question was a PAK 40, 7.5 cm, 2600 fps with standard shot or 3250 fps with tungsten shot, 8.4 km range, 6.8 kg shell weigh, 132 mm penetration at 500 m with standard shot (154 mm with tungsten shot), weight in action (wheeled form) 1.425 metric tons (just the rifle itself would of course weigh less).

Sorry, Sid, but you'll have to prove that one. I simply don't believe it; I've seen pictures of both Ho-I and Ho-Ni tanks, and none feature the highly distinctive traits of the PaK 40, i.e. its long barrel length and muzzle brake arrangement.

Not sure I have to proove it? Ya gonna shoot me if I do not? I don't know where the original data came from (possibly the very weapon itself on that specific tank) - although I may well have it in one or several places - I didn't get it from some reference book or original document for use here: I took it from my own vehicle spreadsheet, built over about 40 or 50 years, from multiple sources. This is a vast sheet, and, believe it or not, I didn't feel the slightest need to document every field on the sheet. I have no idea where the original data came from - although since I lived in Japan and visited museums and the National Diet Library on many occasions it is very likely from Japanese materials (which may or may not be duplicated in the West in English). I am reporting that the comment field for this vehicle specifies that weapon. If there is a Western source, it is likely George Forty or Ian Hogg - British authorities whose materials I have also collected. It is my practice to record information of potential future interest - and I have more information of this sort than you would believe (at one time a librarian estimated it is the largest in the USA West of the Mississippi River). I organize it in electronic form - which is not to allege these collections are eratta free - just the best data I have at the current time (because, whenever something is found to be wrong, I correct it) - and unless there is some valid reason ( a scholar or intel agency needs formal documentation back to source - or I am being paid as a technical consultant ) I don't have the time to see if I can reconstruct where I found an item? Certainly not for someone who is impolite, and repeatedly alleges I don't tell the truth anyway, and also that my sources are unreliable because they are war criminals (which, indeed, some of them may be - but that is no excuse not to use the best data we have). Now if you have some real interest in these matters, I can probably tell you where to go looking yourself. In this case, I think we have an actual example of the vehicle you can climb around in and read the nomenclature stamped on the weapons. If you want to collaborate on correcting sheets (on aircraft, ships, vehicles, etc) - and you are prepared to behave in a civil way and apologize for past behaviors which are intellectually dishonest - I will send you all these materials - and incorporate into them corrections you point out based on something you have. I also will send some non-book tables and documents from a variety of sources that might help with such a review. But there is no point collaborating with someone not interested in the truth who does not recognize a kindred spirit - someone who will tell the truth regardless of if it is well known or unknown, popular or steps on long standing prejudice or belief.

A possible source of trouble is identification. I don't know why you are talking about Ho Ni ?? - that is a wholly different species of AFV - as I pointed out above - and all three versions mounted Japanese weapons (if I remember correctly). The tanks might or might not be well identified by nicknames - to such an extent I have devised an alphanumeric designation system for both vehicle and (separately) chassis (modeled on what we use in Detroit - I once worked for Chevrolet Engineering at the GM prooving grounds, and otherwise grew up in a family connected to the automotive industry - so I think in terms of body more than model - just as in Detroit professionals talk about bodies more often than models - identified by letters). I am talking about a tank in the standard tank series that came after the 47mm gun was introduced - the first upgrade to a 75mm weapon. A whole series of different 75 mm guns as main weapons followed, but the very first attempt was with an imported German AT gun. You can have very useful discussions about this with curators of the Mitsubishi Tank Museum, who are very proud of their history.

[DuckofTindalos]

You'll have to prove it for the same reason that everybody else who makes unconventional claims has to prove it. If you go against all available documentary data, then you can't expect people to believe you, just because you say so.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

You'll have to prove it for the same reason that everybody else who makes unconventional claims has to prove it. If you go against all available documentary data, then you can't expect people to believe you, just because you say so.

You cannot know that: you do not have, nor could you possibly know, what "all available documentary data" says. And I probably have more of it than you plus everyone you know has combined. In any case, there is better information than documents: there is the tank itself. What actually exists is true, regardless of what any reference material does or does not say.

Anyway - sans some valid reason to spend a lot of time on this - I have given you my source. I have countless letters from historians and scholars in which they say "I don't know where I got that from" (and at least one who remembered his source wrong, because his source wrote "it wasn't me"). It does not change what is in their materials. I got this from my own material, and I don't remember why I wrote that particular note. That is honest - something you seem unable to come to terms with - and you can bet high odds I wrote it for cause - that at the time I wrote something said that. My spreadsheets (as a "specialist" which is what researchers are called) is evidence admissable in court in its own right. Because this is a free country, you are completely free to discount it - or not. If you want to run it down, I probably can locate source photographs, documents and physical vehicles - but I don't have to do that for everything I happen to mention - wether or not you like it. Being insulting, refusing to honor my requirement you retract your charge I am a liar (when in fact you know it is not so) is not the way to get me to work for you for free. I might even be wrong (honest men can say that) - but if you took odds - you better get better than 10:1 on this sort of thing - or it isn't worth the risk of making the bet - because I am a diligent recorder.

[spence]

Pz-IVf2 with PAK 40

[spence]

Type 2 Ho-I

[spence]

(?now why did those files upload that way instead of the other way?)

Doesn't look like the same gun to me but I'll not claim to be an ordnance expert.

[Mike Scholl]

Boy SPENCE..., those are certainly very similar guns.  Easy to see how one might be mistaken for the other....[:D]

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Hmmm, I know the Japs used both Hurricanes and P-40's operationally in Burma. The primary reason was probably the distance from supplies of replacement Jap aircraft and spare parts for them.

I still don't know why the Japanese wasted time and resources test flying the Buffalo..What might they have learned from that gorgeous flying barrel?

[DuckofTindalos]

Hmmm, did you forget to tick the box that says "Embed picture in post".

And those guns don't look identical because they weren't. The Japanese developed their 75mm tank gun from their own domestic anti-aircraft weapon stock. They also built a self-propelled gun carriage to carry a modified 75mm field gun. There's no evidence whatsoever that the PaK 40 made it to Japan, nor that it was utilized in any Japanese AFV.

I don't care if you put it into your mod, Sid, but don't claim that it's historically correct.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

Boy SPENCE..., those are certainly very similar guns.  Easy to see how one might be mistaken for the other....[:D]

I don't know about that, but I found another note in which I recorded that this same vehicle mounted a 75 mm "Type 99" - which seems unlikely to be a PAK 40.

OK - that note apparently came from Ian Hogg [The Greenhill Armored Fighting Vehicle's Databook], p 124.

Type 2

"1942. Some authorities claim that this was a self-propelled gun, others that it was a close support tank, and on the whole the evidence favors the latter. Derived from the Type 1 Medium...it carried a 75mm Type 99 gun which appears to be a shortened version of the Model 94 field gun. The gun was in a closed turret, with limited elevation, which rules it out for most normal indirect fire tasks and strengthens the close support theory. Although approved for manufacture in 1942, only a limited number were manufactured."

It may be that, originally, they took a Type 1 and mounted a German PAK 40 on it, to proove the concept. In that case, possibly the prototype survived because it was not fielded? Or it may be there were different versions of the vehicle? Anyway, my second note appears confirmed by this. And note the controversy about how to classify the tank itself is mentioned.

EDIT: Or the other way around - The Encyclopedia of Tanks says there were two runs of this vehicle - the second one with a longer 75mm rifle. It is easy to be confused by these matters: Ian Hogg and John Campbell both comment on "the pitfalls of Japanese ordnance" - which is inherently confusing and complicated.

[DuckofTindalos]

The Type 99 75mm WAS the short-barreled gun we see in the picture that Spence posted of the Jap tank.

[el cid again]

I agree. That does not mean it is the only variation however. But since we cannot have very many vehicles - we can standardize on that version.

[DuckofTindalos]

Just to round off the tank gun debate, here's an IJA Type 3 Medium Tank "Chi-Nu", with a 75mm Type 3 gun. It was derived from the Type 90 field gun.

[el cid again]

I like this tank very much - but I have not yet added it. Its weapon was not called the Type 90 field gun - but rather the Type 3 tank gun - according to my notes. [The following upgrade - called "shinhoto chi nu" ("improved chi nu") changed that to a high velocity AA gun - called Type 4 tank gun when put in a tank.] It would enter production only in 1944 in any quantity - generally the year of acceptance is the year before serious production occurs (if only because acceptance might be late in the year and there is lead time for subassemblies and changeover time for the main line to begin production). It is hard to know at this point if these tanks might have mattered in a battle in 1945? Would any have survived air strikes? Were there any good armor officers to command them? But at least they would not have suffered the humiliation that Second Tank Division Chi Ha's did on Luzon - a "battle" in which they never got to shoot at all - because the Americans never had to get in range of their guns.

[el cid again]

The Admiral was unhappy: There are not enough CVEs for the Grand Escort Command. The planning group was not happy either - the economic Tzar would not permit them to lay down new hulls nor cut new turbines or even have VTE engines due to other priorities. How to please both? The Admiral said "you must find suitable existing hulls to convert."

The first one they found was the Conte Verde - an Italian liner (at Shanghai) very similar to the liners the Japanese already planned to convert (except she does not have inefficient Japanese engines, so she gets more range for her fuel load, but isn't any faster than they are). She is stranded by the war at Shanghai. She was really taken over by Japan after the Italian Armistice, but she could have been purchased earlier. The next problem was yard space: too many projects mean she has to wait until the war begins to start converting: but she will come out by mid 1942. She will be named Toyo [Conte Verde] so players may know which hull they are looking at.

Hunting around, they found only three other suitable candidates. And those are the ONLY AMCs left: ALL the others were ruled insufficiently armed to be effective, and retained in AP form - albiet armed - for use as troopships. But the Aikoku Maru class are fast enough for the Japanese conception of a CVE (21 knots) - and big enough for an austere conversion almost identical to Taiyo - or Shinyo (for the former German liner Scharnhorst). The surface navy is sqawking about not having ANY AMCs - so something may have to be done about that - but these are the only other suitable vessels not already converting to CVE or CVL that were found to exist. Once again, there is a problem with yard space, and also with supply of modern naval carrier aircraft and trained crews - so scheduling is not going to permit them to appear as soon as might be ideal - but they all should be in service early in the war. Names are also in contention, but will follow the CVE form - ending in "yo".

There is also the problem that no carriers are planned for 1944 or 1945 - but that is not so hard to solve for the combatant types: there are very efficient designs in Unyo (small CV) and Chiyoda (CVL) - and for later use some form of built from the keel up CVE should be possible based on one of the several types converting. The Taiho can be laid down if a large armored CV is desired. It is all a matter of yards, steel and turbine availability - but inherantly something should be possible. It is pretty academic: Japan will not be able to match the US for numbers, never mind the US plus the UK. If Japan cannot win the war in 1942 or 1943, it is in deep kimche, and surely will be fighting a defensive war to retain what it has taken. That war will in no case feature a Kiddo Butai that dominates the battle space it enters, if only for reasons of relative size. And ultimately the strategy of getting more smaller hulls sooner is better than getting a lot of the carriers later - some of them better protected and larger. A force that is more homogenius in composition and spreads its aircraft over more hulls is ultimately stronger - particularly if it is also available in numbers somewhat sooner - it may be able to keep the advantage of the KB somewhat longer. But I do not see how it could last as a dominant naval battle force into 1944 - and neither did Adm Yamamoto (his "six months to a year and a half" estimate showing a very clear sense of limitation - putting the outside edge of his "running wild" in mid 1943).

[el cid again]

All of the later war escort carriers - if they can be called that - of both IJN and IJA - are cancelled as aviation ships in EEO. Instead they appear as AOs or AKs. These ships carried only 8 to 12 aircraft, and many of those ineffectively small aircraft at that. EEO planners strive for an all Navy carrier force, split between "fleet carriers" and "escort/support carriers". The difference is speed: a CV or CVL should not have less than 28 knots (and only 2 are slower than that - converted liners Hiyo and Junyo); a CVE should have 21 or 22 knots - but should operate two squadrons - not just ASW planes in one - but also a fighter squadron for air defense of the convoy.

But merchant ships to escort are the real heart of the plan. ALL wartime production after the dates standard designs are completed will be to standard designs. This actually improves average capacity slightly - and makes it far easier to assemble a convoy with a good base speed. It also gives the convoys more ships with relatively good AA armament.
EEO is not only using the standard types already in RHS - but adding several others which we didn't do before. The focus is on the original set - the ones with 1 in their designation - because they are better than later ships as well as available to build sooner. Later ships had some quality problems of significance, and some were built to a wrong standard, with a focus on speed rather than more ships (which you can do if you put half a power plant on each). Even the Type M (actually standard type 1M) ships for the Army are pretty much all converte over to AK form rather than their LSD form. Does Japan need offensive amphibious ships in 1944 and 1945? Or AKs? We think AKs.

While this takes a lot of work (lots of slots) - and is not glamorous - it creates a foundation for a stronger Japan - one that has more absolute capacity to lift things. Managing that shipping and protecting that shipping is still up to players - but they have more to manage - if we let fewer vessels be AMCs, auxiliaries, CVEs, LSDs, etc. If diverting ships that carry things inherantly weakens Japan's logistic foundation, increasing the number makes it potentially stronger. Again, it won't be enough to match what the US will produce - never mind the US plus UK combined. [We could not give Japan more ships if we wanted to - there are no slots and there is not much unused yard capacity or steel capacity or enginemaking capacity to make more from. What we are doing is changing WHAT ships are built - in general using the same steel and hulls and engines for a different purpose. While I am sure that better management could have produced more hulls, so far I have not added a single one, and I doubt I will bother to rationalize any before we quit this effort. There will be more AKs, APs and AOs - but every one used to be a different kind of ship or the same ship configured for a different mission or a similar but standardized ship.] But it is a technician's solution - the best possible resource to manage for the least unfavorable ratio of assets. Because of interior lines and inherantly shorter Japanese LOC, it might be enough to matter - given skillful play.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I like this tank very much - but I have not yet added it. Its weapon was not called the Type 90 field gun - but rather the Type 3 tank gun - according to my notes.

Yes, that's what I said in my post as well...

[DuckofTindalos]

How big of a CVE force are you considering for the IJN, Sid (i.e. how many hulls)?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

How big of a CVE force are you considering for the IJN, Sid (i.e. how many hulls)?

So far we have all the historical vessels - either done or planned (but sometimes sunk before conversion etc) which is to day five - plus four = nine total - all before 1943 [Besides a total of 15 CV and 10 CVLs - most historical - and except for the "big four" that start the war - no large ones - no Shinano or Taiho types - all of them using actual hulls or resources for actual hulls recast in the very same yards with appropriate long lead time and engine manufacturing - all of them appearing before 1945 - and 20 of the 25 appearing before 1944]. But that (the 9 CVEs) is for the early war period. I want a few for later war use - replacements for the Grand Escort Command CVEs - but I don't know how many can be done in the industrial conditions. I have to work through the scheduling in the engine plants and graving docks to figure it out: it won't be anything like Kaiser's project (50 hulls of identical type). This planning has succeeded in getting a larger number of moderate hulls soon enough to matter and now needs to round out by replacement planning for out years - which theoretically should be post war years (if Japan wins the war) - but if they have not won - replacements might be critical - or the entire carrier force might have to be withdrawn (as really happened). I guess I would like to make about 8 replacement CVEs (only 8 of the 9 are really CVEs anyway - the other one is Hosho - which is a wierd case not useful for much). And I bet I won't be able to do it - might have to settle for 4 or so. I don't just make up numbers - I have to find the resources and capacity to make them - and figure out when they turn into ships (sans damage to shipyards making shipbuilding points or lack of HI points to feed those shipyards for any reason). Long experience has shown me that Japan needs at least 4 CVEs at sea on major convoy routes to do a minimal job of sustaining the economy (for routes not well covered by land based air). It is hard to do that with 8 ships. And it is hard to imagine that over the course of years only 1 replacement per ship will be enough. This is a very conservative estimate of what Japan might need - but even so it is going to be hard to fulfill it.

Interestingly, in the "strictly historical scenarios" - if Japan could build all the carriers I allow it to try to build (which is less than it planned to build) - there are "slots" for 1643 aircraft on ships (both Army and Navy, including "merchant aircraft carriers"). [BBO reduced that to 1494 because the planning was originally less] EOS reduces the total slots for planes on carriers to 1405. And so far, EEO has reduced that again to 1358. Which is to say, this plan is not aimed at producing a gigantic force - although facing more carriers sooner may make it feel like that. Instead, it is aimed at producing carriers in time to matter - and then replacing them fast enough to keep the carrier forces effective as long as possible. It is indeed optimized to minimize costs - few new engines or hulls - and the new ones are of the most efficient types available - rather than resource hogs like Shinano. Shinano may be an impressive ship - but it is only one ship - it needs the steel required to build 150 escorts or about 4 moderate CVs, or 6 CVEs. More hulls are harder to sink and they carry more aircraft. [Shinano gets 96 planes in RHS. Unryu gets 57 - four times 57 = 228. And four Unryus build in less time, but are harder to sink. The only problem is, they require about twice the engines as one Shinano.]

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I like this tank very much - but I have not yet added it. Its weapon was not called the Type 90 field gun - but rather the Type 3 tank gun - according to my notes.

Yes, that's what I said in my post as well...

OK - I figured out how to add it. The problem is it was in game terms identical with its predecessor - so I reduced the anti-armor value for the shorter gun of the previous model. We now have all the major models - and they will progressively replace each other as the war goes along - if Japan can keep its economy functioning. The need to replace the older tanks will actually place a continuing demand on the economy - and if either players turn off vehicle production or they cannot supply HI points (for any of several reasons) to those vehicle production facilities - the upgrades won't happen. I like it.