Idea for scenario any thoughts ?

[Williamb]

Since this "war" is suppose to happen so soon after WWI I was wondering about a scenario involving the following.

After the Allies get Imperial Germany to surrender in WWI rather than breaking up the German's WWI fleet they deciede to sell it to other countries as part of versalles.

And in that thought Japan buys most of the old WWI German and Hungarian fleets as well as some sales to China. Thus they get old German warships like they have old german subs

This would increase the number of Ships the Japanese could have for this war.

So any ideas on if this mod is feasible ? I might tinker with the editor to see if I can add the old german ships to the OOB

[JagdFlanker]

sounds good to me! japan already has a few german uboats in the game (the O class), and should they get more surface ships we might be able to get rid of having the brits/euro colonies remaining neutral to make it an even bigger conflict.

[engineer]

I like the notion.  The German plan to scuttle the High Seas Fleet gets foiled one way or another.  A massive Japanese fleet dismisses all thought of naval disarmament in 1919-1921.  British, if not US, naval construction is accelerated (earlier Hoods and more British carriers) when Japan takes the initiative not to renew the Anglo-Japanese Treaty.  US "mothballed" destroyers and subs from 1921 and 1922 also need to be added back to reinforcements for 1923 and 1924.  Initial Japanese experience levels might take a small hit since they would have to recruit deeply to man all the ships and that would dilute their expertise.   

[Williamb]

OK update on my project.

Made a lot of changes to the OOB and set up. I took the Mod someone else did adding extra ships to the OOB (I forget the name of the mod at the moment. It added some ships that were on paper only to the OOB)

Some of the changes I did to my game BEFORE I added this extra stuff

I disliked how air power was in the original game. I wanted to make this a game more dependant on the raw power of teh warships rather than have air power trump them.

So changes I made were to decrease the payloads of bombers but increase their range. I tweeked it as more space being taken for fuel that causes less bombs to be carried. This increases the range of planes but makes them a much weaker threat to ships. torpedo Planes are still short range and Fighers also lost their bomb loads. This makes air power more of a counter to other air power and a minor threat to warships.

I moved most of the Japanese army into better stiking postions pre war. This decreases the losses that Japan will take from allies subs as their troops have less distances to go. Again can be argued that the Japanese were able to sneak into position and give themselves a better starting advantage.

China lost most of its naval mindfeilds. This makes china more susceptible to Japanese landing invasions and a new theater of war.

i disbanded most of the Japanese TFs so players can pick their own targets from the start rather than be locked into a pre arranged invasion plan.

Some allied troops have also been moved around. Its far less than the Japanese but is a different set up for the allies also.

Now for the current changes.

I changed the air line ups of both sides. I decreased the number of Recon planes and Torpedo planes and increased the number of bombers and Fighers. This again to make warships less of a target to war planes. I also increased the carrying capacity of carriers to make them more of a threat to land based targets and to give them a recon group to keep an eye on enemy ships from a distance.

Now list of ships I have added. I added many more to the japanese but the Allies got some ships also

New Allied ships

China gets two old Austro Hungarian BBs the Teggitthoff and Prinz Eugen. This gives the Chinese some capital ships. I placed all those ships the Chinese had and these two new BBs in Canton to prevent them from being bottled up by the Chinese

France now gets into the war with Capital Ships. I moved the French heavy Cruisers to Northern Veitnam and added to the French line up two old BBs the Voltaire and Diderot At Saigon. Also I added 1 Lt Cruiser and 4 French DDs to both Siagon and another lt Cruiser and 4 DDs to the French Heavy Cruisers. This gives the French now 5 Capital ships and 10 Light ships at the start. Also in rinforcement the French get later in the war the Light Carrier Bearn, The BBS Jean Bart and France, 2 more Lt Cruisers and 8 DDs. France can now join the war.

This total there are now are new to the French OOB 1 light carrier, 4 old BBs, 4 lt Cruisers, and 16 DDs.

The Japanese get the biggest new nummber of ships all at start. Granted they are old German WWI BBs but it does give them more of a fleet

Here are all the new Japanese ships in the reserve fleet at Hiroshima/Kure


Battleships
Nassau, Posen, Rheinland, Westfalen, Helgoland, Oldenberg, Osfriesland, Thuringen, Kaiser, Kaiseren, Frederick Grosse, Prinz Luitpold, Konig Albert, Konig, Gross Kurfurst, Markgraf, Prinz Wilhelm, Bayern and Baden.

That is 19 New battleships ! and add another 5 new Battlecruisers.

Van Der Tann, Moltke, Seyditz, Derflinger and Hindenburg.

Also I added 11 new ex German DDs to the Japanese. That gives them 35 new ships of which 24 are capital ships.

I still have to aid the air groups to the French CV and I want to add a Ground Air Group to both the Chinese and the French. To give them a change to either become aces or victims of the Japanese.

Will upload it when I get it done

[engineer]

One question that took me a lot of time on my Western Citadel mod was a baseline assumption for whether the mod was going to be Human vs. AI (both sides) or human vs. human.  If you have an AI leg in the equation then you just about have to pre-program some initial moves for the AI side(s) and debugging/playtesting those to get the right effect is non-trivial.  This disappears if the scenario is explicitly two player.
 
My experience with planes is that range is almost more important than payload.  In playing lots of late scenario action my experience is that even then the bombers are a just nuisance for capital ships. The 230 lb bombs seldom penetrate deck armor so they apply superficial damage and may strip off a secondary weapons systems mount.  Torpedos are the battleship killer and even a single squadron of experienced TB's can sink a battleship absent air-cover.  Just about any bomb will penetrate merchant ships and destroyers so the reach of the bomber becomes important on whether it is within range or not.  
 
On ground attacks, I rather think that flak may accrue more victory points for downing planes than the bombing results warrant.  Casualities are typically low or non-existant for raids. The disruption/fatigue effects that might accrue from attacks don't seem decisive, but the Japanese AI has hardly ever mounted ground attack air missions in my experience.  I not sure that a lot of tweaking for the sake of ground attacks will have much overall effect.  Certainly changing the capacity for carriers and increasing range for carrier planes will make your carriers far more effective commerce raiders as perhaps an unintended consequence.    

[Williamb]

Im tweaking the final parts of this scenario. I put in all the ships and planes all I need to do is remove errors I discovered in playtesting and edit in the Scenario story and set up.

I think the final version will be ready by the weekend if I dont get too busy

[Williamb]

OK I uploaded it at wargamer as soon as it is approved will post it here

[Williamb]

Well this damn thing is on hold for now.

I discovered a major glitch. Somehow the port of San Deigo has reverted to the Japanese side.

I have no clue what caused this. Everything I see says that all troops and San Deigo belong to the US yet when I start the game they begin on the Japanese side.

the USS Langley and the troops in port are all japanese even though in the editor they read as US Navy. Im completely clueless why they are showing up wrong.

[Terminus]

Sounds good... Just wonder how they get all the crewers needed for those many, many, many extra ships.

[Williamb]

I Fixed the Glitch. I went to an older save of the scenario so the problem I had no longer exists. However the AI edits I did also dont exist. This Scenario probably wont have good AI so best to play against another foe.

As for the new Japanese fleet it has poor crews on the reserve fleet. The new ships are weaker and more fodder than a capible battlefleet to face the Brits and US. But it does give the Japanese more initial firepower at the start.

I uploaded the scenario over at wargamer. Just waiting for them to approve it.

[Williamb]

Anyone know of a different hosting site ? I have waited for a week and my scenario still hasnt shown up on the Wargamer

[Helpless]

Try spooky - http://mathubert.free.fr/

I've been placing files on sendspace http://www.sendspace.com/ as well.

[Williamb]

Finally Wargamer put my scenario up

http://www.wargamer.com/gamesdepot/details.asp?sid=4499

Sorry I had the AI programed but a glitch caused San deigo to become Japanese so I had to backtrack and load an older version of this mod. So the AI isnt programed.

Go to Scenario design to read more about this

[hueglin]

Read the rest of this post and answered my question.