Taming Expansion of IJ Production

[pad152]

Aggregate losses during the course of the war were of the order of magnitude of 50,000 planes, of which something less than 40 percent were combat losses, and something over 60 percent were training, ferrying, and other noncombat losses.

Total BS! Most of the non-combat losses were planes scrapped for parts! Planes damaged, worn out, or just broke down in the field and couldn't be fixed and were scrapped for parts to keep others flying. This is something most books don't cover and Witp doesn't simulate.

[seydlitz_slith]

Here is my opinion on the matters discussed in this long and winding thread:
Note that I pretty much play PBEM as Japan, always PDU OFF. I also do not expand Japanese industry much at all, but I do a very good job of controlling the on hand resources in the economy to run the war. That said,

1. Up thread a few pages, someone mentioned that a good solution would be to change the number of oil and resource points required to produce a point of fuel or supply. I whole heartedly agree with this as a good start or possible solution.

2. Fuel still needs to be looked at. Lack of fuel was one of the most important factors affecting conduct of the war for Japan in real life. As such, adjustment to #1 above will help, but we also need to make sure that the amount of oil resources produced is still not too high after the adjustment.

3. Remove all of the research aircraft factories from the game. Have Japanese aircraft availability arrive in a fixed scheme just like the allies. That would remove a lot of the inflated ability to produce additional airframes. You could always introduce a variable that dies rolls to see if the plane is ready early or late by X months to increase uncertainty (and apply this to both sides).

4. Japanese Naval builds should be fixed (can't accelerate). Your only options would be NORMAL and HALT. You should still be able to do conversions. Then make sure that the arrival dates are realistic....you could also have a hidden die roll that would possible speed up or delay the actual arrival date for each ship on both sides to have variability.

5. Get rid of the allied respawn, and just put the hulls in with their original names and dates. If the US losoes a CV or cruiser, then have a dialogue box poop up asking if the player wants to reassign the name of the lost vessel to one of the appropriate ships being built. If the answer is yes, the player choses which uncompleted CV they want to rename, and the name is assigned to it.

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: okami
Can't you just increase the load cost of all items and then it would take more ships to load the same stuff? Increase the load/unload speeds so that it does not take any more time to load/unload. Then we could have the same number of ships but less over capacity.

No because then you run into the problem of not being able to load a ship with its historically correct load. Some divisions were loaded onto one ship during the war, but because they reduced historical load abilities already, you need lots of ships to load a division. One AK could carry enough supplies to feed an entire Corps of troops, but if you increase load costs it will take x number more AK’s to achieve the same thing one AK could do historically.

The problem in game stems from the fact the Japanese civilian economy demanded (as did all nations civilian economies) most of the Japanese tonnage during the war. In fact Japanese planners had to temporarily requisition over 1,000,000 tons of shipping from civilian authorities to conduct their early campaigns in the Pacific. Within 6 months of the start of the war this tonnage was no longer under military control.

I think the best solution is to simply demand that each factory use 6 oil and 6 supplies a day to produce what it normally produces now. The one for one system we have now makes it too easy to lift the needed resources and oil home to feed the industry. A lot more stuff that isn’t modeled in game was needed in Japan to keep its industry humming and people fed.

If you simply make the formula for producing 1 point of supply 5 to 6 times more expensive, you suddenly put a serious strain on the shipping without affecting other areas of the game. Since resource centers and oil centers no longer produce supply and fuel as byproducts, increasing their sizes by 5 or 6 times shouldn’t have any affect at all on the game.

Jim

I like this idea but would like to put in for making the conversion factor a senario variable, so modders could change it.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: okami
Can't you just increase the load cost of all items and then it would take more ships to load the same stuff? Increase the load/unload speeds so that it does not take any more time to load/unload. Then we could have the same number of ships but less over capacity.

No because then you run into the problem of not being able to load a ship with its historically correct load. Some divisions were loaded onto one ship during the war, but because they reduced historical load abilities already, you need lots of ships to load a division. One AK could carry enough supplies to feed an entire Corps of troops, but if you increase load costs it will take x number more AK’s to achieve the same thing one AK could do historically.

The problem in game stems from the fact the Japanese civilian economy demanded (as did all nations civilian economies) most of the Japanese tonnage during the war. In fact Japanese planners had to temporarily requisition over 1,000,000 tons of shipping from civilian authorities to conduct their early campaigns in the Pacific. Within 6 months of the start of the war this tonnage was no longer under military control.

I think the best solution is to simply demand that each factory use 6 oil and 6 supplies a day to produce what it normally produces now. The one for one system we have now makes it too easy to lift the needed resources and oil home to feed the industry. A lot more stuff that isn’t modeled in game was needed in Japan to keep its industry humming and people fed.

If you simply make the formula for producing 1 point of supply 5 to 6 times more expensive, you suddenly put a serious strain on the shipping without affecting other areas of the game. Since resource centers and oil centers no longer produce supply and fuel as byproducts, increasing their sizes by 5 or 6 times shouldn’t have any affect at all on the game.

Jim

I like this idea but would like to put in for making the conversion factor a senario variable, so modders could change it.

Extensive research was conducted and the required resources will likely be changing.

I am not in a position to promise anything however you will likely see the ability to change the conversion factor in the editor in a subsequent patch.

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Thats the US usage most other nations were a lot lower (although had other complexities) - Indian army was a fraction of that supply level but required a lot of different ration types.

I would need to recheck my sources but supply for an Indian Div was about c 60 tons a day although that increased dramatically after re mechanisation.


And was  

Slim managed to reduce the Indian Divisions rations down to a minimum by reducing POL requirements. US divisions used a lot more supply (in every aspect) than other armies - perhaps in part because of the inherent morale effect for citizen soldiers used to civillian US food quantities. cf Van Creveld's Supplying War.

re. planes lost. Very true re. non-combat losses but that's because certain economies chose to put things in the shop window by reducing spare part production. (cf Murray's comments on LW in Strategy for Defeat). 20% of total production should be devoted to spare parts. Certain nations (and certain nations for very specific time periods - eg Britain with its tanks c.1940/41) devoted 5% and even less to spare part production. This meant non-combat losses soared.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: Nomad

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns





No because then you run into the problem of not being able to load a ship with its historically correct load. Some divisions were loaded onto one ship during the war, but because they reduced historical load abilities already, you need lots of ships to load a division. One AK could carry enough supplies to feed an entire Corps of troops, but if you increase load costs it will take x number more AK’s to achieve the same thing one AK could do historically.

The problem in game stems from the fact the Japanese civilian economy demanded (as did all nations civilian economies) most of the Japanese tonnage during the war. In fact Japanese planners had to temporarily requisition over 1,000,000 tons of shipping from civilian authorities to conduct their early campaigns in the Pacific. Within 6 months of the start of the war this tonnage was no longer under military control.

I think the best solution is to simply demand that each factory use 6 oil and 6 supplies a day to produce what it normally produces now. The one for one system we have now makes it too easy to lift the needed resources and oil home to feed the industry. A lot more stuff that isn’t modeled in game was needed in Japan to keep its industry humming and people fed.

If you simply make the formula for producing 1 point of supply 5 to 6 times more expensive, you suddenly put a serious strain on the shipping without affecting other areas of the game. Since resource centers and oil centers no longer produce supply and fuel as byproducts, increasing their sizes by 5 or 6 times shouldn’t have any affect at all on the game.

Jim

I like this idea but would like to put in for making the conversion factor a senario variable, so modders could change it.

Extensive research was conducted and the required resources will likely be changing.

I am not in a position to promise anything however you will likely see the ability to change the conversion factor in the editor in a subsequent patch.

This has been an area of extensive discussion as of late for the AE team. Forest has done some very valuable research in support of a fairly extensive concept of change. We are still working out the details but will be happy to share them once we have firmed them up. But we must admit that this thread did drive the action. And we can also say that there was lots of debate within the team!!!
[:D]

[witpqs]

[:D]

[Sneer]

as far as fuel and japanese play
in my old pbem AAR i adressed fuel as limiting my ops in mid 43 / reserves were going down and not enough in key hubs/- i had to spend lot's of time on this aspect
in 44 it would be a certain problem
i don't feel it needs any tweaks



btw unless i'm not correct AE on new map with more bases will be simply slower game
so spectacular blitzes will not be as frequent so there will be less conquested industrial areas
and this lead to slower industry expansion

it will be rather not probable to conquest all China with OZ India etc

[Zebedee]

Problem you really have is producing historical results with ahistorical games...

One simple way to help things out is to make the cost of Japanese planes higher - as it is the Japanese player is getting a totally free ride with regards to spare parts as it comes out of generic supply which is totally seperate to aircraft production. I've never seen the data for Japan, but even the LW never dropped below 5% of total production (ie 2% of total war industry output) for spare parts. Anglo-Americans (once US was producing sufficient planes late 1940 onwards) never really dipped below 20-25% - but that's already accounted for I think.

Of course it's not a great solution and has some problems (does Japan still have to be charged with supply costs in the repair phase?) but I think if there's ever to be a WitP2 then the whole Japanese war economy and how it is modelled really does have to be changed or it will be the same problem as with WitP.

----

re. Japanese fuel supply - totally agree that it already starts to run dry by 43. One thing I notice as well is that I have an overabundance of oil on the home isles but very little in the way of resources.

---

re. US supply to troops - the US troops were estimated to have given or bartered or sold roughly 30% of all rations received. That's after it has left the QM's hands and is in the hands of the GIs. (Think this was in Van Crefeld but could be wrong). Germany on the other hand deliberately undersupplied its troops, relying on local requisitioning to a huge degree. I know Japanese diets were a lot less 'substantial' than US diets in any case but did they requisition locally to any extent? And if so, could it be modelled well?

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Zebedee
re. Japanese fuel supply - totally agree that it already starts to run dry by 43. One thing I notice as well is that I have an overabundance of oil on the home isles but very little in the way of resources.

That's interesting. In one of my PBEMs (21 Apr 43), my total fuel is >3.75 million points. I wouldn't say I have an overabundance of oil, but those levels are definitely higher than resources. The reason for that is that manpower uses resources.

[esteban]

Problems with the current production/logistics system and some solutions.
 
1. Sub warfare sucks even when the Allies all have good torpedoes, so Japanese resource convoys sail almost unmolested.  The game allows you to use ahistorical ASW measures that mostly favor the Japanese.  I'm not sure I would really change the ASW part, but subs in the game have the life expectancy of a mayfly once they get into combat.
 
2. R&D factories should still require 1000 supply to repair each factory point.  Right now R&D factory repair is free.  Doing this will dramatically increase the cost of Japanese air production expansion and soak up a lot of the supplies the Japanese can stockpile if the Allies leave them alone.
 
3. Remove bugs like being able to get arms and vehicle production from arms and vehicle plants that the Japanese player has shut down.  This gives the Japanese "free" HI points diverted from alledgedly shut down (but still producing) arms industries that can be put towards aircraft production.
 
4. Add similar sized "food centers" to the resource center hexes.  Make it so Japanese population centers and factories require "food" in addition to resources and oil.  You've just doubled the amount of AKs the Japanese need to keep their economy going.
 
5. Remove supply production at resource centers, but double it at factories.  Now you've increased Japanese shipping needs even further as they now have to move more supplies from Japan out to their units in the field. 
 
6. Fix the obvious flaws in Allied air production.  These include WAY too many 4 engined bombers in 1942, but also the production of WAY too many Hellcat night fighters.  Roll the F6F5N production overage into the normal Hellcat production.  If there were more P40s and such sent to the Pacific earlier in the war, up these production numbers
 
7. Redo the operational losses algorithms so that they are not affected by the durability rating on aircraft.  Right now, this favors the Allies too much because their aircraft have much higher durability ratings than the Japanese. 
 
8. Increase Allied production levels based on certain Japanese successes.  If the Japanese VP points for bases captured vs. Allied base VPs reaches a certain level, then increase allied production to simulate resources diverted from the ETO to the more embattled Pacific.
 
9. Increase Allied ground unit replacements.  For example, the equivalent of about 2-3 U.S. Army divisions per year in U.S. army squad replacements for the Pacific seems very low.  Mind you, losses in the game are generally pretty low unless a unit is destroyed or forced to retreat.  So historically grinding Stalingrad-style battles or even costly victories like Tarawa or Iwo Jima in the game actually don't produce a lot of lost squads and weapons, and therefore don't consume many replacements.
 
 
NOW, all this being said the Allied player does get a LOT of breaks that he historically didn't have.  The prevalence of the "Sir Robin" strategy being an excellent example.  Force Z cruising out of Singapore for Soerabaya or Ceylon on the morning of December 8th, 1941 was simply not an option in real life.  Neither was running 150 transports to Malaya and loading up most of the Malaya army.  At the very least, I think that the Malaya army should be a restricted command, so you have to pay PPs to get any ground units out.
 
So lets not get too holier than thou about how the Japanese have it so easy in the game.
 
 
 
 
 
 

[DuckofTindalos]

Sub warfare does not "suck". You have to put some work into it.

[pad152]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

First; the reason the average Jap player does much better than his historical counterpart is because he knows from hindsight not to do certain things/do certain things. There is no real consequence of doing something wrong. Let KB hang around Pearl a week or two and bomb the base to bits. If you screw up and lose a CV or two, a new game is just a restart away. There is no IJA/IJN conflict, the supply system is abstracted enough to let you reload 16 inch-shells from any random base on the map you captured two days ago. Aircraft magically appears on a remote jungle base simply by clicking on a button. Etc etc etc. Production comes very low on this list of why the Japs do better than historically.

Second; the idea to cripple the Japanese industry by putting a limit on the production is ridiculous. That is like claiming that it was physically impossible for an industrial nation with millions of citizens to build more than 1000 aircraft a month. Thats just stupid. Does anyone in here really believe that if the Japs had had enough resources, factories, manpower, oil, infrastructure etc, they wouldnt have been able to build more aircraft than they did in real life? The US would always be able to produce more, yes, but that is a different kettle of fish entirely. Then your beef is with the US production system and not the Jap production system. A far better solution would be, then, to increase US production if Jap production reaches a certain threshold. For example, if Japanese aircraft production gets higher than 1000 aircraft per month, then the US production doubles. If it gets higher than 2000 aircraft per month, then the US production is quadrupled.

In many of the AARs where the Jap player has huge production numbers, the Jap player has also captured large parts of China, sometimes even India or Australia. With all that the added industry, resources, manpower who can really argue that it would be impossible for the Japs to produce more than they did in history?

Agree! Remember player vs player is different from player vs the AI, don't cripple the game due to player vs player!

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli


That's interesting. In one of my PBEMs (21 Apr 43), my total fuel is >3.75 million points. I wouldn't say I have an overabundance of oil, but those levels are definitely higher than resources. The reason for that is that manpower uses resources.

Just re-checked my current AI game (12th March 43). Fuel levels are 2.8 million points but that's very well scattered across the map. Especially on the home isles - one factor could well be that AI auto-convoy is on for that game and that means things get stockpiled in 'odd' places.

Thanks for reminding me that manpower uses resources. That would certainly explain why Osaka/Kobe is permanently on 999999 oil but rarely manages to get above 25k resources despite me helping the auto-convoy out. (edit: hmmm I think I must have broken the game. I'm due to run out of resources by the end of 43... [:D] note to self: do not overheat the Japanese economy by forgetting manpower uses resources too. )

I noticed too that the main oil producers are all now below 100k oil stockpiled so maybe an overabundance of oil was slightly misleading [:o]

[esteban]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Sub warfare does not "suck". You have to put some work into it.

Sorry, but it sucks

I've only ever played the stock game PBEM, but:
1. The Japanese player uses his ASW assets much more like the Japanese should have instead of how they did--don't want to prevent that really, but it "sucks" for the Allied player
2. Lots of search aircraft and unemployed recon aircraft used on naval searches mean that you have a very hard time moving your subs around without your opponent seeing where you are going and rerouting his convoys/ASW accordingly

In my experience, once you get past the initial part of the game subs are good for laying minefields and concentrating them around bases you are trying to defend or take where they can pick off cripples trying to make it home. You can try flooding an area where you feel lots of merchant ships are going to be, and that can get you some merchantmen, but if your opponent puts 4-5 bombers squadrons and 1-2 ASW task forces on patrol in the area then you will take extremely heavy casualties

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: esteban

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Sub warfare does not "suck". You have to put some work into it.

Sorry, but it sucks

I've only ever played the stock game PBEM, but:
1. The Japanese player uses his ASW assets much more like the Japanese should have instead of how they did--don't want to prevent that really, but it "sucks" for the Allied player
2. Lots of search aircraft and unemployed recon aircraft used on naval searches mean that you have a very hard time moving your subs around without your opponent seeing where you are going and rerouting his convoys/ASW accordingly

In my experience, once you get past the initial part of the game subs are good for laying minefields and concentrating them around bases you are trying to defend or take where they can pick off cripples trying to make it home. You can try flooding an area where you feel lots of merchant ships are going to be, and that can get you some merchantmen, but if your opponent puts 4-5 bombers squadrons and 1-2 ASW task forces on patrol in the area then you will take extremely heavy casualties

It my experience, if you assign a sub a patrol hex and never move it until it is out of fuel, then it "sucks". But if you stay proactive with your subs and constantly move them around each turn, the allied subs can do a lot of damage...even early in the war.

[John Lansford]

I agree with Charbroiled; you cannot leave Allied subs in one hex until they are low on fuel.  Either the ASW forces will show up or the convoys will avoid the area like the plague.  I usually leave them up to 3 days in one place before moving them, but if a convoy shows up I'll have them "chase" it hoping for additional attacks.  With these tactics I have lost only about half a dozen subs into early 1943, but have sunk many dozens of merchant ships.  The best areas I've found are off Japan's east coast, both east and west of Borneo, and NW of Truk.

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

I agree with Charbroiled; you cannot leave Allied subs in one hex until they are low on fuel.  Either the ASW forces will show up or the convoys will avoid the area like the plague.  I usually leave them up to 3 days in one place before moving them, but if a convoy shows up I'll have them "chase" it hoping for additional attacks.  With these tactics I have lost only about half a dozen subs into early 1943, but have sunk many dozens of merchant ships.  The best areas I've found are off Japan's east coast, both east and west of Borneo, and NW of Truk.

I have similar success with Japanese subs (and that's with sub doctrine on too). The critical thing is to move it if it's spotted. The AI automatically seems to route ships around hotspots, and as it's not too bright then you can actually predict the routes it will put ships on longhauls onto. I'd imagine this holds true for player v player too.

Staying around to take the heat from either Allied or Japanese ASW flottillas and the ASW LBA is a sure way to get your subs sunk very quickly as Esteban has found. Have your subs where the planes don't fly instead.

[ny59giants]

Before this gets more off target (subs vs ASW), please note this thread that Don started a while back. [;)]
 
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1719073

[John Lansford]

I've got up to 20 fleet subs operating off the coast of Japan right now, so nearly all the approaches to their big bases are covered.  I spend probably half my turn time just moving the subs around a hex or two; the others around Borneo and Truk I don't move as much but there are fewer routes the merchants take there as well.  The subs just N of Borneo have been effective in hitting the AI's tankers, and I rotate them with new subs from Darwin when they run low on torpedoes.  The shorter ranged S class I use out of Midway (and Wake as soon as I get an AS there) to patrol the Marianas and around Eniwetok, as well as north of the Solomons (out of Lunda).
 
I love my AS ships; they're one of the first ships into port when I capture a new base.  I've got them in Lunda, Makin, Midway and Andaman Island as well as Darwin and Townsville.