Japanese airframe production

[Elladan]

Didn't expect it to be an option for CV groups. Should be for land based ones though. I will check again tonight, it's quite possible I just messed something.

[Kitakami]

ORIGINAL: Elladan

I had PDU on and A6M3 didn't show as an option for most of the groups. Haven't checked it thoroughly as it was very late yesterday.

I just checked, and you are correct. Of all IJN land-based fighter units, only one can be upgraded to A6M3, even with PDU on.
So, I guess it is a question for Joe:

- Is that part of the design, only one unit can be converted to A6M3 from those that are available at start?
- Or is it a side-effect of the units being carrier-capable?
- Or if we upgrade that particular unit then we will be able to ugrade the others?

[Elladan]

Ok, so it seems I wasn't as wasted yesterday as I thought

- Or if we upgrade that particular unit then we will be able to ugrade the others?

I haven't seen that. Even after I have upgraded that unit no other were showing A6M3 option.
If it is working as designed and we have to live with it this will surely have a big impact on IJN fighters production planning.

[vonSchnitter]

Some more on IJN Patrols and Transports:

Patrol:

There is just not much of note on the Patrol craft. There are just 14 groups for the duration with some 150 airframes - not squaring expansions or withdrawels or permanently resticted groups - 1 I believe.
Which means, inherent requirements are rather small - unless you care to upgrade all Mavisses to Emilies in a hurry. (about 100 airframes)

Since the efficiency of long range naval searches seems to be on doubt - (some thread about a naval search cut-off range) - I would keep things as they are and adjust to attrition requirements.
In fact, I am locking at not upgrading the H6K4 factory to H6K5 at all, but rather wait for the Emily - or even convert the Mavis factory to Emily anway whwn the type gets available - freeing up the Emily R&D factory for use with something else.

If long range naval search can be demontstrated to be of use, augementing the small number of patrols should become a consideration. Using the later model Nell for the purpose comes to mind.

Transports:

Well, to me using IJN transport AC is a two-sided sword. On the one side it cuts into the pool of naval pilots, on the other side longer range than the IJA types can offer or the need to supply no AF bases quickly and temporarily may offer some distinct advantages.

If there is a need for range early on, it is related to para-dropping. Since this has been somewhat cur-tailed in AE, the use of Tinas is very limited.

The other thing - dropping off troops and supplies into non AF bases exists from early on.
So my idea goes like this:
Leave the bulk transport to the IJA types, use the IJN for long haul special duties or for no AF available support. Conserve them as much as you can
That is: No Tinas, increase the Mavis Transport slightly - for tactical options.

Later on the Tabby is the ticket - as a big hauler. Ignoring the Betty transport type - even though it comes in numbers - should not be much of an issue.



btw. I am not going into IJN land based fighters, NF types and such.
For three reasons:
1. Those issues may arise after the end of 42 - by the time I may get there some improved dataminig tools may have become available, well beyond my humble attempts at using spreadsheets or basic sql database use.
I just want to make sure, my decisions may not hurt later developments too bad.
2. Planning beyond that time does nor make much sense to me: Too many variables to influence things.
3. After establishing the new airgroup spawning rules, any attention to late war issues look quite moot.
Actually. I feel quite tempted to convert any R&D factories with availabilties after Q4/42 into the earliest possible productive R&Ds - just for production flexibility. Esp. since the ROI in R&D looks quite meagre on R&D.

[Q-Ball]

Nightfighters are useless in WITP. Maybe they have a purpose in AE. But I will need a good reason to produce Irvings and Nicks.

[Elladan]

Later on the Tabby is the ticket - as a big hauler. Ignoring the Betty transport type - even though it comes in numbers - should not be much of an issue.

Why not Emily? Bigger load, longer range, earlier availability and is a floatplane. More expensive, true, but this shouldn't mean much with the numbers needed.

[vonSchnitter]

Well Elladan,

yes the Emily is the big hauler. No doubt.

Lets forget the IJA transports - just the IJN ones for now.

Air lifting has two applications:

Offensivly by supporting advancing troops - or by paradrops.
Or as a kind of expediting tool to cover up glitches  - or needs - in the supply/forces chain.

If you look at the period till the end of 42 - the offensive part - where is the emily ?

In this regard the Emily is not much more as a "plug" to howl stuff in an emergency to a place - fast.
However, this is not a technical or purely numbers thing.

To be more precise: I see no place for 4E IJN howlers till the end of 42, except for supporting advances. (in theory)

After that: If your defense perimiter has issues - the Emily may be your only choice.

[Gobstopper]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Nightfighters are useless in WITP. Maybe they have a purpose in AE. But I will need a good reason to produce Irvings and Nicks.

Nick has jumped to the front of the line as the first post start fighter to come online (well technically fighter-bomber). 4 months before tojo and 10 before tony. and it has armor and cannon to boot. slightly less maneuver than tojo and 2 engines as downsides, but more range, durability, and a nice bomb load. should be the plane of choice for taking on big bombers i'd think.

[Djordje]

ORIGINAL: Kitakami
I just checked, and you are correct. Of all IJN land-based fighter units, only one can be upgraded to A6M3, even with PDU on.
So, I guess it is a question for Joe:
- Is that part of the design, only one unit can be converted to A6M3 from those that are available at start?
- Or is it a side-effect of the units being carrier-capable?
- Or if we upgrade that particular unit then we will be able to ugrade the others?

There are some IJA recon units that upgrade to KI-27 and some other fighter type (forgot which one). With PDU turned on when you select possible upgrades for those recon squadrons you see all the recon plane types and KI-27 with them. Once you convert that unit to KI-27 you can no longer go back to recon planes, but upgrades open for all other IJA planes effectively taking away recon squadron from you and giving you another fighter squadron.

Perhaps same thing will happen with those squadrons that upgrade to A6M3 and seem to be dead end, other IJN planes might open once you upgrade it. Someone has to actually play the game until then to test it though...

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: Gobstopper

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Nightfighters are useless in WITP. Maybe they have a purpose in AE. But I will need a good reason to produce Irvings and Nicks.

Nick has jumped to the front of the line as the first post start fighter to come online (well technically fighter-bomber). 4 months before tojo and 10 before tony. and it has armor and cannon to boot. slightly less maneuver than tojo and 2 engines as downsides, but more range, durability, and a nice bomb load. should be the plane of choice for taking on big bombers i'd think.

It had some troubles with that in Witp. Will be interesting to see how it fares in AE. I suspect speed was an issue.

[Q-Ball]

I'm open minded, maybe the Night Fighters are worth a damn now. I tried them as bomber busters and pretty much everything else in WITP; didn't work. They were useless.

Even as Kamis they sucked.

[Gobstopper]

well, only the last nick is qualified as a night fighter, the 1st 3 are FB. but what else can you use? the tony appears to be pure crapola now until the 100-I in 45 and even then, the frank shows up at the same time. tojo's are unarmored until 3/44 although they may still be the answer vs other fighters.

[seydlitz_slith]

The Nick (FB version) would be an outstanding choice as an early fighter. Good range, good firepower, relatively good speed and maneuver. Only problem that I can find is that as a fighter bomber, regular fighter units can't select it as a valid upgrade. They can take fighters only, not fighter bombers. It would be nice if this was fixed in a patch.

[Elladan]

vonSchnitter,
I was refering to your statement about Tabby being the plane of choice for IJN transport groups later on. I don't see her being better in any way then Emily, so i asked why have you chosen Tabby.
As for the airlift applications, I see evacuation as another one, that's later in the war though.
I agree there is not that much work for transport groups in general, so I don't plan to invest in those planes too much, but having said that I think I will aim to produce only Emily when it becomes available. Unless someone can prove me wrong and show any other IJN transport is better.

[Mynok]

Emily is a transport aircraft now? [&:]

It has always been capable of supply transport but it isn't a transport AFAIK, and transport squadrons shouldn't be able to upgrade to patrol aircraft. Thus the tabby is the best transport aircraft the IJN has.

[Elladan]

There is Emily-L, the transport version of the plane. Patrol version is obviously there as well (2 of them if I recall correctly).

[Mynok]

Ah..that's a new plane then. The only issue to consider is the payload vs the Tabby, as otherwise I would heartily agree that the Emily would be superior in all other aspects as a transport: range, airfield not needed, defensive armament.

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Ah..that's a new plane then. The only issue to consider is the payload vs the Tabby, as otherwise I would heartily agree that the Emily would be superior in all other aspects as a transport: range, airfield not needed, defensive armament.

Emily-L has 12400 load vs Tabby's 9920. However Tabby has two engines and a service rating of 2, whereas Emily has four engines and a service rating of 4. Both are unarmed but the Emily-L does have the armour point and a higher durability. Depending on the impact of the service rating, that might make it a bit less of an obvious answer. But in the absence of hard numbers on service rating and its impact, the Emily-L certainly looks like a lovely transport.

[Elladan]

The additional cost derived from number of engines can be safely ommited from the calculation, simply due to a very low number of planes needed as compared to other types.
As for the service rating, hard to say without any in-game experience, but I don't see them being in constant use, rather a burst mode. That would alleviate the problem a bit. Anyway, for me the Emily-L is clearly a winner. And it comes earlier as well.

[Mynok]

Service rating should not totally be ignored. One of the primary uses of Jap transport aircraft is extracting troops from isolated bases. This can cause quite a load of damage, which will take a lot longer to repair on the Emily-L. Which means you will need more planes to maintain the evacuation.

Still, it is quite nice to have the ability to extract troops from dot bases now....assuming there's not some special code to keep them from doing it. They should at least have the ability to get troops out using sea landing and take off.