Japanese Production crash course

[findmeifyoucan]

My first time as Japanese player can someone please tell me in 100 words or less what is the state of the Japanese Production as it sits at the start of the war? Like if nothing is done are they low in AC, land, naval or merchant shipping? Also like what air craft should they stop producing.
I just want to get an idea so I don't totally screw up the Japanese economy 6 months down the road.
Also, how do you build new ships or can you?

Tony

[Xxzard]

I haven't played the Japanese side on AE seriously yet, but I can at least answer your last question. The answer is that you can't build 'new' ships per se, but you can accelerate ships that you recieve in the future. I like to accelerate the 43 to 44 arrival carriers, as they might actually come in time to help you out in 43. Alternatively, you can accelerate the early auxiliary carriers like hiyo and junyo so that you can reinforce KB or mini KB. Depending on your what you want to do, you could also accelerate your super battleships so that they arrive in time to be useful.

However, keep in mind that you can't do all things at once. Just accelerating one of the Yamato class ships will probably consume all of your extra points that you use to accelerate shipbuilding. Similarly, do you want to accelerate a great ship like the CV Taiho if it means that it will only arrive slightly earlier to its doom. It may be the case that accelerating ships later in the war is a hopeless cause.

Anyway, this is a subject of detailed study to be sure.

[erstad]

100 words or less? If you do nothing, you won't be that bad off, especially if you are playing the AI. If you do something, you might be a little better off, but you could also really mess things up.

If I were to do only one thing as Japan I would halt production of shinano.

Edit: My comment that you could leave the economy alone and it would be OK for a while (not great) was with regard to industry changes, which was my interpretation of the original question. The other comments that resources need to be hauled from Day 1 are correct and this is not optional.

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: findmeifyoucan
My first time as Japanese player can someone please tell me in 100 words or less what is the state of the Japanese Production as it sits at the start of the war? Like if nothing is done are they low in AC, land, naval or merchant shipping? Also like what air craft should they stop producing.
I just want to get an idea so I don't totally screw up the Japanese economy 6 months down the road.
Also, how do you build new ships or can you?

Tony

OK, I'll give that a go ...
Resources(-2500),Oil(-8110) & Fuel(-4585) are all in varying states of decline at the start of the war. Supplies and Heavy Ind. are in surplus.
Honshu is your major production zone, and there are only 35 days of resources available, so you will need to start shipping immediately from other areas in Japan/Manchuria and China. You have 6 months of fuel and 12 months of Oil on Honshu, securing the SRA is essential to future ops.
A/C
You are building 375/mth. Without increasing a/c production, you will need to bring your engines into equilibrium. Ha-31 increase to 55 immediately and 67 by 3/42. Ha-32 increase to 96 immediately. Ha-33 increase to 107. Ha-35 increase, if you increase zero or Oscar production. Specialisation and stopping production is your realm. Pick your choice of one or two Float Planes and Transports (IJN/IJA).
Hitachi Early, Kotobuki and Ha-5 "could" be changed to other engine types -depending on your choices.
Naval and Merchant
Naval & Merchant shipping is basically in equilibrium in the short term.
LCU
Armament production is fine.
Vehicles production double.

[bradfordkay]

Please make sure to create a course in crashing the Japanese economy and send it to my opponent: ChezDaJez...

[FatR]

A few answers from another newbie:

1)Create a bunch of convoys to haul resourses from China and oil/resources from Sakhalin to Honshu on day 1. Put them to automatic voyage between your chosen ports so that they'll continue hauling cargo until ordered otherwise. You also have some resource production points in Indochina, but sending convoys there is not safe, until Gonkong, Manila and Singapore are overrun or neutralised as significant bases. Even against AI. Your main objective is capturing resource and oil points of Dutch East Indies, then setting more convoys to haul your spoils to home islands.

Create BIG convoys with ample anti-submarine escorts whenever possible, but remember, that your convoys should be able to dock in the both ports between which they will be moving. Particularly, every convoy with tankers with it should be well-protected, because you have very few tankers. Consider pulling at least some of your long-range destroyers and fast seaplane tenders from the front-line duty to guard them, as soon as you finish your first phase of conquest and start hauling oil from Dutch East Indies to Home Islands.

2)Production of fighter planes will not cover or will barely cover the losses, and you also need to switch alot of units that fly old and useless planes to your last-generation fighters. You need to at least double the production of Zero and Ki-43-Ic, with the appopriate increase in Nakajima Ha-35 engine production. Also, Ki-27 should be phased out of production either immediately or by the beginning of 1942. Maybe you should switch the main plant on Home Islands to Ki-43, and leave the small secondary plant in Manchukuo to produce Ki-27, so that your Ki-27 units won't wither from operational losses (Ki-43s will probably do the vast majority of battling with enemy fighters, due to 27's limited range, and unescorted bomber interception is a pretty safe duty).

3)You produce NO B5N2 torpedo bombers at the beginning. And these planes are both the most dangerous anti-ship weapon and the plane most vulnerable to flak in your carrier arsenal. You must restart the plant and expand production immediately.

Also, switch Ki-57 Topsy for Ki-56 Thalia. Topsy has slightly worse characteristics and is the only currently produced plane that uses Nakajima Ha-5 engine. So if you do this you can switch Nakajima Ha-5 plant to something else.

Remove Ki-36 Ida from production. In this game, it is useless, but costs as much as better one-engine planes. All groups that fly it must be converted to something else ASAP.

I'm not sure if you can axe any floatplanes. Alf is already out of production. The rest either have considerable number of incoming airgroups exclusive to them, or unique advantages.

4) Your key engines are Nakajima Ha-35 (all of your modern fighters) and Mitsubishi Ha-32 (all of your medium bombers). The situation with former is tolerable (you need to expand, if you want to expand fighter production, though), but you don't produce enough Ha-32s.

Switch the production of Hitachi (early) to something else. Yes, some late-game planes use it, but you already have a huge pool.

5)Your forward bases have enough supply and fuel to support the initial fighting. Afterwards, consider sending big convoys escorted with ocean-going PBs to automatic delivery to major hub bases and then hauling supply out of them by xAKLs escorted with Es and subchasers to minor bases, as necessary. Unfortunately, looks like you cannot command your convoys to carry supply out of Home Islands and load resources on the return trip.

EDIT: 6)After the historical first turn, you are unlikely to meet any meaningful battleship opposition until late summer of 1942 at least. And even then, you already have 10 battleships. Consider delaying Yamato and Musashi, so your new light carriers can be put into service as fast as possible. Having a mini-KB for supporting Philippines and DEI operations during first months of the war is very useful and even one extra carrier can make a difference. At the very least, speed up CVL Shoho.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: FatR

Unfortunately, looks like you cannot command your convoys to carry supply out of Home Islands and load resources on the return trip.

Ahh! So I'm not so stupid. I was trying to figure that one out and of course not being able to do it forces you to use more transports ...

[jwilkerson]

I would point out a few key differences between WITP and AE:

01 - NRA - In addition to the SRA - we now have the NRA (Northern Resource Area) which primarily includes Hokkaido and Sakhalin. You will actually be drawing most of your "resources" from these two Islands. So get this going asap and figure out how to increase their protection.

02 - Fuel in home islands. Don't pull much fuel out of the Home Islands, actually you will need to be bring fuel in to the home islands, so every tanker load you pull out will have to be replaced later.

03 - Fuel in the SRA. Once you capture places like Palambang or Balikpapan, you will have fuel sources in the SRA, then you should pull most of your fuel from here and NOT pull it from the home islands.

04 - Resources in Formosa and Vietnam. Two additional early resource producing ports are Haiphong and the small port on the (map) NE tip on Formosa. Build these ports up and protect them and start the convoys running.

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Please make sure to create a course in crashing the Japanese economy and send it to my opponent: ChezDaJez...

You know, of course, that this means war?!

And besides, I'm already an expert at that... at least in CHS!

Chez

[vlcz]

Ahh! So I'm not so stupid. I was trying to figure that one out and of course not being able to do it forces you to use more transports ...

It forces you to manually manage your convoys, at least against a human opponent... double convoys making both empty return trips only to use CS:??? double escorts????? [:-]

Would love an option to load "X" at destiny[8|]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

I would point out a few key differences between WITP and AE:

01 - NRA - In addition to the SRA - we now have the NRA (Northern Resource Area) which primarily includes Hokkaido and Sakhalin. You will actually be drawing most of your "resources" from these two Islands. So get this going asap and figure out how to increase their protection.

I always thought Manchuria was Japan's "northern resource area"...

[xj900uk]

You can order your convoys to disband once they have unloaded their 'cargo',  hence preventing them from returning home

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

You can order your convoys to disband once they have unloaded their 'cargo',  hence preventing them from returning home

That's what I have found to be my best solution. Not all of them, but many. Take a lot more resources in as compared to supplies out.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

You can order your convoys to disband once they have unloaded their 'cargo',  hence preventing them from returning home

That's what I have found to be my best solution. Not all of them, but many. Take a lot more resources in as compared to supplies out.

My solution is to pull resources from the resource producing areas using CS and let them go. If the resource producing area needs supply, it's usually pretty infrequent. I'll make a separate, one time, convoy to send the supply.

[FatR]

A few more thoughts about research and production of airplanes:

Planes that should not be researched:

- Ka-1 should be axed first of all due to being useless. Moreover, there is no impending air groups that fly it and only one that upgrades to it. Also, it allows to switch research of Kayaba Argus engine to something useful.

- D5Y1 Myojo is another fairly obvious candidate. It is one of those late-war erzatz-planes for suicide attacks, that cost you as much as real planes. It has no its own flight groups, and, in fact, only two airgroups upgrade to it. So, even without PDU you don't really have much reason to research it, condering that it comes on 45/12.

- Six small plants are busy researching late-war twin-engine fighters and fighter-bombers, none of which get their own airgroups: Ki-83, and various versions of Ki-93 and Ki-102. That's awfully redundant. I suggest keeping Ki-83 as the best fighter of the bunch. Night fighter and fighter-bomber versions of Ki-102 shout be kept: the latter arrives much earlier than everything else and the former is your only potential radar-equipped IJA nightfighter. The fighter version of Ki-102 is arguable. Compared to the fighter-bomber one, it has excellent max attudude and little loss of maneurability at high attitude, significantly better speed, and its armament, while not as good (Ho-401 cannon, unless lack of entry date in the database will prevent its appearance, is made of win), is passable. But both Ki-93s probably aren't worth it and should be replaced. The fighter version appears on the same month as Ki-83. But Ki-83 has 50 mph of speed advantage! Its armament also seems to be much better against air targets, its climb is 50% better, its range is better and it can carry a little bit of bombs. Sure, Ki-93-Ia is more durable and has a turret MG, but who cares, speed alone makes Ki-83 the winner. Ki-93-Ib, the fighter-bomber version is good, but I'm not sure that its armament are actually improved compared to Ki-102, and it arrives more than a year later. Also, both Ki-93s have awful service rating of 4.

While we talk of fighter-bombers, Ki-119 is another plane with no air groups that should be considered for elimination. You should weight, whether ability to carry a 800-kg bomb offsets worse flight characteristics than that of Ki-102 fighter-bomber version, even worser armament and poor range, all of that on 45/12.

- Q1W1 Lorna is a patrol aircraft with short range. Unless its unique radar happens to be really, really good (and I don't see that from its statblock), you're better off patrolling with Betties.


Production changes:

Ki-57-I Topsy and Ki-30 Ann are the only planes that use Nakajima Ha-5 engine. You should build one of them, preferably Ki-57-I, until using up all of the remaining engines, then switch. Ki-57-I uprgades automatically on 42/3. It is probably better to eliminate either Ki-57 or Ki-56 from production in the end, as their characteristics are about even. Probably Ki-56, contrary to my earlier thoughts. Ki-57-II uses the less valuable Mitshubishi Ha-31 engine.

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

You can order your convoys to disband once they have unloaded their 'cargo',  hence preventing them from returning home

That's what I have found to be my best solution. Not all of them, but many. Take a lot more resources in as compared to supplies out.

My solution is to pull resources from the resource producing areas using CS and let them go. If the resource producing area needs supply, it's usually pretty infrequent. I'll make a separate, one time, convoy to send the supply.

The only reason I could think of taking supply to a resource base would be for jumpstarting repairs.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

The only reason I could think of taking supply to a resource base would be for jumpstarting repairs.

.....or to feed the garrison. Remember, resource bases don't produce supply anymore on their own.

It's an adjustment. In WITP, the SRA was a huge supply source. Now, the main supply source is Japan.

[Mynok]

Right, but the vast majority of them are in rail range of or co-existent with supply-generating industry.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Mynok

The only reason I could think of taking supply to a resource base would be for jumpstarting repairs.

.....or to feed the garrison. Remember, resource bases don't produce supply anymore on their own.

It's an adjustment. In WITP, the SRA was a huge supply source. Now, the main supply source is Japan.

.....or to build up the port so you can suck the resources out faster. Important for a few critical bases.

[findmeifyoucan]

All those resources that are in Korea, should I leave them there or ship them to Japan? Also with regard to Sappora, the engine factory. Does supply automatically go there that is on the island or do I have to specifically ship supply to the Sappora hex?

So according to your comment the Japanese are in dire straights and looking at a huge shortage with regard to engines for aircraft? So, maybe some stoppage of weak aircraft is in order?

Tony