Yamato class conundrum

[Local Yokel]

Idly scanning the scenario 1 database and the ship availability screen whilst awaiting a turn, I noticed that Yamato is due to appear on 18 May 42, whilst Musashi is due to appear on 28 Nov 42. In fact, Yamato was commissioned on 16 Dec 41, and Musashi on 5 Aug 42. Is there some reason for the delayed appearance of these warships? I note that carriers Junyo and Hiyo are due to appear on their commissioning dates, according to the database, so it seems that a decision was taken to treat the two battleships differently.

[Mike Scholl]

"Commissioned", but not "Worked Up", "Shaken Down",  and ready for combat duty.  

[Local Yokel]

Shouldn't make a difference. We are recommended to send ships out on a shakedown cruise precisely for the purpose of building crew experience.

In any case, this doesn't explain why the battleships are treated differently from the carriers.

[DivePac88]

Taken from: IJN YAMATO: Tabular Record of Movement

16 December 1941:
Battleship No. 1 is completed and registered (commissioned) as the YAMATO in the Kure Naval District. Captain Takayanagi is the Commanding Officer.

YAMATO is assigned to the Combined Fleet's BatDiv 1 with NAGATO and MUTSU at Hashirajima.
21 December 1941:
Departs Kure. Arrives at Hiroshima Bay, Inland Sea. Anchors W of NAGATO at Hashirajima.

21 December 1941-10 February 1942:
Inland Sea. Final fitting-out. Deficiencies found are corrected at Kure. YAMATO's initial AA suite is twelve 127-mm guns (6x2), twenty-four 25-mm guns (8x3 enclosed mounts) and four 13.2-mm machine guns (2x2).

12 February 1942:
Departs Kure. Arrives at Hashirajima. The flag of the Combined Fleet's Commander-in-Chief Admiral (Fleet Admiral, posthumously) Yamamoto Isoroku (former CO of AKAGI) is transferred from NAGATO to YAMATO.

19 February 1942:
BatDiv 1 departs Hashirajima for training in the Iyo Nada. Returns later that day.
20-23 February 1942:
The Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet, Rear Admiral (later Vice Admiral) Ugaki Matome (former CO of HYUGA), conducts a series of war games aboard YAMATO to test plans for the second-stage operations.
The Chief of the Naval General Staff's 1st Bureau (Plans and Operations) Rear Admiral (later Vice Admiral) Fukudome Shigeru (former CO of NAGATO) and the NGS's Captain (later Rear Admiral), the Baron, Tomioka Sadatoshi attend the war games. An invasion of British Ceylon in the Indian Ocean is war-gamed unsuccessfully.
ComCarDiv 2 Rear Admiral (Vice Admiral, posthumously) Yamaguchi Tamon (former CO of ISUZU) distributes copies of his plan for a new offensive against Hawaii beginning in early 1943. Cdr (later Captain) Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito (brother of Emperor Hirohito (Showa) and Major Prince Tsunenori Takeda arrive aboard YAMATO to observe the table tap maneuvers.
9 March 1942:
Admiral Yamamoto issues orders to the fleet to prepare for Operation "C", a raid into the Indian Ocean.
30 March 1942:
Inland Sea. Admiral Yamamoto observes while Captain Takayanagi conducts more armament trials at a range of 23 miles. They are judged a failure. Both Takayanagi and his gunnery officer are upbraided because YAMATO's gun aimers manning the main rangefinder misread the horizontal settings.

March 1942:
Inland Sea. Training and gunnery practice.

11 April 1942:
Fleet Admiral Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu, former Chief, Naval General Staff, pays a call on YAMATO.
April 1942:
Captain (later Vice Admiral) Arima Kaoru (former CO of HIEI), the Chief Equipping Officer of YAMATO's sister-ship MUSASHI, pays an orientation visit with members of MUSASHI's fitting-out crew.
April-May 1942:
Inland Sea. Training and gunnery practice.
1 May 1942:
Captain Takayanagi is promoted Rear Admiral.

Early May 1942:
Admiral Yamamoto conducts war games aboard YAMATO to test plans for the Invasion of Midway.
19 May 1942:
Departs Kure for battle training. The new light carrier JUNYO, under Captain (Vice Admiral, posthumously) Ishii Shizue (former CO of KASUGA MARU), almost sidewipes YAMATO.
23 May 1942:
Returns to Hashirajima.
27 May 1942:
YAMATO is deemed operational.

So these historical records show that YAMATO was not operational until 27 of May.

[Miller]

Musashi will be waiting until at least 44 before appearing in my game. I used her points to accelerate Taiho and one of the Unyru class, much more useful.

[DuckofTindalos]

Especially poignant for the Yamato herself, since her gunnery was so very, very bad.

[Local Yokel]

ORIGINAL: DivePac88

So these historical records show that YAMATO was not operational until 27 of May.

Quite so, but this doesn't alter the fact that the game design apparently expects us to work up our new warships to an operational state. Nor does it explain why some corresponding delay is not applied to other vessels, such as Junyo and Hiyo.

There's another consequence to the delayed arrival of these battleships, in the form of the substantial added expenditure of naval shipyard points. By my reckoning Yamato arrives 153 days after her historical completion date, and Musashi 115. On each of those days an additional 233 shipyard points are expended on entirely notional 'construction'. I make that 62,444 shipyard points obtained at an HI cost of 187,332 points. My arithmetic is notorious, but to put that in context it appears to be the equivalent in shipyard points of no less than sixty-two Yugumo class destroyers.

Boy is that a high price to pay for Yamato's main director team being unable to read their range scale!

[BrucePowers]

I think you could use the editor to change the arrival date. If you are playing a PBEM your opponet would probably agree. It is a friendly game after all.[:)]

[DuckofTindalos]

Going by her TROM, I think a reasonable compromise would be for Yamato to enter the game on 10 Feb 1942, after her final fitting out.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Going by her TROM, I think a reasonable compromise would be for Yamato to enter the game on 10 Feb 1942, after her final fitting out.

But only if you are willing to reduce the experience of the crew. Historically, Yamato was not fit for battle that early. The ship itself was, the crew was not.

[DuckofTindalos]

I don't disagree at all, and am not saying that anything will be changed officially (it won't), just suggesting a compromise for LY to use in a personal mod.

[Local Yokel]

I take the point about Yamato's crew being in need of training at her commissioning date, though in this respect I assume the crew were neither any better nor any worse than any other newly-commissioned IJN warship.

Well OK, say you advance Yamato's into-service date to 10 Feb 42. That's still 56 days after the Navy took delivery and still costs an extra 13,048 shipyard points: the equivalent, using my Yugumo yardstick, of another four of these destroyers. And it does nothing to address the 26,795 shipyard point cost of Musashi's delayed arrival. That'll be another eight Yugumos, please!

If, for whatever reason, you think it's right that the battleships' service introduction date should be dealt with differently from that of other warships, another possible approach might be to have them arrive with some Sys damage that would need to be repaired to make them combat-effective. Can't say that I'm overjoyed by that prospect, but at least it's an approach that doesn't impose an unwarranted drain on the Japanese economy.

The logical conclusion of saying that the crew requires training seems to be a training system for naval crews as well as pilots.

And... oh dammit, let's really stir the pot a bit [:D]: why, T, do you say that Yamato's gunnery was so very, very bad? From what I've seen her gunnery record wasn't significantly worse than any other Senkan, and may indeed have been rather better than some.

[Rising-Sun]

There some allies ships like that too, esp for USN some of them seem to be launched eariler than expected.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel

I take the point about Yamato's crew being in need of training at her commissioning date, though in this respect I assume the crew were neither any better nor any worse than any other newly-commissioned IJN warship.

Well OK, say you advance Yamato's into-service date to 10 Feb 42. That's still 56 days after the Navy took delivery and still costs an extra 13,048 shipyard points: the equivalent, using my Yugumo yardstick, of another four of these destroyers. And it does nothing to address the 26,795 shipyard point cost of Musashi's delayed arrival. That'll be another eight Yugumos, please!

If, for whatever reason, you think it's right that the battleships' service introduction date should be dealt with differently from that of other warships, another possible approach might be to have them arrive with some Sys damage that would need to be repaired to make them combat-effective. Can't say that I'm overjoyed by that prospect, but at least it's an approach that doesn't impose an unwarranted drain on the Japanese economy.

The logical conclusion of saying that the crew requires training seems to be a training system for naval crews as well as pilots.

And... oh dammit, let's really stir the pot a bit [:D]: why, T, do you say that Yamato's gunnery was so very, very bad? From what I've seen her gunnery record wasn't significantly worse than any other Senkan, and may indeed have been rather better than some.

I meant during her work-up period. And if you want to do this in your mod, go right ahead. BTW, what "Yugumos"? You might feel you could buy them, but they're not there to be bought.

[Historiker]

This can be fixed really easy.
Let all ships arrive at the day no shipyard worked on them any longer - but let them come with 1 speed and 1 endurance. Now let them upgrade to their correct data and delay them for the time their crew training took.
They won't fight earlier than historical but they also won't cost more than historical...

[Djordje]

Arrival date is one thing, cost of the ships is completely different. Please don't mix those two, Japanese economy is not punished at all by Yamato and Musashi spending more tame under construction than in real life.

Why? Because game naval construction points and system as a whole were not made to reflect real life Japan's naval construction facilities, they were made to provide player with same ships that Japan had. Those naval construction points that we have in game can't really be linearly translated into any real life data, they are just abstraction. Their numbers don't matter at all as long as Japan gets the ships it historically got at the right time, and devs did great job at making it the case.

Now, by making Yamato and Musashi arrive earlier you would free virtual construction points that would be used to speed up some other ships resulting in more ships for Japan than they had at that given time. Therefore you would give Japan two powerful battleships ready for combat earlier than in real life, as well as option for player to accelerate several more carriers.

If you do move their arrival date ahead you should decrease some of naval shipyards in Japan as well to keep system in the balance.

Arrival date for those two BBs is different matter. I don't know if it is already case in the game or not, but I think all ships should be treated equally, so all should have their shakedown cruise time added to their arrival date, or none. I am sure there are people here that know those details far better than me.

I do know that USS Midway for one was left out of original WITP (haven't checked AE for it) because its arrival date with shakedown cruise would put it out of the time frame this game covers, even though its commission date was much earlier and inside the time frame of the game.

And btw I consider myself a JFB. [:)]

[Miller]

But why does the Jap player need Yamato and Musashi any quicker than in real life?

As far as I recall Jap BBs had two functions in WITP......either for nuke bombardments (no longer possible in AE) or as bomb/torpedo magnets in a CV TF.......and the IJN already has 10 BBs to fill that role.

The only reason I did not halt Yamato is because it is close to completion at the start of the game anyway. Musashi can sit idle until 1945 after the Taihos and Unyrus have been completed in my game.

[BrucePowers]

I don't think he wants them early. I think he wants the yard points to use to accelerate other ships.

As T said, he can use the base scenario in AE and write a mod to correct this[:)]

[DivePac88]

I think a way you could look at the commissioning setup in AE for Yamato and Musashi. Is what the JFBs consider to be the late arrival of both these battleships, be considered as the period it took to identify and then rectify their faults in the Shipyard.

About Crew training and workup of the ships; It must be realized that the are two distinct phases of this process. The first phase is the Crew familiarization process; where the crew settle into the ship and learn their jobs. And the second phase is the operational training process; were the crew learn to operate as a team in battle conditions.

[Local Yokel]

Seems to me pretty obvious that if you prolong a ship's construction in the game beyond its historical completion date, you are inevitably skewing the building country's economy.  Insofar as shipyard points are an abstraction of the shipbuilding process, the extra points spent on Y and M represent both an expenditure of raw materials that could have been employed elsewhere in the economy, and a denial of shipbuilding resources (e.g. fitting out basins) that could have been used for the construction of other ships.
 
Playing Japan, yes of course I don't want 187,000 of my precious HI points being spent on ship construction which historically didn't take place, and yes of course I want the freedom to redeploy those points into whatever area of the economy I think appropriate to my strategy - not necessarily into other ships if my production priority lies elsewhere.
 
You think the game offers an unrealistic model of the Japanese economy?  You're probably right, but the game is what it is: it has an economic model for the Japanese player to drive as best he can, and if you don't like that then agree a HR that the Japanese player is to make no alterations to his economy whatsoever.
 
However, if you do see a case for the Japanese player having a degree of control over his economy, then let him get on with managing it, but don't penalise him by introducing on an entirely arbitrary basis an economic cost Japan never had to bear.  If a ship was built by a certain date then make it so; don't pretend that it must have taken longer and cost more than was actually the case.
 
One of the selling points of AE has always been its historical verisimilitude where that is attainable.  Monkeying with ship completion dates goes against that and isn't necessary.  So why not eradicate the error?