The Japanese Economy

[findmeifyoucan]

I look at it a little differently. I believe in spreading out my HI rather than keeping all my eggs in one basket. Sure if you try expanding the large HI centres in Japan it will take a long time to expand and will cost a lot. However, if you only expand the small centres outside of Japan mainland it does not take very long, is not that expensive and in effect you are spreading out your HI so that the Allies can't take most of it out in one shot.

[pacificbetta]

How does one withdraw ground units?

Eg, for the Jap, I/33 Inf Rgt located at Anami is to be withdrawn later int he war. Lets say if I were to withdraw it now, how do I go about it?

[nashvillen]

Back to the top you go...

[Swenslim]

ORIGINAL: pacificbetta

I did some basic maths and found that the Japanese economy (HI + LI) consumes about 11000 oil/fuel to run at full capacity. This is without significant expansion of the basic HI infrastructure. Note also that this does not account for military usage.

Now, if we total the oil/fuel in the DEI, it comes to about 10-11k oil+fuel too. Am I correct the say that:
1. Japan is effectively condemed to having fuel crisis even without military intervension from the allies.
2. Japan has to somehow slavage the exsiting (read: captured from alllies) stock piles and use this for military use?
3. There really is not much point to increase HI since we all expact Japan to be crippled in late 44/45 onwards, especially with interdiction on the fuel/oil toute. (I was a proponent on increasing HI until i realise this issue about not haveing that much oil/fuel locations in the map.

Hah ?!??? Only Palembang itself produces 9000 oil per day (and has refinery to produce 10200 fuel per day ) if you took it undamaged. Than Medan produce 2100 oil per day and Djambi produce 2500 oil per day and little port producing 200 oil per day.

So, only Sumatra has enough oil/fuel to support Japan industry. And you have Miri, Brunei, Tarakan, Balikpapan, Semiranda, Soerabaja and Rangoon.

Only thing you need is to protect your tankers. To ship oil and fuel build simple system - all small 1250 tonn tankers and all 7500 slow tankers (with additon of all xAK converted to tankers in june 1942) must ship oil and fuel from Palembang, Medan, Balingakis, Rangoon and Miri to Singapore. You should do this using automatic CS system.

From singapore you must manualy send oil and fuel on big fast tankers to Shimonseki and Hiroshima.

[nashvillen]

I am finding this part of the economy to be the most satisfying. The spread sheet posted earlier in this thread will not work for me in importing. Can some email it to me at manospamcurtis AT comnospamcast DOT net (remove the usual "nospam" and convert the appropriate words to other characters), please? TIA!

[pacificbetta]

Hah ?!??? Only Palembang itself produces 9000 oil per day (and has refinery to produce 10200 fuel per day ) if you took it undamaged. Than Medan produce 2100 oil per day and Djambi produce 2500 oil per day and little port producing 200 oil per day.

You are CORRECT! I actually missed a "zero" when reading Palembang's capacity Thanks

[FeurerKrieg]

Forgive me if this has been answered, but here is a question regarding A/C factory auto upgrades:

Are factory upgrades keyed to the specific factory or is it determined by what plane the factory is producing?

Example: I change the 56 plane A6M2 factory at Maebashi from A6M2 over to Ki-43-Ic. Will that factory now upgrade along the Oscar path (Ki-43-IIa, IIb, etc) or will it stay on Ki-43-Ic and then eventually upgrade to A6M2 Sen Baku (as it would if I never changed it)?

I don't intend to make this change, but it helps illustrate the question.

Thanks!

[Mike Solli]

Each factory upgrades based on the plane it is currently producing.

[xj900uk]

Will it upgrade automaticlaly to a plane that has not been researched?  For example, suppose you have factories producing A6M2.  Will it automatically upgrade to the A6M3 or A6M3a in 1942 (or whenever) even though you have no factories R&D'ing each model?
Just suppose you have the above situation but you do have a factory R&D'ing the A6M5 - would other factories still convert to the A6M3 when it was supposed to become available even though you'd had no separate factories working on the new model, or would it just wait and then skip to the A6M5 which at least you have somebody researching?

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

Will it upgrade automaticlaly to a plane that has not been researched?  For example, suppose you have factories producing A6M2.  Will it automatically upgrade to the A6M3 or A6M3a in 1942 (or whenever) even though you have no factories R&D'ing each model?
Just suppose you have the above situation but you do have a factory R&D'ing the A6M5 - would other factories still convert to the A6M3 when it was supposed to become available even though you'd had no separate factories working on the new model, or would it just wait and then skip to the A6M5 which at least you have somebody researching?

Yes, a factory producing a specific plane will upgrade to the next plane in that upgrade path, even if there is no R&D being done on that new plane. If you do no R&D at all, every plane will become available according to the schedule. R&D is done for 2 reasons. First, by having a factory do R&D on a plane that is first in the upgrade path, you'll begin producing them when they become available. Otherwise, you'll never get any, since nothing upgrades to it. (See the A6M3 below as an example.) Second, people do R&D on a specific plane type to attempt to accelerate it (get it earlier than historical).

Here's an example of an upgrade path. Note that the A6M2 upgrades to the Sen Baku (fighter bomber) then the A6M5b. The A6M3 has a separate path that merges with the A6M2 path at the A6M5b.

[xj900uk]

Thanks for the clarification

Have another question though, this one regarding new engine types. Suppose you upgrade to or R&D a new type/variant until it comes 'on line' and starts being produced, but it uses a new engine type which isn't yet availalbe. Can you still build airframes but these will sit in the 'unallocated replacement pool' until someone builds an engine(s) to stickon the front of it?
Also, is it possible to change engines and marry different ones to airframes? I am thinking of the late model Tony's which, thanks to the only factory producing their inline engines being wrecked by bombing (in early '45?), instead in a rare burst of creativity and ingenuity, somebody sticking a load of spare radial engines onto them and creating a whole new (and completely unintended) variant

[Rainer79]

No, if there is no suitable engine then the plane won't be produced (even if there would be factories).

Sadly it is also not possible to switch engine types for planes.

One thing you can do thankfully now is to forbid auto-upgrades of factories. That might be useful for such planes as the 40mm armed Tojo.

[FeurerKrieg]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

Will it upgrade automaticlaly to a plane that has not been researched?  For example, suppose you have factories producing A6M2.  Will it automatically upgrade to the A6M3 or A6M3a in 1942 (or whenever) even though you have no factories R&D'ing each model?
Just suppose you have the above situation but you do have a factory R&D'ing the A6M5 - would other factories still convert to the A6M3 when it was supposed to become available even though you'd had no separate factories working on the new model, or would it just wait and then skip to the A6M5 which at least you have somebody researching?

Yes, a factory producing a specific plane will upgrade to the next plane in that upgrade path, even if there is no R&D being done on that new plane. If you do no R&D at all, every plane will become available according to the schedule. R&D is done for 2 reasons. First, by having a factory do R&D on a plane that is first in the upgrade path, you'll begin producing them when they become available. Otherwise, you'll never get any, since nothing upgrades to it. (See the A6M3 below as an example.) Second, people do R&D on a specific plane type to attempt to accelerate it (get it earlier than historical).

Here's an example of an upgrade path. Note that the A6M2 upgrades to the Sen Baku (fighter bomber) then the A6M5b. The A6M3 has a separate path that merges with the A6M2 path at the A6M5b.

Nice illustration Mike. I've spent the last few days building a spreadsheet that allows me to calculate my airframe production (and hence engine requirements) for every month through the war, so I can test increasing certain factories and see what that does to mid and late war production. It was interesting to see some of the upgrade paths (such as the A6M2 -> A6M2 SB).

I suggest any logistical/production fans go through a similar exercise as it really helps you decide what factories are the best to expand early in the war. There are some planes that have no factory slated to upgrade to produce them from the start, but they do have a unit or two in the reinforcement queue (on of the Ki-46 Dinah FB's I think comes to mind) so you will at some point have to switch a factory to produce such a plane, unless you just don't want those units to arrive.

[xj900uk]

One thing you can do thankfully now is to forbid auto-upgrades of factories. That might be useful for such planes as the 40mm armed Tojo.

Thought that plane might be useful against hi-altitude 4 engine bombers, although the gun isn't supposed to be that accurate.

Based upon the above responses, I now have another query (sorry) :
If you have a new plane-type coming through on a reinforcement squadron, but no factories currently producing the planes (and no spare replacement planes of that particular type in the pool), will the squadron never be deployed? And if not, will it still remain in the queue in case you build some planes for it at a later date?

[BShaftoe]

Is there any zip or any site with all the aircraft upgrade diagrams???

[Mike Solli]

Try this. It's just Japanese.

[Grotius]

I'm playing Scenario 2, PDU ON, PBEM. I've got a general idea of what I want to do with airframes, but I've only just started grappling with engine production. I can't find any obvious candidates for immediate conversion to another engine type. Maybe the Hitachi (early)? I realize I need to increase Nakajima HA-35 production, but the only two candidates are the tiny factory in Harbin (already expanding) and the big 100-engine factory in Tokyo. As I'm comparatively flush with supply in Scenario 2, I'm just tempted to double the big factory at game start and figure out the rest as I go along, so that I can get the first turn to my opponent.

But the downside of doing that is you only repair one a day; if I could convert 3-4 smaller factories at the same time, I'd see a much faster uptick, as I'd repair 3-4 a day (right?). Obviously there's a similar issue with airframes! Any general advice here?

[Mike Solli]

I recommend you look at what airframes you want to produce throughout the war.  With PDU on, that's easy (relatively).  Then, see what engines you need to produce for them.  Don't worry about numbers yet, just what types of engines you'll need for the airframes you want.  At that point, rank the engines based on the # of different types of airframes are needed for that engine.  Weight each airframe based on the year it becomes available (41-42 = 4, 43 = 3, etc.)  That'll give you a relative importance for each engine you produce.  Hopefully, there will be some engine factories you don't need.  If you still feel you need more factories, look at the lowest ranking engines and see if you really need/want the airframes they produce for.  If you want to make it more accurate, weight it based on the number of each type of airframe you want to build per month as well.

[seille]

For my own game with PDU on i just decided what bombers i want at the start and what fighters.
I´ll not produce any japanese army bombers except the Sally. No Lilly, Ida, Sonia. After looking at i
thought this is only crap.
For the army fighters i decided to go with Oscars and produce Nates only until the engines are used up.
 
Navy i´ll go with Betties and Nells. Then Kates and Vals of course.
Increased their numbers as well as the A6M2 production.
I used AE Tracker to figure out which and how many engines i´ll need and after the air frame adjustments
i made the adjustments for the engines.
A lot to repair now....
R&D i did not touch yet, but i think i´ll try to accelerate some fighters.
Don´t think i´ll need many late war bombers and i won´t need the VERY late fighters, but a plane like the Ki84
is interesting. That was my noob planning [:)]
 
 

[Grotius]

Thanks for the replies. Mike, I downloaded your useful Powerpoint file on upgrades. One question I have: the Ki-36 Ida doesn't seem to upgrade to anything. When I click 'upgrade' on it in game, one group says I can upgrade to the Dinah (a recon plane), while another says I can upgrade to the Sonia (a bomber). Why isn't it just one or the other -- and why is the Dinah a possibility at all? Not that I'm complaining; I wouldn't necessarily mind a couple more Dinah groups.

Speaking of the Dinah, though, the Ki-15-II Babs seems like a longer-legged, superior alternative. Is it?

I halted Ida production in any case, and converted that factory to the A6M2.