The Reluctant Admiral

[JuanG]

Alright, I'll merge it all and send it along once I've received the artwork and finished up the devices.

[John 3rd]

Fantastic!
 

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

THANKS FatR!!!  Well done Sir.  Was there anything interesting or surprising within the work you did?

You'll notice that old Navy planes use Type 97 fixed MGs and Type 92 flexible (what an abomination of a gun!). New ones switch to Type 89 for fixed and flexible, reflecting changes described above. Betties and flying boats get double MGs for some positions (I don't think they can fit in, say, Betty's nose cone, without screwing up aerodynamics and they are too heavy to install them everywhere). Army 2E bombers as well (that's at least partially historical, too). E15K and E16A floatplanes can be accepted by more units with PDU OFF and E15K's normal and extended ranges are no longer shafted. I hope now players can seriously consider it as an alternative to Jake (Jake still has advantages like ASW equipment, and more bombs, and, later, radar). G8N1 is awesome (not as awesome as B-29, of course, but beats B-17 and B-24) - if the player still can allow a fleet of 4E bombers (with their usual flaws, like extended repair times) in 1945.

Also, I toned down a few of the Russian planes. Reduced MVR for obsolete fighters (when I-15bis systematically owns Nate, you know that something is quite wrong with their respective stats) and reduced armor on Il-2m3 from 3 to 2 (every point of armor seems to have very big effect in the game, and honestly, Il-2 never was quiteas tough as it often is depicted).

[John 3rd]

Could never imagine the Japanese actually developing a 4E bomber bujt I do know they had a prototype.  CRAZY! 
 
Like the historical improvement with the FP. 
 
What were the source books and resources you used for your updates and changes?
 

[bklooste]

They had a 4 engine in 41 (Liz) they just had many issues with it and the production cost compared to effect was a bad choice for them. So they converted the remaining units to transports. Its not unreasonable to have 4E (Liz) with high service ratings at start but  it would not be a smart choice for players.

[John 3rd]

Juan--What is your status with things? 
 
I'm feeling pretty good about stuff at this point.  Am working on the Scenario narrative as I write this.
 
When we get the Mod 'finished' I'd like each of the contributors to jump onto the AAR I'll start and throw in their views of what we chose to do and why.  Feel like this should then provide a good description for anyone contemplating playing something somewhat different.  Thinking about this, should we do it in the AAR or as a new Mod Thread so it stands alone?  Anyone got some guidance on that question? 
 
How do we get the finished product posted?  Do I write Spooky or someone else?
 
 

[John 3rd]

Am plinking around on the map and looking at slight economic and industrial expansion we've talked about.  Looking around has got me to thinking about a couple of questions (probably Damian & Tracker answerable):

1.  In the Dec 7th conventional Scenario One start, where does Japan start with any sort of surplus?  In this I mean is there a Home Island in better shape then the others?  What about Manchuria?

2.  I plan to do a slight expansion in HI, LI, armament, and vehicles.  Any good suggestions as to where?
a.  Plan to expand HI about 150 to reflect new factories built.
b.  Probably go about 100 with LI.
c.  Raise Armament by about 100.
d.  Vehicle about 25.
e.  As by FatR--there is no increase in the size of the air industry currently.  I plan to make a few modifications and raise Zero, Kate, Val, and Emily production to reflect the increased preparedness on Dec 7th.  None of these will be drastic but they will be real.


I've kept notes regarding areas we expand to reflect the changes within 4th Circle and Naval Air.  While abstract these numbers are a shot in the right direction.  This is an expansion but not TOO big.  Considering it is spread over a time period of 1935-1941, I consider it fairly limited.


3.  Current Naval Yard expansions plans are for the following:
a.  Creation of a major shipyard in Shanghai--80
b.  Port Arthur--DD Yard--25
c.  Yokosuka Expansion to 140--45
d.  Sasebo Expansion to 450--50

Total shipyard expansion will be 200 points.  The Yokosuka and Sasebo expansions--as per Kaigun--are modest but reflect increased size of graving  docks, slipways, and/or drydocks. 


EDIT: Damian--You offered when we started this to take a look and do some number crunching before we release the Mod. Is that offer still good?

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

They had a 4 engine in 41 (Liz) they just had many issues with it and the production cost compared to effect was a bad choice for them. So they converted the remaining units to transports. Its not unreasonable to have 4E (Liz) with high service ratings at start but  it would not be a smart choice for players.

G5N Liz was, above all, underpowered and therefore none of the planes they built in the test series were used as bombers. It is present in JuanG's mods, by the way. And yes, building them is not a smart move there. At least until you get to the armored version. They are more survivable that Betties, yes, but, in my test game against AI, they still died alot to Allied fighters.

[John 3rd]

Thanks FatR! Interesting that they had but am definitely NOT gonna build it!

Working in the LCU arena and took a screenshot with a few questions. They may be pretty basic but need to have a few answers if you please:

[John 3rd]

Answered one of the questions myself by just being intuitive:

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: bklooste

They had a 4 engine in 41 (Liz) they just had many issues with it and the production cost compared to effect was a bad choice for them. So they converted the remaining units to transports. Its not unreasonable to have 4E (Liz) with high service ratings at start but  it would not be a smart choice for players.

G5N Liz was, above all, underpowered and therefore none of the planes they built in the test series were used as bombers. It is present in JuanG's mods, by the way. And yes, building them is not a smart move there. At least until you get to the armored version. They are more survivable that Betties, yes, but, in my test game against AI, they still died alot to Allied fighters.

Yep , but they still had them , they trialed them as bombers and decided it wasnt worth it ( mainly due to production cost and air field requirements they had a lot of issues with landing gear as they liked small air fields). Since they were not going to produce more they converted them to transports.

[bklooste]

Re: Industry
 
I would double all light industry in china but make the Japanese conquered ones 50% damaged.
 
You can bump up oil in Anshun manchuria for a supply cost ( maybe just make them damaged so the player has to spend supply)
 
Air craft
 
I would allow a few more non restricted Army daitai upgrade to the Nick a

[ClaudeJ]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Thanks FatR! Interesting that they had but am definitely NOT gonna build it!

Working in the LCU arena and took a screenshot with a few questions. They may be pretty basic but need to have a few answers if you please:

John, about the release date:

The Port value is the month the change will happen based on the beginning month in the scenario (e.g., based on January 42 equal to month 1, January 43 to month 13, and so forth).
The Airfield value is the Location number (aka it's ID) of the HQ that the unit will report to after the change occurs.


Cheers

[gajdacs zsolt]

Hi all,

I know this is a naval mod, but are you planning on making some historical fixes to the japanese tanks?

Some units are completely missing (like the type 4 and 5 light and medium tanks). Existing ones have 'interesting values' (like the Type 97, 94 tankette, type 95, 98, 2 light tanks all have the same load value even though they greatly differed in size and weight). There are some completly ahistorical values as well (Type 2 light tank having 40mm armor (16 IRL), Type 2 light, type 89A medium and 97 medium tanks all have the same penetration value of 50mm which is quite funny). The upgrade paths seem off as well: the type 94 tankette upgrades to the type 95 light tank, while IRL the Type97 tankette was it's replacement. The Type 95 LT does not upgrade to the 98 LT, which it should. And there are more things to go around .

As a sidenote i think the AA guns should be looked at as well, historically upgrades were available to the Type 88 75mm AA gun, but in the game none of those are present.

What do you think of this John?

Thanks in advance!

[John 3rd]

Zsolo---Thanks for the thoughts and ideas.

I spent about an hour yesterday creating the checklist for what needs to be done once I get the files.  Here is the topic list (without the detailed specifics):

1.  New Fleet Construction
2.  Fleet Conversions
3.  Fleet Upgrades
4.  Industry
---Shipyards
---HI, LI, Armaments, Vehicles
---Aircraft
5.  Base Modifications
6.  New LCUs
7.  Aircraft Upgrades on Map
8.  Movement of Ground Units to new locations
9.  LCU Changes (Engineers/Vehicles)
10.  Reposition Fleet Elements
11.  F4F Recon Detachment on Essex-Class
12.  On Map TF Check

This is my list.  To say that I am intimidated might be an understatement.

The Tank stuff sounds like things that should be corrected but I doubt if there will be time and/or energy to move in that direction.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: Zsolo007

As a sidenote i think the AA guns should be looked at as well, historically upgrades were available to the Type 88 75mm AA gun, but in the game none of those are present.

There is something else: I found out that the IJA copied a German naval AA gun, the 8,8 cm C/30, which they had apparently captured in China, as the Type 99 88mm AA gun for stationary emplacement. Depending on the source, 500-1000 of them were built and employed mostly in the Home islands. This seems a major omission.

[mikemike]

Over the Easter holidays, I searched around for info about Japanese aircraft guns. It's surprising what you can find in the Internet. I've listed some of my catch below. And no, this isn't meant to cause another revision of the armament in this scenario, just to make RL conditions clearer.


To clarify the matter of the Japanese 7.7 mm ammunition:

The IJN license-built the Lewis and the Vickers MGs as Type 92 and Type 97. As this were straight copies, the guns remained chambered for the standard British cartridge, the 7.7X56 Rimmed (AKA as Japanese Naval 7.7mm).

The army found out they needed something more powerful than the 6.5 mm so they switched to the Arisaka 7.7X58 cartridge. This was used in rimless form in infantry rifles, while ammunition intended for machine guns had semi-rimmed cartridges to make it impossible to use them in rifles (I guess that means the machine gun cartridges had a stronger propellant charge).

Excerpt from wikipedia:

"Type 89 refers to two families of unrelated Imperial Japanese Army aircraft machine guns.

The first family is the recoil-operated Vickers gun. The Type 89 FIXED gun was a license-built Vickers E class gun chambered for the Type 89 cartridge. It was used in synchronized applications in fighter cowls and in wing gun applications. It was belt-fed, using a steel link disintegrating belt.

The Type 89 FLEXIBLE gun was a gas-operated twin gun. That is, it was made up of two mirror-image Year 11 Type LMG actions lying on their sides supported by a tubing cradle. The guns were fed from quadrant magazines loaded with cartridges on five-round clips.

The Type 89 (special) was the Type 89 flexible with the magazines modified to use a captive belt made up of five-round clips joined edge-to-edge. This is the version used in the Pacific War, having replaced the Type 89 flexible in 1937.

The Type 89 (modified single) is the flexible gun most often (erroneously) called «Type 89.» It is a single Year 11 Type action laid on its side and fed from a flat pan magazine. It also was used throughout the Pacific War in applications where the (special) was too bulky to fit."

To which I add that the Year 11 was originally a 6.5 mm modified Hotchkiss-type weapon that had a reputation for bad reliability and sensitiveness to dirt; the ammunition had to be oiled.

As example how IJA bombers were armed at first:

"The guns on the Ki-21-Ia and Ki-21-Ib bombers were as follows: the tail gun was a belt-fed Te-1 (aka Type 89 Vickers) with 500 rounds, but the nose, ventral and waist guns were pan-fed Te-4 guns (Type 89 Single Flexible). Six pans were provided for each of these guns. The dorsal gun was a twin-barreled Type 89 Flexible with ten twin magazines. It is not clear whether a Ho-103 was ever installed as tail gun."

The following I got from the Tony Williams website (http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/):

The Lewis Gun, the Hispano and all Oerlikon-type cannon could not be synchronized at all.

Browning type guns could, but their mechanism was unsuited to that and they lost 30-50% of their ROF by it. A further problem for the Japanese was that the Browning mechanism needed high-strength materials for some parts, which were not available in the later part of the war, and so the ammunition for those weapons had to be downloaded to protect the guns. This is why the 12.7X82 ammo of the Ho-103 doesn't perform any better than the 13X64 of the MG131.

Williams is of the opinion that the best 20mm gun the Japanese had was the Type 99 Model 2 Mark 5. He thinks this gun is just as effective as the Hispano. Quote:

"To sum up, by the end of the war the Japanese had produced a gun which had a comparable rate of fire to the Mauser MG 151/20, but weighed less, had a smoother recoil push and fired more powerful ammunition. The main disadvantage was that it was inherently unsuited to being synchronised to fire through the propeller disk, so it could not be mounted in a single-engined fighter's engine cowling or wing roots. None of the improvements made to the FFL were technically difficult, and they could all have been introduced at any time in the gun's development history if the need had been identified."

[FatR]

Thanks for the information and the link, mikemike.

[John 3rd]

Hey Stan.  It is a good source that MikeMike provided.
 
Thanks again fro all your hard work on the Mod.  Truly appreciate it.

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

Re: Industry

I would double all light industry in china but make the Japanese conquered ones 50% damaged.

You can bump up oil in Anshun manchuria for a supply cost ( maybe just make them damaged so the player has to spend supply)

Air craft

I would allow a few more non restricted Army daitai upgrade to the Nick a

BK---How much would you bump oil output to at Anshun?