Merchant Ships

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach
Here is a post I recently made in the Naval Issues thread, but given the issues ya'll (that's for you JWE since your now from Bama) I thought it may fit in here:
A friend of mine suggested that a portion of Japan's existing merchant fleet, at the start of the war, were left out of the game to represent those ships dedicated to domestic purposes as opposed to those in the game towards the "war effort". I don't ever recall seeing this. Does it sound familiar?

"Say it is not so Joe" ,but while it may not be true it seems by some of what you are saying, it is appropriate because of the "games" already over capacity of supply/merchant ships.

Moved this because I didn't want to step on John 3rd's thread with this discussion - which is worth having, by the way.

Yes, Buck, a 'portion' of Japan's existing merchant fleet, on opening day, was left out. Wasn't due to military v domestic considerations, but just due to the size of the ships and the decision to limit the number of 'ants'. There's a jillion, bazillion different things out there saying what Japan had on opening day. I used "Showa Kokusei Soran, Vol-1, Nihon Shosen no Sempukuryu" (Japanese Commercial Shipping 1936-1945).

On Jan.1, 1942 (complete registry of 'all' vessels regardless of tonnage) Japan had 1821 merchant ships with an aggregate GRT of 5,367,000. This includes everything, tankers, yard tugs, you name it. On Jan.1, 1942, Japan had 1316 'freighters' with an aggregate GRT of 3,797,000, and 328 'passenger & freighters' with an aggregate GRT of 1,023,000, for an aggregate 1644 'merchant/passenger' ships totaling 4,482,000 grt.

We tried to accommodate every japanese ship 1000 grt and over, and include many of those 850 grt and under. So in the game, there are 939 merchant ships > 1000 grt, representing 4,515,400 GROSS tons of shipping, in the categories given by Nihon Shosen. If the xAKLs <1000 grt are included, the game has 1253 merchant ships, representing 4,672,400 GROSS tons of shipping.

The shortfall is clearly in the 'ants'. Looking only at BIG ships, there's a 755 ship shortfall, but the missing ships average 404 grt each. Looking at ALL ships, there's a 391 ship shortfall, but the missing ships average 409 grt each. When things got that small, the decision was to truncate. When you think about it, it does make some sense, because including an additional 391 ships with 409 grt is equivalent to adding 21 Yusen-Ns or Limas.

Necessarily, this discussion is in terms of GRT, but it must be noted that neither game Cargo Cap nor game Tonnage has any reference to GRT whatsoever.

So, in broad, I think DaBabes is pretty much on target. There might be some ships that don't show up on lists because of spelling differences and such, but the proposition that there are 300 significantly sized missing ships, on opening day, is not quite supportable. The ships are there. The names might be different, but the ships are there.

[Local Yokel]

This is indeed a discussion worth having, and one deserving a place outside John 3rd's RA thread.

The figures you have from Japanese Commercial Shipping make interesting comparison with Mark Parillo's. He gives a figure of 6.4M grt for Japan's merchant fleet "at the time of Pearl Harbor", adding the qualification that this disregards a further 1.2M grt (approximately) of wooden vessels, mostly unsuitable for freight carriage. Apparently he derives this estimate from multiple sources, commenting that the figures range from less than 6M up to 7M grt, depending on the counting methods employed.

The figures supplied by the Shipping Control Association to USSBS and shown as Table C-101 in "The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy" make an interesting comparison: they suggest that the aggregate gross tonnage of merchant ships in excess of 1000 grt, comprising 1325 vessels, stood at about 5.7M on 7 December 1941.

There is quite a big difference between your figure and Parillo's – his being greater by a factor of more than one-third of yours. Any idea of what might account for this?

In the RA thread Brady cited some figures from Parillo that presented a partial picture of Japanese tonnage planning. Parillo records the Cabinet Planning Board's calculation that the civilian economy required 3M grt of shipping: 1.8M for coal transportation, 450,000 for agricultural products (no doubt including food imports), 300,000 for steel making materials, and 450,000 for other items. In addition, the Japanese war plans envisaged the Army requiring 2.3M tons for the first six months of operations, reducing to 1.1M tons thereafter. The Navy was estimated to have a continuing requirement of 1.8M tons. These figures suggest an aggregate tonnage requirement of 7.1M in the first 6 months, reducing to 5.9M tons once the Army relinquished its excess of shipping to civilian use.

On any basis of calculation it was inevitable that significant merchant tonnage had to be restored to non-military use if the war economy was to return to its December 1941 activity level, let alone expand. Further, during the initial 6 months of the war the economy would have to make do with less than the 3M tons of merchant shipping treated as its minimum requirement.

Unfortunately I don't see any sign of these constraints affecting the Japanese side of any of the games for which AAR reports are available. I am currently playing a slightly modified version of BabesLite, in which I see resources gravitating to a small number of ports in Kyushu, Hokkaido, Manchukuo and Karafuto. It is entirely straightforward to ship these accumulations to Honshu and still retain ample shipping for the advance into the SRA and beyond, with no sign that I am going to have to return to 'civilian' use any of the ships taken up from trade.

The available excess of civilian lift seems to be such that, regardless of the size of the resource stockpiles accumulated at the locations mentioned, there is more than enough capacity not just to keep them from growing further, but actually to reduce them to the point at which additional surplus shipping capacity becomes available. For example Port Arthur/Dairen started out with a mere 33,600 resources. By Day 3 this had skyrocketed to 930,800, whilst shipping to clear this was still in transit to the port. However, by Day 8-9, sufficient shipping was in place on the Dairen-Honshu run to start the progressive reduction of this resource mountain so that, by Days 36-39, it is fluctuating between 360,000 and 240,000 units, and is expected to decrease further yet.

In the RA thread I see that Andrew Brown has now posted details of the break given to the Japanese player by reducing the daily import requirement from 50,000 to between 42,000 and 44,000. Expressing that in the terms of extra shipping required, it's the equivalent of less than just two additional Aden Maru dockings per day – a derisory extra burden!

I strongly suspect that there is quite a big problem with the game's economic model for Japan such as to make it a good deal more forgiving than it should be. If it is a design postulate that the Japanese economy should be susceptible to serious damage by attack upon its merchant shipping, then this may only become possible by substantial increase in the quantity of resources that must be shipped. Doing so may raise other issues – e.g. should there be a corresponding increase in the rate of resource generation by each resource centre? Is it tolerable for extra resources so generated just to accumulate at their point of production if not used?

In all this I don't see much of a problem with the number and capacity of Japanese merchant ships in the game. I think the problem lies much more in the quantity of material needing to be shipped.

[herwin]

El Cid got into this during RHS development. If you can come up a realistic model of the Japanese war economy, publish it! It will be original and significant work. You will probably need somewhere around a million individual commodity types. The input-output matrix will be enormous, although most entries will be zero. Soviet economists specialised in this sort of work, and their planning was still insufficiently detailed and needed local tweaking. You could do major aggregation, but you will probably need to consider a few hundred specific imports and exports. Imagine the data gathering required!

That's what the game tries to model with resources, oil, supply and fuel.

In other words, don't go there. Those of us with some background in econometric modelling are stunned by the achievement. It's a dancing bear, but what an impressive dancing bear!

[treespider]

At Local:

This is the "white" paper I prepared during development, keep in mind in the below work the figures used for "current AE levels" were those levels that were present at that time, which have since been adjusted.

PROBLEM:

The shipping demands placed on the Japanese Merchant fleet are significantly lower than the historical demands. (95% of the historic Japanese merchant fleet and capacity is represented in the game.)

FACTUAL BASIS FOR PROBLEM:

Historically the Japanese imported many more metric tons of resources than required by the game.

Real life resource imports by year:

1940 – 22.0 million tons
1941 – 20.0 million tons
1942 – 19.4 million tons

Game Requirements
Current AE Scenario - x.x million tons
Stock (Vanilla WitP) - 2.8 million tons

In the current AE scenario which is similar to the STOCK game there are 56730 resource centers that produce a total of 20.7 million points of resources. The majority of these resources are located either in Japan or areas the Japanese never conquered. A rough estimation places 8 million resources in the areas the Japanese conquered each year. In the game Japan itself produces 2.2 million resources per year and its industry currently only demands 6.4 million resources, a difference of 4.2 million resources (STOCK the difference is actually lower at 2.8 million).

Therefore Japanese merchant shipping is only required in the AE scenario to move 4.2 million points when in history they moved 20 million points – a fivefold difference. The Japanese likely were unable to import everything that their industry required. An evaluation of historic statistical data has revealed that at least 515 million resources were produced on the area covered by the AE map ...and this does not include the US, Canada or the USSR.

EFFECTS OF PROBLEM:

(1) No need for the Japanese to produce merchant ships because the historical demand on them is not present, which allows production historically used on merchant ships to be used for other purposes.

(2) Reduced use of merchant fleet allows for increased operational flexibility due to increased availability merchant ships.

(3) Reduced use of merchant ships allows for increased operational flexibility because the merchants ships in game require less of the fuel supply.

SOLUTION:

Increase demands placed on Japanese merchant ships to historical levels.


MEANS OF SOLUTION:

Increase resources needed to be transported to the Home Islands to historical levels and require historical levels of consumption of these resources.

DETAILS OF SOLUTION:

Implementation of a table in the editor, which exposes the multiples used for consumption requirements and outputs as they relate to HI and LI. As an example – Statistical analysis suggests that the resources required of HEAVY INDUSTRY be increased from 2 points to 15. Increase the points required of LIGHT INDUSTRY from 1 point to 20. And increase Resource Center production to 20 resources.

Place historic resource production based on a ratio of historic data on the map as determined by available historic data.

FACTUAL BASIS of SOLUTION:

Historically the Japanese produced 85.5 million metric tons of food/ ore/ misc far more than the games 2.2million points.

Roughly 60% of Japanese and American resources were consumed by the Civilian economy. In 1941 and 1942 the Japanese imported an additional 22 and 20 million tons of food/ore/misc.....for a total of 105.5 million tons of resources for consumption by war industry and civilians. Data analysis suggests that the military/war effort consumed 10% of the food, 30% of textiles, 50% of misc (rubber,cement, etc) and 40% of ores. When civilian consumption of resources is calculated from 105.5 million, c.70 million tons are consumed by the civilian economy in a year... The remaining 35 million tons are consumed by LIGHT and HEAVY industry for use in the war effort.

In the AE Scenario Heavy Industry currently consumes 11080 points a day and Light Industry 6300 points per day. However this only results in 6.3 million points of consumption. This consumption needs to be multiplied by a factor of roughly 6-7 to reach historic consumption levels.

By applying the above multiples to HI & LI Input and Resource Center Output we begin to approach historic industry consumption levels and a 20 million point deficit is generated in the Japanese Home Island economy which would need to be offset through imports...brought in by the currently underutilized Japanese Merchant Fleet (95% of which is represented in the game).

Sources:
1. Le, Manh Hung, The impact of World War II on the economy of Vietnam, 1939-45 / Singapore : Eastern Universities Press by Marshall Cavendish, 2004.

2. 1945 China yearbook. Taipei, Taiwan, China Pub. Co.; New York, Macmillan 1950

3. Cohen, Jerome Bernard, 1915- Japan's economy in war and reconstruction; Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1949.

4. United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Reports. Washington, D.C. : U.S. G.P.O., 1946-
Report 36 - Coal and Metals in Japan’s War
Report 40 – Electric Power Industry of Japan
Report 42 – Japanese Wartime Standard of Living and Utilization of Manpower
Report 43 – Japanese War Production Industries
Report 48 – Japanese Merchant Shipbuilding
Report 53 – The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy
- Including:
- Appendix A: US Economic Intelligence on Japan
- Appendix B: Gross National Product on Japan and its components
- Appendix C: Statistical Sources
Report 54 – The War against Japanese Transportation

5. Segers, W. A. I. M. Changing Economy in Indonesia, Volume 8, Manufacturing industry, 1870-1942 / Amsterdam : Royal Tropical Institute, 1988.

7. The industrialization of Japan and Manchukuo, 1930-1940 / edited by E.B. Schumpeter. London ; New York : Routledge, 2000.

8. League of Nations. Economic, Financial, and Transit Dept. Annuaire statistique de la Société des Nations Statistical year-book of the League of Nations. 1941/42 w/Addendum 1942/43 Geneva.

9. Field, Frederick Vanderbilt, 1905- ed. Economic handbook of the Pacific area, Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Doran, 1934.

As far as resources - the following "resources/raw materials" were accounted for in the above totals:

Resource - Unit
Milk - Hectoliters
Meat - metric tons
Fish - metric tons

Wheat - quintals
Barley - quintals
Rye - quintals
Oats - quintals
Corn - quintals
Rice - quintals
Potatoes - quintals
Coffee - quintals
Cocoa - quintals
Beet Sugar - quintals
Cane Sugar - quintals
Tea - quintals
Cottonseed - quintals
Linseed - quintals
Hempseed - quintals
Rapeseed - quintals
Sesame - quintals
Copra - quintals
Nuts - quintals
Soy - quintals
Palm Oil - quintals
Food Totals - metric tons

Cotton - quintals
Flax - quintals
Jute - quintals
Hemp - quintals
Wool - metric tons
Raw Silk - metric tons
Fibre(rayon) - metric tons
Wood Pulp - metric tons
Textile Totals: metric tons

Rubber - metric tons
Cement - metric tons
Phosphates - metric tons
Subtotal: metric tons

Salt - metric tons
Lignite - metric tons
Coal - metric tons
Pyrites - metric tons
Sulphur - metric tons
Manganese - metric tons
Iron Ore - metric tons
Pig Iron /Ferro Alloys - metric tons
Copper Ore - metric tons
Lead Ore - metric tons
Zinc Ore/Zinc - metric tons
Tin/Tin Ore - metric tons
Bauxite - metric tons
Chrome - metric tons
Nickel Ore - metric tons
Tungsten - metric tons
Cadmium - metric tons
Antimony - metric tons
Subtotal: - metric tons

Oil - metric tons
Natural Gas - metric tons

Looking back at the work it just dawned on me that one item that was not factored into the above equation were "finished goods" imported by the Japanese for use in their industry...umm wonder what those numbers will look like when i find them.

EDIT: Also not factored into the calculations were export requirements for finished goods.

As an example Japan exported 1,174,526,000 square yards of textile cloth in 1941. This figure fell to 232,064 in 1942. Using a 7 ounce per square yard conversion rate those figures equate to c. 233,000 and 46,000 metric tons respectively. How much volume would be another matter altogether. Now how much of the difference is considered needed civilian transport? In other words much of the discussion focuses on lost civilian transport to military needs, how much of the difference in textile exports is attributable to the redistribution of the merchant fleet in 1941 and 42....and to what extent should that influence the Japanese economy in game? Design decisions that are likely outside the scope of what we have to work with - short of modelling a rudimentary civilian economy using stationary devices...which would throw the siege and combat models all to hell.

-----

The other item for consideration is the underutilization/under spoilage/ efficiency of the supply model. In game 100% of the supplies shipped are always 100% usable by the location that receives them. In real life I'm positive a fair amount of shipping was utilized shipping supplies that were not needed by the location receiving the said supplies and/or the supplies received 'spoiled" before they could be utilized. To my knowledge the only way to affect spoilage is to lower bases sizes.

[Brady]

&nbsp;More from Mark Parillo's book:
&nbsp;
p.34

"Japanese farmers grew about 80% of what it took to fead the home islands"

"Japan imported about 3 million tons of Husked grains,other food stuff's, fertilizers,and livestock."

"The(Japanese) Cabnet planing board calculated that the civilian ecenomy neaded around 3 million tons of shiping to continue to function. Coal would occupy around 1.8 million tons" and Aragurtural and steal making the rest.

"Prewar estimates put the nations wartime neads at 5.9 million tons, the civilian ecenomy as noted above would require 3 million tons. The army would require 2.3 million tons for the first 6 months but only 1.1 million tons thearafter, the navy woudl nead 1.8 million tons throught the war."

At the begining of the war Japan had about 6.4 million tons fo shipping and around 1.2 million tons of wodden hulled vessels.

"In 1936 the Navy General Staff set 10million tons, or two years supply, as the stockpilling goal, and the goverment provided 5 million yen in assistance. By the time the war with the United States broke out, the Japanese had put aside nearly 8 Million tons of petroleum products. Of this total, the navy had collected 16,800 tons of lubricants, 490,000 tons of avation gasoline, 3,624,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, and 1,435,000 of crude petroleum, for a grand total approaching 5.5 million tons. By late 1941, Japan's reffining capacity was actually seventeen(17) times grater than the production capacity of the home islands, an indacation of the nations commitment to building reserves of crude oil."

"this masive stockpilling effort...represented only two years suply"

"It was not a failure in production but rather a failure in transporation that caused Japans wartime oil nightmare."

"The anual carrying capacity of Japans tankers reached 4 million tons per year by 1940. "
&nbsp;
.....................
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Other than materials from the SRA, like oil and fuel, prety much everthing Japan neaded would come from China and Korea, her pre war fleat that operated gloabaly had much shorter runs to make to continue to fead the war machine.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;The distalation of Mark Parillo's work is that Japan had enough bottoms to move what neaded to be moved, she just mismanaged that resource.
&nbsp;

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
The figures you have from Japanese Commercial Shipping make interesting comparison with Mark Parillo's. He gives a figure of 6.4M grt for Japan's merchant fleet "at the time of Pearl Harbor", adding the qualification that this disregards a further 1.2M grt (approximately) of wooden vessels, mostly unsuitable for freight carriage. Apparently he derives this estimate from multiple sources, commenting that the figures range from less than 6M up to 7M grt, depending on the counting methods employed.

The figures supplied by the Shipping Control Association to USSBS and shown as Table C-101 in "The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy" make an interesting comparison: they suggest that the aggregate gross tonnage of merchant ships in excess of 1000 grt, comprising 1325 vessels, stood at about 5.7M on 7 December 1941.

There is quite a big difference between your figure and Parillo's – his being greater by a factor of more than one-third of yours. Any idea of what might account for this?

Yes. I was only listing the ships and tonnage given for "freighters". No tankers, no passenger ships, only a subset of P&Cs, etc.. It's a touch difficult relating industry designations to the game model, so it kinda begs the question of what's a P&C as opposed to a passenger ship or a cargo ship, especialy when a good chunk of both cargo and P&C tonnage went to naval auxiliaries so are they included or aren't they? The total basis numbers from Nihon Shosen are (from table 7-28, p 443) :

1941 - 1962 total ships, grossing 6094000 tons: comprising - 1435 "freighters", grossing 4424000 tons: 354 P&Cs, grossing 1135000 tons: 79 "passengers", grossing 135000 tons: 94 "tankers", grossing 401000 tons.
1942 - 1821 total ships, grossing 5367000 tons: comprising - 1316 "freighters", grossing 3797000 tons: 328 P&Cs, grossing 1023000 tons: 76 "passengers", grossing 120000 tons: 101 "tankers", grossing 427000 tons.

So it's not that different after all. There's a couple of further considerations. The P&C group includes the Hakone Maru, Heian, Aikoku, Brasil, Yasukuni, Hakone, Buenos Aires, Horai, Kanzyu, etc.. classes. When these are "grossed" out, and calculated in, you end up with about 280 coastal P&C ferrys having an average gross tonnage of about 483 tons. Similarly for the "passenger" ships; when you "gross" out the Asamas, Takasagos and the Kamakuras, what's left in the "passenger" category is equally dross.

Only reason I used Nihon Shosen instead of Mark, is a matter of source consistency across game elements. Nihon Shosen gives much useable internal information based on consistent parameters. Have known Mark for a long time, and he graciously vetted what we did with the Japanese merchant fleet (for both stock and DaBabes) without having any issues, given the game imperitives.

[John 3rd]

Thanks for shifting this worthwhile conversation to a separate Thread. It is always a pleasure to read and participate in these discussions. Will follow this with great interest!

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
The figures you have from Japanese Commercial Shipping make interesting comparison with Mark Parillo's. He gives a figure of 6.4M grt for Japan's merchant fleet "at the time of Pearl Harbor", adding the qualification that this disregards a further 1.2M grt (approximately) of wooden vessels, mostly unsuitable for freight carriage. Apparently he derives this estimate from multiple sources, commenting that the figures range from less than 6M up to 7M grt, depending on the counting methods employed.

The figures supplied by the Shipping Control Association to USSBS and shown as Table C-101 in "The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan’s War Economy" make an interesting comparison: they suggest that the aggregate gross tonnage of merchant ships in excess of 1000 grt, comprising 1325 vessels, stood at about 5.7M on 7 December 1941.

There is quite a big difference between your figure and Parillo's – his being greater by a factor of more than one-third of yours. Any idea of what might account for this?

Yes. I was only listing the ships and tonnage given for "freighters". No tankers, no passenger ships, only a subset of P&Cs, etc.. It's a touch difficult relating industry designations to the game model, so it kinda begs the question of what's a P&C as opposed to a passenger ship or a cargo ship, especialy when a good chunk of both cargo and P&C tonnage went to naval auxiliaries so are they included or aren't they? The total basis numbers from Nihon Shosen are (from table 7-28, p 443) :

1941 - 1962 total ships, grossing 6094000 tons: comprising - 1435 "freighters", grossing 4424000 tons: 354 P&Cs, grossing 1135000 tons: 79 "passengers", grossing 135000 tons: 94 "tankers", grossing 401000 tons.
1942 - 1821 total ships, grossing 5367000 tons: comprising - 1316 "freighters", grossing 3797000 tons: 328 P&Cs, grossing 1023000 tons: 76 "passengers", grossing 120000 tons: 101 "tankers", grossing 427000 tons.

So it's not that different after all. There's a couple of further considerations. The P&C group includes the Hakone Maru, Heian, Aikoku, Brasil, Yasukuni, Hakone, Buenos Aires, Horai, Kanzyu, etc.. classes. When these are "grossed" out, and calculated in, you end up with about 280 coastal P&C ferrys having an average gross tonnage of about 483 tons. Similarly for the "passenger" ships; when you "gross" out the Asamas, Takasagos and the Kamakuras, what's left in the "passenger" category is equally dross.

Only reason I used Nihon Shosen instead of Mark, is a matter of source consistency across game elements. Nihon Shosen gives much useable internal information based on consistent parameters. Have known Mark for a long time, and he graciously vetted what we did with the Japanese merchant fleet (for both stock and DaBabes) without having any issues, given the game imperitives.

Just for S&G and comparison purposes the below is from USSBS vol 54 - The War against Japanese Transportation, page 34:

[Brady]

Former talks on this had me persoanly more or less ok with the start up tonage, save the woden hulled fleet, and more at odds over the wartime built tonage.

A big isue with the wartime built tonage was the number of larger ships that were not built, I define this as over 1,000 tons, in game. To be honest I know some steps were taken to resolve this priour to release but I cant say off hand whear it was left, as the info was lost to the great purge of data Matrix did.

The smaller ships and the Woden hulled hsips built in beweldering numbers, The Sea Trucks and Shuger Dogs, amounted to millions of tons worth of shipping, they did operate throught the empire and were built throught the empire, but modeling them in game would be imposable given their numbers, their only represented in a token form in game.

The bigest isue with their absence is that they were the ships that worked the finial leg of the fead line to front (amongst other areas), and since their gone more larger ships will put under the gun so to speak.

This makes it much easer for the allies to atrate Japanese shiping as their are far fewer targets and what their are are in part larger, the tonage may be their in part but their are fewer bottoms.

Practicaly I dont realy see how we could get around this, asdie from reducing the number of US subs in game.

[herwin]

[:)]!!!

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Brady

The smaller ships and the Woden hulled hsips built in beweldering numbers, The Sea Trucks and Shuger Dogs, amounted to millions of tons worth of shipping, they did operate throught the empire and were built throught the empire, but modeling them in game would be imposable given their numbers, their only represented in a token form in game.

The bigest isue with their absence is that they were the ships that worked the finial leg of the fead line to front (amongst other areas), and since their gone more larger ships will put under the gun so to speak.

This makes it much easer for the allies to atrate Japanese shiping as their are far fewer targets and what their are are in part larger, the tonage may be their in part but their are fewer bottoms.

Practicaly I dont realy see how we could get around this, asdie from reducing the number of US subs in game.

The "re-spawning" barges in game represent nicely IMO the small wooden ships...from the USSBS - War Against Japanese Transportation...

[Nikademus]

has anyone actually ever starved Japan out?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Brady

...

This makes it much easer for the allies to atrate Japanese shiping as their are far fewer targets and what their are are in part larger, the tonage may be their in part but their are fewer bottoms.

Practicaly I dont realy see how we could get around this, asdie from reducing the number of US subs in game.

I know that several people have run into issues with the IJN E-class escorts being much more effective than they were in real life. Maybe so, I haven't had that experience personally.

The issue I have seen is that IJ airborne ASW is far too effective, or at least it is when pilot ASW skill gets above ~70ish. Against say 10 subs per month killed by air plus additional ones damaged, the Allies can't sustain any kind of sub interdiction of resource shipping.

If you are factoring in what Allied subs can do, then either that problem has to be addressed or Allied subs factored back out of the equation.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

has anyone actually ever starved Japan out?

Did the Allies?[;)]

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: treespider
Just for S&G and comparison purposes the below is from USSBS vol 54 - The War against Japanese Transportation, page 34:

Yep'per, we all have access to that info. We all have access to Parillo's info, Heald's info, Yoshiura's info, Nagasawa's info, and my info.

There are quite a few valid and highly respected takes on this model. None of them are all that different from one another, but notably the USSBS is not cited by any legitimate historian of the genre, except as an ancillary (and highly cautionary) reference. The imperitive of the game is include merchants sufficient to comprise the fleet at opening day, and comport with its numbers and carying capacity.

[Nikademus]

i'm being serious. The issue of fully aka accurately representing Japan's merchants is a long standing one that has spawned many heated arguments.

But given how the game economy works......again, has anyone even equaled the economic success achieved by the Allies during the war against Japan? Has Japan's resources and oil/fuel shriveled to the point of shortages?

I'm not counting SB of industries ....talking specifcally about the strangling of Japan's merchant marine trying to bring in resources. It has been suggested that given the abstract nature of supply in the game that one can't starve Japan....so if thats the case.....an argument for putting in every wooden boat or small merchant is moot.

Pacwar had the same issue.

[Brady]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Brady

...

This makes it much easer for the allies to atrate Japanese shiping as their are far fewer targets and what their are are in part larger, the tonage may be their in part but their are fewer bottoms.

Practicaly I dont realy see how we could get around this, asdie from reducing the number of US subs in game.

I know that several people have run into issues with the IJN E-class escorts being much more effective than they were in real life. Maybe so, I haven't had that experience personally.

The issue I have seen is that IJ airborne ASW is far too effective, or at least it is when pilot ASW skill gets above ~70ish. Against say 10 subs per month killed by air plus additional ones damaged, the Allies can't sustain any kind of sub interdiction of resource shipping.

If you are factoring in what Allied subs can do, then either that problem has to be addressed or Allied subs factored back out of the equation.

Its not just subs , but everthing thats araid aganst the ships, Planes, mines, Subs, surface assests exc.

Every time you remove a Japanese merchant from the model and retain the allied warships/planes it acts as a force multiplier.

As to the efects of ASW assests, thats another subject, and from what I have sean on the forum a very subjective one.

I am not realy advocating the removal of anyhting, just trying to make a point.

Basicaly the model cant be expected to be perfect, their are a great many things wrong with the Shipoing model on both sides of the fence from a historical perspective, not nescessarly from a gameplay perspective.

The Japanese have fewer ships, by thousands of bottoms (granted many are small bottoms).

The Japanese have more flexabality in terms of the shiping use than they did historicaly, largely because a player will use his ships more efeiceintly than the Japanese did, and he will escort them.

The allies dont have a suply shortage.

The allies can move anyhting they want on ships of any type from day one.

Generaly speaking the Allies also have many many more ships available to them for Military use fom day one as well.

[Captain Cruft]

The "all resources collect in the biggest connected port" thing, combined with the infinite capacity insta-rail is a big part of the problem IMO. You only need a relatively few large ships trucking between a small set of large ports to shift all the stuff out of a region. The smaller cargo vessels are basically surplus to requirements, and having a very few convoy routes and bottlenecks to protect makes the ASW job vastly easier.

In reality, even with a convoy system, there would be shipping constantly checking in and out of every base on the map, and of necessity much of this traffic would comprise of small ships. That's not something you would necessarily want to manage of course.

I suspect that just limiting rail capacity and range would be about the most useful simple way to address this. That's a code change though ...

[Nikademus]

The allied situation can be addressed by restricting many more LCU's at game start, and reducing supply levels, tweaking merchant availability. Personally i would also remove the ability to insta-divert historical reinforcements to new objectives, such as Singapore reinforcements and the sending home of Aussie divisions for home defense.

Japan's situation, economically is far more complex. A simple fix may not be possible assuming it's needed at all. Like i said, it has been "suggested" that the job vs. the Japanese MM can't be done given the way supply works in the game. I recall during my late pacwar experiences, to try to address the issue of starving japan, i would 'scuttle' any damaged merchant hit by us subs during that phase (because in pacwar.....ships were too hard to sink....so most sub torp hits on merchants only resulted in damage which did not impact their ability to deliver the goods)

Even doing that....Japan never came close to experiencing shortages.

[Brady]

Thier may be a very good reasion in game Japan has never come close to experancing shortages, in real life she did not untill 44, most games dot get that far.
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Most players use their ships much more eficiently than Japan did.
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Most players escort and convoy their ships, Japan did not escort and convoy&nbsp;many of their ships for most of the war.
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For example most of the Ships that were in the controle of teh Army and Navy did not take suplys back to Japan, some did but most did not. In game a player will move suplys back with shisp he sent trops to the front with.