Tweaking the Japanese/Allied Economies

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: witpqs
It's historical. At a certain point they reduced the number of men in a squad because they had fewer men to go around. I suppose an IJ player could finagle things with turning off replacements to avoid getting the new squads.

Of course that assumes that the war is going as badly as it did historically. If you take a look at my vanilla WITP game, I'm doing far better than Japan did historically, yet I am handicapped with the same 'panic' decisions made by the high command as if I had lost at Midway. Sure its a limitation of the game, but some flexibility would have been nice.

Needless to say, for things like this that are fixed in the game, the assumption has to be that the war goes about the same way that the real one did. So some of these things will appear to be out of step with the game situation if the Japanese are doing better than in Real Life, or if they are doing worse.

If, on the other hand, the game consistently resulted in the Japanese doing better, or worse, than RL, then there would be a problem with game balance.

Examples: Have shinano as both a BB and a CV and let the player turn on the one he wants or needs
Add in the original Maru plan ships and the modified ones so the player has the choice of building the ones he needs (keep in mind there is not enough HI or NSY in game to build them all, you will have to pick and choose or get burned bad in the end)
give allied players the choice of building the Montanas etc*

*I'd even like to see the Allies have some flexibility...there were lots of ships that were cancelled/scrapped/postponed that could have been built had the situation been different.

Yes, I would have liked to see some of this kind of thing as well.

But it isn't going to happen in this game...not sure that WiTP in its current form is up to it, with all the hard-coding that is in place.

That's pretty much it. For AE there was only so much that could be done.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen some more late war Japanese ships in the OOB, to cover the occasions where they do better than in RL, but I was not involved with the OOBs. Mods can address that, however.

Andrew

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Brady
1) Make Austraila New Zeland and India neady suply wise.

Australia and NZ were not net importers of supply in real life. They were exporters.

2) Send the AIF home ( and slap a PP on it.)

Already argued to death elsewhere and off topic.

4) Make it so you nead to load troops on Ships on the East coast to get to Cape Town no more free rides.

Thinking off map movement is a "free ride" is a major misunderstanding. The movement of units off map is making use of ships that are also off map. For example, when the Allies moved units from, say, the US East coast to North Africa (before shipping them on to CBI), they did not have to withdraw ships from the Pacific theatre to do so.

Andrew

EDIT: Oops! Meant to say "did not have to withdraw ships"

[darbycmcd]

Vettim89 - I totally agree with your take on the situation and think you are headed in the right direction. Did you ever look at El Cid's RHS mod for WitP? He also took on some of these issues and had some nice work-arounds. For instance

US air production was all shifted to the map and started out damaged (it was probably not all on map and damaged but significant amount was). This was a big supply sink for allies IF they wanted to get full production of ac right away. It also made some rear area cities sort of tempting targets for enterprising Japanese raids, which incentivized home defense...

He set up a production system for the US that required shipping resources and fuel. I am not sure you could do this now with the off map areas, but it was very interesting how much US shipping you had to use to keep the economy churning


I also support ending supply production of refineries, it makes some areas too easy to defend, for both sides (I'm looking at you Palembang...). In general the idea is that Japan has to import raw materials and export military supplies, so take out the things that make military supplies overseas. These places simply could not support combat operations on any scale through local production.

As Japan I generally turn off the major LI centers in the Home Islands after the first couple of months (although I do use a more conservative industrial expansion program than I think most JFBs do). HI alone will produce about 12k supplies per day, and once you capture a couple of the refineries in SRA, it is enough. Plus the savings on not just res but the fuel savings for not needing to ship in res is worth it. I regularly have 100+ xAK sitting in port through 1942, although things pick up as losses mount later in the war.

As someone pointed out, the game doesn't model the civilian economy at all, but it includes all the shipping available to Japan. Basically every shipping operation has a military use, if it is bringing res or fuel in to create planes or shipping military supplies out. But in RL even the majority of raw material imports did not go to military functions. I think this may be one reason that the shipping available seems to be a bit... ample.

A bit OT: Tempo of operations is far too high, I think everyone agrees, but I think players also like it... at any rate, DBB has a couple items that may help with it. Reduction in the number of support squads indigenous to combat units means they have to be rotated back to rest centers after major actions. Reduction in the number of engineers to brake the number of large bases constructed, and reduction in AV. I think these changes are for the good.

[treespider]

A number of people have stated that the game does not model the civilian economy at all...that is not entirely true.

The Japanese economy was based upon an examination of how many tons of resources were imported then combined with Home Island production of like resources... The civilian economy is "modeled" in the sense of the resource requirements for various industries...hence why it takes 15 or 20 tons of raw materials to produce only 1, 2, or 3 points of material usable in the war effort... the remaining points are presumed to go towards the civilian market. After reexamining the numbers the current import stress is fairly accurate.

-----

One item that people have been discussing is the amount of supply available. IMO this is not necessarily a function of how much supply is produced but of how much supply is consumed. If i could change one system in the code it would be to have an editor to adjust supply consumption rates and supply spoilage thresholds. IMO the rates are much to low. Our digital Quarter masters are much too efficient. The only way I know of to fiddle with this currently is to reduce base sizes...hence the across the board cuts in airfield sizes in my mod.


As an anecdote various quotes from the US Army books - dealing with the QM Corps:
In March 1944 the War Department estimated that 12% of such food moved in the previous year from the US to the South pacific and 17% of that moved to the SW Pacific could not be accounted for. In the 12 months between May 1943 and April 1944 in the SW Pacific, the Chief QM's record covering food from Australia as well as the United States agreed with the War Department figure. It ascribed losses to the following causes: spoilage 5.44%, shipping accidents 5.44%, pilferage 3.4%, excess issues 1.36% and unknown 1.36%. Storage losses in New guinea during 1943 amounted to about 13.6%

And that is just Class I supplies. Class II and Class IV also experienced "spoilage" as well.

Unfortunately in game if a cargo ship drops 6000 supply points somewhere ...for the most part all 6000 points will be consumed...despite the fact taht some would be lost, damaged, spoiled, unsuitable for requirements etc.

Wonder how hard it would be to code in a 2% hit to supply every time it is loaded and off loaded onto a docked cargo ship in a Transport TF with a higher % - say 5% or 10%- lost during loading and unloading of an amphibious TF.

So when my 100 ship Supply Transport TF loads its 600,000 supply points in San Fran 12,000 points are lost to "accident"...and then when then same TF unloads at Sydney another 12,000 points are lost due to accident and spoilage.

And when that Amphib TF loads 100,000 supply points 5,000 points are lost and an additional 5,000 points are lost when it unloads.

Anywho...doubt I could convince the powers that be of the wisdom of such a change...

[vettim89]

Treespider, I have heard 10% for bulk cargo lost every time it is loaded or unloaded also. Tieing to my post in the merchant shipping thread, perhaps reducing cargo ships capacities by 20% would be a work around. You wouldn't actually see the supply lost but the end result would be the same: less supply for the end user.

[Brady]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Brady
1) Make Austraila New Zeland and India neady suply wise.

Australia and NZ were not net importers of supply in real life. They were exporters.

I am refering to Military suplies, thier is so much at hand in Austraila that one realy does not nead to ship anything their Much like India it can sustain its self from a military perspective. The efect this has in game is that Players nead not concern themselfs with seperate suply convoys they can use every ship to move LCU and aircraft to the war zone.

2) Send the AIF home ( and slap a PP on it.)

Already argued to death elsewhere and off topic.

House rules can sort this easly enough.

4) Make it so you nead to load troops on Ships on the East coast to get to Cape Town no more free rides.

Thinking off map movement is a "free ride" is a major misunderstanding. The movement of units off map is making use of ships that are also off map. For example, when the Allies moved units from, say, the US East coast to North Africa (before shipping them on to CBI), they did have to withdraw ships from the Pacific theatre to do so.

I think perhaps your missing my point, Most ships did not dump their loads in cape town they went round the bend to the CBI or Austrailia. Also since most players move much more in the way of men and material (or they can) via this route not using ships that are in the PTO for this task asumes their is some slack in the Atlantic, and their was not historicaly, hice the reasion many ships were withdrawn to the ETO from the Pacific.

Andrew

[darbycmcd]

Treespider, I get what you are saying, and it probably is the best that can be done. But my feeling is that there is some disconnect between aggregate input and output compared to RL. It may just be that because the res are undifferentiated it is just too easy to get all the necessary ones from Korea/Manchuko. I don't really know, but it feels a bit slack, although that is not very useful or precise!

[inqistor]

I am not sure turning off LI is common behaviour of Japan players. Supplies grow steadily, but I can not say, there is much surplus. In WITP they were actually pretty tight in Japan, with even mediocre development of industry, there were shortages around 6-7/42. In AE Japan squads do not upgrade, so one of serious WITP supply drain is out.
Turning off supply production at refineries, will downgrade supply in DEI, so Dutch will fight even shorter. Bad idea.
Afterwards, even if Japan will have to transport additional supply to JAVA, it must send empty ships for resources in the area anyway, so loading them with supplies in Japan will be no problem, and it did not increase transports usage in any way.
But I agree, that it seems, that getting supply to front seems far too easy, and there is far too much transports. In WITP planes needed at least 2000 capacity, for supply point transport, so it seems supply should weight 20, not 1 point. That of course create problem, that non-transport ships can get far too few supply (SS probably only 2 points). The easy way to solve this, would be just increasing cost of supply transport, in merchant ships. There is table for different cargo types, and ships, so every model probably have its own statistics.

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Most players are probably not aware of one of the issues.
There are 3 types of IJA squads. Device 707 with 20 Soft Attack, and 17 weight, and 709, which is strenghtened IJA squad with 22 Soft Attack, and 19 weight (used by only several units). The 709 "upgrades" in 1943 into 710, which have identical statistics, as 707.
As it is now, in 1943 Japan player, if he turns on replacements, spends 17 (weight)*324 (squads)=5508 Armament Points, and supply, per Division, and as result loses 10% firepower, and gets in return around 324 * (old squad weight 22 - new squad weight 20 = 2) 2 = 648 manpower. Now, does any sane player would pay, to LOWER firepower

Sounds like the squads need a little tweaking...unfortunately this won't be done officially, so anyone wanting to play with Japanese squad that at least keep their status quo are going to have to play a mod.

There is ONE serious problem. Most "special" squads (SNLF, motorized, and Para) in game are modelled after TYPE B infantry squad (Device 707, with 3 Grenade Dischargers in platoon), while IRL they were based on TYPE A squad (device 709, with 4 GDs in platoon). That decrease their Soft Attack by 10%. In addition, every source claims, that Japan Paratroops had similar organization to Infantry squads, while in game, they do not use GDs, so they are 25% weaker.

Examples: Have shinano as both a BB and a CV and let the player turn on the one he wants or needs

That is actually fairly easy to implement. Just make first Shinano version be build, as simple, empty hull, without armament. The only option player would have is two conversions: one into BB, other into CV. Both time-consuming.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: treespider

A number of people have stated that the game does not model the civilian economy at all...that is not entirely true.

The Japanese economy was based upon an examination of how many tons of resources were imported then combined with Home Island production of like resources... The civilian economy is "modeled" in the sense of the resource requirements for various industries...hence why it takes 15 or 20 tons of raw materials to produce only 1, 2, or 3 points of material usable in the war effort... the remaining points are presumed to go towards the civilian market. After reexamining the numbers the current import stress is fairly accurate.

-----

One item that people have been discussing is the amount of supply available. IMO this is not necessarily a function of how much supply is produced but of how much supply is consumed. If i could change one system in the code it would be to have an editor to adjust supply consumption rates and supply spoilage thresholds. IMO the rates are much to low. Our digital Quarter masters are much too efficient. The only way I know of to fiddle with this currently is to reduce base sizes...hence the across the board cuts in airfield sizes in my mod.


As an anecdote various quotes from the US Army books - dealing with the QM Corps:
In March 1944 the War Department estimated that 12% of such food moved in the previous year from the US to the South pacific and 17% of that moved to the SW Pacific could not be accounted for. In the 12 months between May 1943 and April 1944 in the SW Pacific, the Chief QM's record covering food from Australia as well as the United States agreed with the War Department figure. It ascribed losses to the following causes: spoilage 5.44%, shipping accidents 5.44%, pilferage 3.4%, excess issues 1.36% and unknown 1.36%. Storage losses in New guinea during 1943 amounted to about 13.6%

And that is just Class I supplies. Class II and Class IV also experienced "spoilage" as well.

Unfortunately in game if a cargo ship drops 6000 supply points somewhere ...for the most part all 6000 points will be consumed...despite the fact taht some would be lost, damaged, spoiled, unsuitable for requirements etc.

Wonder how hard it would be to code in a 2% hit to supply every time it is loaded and off loaded onto a docked cargo ship in a Transport TF with a higher % - say 5% or 10%- lost during loading and unloading of an amphibious TF.

So when my 100 ship Supply Transport TF loads its 600,000 supply points in San Fran 12,000 points are lost to "accident"...and then when then same TF unloads at Sydney another 12,000 points are lost due to accident and spoilage.

And when that Amphib TF loads 100,000 supply points 5,000 points are lost and an additional 5,000 points are lost when it unloads.

Anywho...doubt I could convince the powers that be of the wisdom of such a change...

Actually Treespider, very good example of a complex economy model at work is Distant Worlds found here at Matrix, since it tracks a number of strategic and luxury resources individually. I can give you a good example of this working from my own games:

Example 1: Argon gas is needed to build certain ship components. I had a limited supply (namely 1 station mining argon gas) that was lost to a pirate attack. I was reduced to depending on a single mining ship to gather the argon I needed until I had enough to build more mining ships and stations. In the end, my entire ship and base building effort came to a complete halt due to lack of resources.

Example 2: Caslon gas is the main fuel for ships in DW. And since all ships run on it (both civilian and government) you are usually in a perpetual shortage of the fuel. I've had attacks delayed, wars stalled, and the economy suffer all based on not being able to get enough Caslon to my starports to refuel my ships.

These 2 examples from a 4X game are exactly what happened to Japan. Granted these are different games, and the AI in DW is more than capable of running both a civilian and military economy at the same time...in fact, the player has ZERO INPUT into the civilian economy, it is completely controlled by the AI

But can you imagine this: 1. Running out of a needed resource (in Japan's case Iron, Tin, etc to make structural steel) 2. Not so much not having the fuel and supply, but not being able to get it where it was needed in a timely fashion, or a shortage (Even the US had to spend time building up a supply base before taking another island), with the added problem of the civilian economy siphoning off what is needed to keep producing war materials. (this is modeled somewhat in WiTP).

But can you imagine the complaints if the WITP economy was that complex. Either side could suffer from a shortage or from running out of a single resource, which may or may not have happened in the real event. Interesting yes...too complex, very possibly.

[Brady]

ORIGINAL: darbymcd

Treespider, I get what you are saying, and it probably is the best that can be done. But my feeling is that there is some disconnect between aggregate input and output compared to RL. It may just be that because the res are undifferentiated it is just too easy to get all the necessary ones from Korea/Manchuko. I don't really know, but it feels a bit slack, although that is not very useful or precise!

The problem is it has to feal slack, becasue in the real world Japan only used half its merchant fleat to run the ecenomy, everything the game builds, what Japan more or less built was sustained in the real world by about 50% of Japans merchant fleet.

The other half was working for the military, for prety much the entire war. (not suporting the Industrail base.)

Also their is no civilain ecenomy as such in game, nor was their realy in Japan during the war, at least in the since I think most people understand it, prety much all the Industry in Japan was producing material for the war effort.

The notion that their is two ecenomys in Japan or was, is a mistake, implanted way back in WiTP to explane away why that game left out so many ships, we cant expect it to be perfect its just a model crafted to creat a feal for what it was like in the war. The isue their is of course that what people often think was the situation is realy not actualy how it was or why...

It was tight for Japan because only half her merchant was operating to suport the Industrail base in Japan, if a player uses only half the ships he has it should barely keep the war machine going.

The isue is players dont use just half their ships and they use them far more eficiently than the Japanese did.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: treespider
One item that people have been discussing is the amount of supply available. IMO this is not necessarily a function of how much supply is produced but of how much supply is consumed. If i could change one system in the code it would be to have an editor to adjust supply consumption rates and supply spoilage thresholds. IMO the rates are much to low. Our digital Quarter masters are much too efficient. The only way I know of to fiddle with this currently is to reduce base sizes...hence the across the board cuts in airfield sizes in my mod.

Hi Spidey,

Some interesting things floating about. Obviously, code changes are not gonna happen [:D] but there's a couple other things that might float your boat. One of them is AndyMac's "convoys" starting at line 7840 in the Locations file. "Convoys" show up at Aden, Cape Town, etc.. dump their "contents" into the pools and disappear. They also dump about 75 mi mi mi mi million tons of supply, and almost that much in fuel. In '42 alone, they drop off 21,200,000 tons of supply in off-map places, mostly Cape Town.

On one hand, this forces a player to form TFs (using valuable merchies) and go schlepp the stuff, but still - given all the attention Andrew gave to the on-map supply generation ... 75,000,000 tons, like, poof! Woof!

We killed most of these in DBB.

Things I like:

(1) Refineries don't make supply: Like it. Love it, in fact. Yeah, yeah, I know, supply includes petro fractions, but jeez, louize, there's so much supply floating around otherwise that chopping logic on bunker-c v diesel v coal v av-gas v motor fuel v sterno, seems a skoosh involved. I like the original premise, where you go to the DEI to get oil. You transport the oil to Japan, where it becomes fuel, which has to be transported to where the fleet is so the fleet can gas up.

Yes, "some" ships could burn raw Borneo light-sweet (at significantly reduced speed/power products, btw) and sure, there were some refineries in the DEI, but again, jeez, louize, the whole idea was to invade the DEI and get the oil and bring it home so they could do something with it, and that's the abstraction basis for the game. Combing the DEI with respect to 'supply' and 'fuel' products, as with a fine-tooth comb, is smothering the baby in the bathwater, while increasing the volume of the suds.

(2) Selectively cut refineries. Would also like to see refinery capacity in DEI (actually everywhere except HI, US, maybe Abadan) cut drastically. The whole premise is capture the oil: transport the oil: make it into stuff: transport the stuff. Why in heck does anybody care about tankers if all the fuel and supply is locally made and doesn't have to be transported anywhere (hyperbolically speaking).

(3) Remove most of the supply centers. This is a wargame and concerns itself with troops, and ships, and guns and planes, and really don't give a patoot about the availability of calico or copra. Military supply came from just a few places (the HI, US, etc..). Yeah, sure, a lot of people provided a lot of stuff, but when you are talking about a reasonable amount of historical shipping, and only a limited amount of military consumption, it makes sense to require supply to transported from the major centers.

Things I'n not so keen about:

Trying to get more specific about "anything". With all due respect and sincere apologies to Andrew, this is an abstracted wargame. Trying to turn it into a Chigago School econometric model will just put you on an aspirin program a few years early. I think we might have done ourselves a disservice by trying to hew so many things to historical reality. It tends to give the impression that other things are susceptible to the same graininess; just look at the thread where the preteens are whining about the number of flamethrowers in a squad.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but although we do detail in DBB, it is for no other reason than than to support the top level game premise.

Sigh. Ciao.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: JWE



(3) Remove most of the supply centers. This is a wargame and concerns itself with troops, and ships, and guns and planes, and really don't give a patoot about the availability of calico or copra. Military supply came from just a few places (the HI, US, etc..). Yeah, sure, a lot of people provided a lot of stuff, but when you are talking about a reasonable amount of historical shipping, and only a limited amount of military consumption, it makes sense to require supply to transported from the major centers.

Funny that same idea has been rattling around in my head the past couple of days...Force the Japanese to transport resources by eliminating the home source and adjusting inputs and outputs accordingly.

Things I'n not so keen about:

Trying to get more specific about "anything". With all due respect and sincere apologies to Andrew, this is an abstracted wargame. Trying to turn it into a Chigago School econometric model will just put you on an aspirin program a few years early. I think we might have done ourselves a disservice by trying to hew so many things to historical reality. It tends to give the impression that other things are susceptible to the same graininess; just look at the thread where the preteens are whining about the number of flamethrowers in a squad.

I agree wholeheartedly with this idea...resources and supply should be general concepts. The 20-20 hindsight of history would tell the Allied player exactly which single factory to target with all of his assets to cripple the Axis.

Afterall had the allies known if they only took out the ball-bearing plant the other sides industry would be crippled why didn't they devote every single bomber to that task until the mission was complete?

Hence resources are resources...

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: JWE
Some interesting things floating about. Obviously, code changes are not gonna happen [:D] but there's a couple other things that might float your boat. One of them is AndyMac's "convoys" starting at line 7840 in the Locations file. "Convoys" show up at Aden, Cape Town, etc.. dump their "contents" into the pools and disappear. They also dump about 75 mi mi mi mi million tons of supply, and almost that much in fuel. In '42 alone, they drop off 21,200,000 tons of supply in off-map places, mostly Cape Town.

On one hand, this forces a player to form TFs (using valuable merchies) and go schlepp the stuff, but still - given all the attention Andrew gave to the on-map supply generation ... 75,000,000 tons, like, poof! Woof!

We killed most of these in DBB.

And so they are dead in my mod as well...

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Treespider, I have heard 10% for bulk cargo lost every time it is loaded or unloaded also. Tieing to my post in the merchant shipping thread, perhaps reducing cargo ships capacities by 20% would be a work around. You wouldn't actually see the supply lost but the end result would be the same: less supply for the end user.

Not quite the same...reducing ship capacity messes with a whole set of algorithms associated with loading units and starting TF compositions.

My idea is:
100,000 loaded in San Fran - 2,000 loading cost - doesn't affect anything as the US is source.
100,000 unloaded in Sydney - 2,000 unloading cost - 98,000 left in Australia.
98,000 loaded at Brisbane for New Caledonia - 1960 load cost - which is subtracted from Brisbane pool.
98,000 unloaded New Caledonia - 1960 unload cost - leaving 96,040
96,040 transshipped to Guadacanal via amphib - 4802 (5% amphib load penalty) from New Caledonia Pool
96,040 unloaded at Guadacanl - 4802 unload fee leaves 91238 for front line use.

A total of 15524 would be lost in theater.

Whereas a simple reduction in ship capacity would just mean more ships being used to move my 100K but I would still have all of my 100,000 points from beginning to end.

-----
Another effect of the above change - would also help to make taxi-cab / milk truck delivery route style offensives more expensive...as offensives pick-up and carry on to each subesquent base - supplies are consumed with each move.

------

Anywho code isn't going to change anytime soon...unless maybe I can figure out how to make that wheel really squeaky.

[Andrew Brown]

As someone pointed out, the game doesn't model the civilian economy at all, but it includes all the shipping available to Japan.

That is not correct. The Japanese civilian economy is modelled in the game. It is represented by the requirement to feed so may resources to LI. That is why I am interested to know how common it is for Japanese players to turn off LI production.

Andrew

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown
Thinking off map movement is a "free ride" is a major misunderstanding. The movement of units off map is making use of ships that are also off map. For example, when the Allies moved units from, say, the US East coast to North Africa (before shipping them on to CBI), they did not have to withdraw ships from the Pacific theatre to do so.

Andrew

EDIT: Oops! Meant to say "did not have to withdraw ships"

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Brady

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Brady
1) Make Austraila New Zeland and India neady suply wise.

Australia and NZ were not net importers of supply in real life. They were exporters.

I am refering to Military suplies, thier is so much at hand in Austraila that one realy does not nead to ship anything their Much like India it can sustain its self from a military perspective. The efect this has in game is that Players nead not concern themselfs with seperate suply convoys they can use every ship to move LCU and aircraft to the war zone.

You are forgetting that there is no distinction in the game between supply types. That is why I used the term "net supply" in my response. Yes, it would have been nice if there were separate types of supplies modelled, and had to be moved around individually, but that is not the case. That is why setting the supply requirements of an entire country to one particular sub-component of supply, and not that actual net supply moving in or out, is not reasonable. You have to look at the entire picture.

4) Make it so you nead to load troops on Ships on the East coast to get to Cape Town no more free rides.

Thinking off map movement is a "free ride" is a major misunderstanding. The movement of units off map is making use of ships that are also off map. For example, when the Allies moved units from, say, the US East coast to North Africa (before shipping them on to CBI), they did have to withdraw ships from the Pacific theatre to do so.

I think perhaps your missing my point, Most ships did not dump their loads in cape town they went round the bend to the CBI or Austrailia. Also since most players move much more in the way of men and material (or they can) via this route not using ships that are in the PTO for this task asumes their is some slack in the Atlantic, and their was not historicaly, hice the reasion many ships were withdrawn to the ETO from the Pacific.

Andrew

The transfer of ships in and out of the theatre is already modelled in the overall availability of ships in the game. That is why some Allied ships that really did serve in the Pacific (usually in convoys to/from) do not appear in the game. So no point missed. Pretending that the Allies did not have any ships to move units across the Atlantic, and had to always requisition ships from the Pacific to do so, is not reasonable.

Andrew

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: JWE
Things I like:

(1) Refineries don't make supply: Like it. Love it, in fact. Yeah, yeah, I know, supply includes petro fractions, but jeez, louize, there's so much supply floating around otherwise that chopping logic on bunker-c v diesel v coal v av-gas v motor fuel v sterno, seems a skoosh involved. I like the original premise, where you go to the DEI to get oil. You transport the oil to Japan, where it becomes fuel, which has to be transported to where the fleet is so the fleet can gas up.

FWIW I agree.

Andrew

[Brady]

You are forgetting that there is no distinction in the game between supply types. That is why I used the term "net supply" in my response. Yes, it would have been nice if there were separate types of supplies modelled, and had to be moved around individually, but that is not the case. That is why setting the supply requirements of an entire country to one particular sub-component of supply, and not that actual net supply moving in or out, is not reasonable. You have to look at the entire picture

I gues I am and I am not, in the since that my concern is that its enabling an early allied ofensive in part because folks have so many ships they dont nead to do anyhting else but move troops with them to the front.

That and you can actualy suport a limited ofensive from Austrailian suply.

For me hear the big picture is the Suply in Austraila is enabling, in part, the Allies to go on the Ofensive earlyer than they were realy able to historicaly, its a small part of the problem.

....................

The transfer of ships in and out of the theatre is already modelled in the overall availability of ships in the game. That is why some Allied ships that really did serve in the Pacific (usually in convoys to/from) do not appear in the game. So no point missed. Pretending that the Allies did not have any ships to move units across the Atlantic, and had to always requisition ships from the Pacific to do so, is not reasonable.

This sorta comes back to the other isue with regard to how the US moved troops, their were not enough troop transports to serve both theaters, that why many were sent to the ETO from the pacific in 42, asuming their were enough to ove men to the CBI from the east cost is not corect, from a historical context.

I gues part of the problem hear is I have looked at the ships in game, every one of the allied merchant ships in fact for the first year or so, and spot checked many others for the rest of the war, and the picture I see is diferent.

Again this comes back to one of the reasions for the allies being able to go on the ofensive so early, its to easy for them to move men and material back and forth.

If their were a limit to the number of points that could be lifted I would be more inclined to buy the free ride to cape town, but theirs not, I can send everyhting I want to Cape town (heck I dont even have to pay PP till I remove them from cape town if their restricted).

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: JWE
Things I like:

(1) Refineries don't make supply: Like it. Love it, in fact. Yeah, yeah, I know, supply includes petro fractions, but jeez, louize, there's so much supply floating around otherwise that chopping logic on bunker-c v diesel v coal v av-gas v motor fuel v sterno, seems a skoosh involved. I like the original premise, where you go to the DEI to get oil. You transport the oil to Japan, where it becomes fuel, which has to be transported to where the fleet is so the fleet can gas up.

FWIW I agree.

Andrew

+1