Plan 8-8-8 From Outerspace!

[GaryChildress]

@ DivePac88 & derhexer: You guys are in luck. I'm almost finished on what I'm calling "Plan 8-8-8 Light" (It's less filling and plays great!). You might like it. It is stock scenario 1 with only the BB lineup changed. It's basically stock scenario 1 on steriods battleship-wise. It will feature all the BBs I've listed above. It will NOT feature any of the new carriers or conversions though. So it may be a bit more realistic than "Plan 8-8-8 Deluxe" which will feature a whole new ships, airgroup and LCU lineup.

I just need to finish a couple touches and then find a site on the Internet to upload the files.

WANTED: Does anyone out there in WITP-land have a website which they would be willing to allow me to upload my scenario to? Many thanks to any volunteers. [:)]

[DivePac88]

Thanks for you're hard-work there Gary, this is just the mod I've been hanging out for.

Sorry can't help you with a download site, other than I used Dropbox once to swap large files.

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

WANTED: Does anyone out there in WITP-land have a website which they would be willing to allow me to upload my scenario to? Many thanks to any volunteers. [:)]

google.sites is a free hosting service using a gmail account. There are many others. I'd be willing to tack it onto my video portal or ask the Babes team ...

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: n01487477

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

WANTED: Does anyone out there in WITP-land have a website which they would be willing to allow me to upload my scenario to? Many thanks to any volunteers. [:)]

google.sites is a free hosting service using a gmail account. There are many others. I'd be willing to tack it onto my video portal or ask the Babes team ...

Thanks! I just created a Google site. I didn't see where it said how much space I get with the website though. Hopefully it's at least 50mb.

[pharmy]

For an ultra/crazy version perhaps- I had to doublecheck if I was still on combinedfleet.com
http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/furamain.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/usndex_f.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/dchdex_f.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/mindex_f.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/gbndex_f.htm
http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/pommer_f.htm

[GaryChildress]

I'm pleased to announce "Plan 8-8-8 Light" has been posted on my new Google Website. You can find it here:

https://sites.google.com/site/garyswitpsite/

Please let me know if anyone has trouble either downloading it or playing it. It hasn't been tested for play balance so please let me know if you think anything needs tweaking.

The scenario is basically just stock scenario 1 with some battleships added.

Below is a list of all the battleships included in the game.

Yellow highlight means the ship is present in theater on 12/7/1942
Light blue highlight the ship is present off map on 12/7/1942 (based at East Coast USA and United Kingdom).
Red highlight means the ship is in the country's OOB but will not show up in the pacific at all.
No highlight means the ship will eventually arrive in the Pacific theater.




PS if anyone should do an AAR on a game using this mod please let me know so I can follow it!

[inqistor]

I find your pictures choosing highly questionable.

Not only there are NO actual planners shown, but there are also no representation of day/night dichotomy.

And NO Bela Lugosi?


Back-on-topic:
Cut effect of anti-ship weapons, and increase damage of AA weapons. That way air will be far less effective.

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Thanks! I just created a Google site. I didn't see where it said how much space I get with the website though. Hopefully it's at least 50mb.

It is shown somewhere during editing. Not much, IIRC 25 Mb.

[John 3rd]

Looks absolutely BLOODY to me. Good luck with the Mod and have fun with it!

[GaryChildress]

Well, I'm now working on "Plan 8-8-8 Deluxe". The Deluxe edition will be an almost complete rewrite of the LCUs, Airgroups, Ships and AI databases. I forsee many hours of labor in my future. I also forsee myself never finishing this. But it will be fun to play around with.

Anyway, this mod will include substantial forces from Germany, Italy and France in the game.

The problem is how to make it so that German and Italian units aren't utilizing Japanese leader and pilot names. If I'm not mistaken I couild do this in one of two ways:

1. Place all Japanese forces under IJN and place all German and Italian forces under IJA.

or

2. Keep Japanese forces under IJN and IJA as normal but have certain German and Italian units mixed in with virtually unremovable default commanders. This I could do by making the PPs for their replacement as high as possible. Of course there would still be the problem of task forces which are created will probably have Japanese leaders.

Any ideas on which plan might be better?

EDIT: Second question:

I want Indochina to be in French custody. I'm wondering if that will mess up things as far as I think it may trigger Kamikazes or the early deployment of Thai militias or something.

Thanks.

[Shark7]

Option 2 is how I set mine up. I also named the initial French Pilots in the pilots DB (which was a lot of work) so my original pilots had at least French names...

RTAF, RTN, and RTA are a bit harder, as Thai names are hard to find (or understand how they work for that matter).

[GaryChildress]

Option 2 sounds probably best.

Here's a lineup of the cruiser building program for each navy. Again, not all these ships will be stationed in the Pacific. Not sure yet which ones to feature in the mod but probably at least one or two from each class.

The Free French will control Indochina. I plan on having a Saigon naval squadron and a smaller Noumea naval squadron for the French.

The Germans and Italians will start operations from two bases, one in Italian East Africa and the other Socotra.

[Gridley380]

Why would the US have halted construction from 1927 to 1941?

Suggest you fill the hole with the states that haven't had a BB in a while and don't get one under your program:

Illinois (you list her as the class leader, but she's not in the list and you say only 8 are built), Alabama, Wisconsin, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire.

If we assume no Great Depression, there's no reason the US couldn't manage a rate of just under 1/year and build all of these - figure three classes of four ships each (or pick eight of them and add two more as extra South Dakotas).

With no Washington Naval Treaty, USS Wyoming might well have been kept around. If she isn't, she and Arkansas will almost certainly be scrapped together in favor of new construction (being the only 12" guns in the fleet). Arkansas was kept around as a singleton solely because of the treaties.

Also, note that your CV build rate is lower than the Essex class, despite the USN building fewer BBs than OTL. Need to kick that up a notch, too!

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Gridley380

Why would the US have halted construction from 1927 to 1941?

Suggest you fill the hole with the states that haven't had a BB in a while and don't get one under your program:

Illinois (you list her as the class leader, but she's not in the list and you say only 8 are built), Alabama, Wisconsin, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire.

If we assume no Great Depression, there's no reason the US couldn't manage a rate of just under 1/year and build all of these - figure three classes of four ships each (or pick eight of them and add two more as extra South Dakotas).

With no Washington Naval Treaty, USS Wyoming might well have been kept around. If she isn't, she and Arkansas will almost certainly be scrapped together in favor of new construction (being the only 12" guns in the fleet). Arkansas was kept around as a singleton solely because of the treaties.

Also, note that your CV build rate is lower than the Essex class, despite the USN building fewer BBs than OTL. Need to kick that up a notch, too!

Hi Gridley 380, Thanks for the feedback.

I guess I could kick CVs up a notch for the US (and even Britain maybe)

Probably what I need to do with BBs is stretch out the ones I have over a more fluid band of time. Instead of all the S. Dakota class being done by 1927 I could probably stretch them out a few more years so that the Next class of ships picks up shortly afterward. I just don't want overkill on BBs. (Not that the mod doesn't already have overkill on BBs).

What I may do is have the first 4 S. Dakotas and first 4 Lexingtons built to original specs and then have the 5th and 6th ships "improved" versions. Or else the US simply decides to can the series after 4 ships each and decides to move on to bigger and better things.

[GaryChildress]

So far my mod has been largely driven by what art work I can come up with and the OOB being built around that. I think what would be much better is to come up with a logical building program for the various combatants based upon what the evolution of ships would have looked like without any treaties nor a Great Depression. I can create almost any ship art on my own to correspond to what I need. I just need ideas on what logical building programs for various ship types would be:

1. What would carrier construction have looked like without the early conversions of Akagi, Kaga, Lexington and Saratoga, etc.? Would more nations have utilized armored flight decks without tonnage restrictions?

2. What would Battleship construction have looked like if it had gone through the technological accelleration of the 1920s dream ships? Would all navies have been building 18" or even 20" guns by the late 1930s?

3. What would cruiser construction have looked like without the artificial influence of the gun size and tonnage limitations of the naval treaties? Would nations have gone hog wild designing bigger and bigger cruisers until the distinction between BB--BC--CB--CA--CL was almost a perfect continuum?

4. What about destroyers? What effects did treaty and budget limitations have on DDs? This is one area I'm just about completely ignorant on (not that I'm a wealth of info on the other areas either).

[House Stark]

This mod looks pretty cool, especially the battleship and cruiser parts. I take it this is primarily a surface warfare mod, since the carrier lineup looks a little weaker. Only 13 CVs for the Japanese vs 16 historically, and 72 plane CVs for the US vs 90 capacity ones historically. Do you think you might alter the capacities some for a little variety? Or does this all work fine with the conversions and such, and it's just hard to visualize.

All in all, I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one. Keep up the good work!

[ny59giants]

Having recently finished reading, "Kaigun," the Japanese mindset was to have the ability to outrange the other naval powers (British, USA, Russia, etc.) since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. From about 1907, the Navy turned its target on the USA as a reason to be able to justify getting more warships built. They knew they couldn't build more than the USA, but they wanted more and more offensive weapons on their ships. And later on their CV. So, I can see Japan going for bigger and bigger guns on all their warships. They loved the potential of the torpedo, even back against Russia, when they numbers did not get the hit percentage they were looking for. Like the Mogami Class CL, they would go with a larger gun on a smaller hull as a way to have a bigger offensive punch. They thought very little about defensive weapons and potential countermeasures.

[ny59giants]

For your next mod, a 'what if' on CVs. What if the bombing of the German warship by Billy Mitchell had an early knock out hit by one of those 2000 lb bombs. Say the first or second bomb sunk the ship. Kind of like what happened to BB North Carolina in my learning game vs the AI back in the old WITP days. That would have been in early 2005 for me. She was sunk by a single torpedo from a Betty off of G'canal. One of those critical hits that was less than 2% chance. The various naval powers take notice and the idea of a CV able to sink a ship with a single bomb or torpedo overrules the BB admirals.

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: House Stark

This mod looks pretty cool, especially the battleship and cruiser parts. I take it this is primarily a surface warfare mod, since the carrier lineup looks a little weaker. Only 13 CVs for the Japanese vs 16 historically, and 72 plane CVs for the US vs 90 capacity ones historically. Do you think you might alter the capacities some for a little variety? Or does this all work fine with the conversions and such, and it's just hard to visualize.

All in all, I'm definitely keeping an eye on this one. Keep up the good work!

Hi House Stark, Thanks for your comments. Now that you mention it maybe I will revisit the CV part of the mod.

I was planning on creating a PBEM version where there would be plenty of opportunities to convert ships to CVLs and CVEs. I might then do separate AI only versions where the AI doesn't need to convert anything to have lots of CVs. Not 100% sure yet.

@ny59giants: I like your Billy Mitchell premise. What if CV tactics were better refined and understood before the war so that CV construction would be taken more seriously? Like I say, I think I'll revisit the CV part of the mod to see if I can beef things up a bit.

[derhexer]

Hey, Gary, who is your avatar a picture of - Thales of Miletus?

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: derhexer

Hey, Gary, who is your avatar a picture of - Thales of Miletus?

No it's a bust of Socrates, about 6 inches in height. Me mum brought it home from a trip to Greece once upon a time. It's one of my favorite knick knacks. I took a photo of it with the light hitting it thus and sort of like my photographic handiwork. It looks like something taken at a museum doesn't it?

EDIT: BTW who is your avatar picture of. I've seen the pic around the net a couple times and am curious. Also are you of any relation to a guy over at Civ Fanatics who goes by "Formaldehyde". He used to have the same avatar.