AH-Silver Wings II

[Vipersp]

ORIGINAL: wdolson


The Unryus were an emergency wartime class commissioned after Midway. If they had the time to build ships, they would have likely built more Taihos, though with the Yamato class sucking up resources, they would have built fewer carriers.

Bill

Perhaps under the increasing influence of Yamamoto in the mid 40s the IJN could shift the view towards more large fleet CVs and skipped the other planned Yamato' sisters...

[Revthought]

If the Nazis had won in the West there is no way the US sits still. If we had, there's no way the USSR survives, and then Hitler doesn't need Japan for anything at all. In fact, he probably acts to eject Japan from Asia and cripples them economically. The Axis was a useful artifice for Hitler, until it wasn't.

My major point though is that without the PTO 1941-45, the USN doesn't have the OOB you want to use in 1949-155. No Fletchers, no Essexes, no Balaos. No B-29s. Etc., etc. And from a standing start the USA could still massively out-produce Japan.

I beg to differ with yor analysis. I would argue that the Soviet Union would have defeated Germany regardless of American involvement in the war and regardless of whether or not England had made peace with Germany. Hell, I would go as far to say that, not to dismiss what the Western Allies did in Europe, that the world owes Hitler's defeat almost (not quite) entirely to the Soviets.

The Soviet Union was always a "bridge too far" for the Germans in a war of attrition. The Germans were never going to defeat the Soviets unless Germany won outright in 1941, or whatever year this mod speculates the Nazis attacked the Soviets.

That, of course, does not speak to the potential weakness of an American OOB whose existence was due partially because of American participation in the Second World War, and greatly do to the bipolar politics of the post war world.

[Revthought]

So I do have an ancillary question. Given the time frame covered in this mod, is any attempt made to deal with things like surface-to-air missiles? Or anti-ship guided munitions? Also, what about vehicles and LCU equipment? I'm assuming that by the 1950s Japan is at least adopting things like tanks that borrow on German designs, and does not have an armored force driving around in what were metal coffins in the late 1930s?

[Vipersp]

ORIGINAL: Revthought

So I do have an ancillary question. Given the time frame covered in this mod, is any attempt made to deal with things like surface-to-air missiles? Or anti-ship guided munitions? Also, what about vehicles and LCU equipment? I'm assuming that by the 1950s Japan is at least adopting things like tanks that borrow on German designs, and does not have an armored force driving around in what were metal coffins in the late 1930s?

Hi Revthought,

The answers to your questions are yes;
As mentioned in the Mod description, it is based on RHS Level II and its OOB already contains ASMs and SAMs like the American Bat ASM for example and the Furyu SAM for the Japs, other Guided german missiles are already present in its OOB too , so basically I just shiffted the dates of these weapons systems to the new time frame and create some "possible" designs for Japan based on German cooperation like a version of the Arado bomber with ASM;

Regarding the land OOBs one can easily verify in many sources about the Korea war that both UN and DPRK/China fought it with WW2 era weaponry;
I made this assumption in the mod for the allies, just including the Pershings,Pattons and Centurions and a 57mm/105mm recoiless guns for the infantry and at the jap side they got basically improved ATGs, the T5 rifle which was a copy of the M1 Garand and the M5 type Chi-Ri which was a designed based on german Panther;

The Chinese OOB faced a major rework in comparison with original RHS one and IJA faces a reorganization of its infantry divisions around 1954 where there is no more types A,B or C ones but only the standartized JGSDF infantry divison type;

[RyanCrierie]

I think the only acceptable time frames for WITP:AE are:

1941-1948

because in the Scenario editor in the Campaign Pilot Pool setup area, it only goes from

"00 - 1941" to "07 - 1948"

indirectly indicating the years where everything in the game "works".

[Vipersp]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

I think the only acceptable time frames for WITP:AE are:

1941-1948

because in the Scenario editor in the Campaign Pilot Pool setup area, it only goes from

"00 - 1941" to "07 - 1948"

indirectly indicating the years where everything in the game "works".

It may be the case but at least for 1949 it seems working fine till now..I applied the same pilot data from 1941 into the 1948 and will see how it will behave after 1949;

[Vipersp]

Greattings to all fellow commnaders!

I wonder if anyone playing the mod right now could provide their impressions about it?
Any comments, good or bad will be appreciated, ideas, possible changes/improvements..

Cheers.

Vipersp

[eromacque]

Hey there! THIS scenario is really, REALLY interesting! Can you tell me how you implement guided missile mechanics? I'm so curious. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK! I can only imagine how hard you've worked on this thing!

[seanmac456]

Greattings to all fellow commnaders!

I wonder if anyone playing the mod right now could provide their impressions about it?
Any comments, good or bad will be appreciated, ideas, possible changes/improvements..

Cheers.

Vipersp

I would love to try this out but unfortunately the onedrive link is having somekind of issue

[PaxMondo]

Viper;

So, my thoughts on the IJ premise, which I will likely have to amend a few times to get them right, so be patient. I see 3 areas: political, social, economic.

Politically, we need to start by ignoring the Army cabal and their control of the country. Maybe we can dissect the politics later, so let's just "pin" this topic for a moment.

Then we also need to ignore the war in China for a bit. It partially comes from above, but it also has some specific issues as well.

Next, the social elements. Specifically population, women’s roles, education, farming. Again, “pin” this one for later.

So, let me try and tackle the economic issues. The most straight-forward in some ways, but still pretty tangled. My first thought is that IJ econ can't last through '42 ... even if the US does not precipitate things with the oil embargo in '41. The IJ economy was at an oil deficit even with the US oil sales (When Roosevelt announced the embargo, the IJ were preparing to ask for an increase in sales, that’s how far apart the two sides were.) and worse, IJ couldn't afford to buy the oil they needed. The US embargo simply accelerated a timeline that was coming anyway. Economically, they were between a rock and a hard place: they needed oil to expand/update their economy, but lacked goods to trade for it as their industry was so far behind. They would have needed ~2 years of oil support (a total swag on my part, I don't believe that accurate data exists from the time period to effect a thorough analysis, it very well might be much longer) from the US (or other American oil source like Ven or Mex) to get their economy squared away.

I don’t want you to think oil was the only issue; it wasn’t, but it overshadowed all the others which would include strategic minerals for steels, bauxite, gold, strategic minerals for electronics, coke, … the list is fairly extensive. But oil trumps them all.

This means that economically the IJ build-up cannot happen, except in a war economy or something very similar to that. The only way the build-up happens is with the diversion of oil-based economy goods being focused on the military to the exclusion of the rest of society, and it is hard to see that happening without a war economy.

China
So, now let’s bring in the aggression in China. MAYBE you can argue that this would allow for IJ to go to a war economy. Possible, but not likely. It would mean a complete 180 degree change in the “opinion” that had been sold to the public by the Army for the previous 10+ years.

Politics
I think a HUGE issue is the Army Cabal being in charge. Even if you find a way around the economic and China issues above, your fundamental problem is that the Army Cabal in the drivers’ seat who would never have increased the Naval budget for all of those expensive toys, especially as the Navy was NOT supportive of the China conflict. Also, the Army thought the Nate/Oscar were fighters and the Lilly bombers. So no aircraft development support either. Hvy MG’s would stay 7mm, rifles would remain bolt action, AA would not advance, nor would armor nor Arty. Lgt Armor would likely advance, LgtTank Type 2 and HalfTrack Type 1 Ho-H most probably get built and fairly widely deployed. So the IJA arrives in 1948 looking like a 1930’s guerilla army, an airforce that is no match, no navy, and at best an anemic economy.

In summary, I struggle with your premise. Does this mean your mod is wrong?

Heck no!

Looks like a great mod!

I am sorely tempted to load it up … just not sure I have time to do it. Life is keeping me pretty busy now ... haven't run a turn in my game in 2, almost 3 months now ...