Improving Grand Campaing scen#1

[el cid again]

Whoever did the original Soviet database was a Soviet fanboy - or perhaps had a reason
to deliberately over-state statistics. The database is riddled with suspect or even
outrageous numbers.

With all things AE, which never had an editor, systematic review of data is in order.
If only we live long enough!

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

My impression as well. In my mod I have significantly reduced the resource centers in Japan and correspondingly increased those in the SRA. Fukuoka for example went from 960 to just 300. OTOH Babeldaop which has no resource center in stock, got 30 - that island was an important source for Bauxite and thus Japan's production of aluminium. Another example - Japan had secured significant pre-war mining rights in the SRA and in the British colony Malaya from the 1920s until 1945, the biggest and richest iron ore deposits known at that time in Southeast Asia - the Bukit Besi = Iron Hill mine, was exploited by the Nippon Mining Company, and the output went mostly to Japan. The location is missing in stock, it has 600 resource centers in my mod. However, my changes are pretty rough guesstimates, so if you get around to do some work on this topic, I would be interested in your results and your sources.

Thank, I will look into this as well. I got pretty good sources on those resources and if you or any of you guys have any sources, please share them. I do agreed about those resources is off the scale in most places.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Whoever did the original Soviet database was a Soviet fanboy - or perhaps had a reason
to deliberately over-state statistics. The database is riddled with suspect or even
outrageous numbers.

With all things AE, which never had an editor, systematic review of data is in order.
If only we live long enough!

Oh yes, it was Soviet fanboy alright. Most units from the beginning were recruit (new units) with very little men and hardware in it, infact most were shipped off to deal with the Germans. I need to go over each units and making sure if this is correct and that going to take time to do. But I will do this part last, since it is end of the game. Funny all units after Germany surrenders got mostly 85 experience and morale, true that some did see some actions and some didn't. Rarely see any units get that high, but it is possible.

[Mandai]

Sorry, I meant Truk.

Wikipedia has this in its Truk write up.

"Five airstrips, seaplane bases, a torpedo boat station, submarine repair shops, a communications center and a radar station were constructed during the war."

A nominal shipyard of size 3 should be included for Truk to reflect the repair shops. It will help:

a. repair seriously damaged japanese submarines and smaller vessels.
b. entice Allies to raid and damage the repair facilities.

A rule can be in place that this shipyard cannot be expanded beyond a limited size eg. 5? The allied player can police this by recon Truk by submarine or plane.

This inclusion of this will not affect any players as the japanese player can abstained (using house rules which this game is fond of) from using the repair yard and sail its small vessels all the way to Home Islands for serious repairs.

[Mandai]

The current upgrade paths for japanese aircraft is puzzling.

Many of the recon, night fighters etc are variants of existing planes. For the japanese player to search R&D from scratch is not rational.

In the game, if there is an upgrade path, the R&D factories are not damaged. (a. Size is reduced, b. R&D will start from zero).

Using the "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War" by R J Francillon and Japanese Aircraft Wire Chart by Hanzberger, I note the following can be adopted for the Japanese R&D.

The red text are departure from the suggested upgrade paths in the Stock Scenario.

For example, I have allowed A6M5 to upgrade to A6M2 Sen Baku. Players that disagree, can upgrade to it and immediately switch to A6M5b. That way the R&D factories will avoid damages and it is same as stock scenario, with no research done for the A6M2 Sen Baku, which is basically putting a larger 250kg bomb onto the A6M2.

For Ki 44 Tojo, the stock scenario used Sep 42 for both the Ki 44 and Ki 44 IIa, RJ Francillion book page 218 stated the Ki 44 was in production in Jan 42. To align this with historical fact, the change proposed was to start in Feb 42. For players that disagree, they can opt not to produce the Ki44 until Sep 42, which is the same as the stock scenario.

The allies does not have an R&D option. But if they can state the discrepancies noted in the stock scenario, they can also highlight it here for changes.

The proposed changes are not hard coded and players can agree among themselves which upgrade paths can be used before the start of the game, rather than being imposed by a stock scenario that requires R&D to start all over for variants of the same plane, eg. Ki 102 Randy.

[Rising-Sun]

@Mandai, thanks for the inputs and I will look into it.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Mandai

Sorry, I meant Truk.

Wikipedia has this in its Truk write up.

"Five airstrips, seaplane bases, a torpedo boat station, submarine repair shops, a communications center and a radar station were constructed during the war."

A nominal shipyard of size 3 should be included for Truk to reflect the repair shops. It will help:

a. repair seriously damaged japanese submarines and smaller vessels.
b. entice Allies to raid and damage the repair facilities.

A rule can be in place that this shipyard cannot be expanded beyond a limited size eg. 5? The allied player can police this by recon Truk by submarine or plane.

This inclusion of this will not affect any players as the japanese player can abstained (using house rules which this game is fond of) from using the repair yard and sail its small vessels all the way to Home Islands for serious repairs.

A nominal shipyard of size 3 should be included for Truk to reflect the repair shops. It will help:

Repair shops =/= shipyards.

The ability to actually conduct repairs at Truk was severely limited IRL. In game, you get a very good approximation for what repairs could be done at Truk from tenders + the 3k capacity ARD. There is no need for shipyards at Truk.

a. repair seriously damaged japanese submarines and smaller vessels.
b. entice Allies to raid and damage the repair facilities.

A: this can already be done by the 3k ARD at Truk + other specialized tenders types in game. Serious repairs require return to the Home Islands (as it did IRL).

B: if anything, adding a small shipyard will discourage the Allies from raiding Truk. Shipyards in game can be repaired. Tender type ships can be sunk via port attack (and stay sunk). Adding shipyards gives Japan a ahistorical, enhanced and exceptionally resilient repair capability at Truk.

[Mandai]

Mind_Messing

The war ended > 70 years ago, no one can prove if the sub repair shops cannot repair major damages. In my mind,the japanese naval commanders would be silly to build repair shops that cannot handle major submarine damages when quite a bit of their submarine fleet are in south pacific area.

Like all my other proposed change, players can decide among themselves using the "house rules" not to:

a) use the repair yard at Truk
b) limit the expansion of the repair yard at Truk

Introduction of the repair yard will increase flexibility for the players - just like one can decide if the US torpedoes should follow the historical dud rates at the start of the game.

By not including a repair yard at Truk, players cannot even choose. It is just like the designers can remove the dud torpedo choice at the game start and every US player will just have to go through the dud torpedo formula.

Personally, I am against "hard coding the modifications". eg changing garrison requirements, location of resources, new bases, formulas relating to production of HI, LI etc. Players cannot choose not to adopt it... and then choose not to play that mod...

If anything, why must expansion of HI, LI capacities be in 1,000 supplies? Economies of scale tells us that after a certain size, expansion should be cheaper..

But then, I am not the one working on the mod and every player will have different views on how much or little more supply should be used for expansion, and the forum will be flooded with views that bogged down the modification.

So I believe mods will have a wider following if players can decide which mod they would like to adopt and which one they can elect not to adopt.

[Gridley380]

ORIGINAL: Mandai

In my mind,the japanese naval commanders would be silly to build repair shops that cannot handle major submarine damages when quite a bit of their submarine fleet are in south pacific area.

You mean like it would be silly for the IJA and IJN not to cooperate closely?

Or like it would be silly to start a war without a large stockpile of fuel? Why didn't IJN commanders just build up a bigger stockpile?

(Hint: the answer to their second is that they would have loved to, and I'm sure they would have loved to build major repair shops all across the Pacific. They lacked the resources to do that, or at least the resources to do that while doing everything else they needed to do.)

[mind_messing]

The war ended > 70 years ago, no one can prove if the sub repair shops cannot repair major damages.

Yes you can. Check the TROM for major IJN warships. You'll see plenty of cases where warships put in to Truk for patching up before going back to Japan.

AFAIK, no major warship underwent serious repair in Truk, though my knowledge is far from perfect. Feel free to prove me wrong here.

You may or may not have seen Bullwinkle around on the forums. He's a former bubblehead and was critical of the speed with which submarines can be repaired in game. It's not easy to get at the complex, constricted machinery in a submarine, and doubly so to do so when you don't have proper repair facilities (which Truk definitely did not have).

In my mind,the japanese naval commanders would be silly to build repair shops that cannot handle major submarine damages when quite a bit of their submarine fleet are in south pacific area.

The more you learn about the IJN, the more you realize that they actually were quite silly in regards to anything that wasn't orientated towards combat. The IJN fleet train, for example, left a lot to be desired.

There was some good stuff from Symon (one of the AE devs) on what facilities Truk actually had from Japanese sources - I'll try to dig it up. That's another big point: if the US Navy says that Truk had a submarine repair yard, it does not automatically mean that it can conduct full repairs. It may just be four walls and a roof with a bunch of spare parts and a couple greasemonkeys.

[Alfred]

It is not a good idea to produce a scenario for public distribution which requires a HR.  Plenty of players don't believe in HRs which would therefore result in a known unbalancing in favour of one side.  The unbalancing is more obvious when the required HR only ties down one side.
 
In this instance even with the adoption of a HR regarding Truk, there is a structural impact which cannot be reversed even with a HR.  The point is that AE is built on abstractions..  Not every thing found in the historical record can or should be attempted to be incorporated within this game engine.
 
Alfred 

[Mandai]

mind_messing and others,

Rising_Sun asked for suggestions so that he can design a new scenario.

We can give comments - it is up to him to incorporate any suggestions since he is the one that will work on the new scenario.

Mind messing may prove that Truk cannot support major damage repair yards. It is up to rising sun to incorporate a repair yard and the players to decide whether to use a house rule to deter its use.

Likewise players are free to suggest repair yards at Midway Island Samoa, Fiji Islands etc. The house rules can also limit the size that the repair yard can expand to. The allied player can cede to the Japanese player by not using the yard at all.

Players taking on the Japanese role can negotiate with the allied player which house rule to adopt. An experienced allied player may be able to give more concessions while a weak allied player may get a repair yard at the fiji islands.

If lets say the KB is destroyed, the allied player can lift the restriction placed on the Japanese player so that the game can continue. For those that play against the AI, it is up to what one decides is gamey.

Alfred has stated his concerns about attempted "everything in the historical records". He is right in his concerns and that why we have the stock scenario for players that do not want to venture out.

I would suggest Rising Sun to include a readme file with his scenario so that players using his scenario will know all the concerns raise by mind_messing, Alfred and others. Let the players decide. Just like how the US voters elected President Donald Trump despite he has never held elected office before and has strong views not accepted by the political establishment in 2016 then.

The forum is for players to air their views and give the silent majority the right to decide.

Separately, I wonder if the repair yard at Truk can start with a negative value eg. -50. Then the japanese player will have to expend time and supply to get the yard started. This way, we can have repair yard in other places like midway, suva etc.

I am not sure if rising sun can look into this, this way "silly" commanders can be ordered by the players to build a yard in the right places, eg. Truk, midway etc.

Likewise, I cannot understand why the stock scenario has Tokyo starting with a repair yard of 10 (its the largest city in Japan) and yet impose an expansion to 50 if the japanese player wants to convert the 2 CS to CVL. Yokohama is just 1 hex away with a repair yard of 90, and it is not used.

[Rising-Sun]

Thank you Mandai, you nailed it there.

Keep in mind, that this scenario wont be easy for both sides. Just too much resources laying around and infact Allied, will have up buildup (repair) those industries in order to gain more from it, supplies, hardware, etc. USA as well Soviet wasn't in full capacity at the end of 1941. Took months to build up.

So not sure how the AI will be like, esp Japan, probably wont be good. But I will test it and see how it plays out. But this scenario will be great in PBEMs, regardless of the House Rules, anything can happen. At the beginning, players going to know where the weakness is, more likely they will take advantage of that. But if they do, good ways to lose your opponents too. The best way to play it, get some recons, showing that you know what is actually there.

For example, I got Force Z further south that is heading up there where Japanese landings is taken place, in history that Force Z was destroyed on Dec 9/10, not Dec 7/8th. So the Allied player may change (PBEM) course and not attack it or search and destroy, that would be mistake doing so.

So after a week what happen to Pearl, the Allied players can do whatever they like, gotta becareful not to abuse it from the beginning, this is why some players drop out that Allied players are exploiting it from the beginning.

Edited...
--------------------------
I have spoken to Sid on some details to improve and some interests on this scenario I been working on. Been poking around and read some important issues of their work, etc. Havent spoken to John yet, but I noticed that they were talking about D4Y "Judy" were carrying a 800kgs bomb on the centerline as a normal load and I don't think that aircraft can handle that much stress, but I will look into it.

So if any of you guys have some suggestion, please mention it so I can write it down. I may or may not agreed with it, but I do want this to be more accurate, not suppose to be easy on both sides at the beginning.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Well, just want to mention that many of your ideas have already been included in one mod or another, so you may want to dig through their documentations and the editor data and ask the author's permission to use the data of the mods - no need to re-invent the wheel. Most modders will gladly share their work. May save you time and allow you to concentrate on other things which haven't been touched yet.

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Well, just want to mention that many of your ideas have already been included in one mod or another, so you may want to dig through their documentations and the editor data and ask the author's permission to use the data of the mods - no need to re-invent the wheel. Most modders will gladly share their work. May save you time and allow you to concentrate on other things which haven't been touched yet.

Will do, I didn't want to download and steal their ideas though. That would be a shame. So would like to discuss it and going over the details. Btw I do want to do my parts going over the details, I know its the long roads, but least I am doing the research on it.

So if any of you guys willing to share or talk about it, please do so. Would like to hear it, on what you did or what you improved. Since there already some MIAs out there hasn't been around.

[Ian R]

You should add to the below that Japan implemented civilian food rationing in 1940 which included meat, vegetables, sugar, seafood, dairy goods, and rice... not that they got much meat anyway.

The arrival of the allied occupation forces was a godsend for a whole generation of Japanese. The US Occupation forces introduced school lunches in 1946 to alleviate the malnutrition of Japanese children.

If we are going to speculate about about Imperial Japan being a bit better organized, let's also speculate about the Allies having been better prepared.

1. The Indian divisions in Malaya are better trained/supplied and are combat ready - experience 55, morale 90ish. With anti tank guns and stuff. And Spitfires instead of Buffaloes covering them.

2. Actually, lets go a bit further and put the AIF 6 & 7 divs, and maybe NZ 2 div in Malaya. With some tanks. About 4 regiments. Matildas or Valentines would suffice.

3. Given 6 months, how many US separate infantry regiments (that were training since federalization in 11/40 and created by triangularisation in '41) can we ship to the PI pre-war? How about some B25/26s/P39s/more P40Es?

4. Can we please send some M3 lights, P40Es and B25Cs to the NEI. The ones they actually paid for and were en route in 12/41 would be nice.

This sort of speculation always reminds one of how even minor tweaks favoured the allies. I just redistributed about 3-5 allied division equivalents, and issued some kit about 4 months early.

The IJ don't get Palembang in this scenario. Probably nor Singapore. Game Over.

ORIGINAL: spence

The Japanese STARTED the war short by several million tons of merchant shipping needed to keep their economy going and population fed. The IJA and IJN had borrowed some of that to support the initial expansion of the empire and tended not to return it to serving the needs of the economy/civilian population. The USN submarine offensive aggravated this shortage tremendously thus by 1944 the TOKYO TIMES was publishing "delicious" recipes for grass for the average housewife to "enjoy" serving up to bheir family. Then by 1945 the B-29 mining offensive against Japanese waters eclipsed the submarine offensive and brought the Japanese population in the cities across the threshold to outright starvation.

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

You should add to the below that Japan implemented civilian food rationing in 1940 which included meat, vegetables, sugar, seafood, dairy goods, and rice... not that they got much meat anyway.

The arrival of the allied occupation forces was a godsend for a whole generation of Japanese. The US Occupation forces introduced school lunches in 1946 to alleviate the malnutrition of Japanese children.

If we are going to speculate about about Imperial Japan being a bit better organized, let's also speculate about the Allies having been better prepared.

1. The Indian divisions in Malaya are better trained/supplied and are combat ready - experience 55, morale 90ish. With anti tank guns and stuff. And Spitfires instead of Buffaloes covering them.

2. Actually, lets go a bit further and put the AIF 6 & 7 divs, and maybe NZ 2 div in Malaya. With some tanks. About 4 regiments. Matildas or Valentines would suffice.

3. Given 6 months, how many US separate infantry regiments (that were training since federalization in 11/40 and created by triangularisation in '41) can we ship to the PI pre-war? How about some B25/26s/P39s/more P40Es?

4. Can we please send some M3 lights, P40Es and B25Cs to the NEI. The ones they actually paid for and were en route in 12/41 would be nice.

This sort of speculation always reminds one of how even minor tweaks favoured the allies. I just redistributed about 3-5 allied division equivalents, and issued some kit about 4 months early.

The IJ don't get Palembang in this scenario. Probably nor Singapore. Game Over.

ORIGINAL: spence

The Japanese STARTED the war short by several million tons of merchant shipping needed to keep their economy going and population fed. The IJA and IJN had borrowed some of that to support the initial expansion of the empire and tended not to return it to serving the needs of the economy/civilian population. The USN submarine offensive aggravated this shortage tremendously thus by 1944 the TOKYO TIMES was publishing "delicious" recipes for grass for the average housewife to "enjoy" serving up to bheir family. Then by 1945 the B-29 mining offensive against Japanese waters eclipsed the submarine offensive and brought the Japanese population in the cities across the threshold to outright starvation.

1. Indian divisions in Malaya with morale of 90's? I don't think so, the one are pretty good are the Communist Chinese. So They have like 65 to 70 wish is pretty good. Anything above that would be in serious tank columns feeling well protected and strong. But I will look into this, how things were setup in Malaya.
3 and 4 I will look into that as well. I don't want to over do things, but I do however want to get it setup like it was back in those times. Do you have any sources on that?

As Allies player vs. Japanese AI, hard to tell. I haven't test it yet. Still got along way to go. But for PBEMs, well that a different story.

[Mandai]

Rising Sun

Further to my earlier post, I have relooked at the upgrade paths for Japanese player, reread
Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War by RJ Francillion (the "Book"). Retracing the information in
the Japanese Aircraft Wire Chart by Hansberger (Scenario 1a), I am proposing the following revisions.

a) For planes already existing in Dec 1941 in the stock scenarios, the stock scenario has neglected the upgrade paths between them.

Sally / Kate / Dinahs

Eg. Sally (Ki-21-Ic) upgrades to Salley (Ki-21-IIa), likewise, Kates (B5N1) upgrades to Kate (B5N2).

Restoring the upgrade paths will allow the Ki-21-Ic / B5N1 factories to upgrade to newer Sally and Kate models without penalties.

Babs

I further read that Babs (Ki-15 II and C5M2) are essentially the same plane. Can the Ki-15 II and C5M2 upgrades into each other? Then,

1 single Bab factory can switch production between Ki-15 II and C5M2 without penalties.

Nates / Ida

The later versions are just Kamikaze versions. Existing trainers are modified to carry bombs.

If there are already factories building Nates / Ida, the factories should be allowed to upgrade without penalties.

For reference, the stock scenario allowed the Sonia such an upgrade to the later sonia.

b) Planes already produced in Dec 1941, but introduction being delayed in stock scenario

Tojo (Ki-44), Hickory (Ki-54), Mavis (H6K) and Tabby (L2D2)

The discussion on Tabby was documented in B-Mod.

Hickory and Mavis are also produced at the start of the war and would follow the same reasoning as per Tabby.

The Tojo was already deployed at the 47th Chutai. Actual production started in Jan 1942.

The detail explanation are in the zip file.

c) Upgrades and Variants of Japanese Planes

Many japanese planes are upgrades / variants of another and should not be separately researched from scratch.

Using information from the Book and the wire chart, I have rejoined the upgrade paths - japanese players will be able to research other
planes types alongthe upgrade paths eg. A6M2 Sen Baku (Fighter Bomber), A6M5d-S (Night Fighter), A6M2-K (Fighter Bomber) and A6M7
(Fighter Bomber) etc.
The inclusion of additional upgrades is a double edge sword to the japanese player, it will slow his research to the later planes.
To reflect this historical events (the japanese diverting research to other variants), the japanese player should not be allowed to skip
upgrades without the consent of the allied player.

d) Planes that were only prototypes

Many japanese planes remained prototypes and the stock scenario attributed a hypothetical deployment date. The Book describes how
US bombings hampered the japanese research effort and thus delayed the test flight or destroyed the prototypes.

The game has research factories, so if these are damaged by the bombing, the hypothetical deployment date by the stock scenario
would apply, but if bombings had not targeted the research centers? will these plane come out earlier?

I have proposed revised dates based on the test flight dates and leave it to Rising Sun to decide since he is the one
making the scenario. For ease of reference, I have included the page number of the Book which I based my revisions.

The changes proposed by me can be selectively agreed between players before the start of the game. The allied player can agree only to the revised
upgrade paths for certain model while objecting to others eg. I have segregated into 4 types.

a) For planes already existing in Dec 1941 in the stock scenarios
b) Planes already produced in Dec 1941,
c) Upgrades and Variants of Japanese Planes
d) Planes that were only prototypes

I hope my proposed revised upgrade paths can introduce more variety to the game when PDU is selected.

Allied players that think this may be too advantages to the Japanese may impose a condition to bring the USSR into the war earlier. Some notable milestones can be

a) After Battle of Stalingrad or should it be battle of el alamein
b) After Warsaw is liberated
c) After Romania switch sides
d) After Finland capitulated
e) After Hungary surrenders
f) After War ended in Europe (May 1945)

This is Scenario by Rising Sun, he will have final say as to how many milestones is available.

On the agreed event, the allied can inform the japanese player to activate the USSR. Just send a japanese air unit to attack USSR units and USSR enters the war on the side of the allied player. The permutation is already immense without tweaking resources, supply etc.

[Rising-Sun]

@Mandai, I agreed there are some aircrafts should have better upgrade path. I mean who want to continue using Nates? So why not upgrade that to Oscars, etc? I will give the Japanese side more flavors so they can choose better options.

There a lot of things that needed to be improved in this scenario, not just Japan, but both sides of course.

Gonna rename the full grand campaign to "The Rising Sun" scenario number 50 slot here.

[Barb]

Well you should consider several things (I do get what you are trying to do):
1) Planes in production on Dec 1941
A) Reconnecting the models Ki-21 / Kate / Dinah
- Retooling the factories took time. A lot of time. Even the US with their great industrial capacity often choose to let the current model to roll out of the production line only to be sent to modification center for all the required modifications!
- For this purpose ALL factory upgrades to new model should start from scratch if we are going to be IRL (but the HI/Supply/time cost would be huge)
Ki-15II and C5M2 - they are not the same!
- They certainly had differences like radios, etc to adapt them to the service requirements of different services.
- They used different engine (Ki-15-II used Mitsubishi Zuisei Ha-26-1, C5M2 used Nakajima Sakae 12) !!!
Ki-27 Nate to Ki-79 Nate
- Ki-79 was build to different specifications and with different engine. Better option should be to keep them separated (and the player have plenty of time to research Ki-79 if he wants to). Ki-27 should have a bomb option becoming available sometimes in 1945 to change the pool/training aircraft to kamikaze (any surviving Ki-27 at this time would probably sit in the pool or in some training unit).
B) Ki-44 Tojo
- IIRC the Ota factory building Tojos took whole year to get the average output over 30 planes. Players can do this in a month! For the whole 1942 the same factory produced a total of 131 planes. Check the size and arrival date of this and then try to match it to the same number of planes delivered if not touched!
C) Upgrades and Variants of Japanese Planes
- A6M7 was completely different plane to the regular "fighter" variants - it should be separated from the tree as is!
- A6M2 Sen Baku was a bomb carrying version of the regular A6M2 - thus should follow similar line as Ki-27 - allow it to carry a central mounted bomb instead of a drop tank, but this bomb should get available at later date
- A6M2-K was a two-seat training version completed to different specification, so also should be a standalone.
- A6M5d-S was also result of a different specification so should also be left out of the basic tree.
- A6M2-N was a rebuild of the basic A6M2, but as this is also an off-shoot of the main line this should also be left alone.
My idea of the development line should be A6M2 - A6M3a - A6M3b - A6M5a - A6M5b - A6M5c - A6M8

Just My2c

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: Barb

Well you should consider several things (I do get what you are trying to do):
1) Planes in production on Dec 1941
A) Reconnecting the models Ki-21 / Kate / Dinah
- Retooling the factories took time. A lot of time. Even the US with their great industrial capacity often choose to let the current model to roll out of the production line only to be sent to modification center for all the required modifications!
- For this purpose ALL factory upgrades to new model should start from scratch if we are going to be IRL (but the HI/Supply/time cost would be huge)
Ki-15II and C5M2 - they are not the same!
- They certainly had differences like radios, etc to adapt them to the service requirements of different services.
- They used different engine (Ki-15-II used Mitsubishi Zuisei Ha-26-1, C5M2 used Nakajima Sakae 12) !!!
Ki-27 Nate to Ki-79 Nate
- Ki-79 was build to different specifications and with different engine. Better option should be to keep them separated (and the player have plenty of time to research Ki-79 if he wants to). Ki-27 should have a bomb option becoming available sometimes in 1945 to change the pool/training aircraft to kamikaze (any surviving Ki-27 at this time would probably sit in the pool or in some training unit).
B) Ki-44 Tojo
- IIRC the Ota factory building Tojos took whole year to get the average output over 30 planes. Players can do this in a month! For the whole 1942 the same factory produced a total of 131 planes. Check the size and arrival date of this and then try to match it to the same number of planes delivered if not touched!
C) Upgrades and Variants of Japanese Planes
- A6M7 was completely different plane to the regular "fighter" variants - it should be separated from the tree as is!
- A6M2 Sen Baku was a bomb carrying version of the regular A6M2 - thus should follow similar line as Ki-27 - allow it to carry a central mounted bomb instead of a drop tank, but this bomb should get available at later date
- A6M2-K was a two-seat training version completed to different specification, so also should be a standalone.
- A6M5d-S was also result of a different specification so should also be left out of the basic tree.
- A6M2-N was a rebuild of the basic A6M2, but as this is also an off-shoot of the main line this should also be left alone.
My idea of the development line should be A6M2 - A6M3a - A6M3b - A6M5a - A6M5b - A6M5c - A6M8

Just My2c

Thanks Barb, I will look into that too.