ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101
Industry Investment
I would like to seek some thoughts and advice on whether to increase heavy industry in the home islands. I don't plan to spend supplies on LI, but assuming I am successful in seizing all the oil fields in the SRA, should I be investing in HI to make use of it? I am also planning to increase a bit of HI in the SRA itself but not sure by how much. What works best for you guys?
I can guarantee you that all the advice received will be to not invest where the break even will not eventuate. Classic argument will be a 1000 day break even on LI investment.
Except for my advice which no one ever seems to follow. The ROI is much more complex than the simplistic approach undertaken by the usual suspects.
Firstly, the first thing to notice is that when in doubt, adopting real world considerations will usually not be disadvantageous in AE.
Secondly, when it comes to real world military considerations, adopting a McNamara business spread sheet approach is often the wrong approach. Vietnam enemy body counts were always very much in favour of the Americans. The 1968 Tet Offensive destroyed the Vietcong presence in the South. And yet who ultimately won that conflict. Or how about the huge Chinese death toll in Korea, and yet that poor ROI resulted in pushing back the UN forces from the Yalu and ultimately a satisfactory armistice for the communists. Or consider the 3rd Reich's investment in brown coal to oil. No economist ever said that generated a good ROI ... and yet well before the loss of the Romanian oilfields, the Luftwaffe and Panzers could not have operated without such an unsatisfactory investment.
Thirdly, in AE the most common reason why the Japanese economy implodes in the late war is not due to Allied action but to Japanese decisions. It is extremely rare to find that before 31 August 1945 - the key cut off date for a Decisive Allied Victory - all of the industrial production facilities of the SRA have been recaptured by the Allies. The usual situation is that the Allies are in position to (a) directly target industry in the Home Islands, and (b) choke the sea borne convoy paths from the still Japanese held SRA industrial production facilities back to the Home Islands. The net result is that continued processed goods production in the SRA would be possible if only Japan had invested there beforehand, with little regard to the spread sheet approach.
Let's look at some of the important considerations which are never factored into the spread sheet by the usual suspects.
1. Supply is a wasting processed good. It will always be consumed by any LCUs located at the base, even if they do absolutely nothing.
2. Supply depots can be easily, and quickly destroyed by Allied air and sea bombardments. However such Allied activity cannot ever destroy any recently produced local supply before it gets distributed to the military asserts located
in situ.
3. Even if the magical highway is set up, considerable supply and fuel (not to mention the cost in sunk ship VPs) is expended in shipping raw materials back to the Home Islands from the SRA. There are huge savings to be had if the raw materials can be consumed locally. These saving are never, I repeat never, inputted into the spread sheets.
4. Reducing the need to provide substantial rear area ASW protection for the raw material convoys releases substantial Japanese military assets to be deployed on the frontlines. Not to overlook all the supply and fuel expenditure involved without necessarily making any meaningful contact with Allied forces in these rear areas. Bonus points if these Japanese units can be fed by local production.
5. In 1944 the Mariana airfields allow for targeting the industrial facilities on the Home Islands. They are not so well situated for striking at the captured SRA industrial facilities. Even less well situated are any captured bases in the Kuriles, they are pretty much limited to targetting Sakhlin and Hokkaido. Of course if no investment in the SRA had been made by Japan, these geographical limitations don't count, the Allied player can just operate on auto with strategic bombing of the Home Islands involving his entire strategic force. Not so easy when the strategic forces can't be concentrated against a single geographic area. Especially when the Allies earn no strategic VPs for bombing the SRA.
6. It is much harder to damage Light Industry than it is to damage Heavy Industry. Plus there are many more locations in the SRA where Light Industry is found rather than Heavy Industry. Combining dispersal and hardness (plus the lack of any strategic VP generation) makes it quite an involved process for the Allies to knock out SRA
in situ supply generation.
There is a lot more to conducting military operations than the bean counters with their spread sheets realise. That is the case out in the real world, and it also applies to AE.
Alfred
; Julia Child
