Weapon R&R and production

[Fallschirmjager]

Are we going to be able to develop new weapons and change production?

One of my favorite Pacifc war games is PTO II and it allows you to develop new ship types and produce as little of much as you like.....and for these reasons remains one of my favorite games

I think it would fit in nicely into witp

[mogami]

Hi, If it was built you can build it. (it might be too late or not work but it is there) You cannot invent new weapons or design new ships. You can 'speed' up the introduction of aircraft types by placing a portion of your industry on research. But then you lose production of actual types. (factories doing research do not build anything)

[Mike Scholl]

Hi, If it was built you can build it. (it might be too late or not work but it is there) You cannot invent new weapons or design new ships. You can 'speed' up the introduction of aircraft types by placing a portion of your industry on research. But then you lose production of actual types. (factories doing research do not build anything)

Sounds like a reasonable compromise between the constraints of reality and
the player's inevitable desire to "tinker" with things. By the way..., in your posts
you describe laying a tremendous Japanese Mine Barrage to protect your ship-
ing; What factories did you shut down/convert to make all those mines? I
think the availability of mines in general is excessive in UV (they aren't as com-
plicated as torpedoes---but they still have to be manufactured and consume
resources)---how is it handled in WITP?

[mogami]

Hi, Currently unlimited but only at size 9 ports. Size 9 ports are very limited.
(most of the ports in UV are smaller in WITP)

Beginning in 1943 I think the allies have an air mission "mine hex" I''ve not tried it yet so I don't know how it works. (There are still a lot of features in WITP I have not tried out yet. Kamikaze, A-bomb, Flying bomb, Allied invasion using all the new ship types.

I have yet to see an enemy sub hit one of my mines. My ASW aircraft are doing a good job spotting them but no successfull attacks yet by surface ship or aircraft.

[Luskan]

I haven't tried any of those yet either, but I have had a combat report (didn't watch the animations or the reports as they went) of a dutch sub being sunk by torpedo. investigating.

[mogami]

Hi, In UV I once had one of my USN subs sank by a long lance (sub attacked IJN CA on surface)

[Drongo]

There are still a lot of features in WITP I have not tried out yet. Kamikaze, A-bomb, Flying bomb, Allied invasion using all the new ship types.

The A-bomb's nothing much. When I dropped it in the scenario, there was no flashing screen, no mushroom cloud, nothing. All it did was leveled a city. Big deal!!!

[Fallschirmjager]

Hmm...

This is by the same people that made 12'o clock high isnt it?


That whole scheme sounds very very familiar

Kinda sucks we cant design new plans and ships....but what you mentioned does sound good


Im just looking for ways of giving some sort of advantage to the japenese player when they do better that was historical and capture more resources

[mogami]

Hi, The Japanese already capture more resource then they can use.
They need to capture the Boeing plant in Seattle.

[Mike Scholl]

Hi, The Japanese already capture more resource then they can use.
They need to capture the Boeing plant in Seattle.

MOGAMI....,you hit the nail on the head. NOBODY in the world during this
period really understood MASS PRODUCTION like the Americans. Even when
they tried to adopt it under wartime pressures, they didn't have the mamagerial
expertise and experiance to think big enough. Henry Kaiser didn't just mass
produce ships---he built the shipyards from the ground up designed for mass
production. Ford didn't just build B-24's at Willow Run---he built the entire
factory from the ground up designed to build B-24's. When Boeing got the
nod on the B-29, they built an entire new plant in Wichita to produce them.
The best the Axis could ever do was to try to shoe-horn assembly-line methods
into existing or expanded plants. They never got the per hour productivity out
of their square footage that the Americans achieved..., and they never even
came close to the amount of manufacturing square footage in the USA. Even
the Russians (who built big enough to gain economies of scale) couldn't fully
utilize American practices. The Axis never understood the process at all----
only in the US do you see a practice like taking newly completed B-29's right
from the Factory to a re-fitting plant where parts and equipment were stripped
out and replaced with updated and changed parts before being given to the
Air Force. Why? Because it was faster than shutting down the plant to install
an updated lay-out and new tools---no production was lost, it was simply
delayed for a short period. Nobody else in the world THOUGHT like that! US
Production was run by American Industrialists---and like 'em or hate 'em, they
were masters at what they did. In the Axis Powers, the Military constantly
interfered trying to get the best possible weapon and demanding immediate
conversion to newer designs. Result was smaller plants, a lot of re-tooling time,
and limited (and expensive) production runs. Just getting rid of stupidities in
Germany and Japan during 1943 made 1944 the best production year of the war
for the Axis---but by then Willow Run was producing (by weight) the equivalent
of half of Germany's Aircraft Production; or ALL of Japan's. ONE PLANT! Out
of 38 monster Aircraft Production Facilities going full blast. Not only did the
Axis start the war not particularly wanting mass production (which the Germans
thought was a good thing for razor blades, but not for military hardware); but
when they did decide they needed it---they didn't know HOW to do it!

[pad152]

More questions on production

1. Can your increase the size of production (plants, factories) or do they increase over time?

2. I understand you can have your Aircraft production sites switch (production to R&D) is this based on some percent? Example Plant size 50, production/R&D percent settings(50/50 , 30/70 ,etc.).

3. How are the introduction of new types of aircraft handled by the current production system can you forgo a new type?

4. Has anyone tried to see what it takes to try to bring a new aircraft type into production sooner such as the KI-61 vs all of the KI-43's and if so was it worth it.

5. How is aircraft production in China handled, the Japanese produced the KI-27 in China?

[Brady]

What about Comercial production of Shiping?, I know Japan had a very modern merchant fleat at the start of the war and a well established shipyard network for building them, can we buld them faster than they did by changing production resources around or are we again limited to actual numbers types and aramement's...?

[Grouchy]

Ok, you cannot invent new weapons or design new ships(classes?).
Just to make sure, can the player build more ships from a certain class then historical.

For instance, can the player say... stop the production of Yugumo DD's and use the "productioncapacity" that comes free to build more Shimakaze DD's or if he wants build an extra Myoko CA that historical never existed instead?

[Mike Scholl]

What about Comercial production of Shiping?, I know Japan had a very modern merchant fleat at the start of the war and a well established shipyard network for building them, can we buld them faster than they did by changing production resources around or are we again limited to actual numbers types and aramement's...?

Unfortunately (from the Japanese perspective) the above statement is not true.
Japan shipbuilding capability was not particularly impressive, most Japanese
merchant vessels were relatively small and inefficient, and her Marine Engine
Industry was undersized even for what she had in shipbuilding. Need for engine
repair and replacement was a bottleneck from the beginning of the war. It
would "sideline" almost 1,000,000 tons of shipping before the war ended. It
was one of those areas of war-making potential that could have benefited from
greater attention pre-war, but didn't get it.

Japan began the war short of shipping to meet it's own PEACETIME needs---
and both the Army and the Navy snatched a goodly portion of what was
available for war use. It was one of the great failings of Japanese Pre-War
planning that having gone to war to obtain resources, they failed to see the
necessity of expanding the merchant fleet in the years before the war to be
able to exploit them if they got them. It's one of the places where Japan's
limited economic capability would haunt them from the beginning.

[Chiteng]

Unfortunately (from the Japanese perspective) the above statement is not true.
Japan shipbuilding capability was not particularly impressive, most Japanese
merchant vessels were relatively small and inefficient, and her Marine Engine
Industry was undersized even for what she had in shipbuilding. Need for engine
repair and replacement was a bottleneck from the beginning of the war. It
would "sideline" almost 1,000,000 tons of shipping before the war ended. It
was one of those areas of war-making potential that could have benefited from
greater attention pre-war, but didn't get it.

Japan began the war short of shipping to meet it's own PEACETIME needs---
and both the Army and the Navy snatched a goodly portion of what was
available for war use. It was one of the great failings of Japanese Pre-War
planning that having gone to war to obtain resources, they failed to see the
necessity of expanding the merchant fleet in the years before the war to be
able to exploit them if they got them. It's one of the places where Japan's
limited economic capability would haunt them from the beginning.

Given the infrastructure of Japan, I would question that US production
methods would actually have helped Japan that much. The scale of Jap
production is so small, compared to the US, that being inefficient didnt
hurt as badly as it would in the US. No it didnt help, but the magnitude
of the hurt wasnt exagerated EITHER.

After all, Japan had so few resources that she was able to simply switch
resources to undamaged plants, rather than repair the damage.
Jpan really WAS starving, literally, in the end.

[Brady]

From:

The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II by Mark P. Parillo Naval Institute Press ISBN #: 1-55750-677-9


p.xiii " When the war began the merchant fleat was relatively new and efficient"

p.16 "private yards undertook the bulk of the navy's construction programs....in the mid 1930's warship construction divirted much production capacity from merchant ship building...in the last full 5 fiscal years before the war comercial yards built an average of 400,000 tons of warships anualy."

It is estimated that hundereds of thousands of tons of comercial shiping could of been compleated in leu of this due to the fact that comercial ships are much easer to buld than Military one's.

p.37 Prewar japanese estimates put the nations prewar shiping neads at 5.9 millon tons, the civilian ecenomy would nead 3 million tons, the army would require 2.3 million tons for the first 6 months but only 1.1 their after, the navy would require 1.8 million tons throught the war.
Providing Japanese estimates of the nations shiping neads were accurate , adaquate shiping existed for all these roles.At the time of pearl harbor the merchant fleat amounted to 6.4 Million tons, this was in adation to aprox. 12 million tons of wodden vessals."

[mogami]

Hi, While we are still in Alpha so the final amounts of oil/resource/fule/supply that Japan needs to move have not been finalized. I have not yet ever had a problem having enough shipping.

I send 1/3 of the total to Shanghai and never use it for any purpose (This is the Japanese civilian shipping)(750,000 load points)

There are 3 types of transports

AP These are troop ships (prewar liners and such) and AK. AK are the cargo ships that move supply and resource. Tk tankers move oil and fuel.

The danger is mainly with tankers. There are under 100 tankers at start. (2 sizes 9k and 16k)

The IJN can always use oil centers to fuel, but if oil stops moving to the heavy industry centers they stop producing supply. Without supply.....well you know what happens. (Heavy industry needs both oil and resource to produce the points that run the rest of the Japanese industry as well as fuel and supply)

So it's not really AK or AP that Japan really will need. It is tankers and then only if the allies can sink enough of them. But I will not be able to give accurate accounts untill Beta after all industry and resource/oil are finalized.

[Brady]

p.57: "in 1932 the ministry of comunacations initiated it's most ambitious subsidy programe yet. By providing assistance for scraping older ship's and building more efficient freightor's, the goverment hoped to lowere cargo rates and give a boost to the shipbuilding undustry."

The plan subsisdised construciton of 4,000 ton ships of 13.5 Knots, if they used diesal engined faster spoeads they received adation breaks in cost and subsidies. This programe went on throught the 30's and paid substantial dividends,late lines and Tankers were included in the plan.

"An American observer in Japan said(p.58): The newest japanese merchantmen as without pear, the tanksers were described as outstanding, due to their size and spead."

"condations for subsidising these ships included not only high speads and large cargo capacity, but also room for mounting large calaiber naval gun's, black out capabality, the potential for adding special equipment for high spead pumping, refueling at sea, and other usefull miitary equipment.



"By 1939 60% of Japans cargo caries were under 20 years old, while the average age of an American merchantmen was 21. 40% of Japanes freighter's and fully 70% of Japanes tankers were 12 knots or faster. Compared to 25 and 20 percent respectively for US ships of the same types."


" Of the over 700 freighters in the merchant marine in 1940, nearly 300 were capable of at least 12 knot's, and 236 were built in the past decade."

"37% of the pasagner cargo liners could make 15knots or more"

"By 1940 Japanes Merchant fleat was ranked 3rd in the world in size and second to non in efficiency"

" The british had to start subsady programes to compeat with Japanese Liner's"

" in the 4 years after 1937 the proportaion of imports caried in Japanese bottoms rose from 54% to 65 % despite the divershion of Japanese shiping to suport operation in china"

[Brady]

Typo: It shold be 1.2 million tons of woden ship's.

Which raies another question, will we see Sampans and other woden ship's which were built in increasing numbers as the war went on?

[gus]

... The IJN can always use oil centers to fuel ...

This raises an interesting question, for me anyway. Does a TF refueling from an oil center directly, i.e. using unrefined fuel, incur any system damage as a consequence of this action?

-g