Post Map and OOB Comments Here

[brisd]

Do additional leaders show up during the campaign? I note that some of the Japanese Carrier admirals are not listed?

some examples

Rear Admiral Hara, Chuichi, who commanded Carrier Squadron/Division 5 (Shokaku/Zuikaku) for most of the war

Rear Admiral Kakuda, K., who commanded Carrier Squadron 4 (Ryojo) - there is a Kukata - is this him?

Rear Admiral Kusaka, Ryunosuke, who commanded Honsho and Akagi before war and was Chief of Staff for Nagumo at Midway (I can live without him as Staff are not really represented in this game although they played a critical role in WW2)

Also the following IJN admirals are in the game but don't indicate they were qualified/recommended for Carrier duty:

Ozawa, J. (led Mobile Fleet longer than Nagumo)

Onishi, T. - One of the founders of Japanese Naval Aviation, sounds like he could be a good CV commander

Takagi, Takeo - who is commanding Ryojo's TF at war/scenario's start (perhaps a mistake?)

[JohnK]

ORIGINAL: TIMJOT


I would change 40th to restricted and 41st unrestricted, but in the end its a wash as long as one of the NG Division is deployable on Dec.7th.

As Don pointed out the 27th was also designated for deployment immediately just that shipping was not available.

Regards

41st didn't sail till March 42.......

Regarding shipping...

Does anyone else playing as allies feel REMOTELY strapped for shipping? I feel like I have more than I know what to do with.

Particularly now that APs really have amazing troop-carrying capacity.

In history we had a number of divs released for overseas but delayed by shipping;

Problem in WITP is that any Allied player has a pretty easy time of quickly zipping those divisions into the SOPAC with very little trouble, far ahead of when they were actually deployed.

[TIMJOT]

ORIGINAL: McNaughton

As you can see from the site, the Hurricane IIA has SUBSTANTIALLY better statistics, with a max altitude of 41 000 (vs 30 000), speed of 340 (vs 320), and climb rate of 3150 (vs 2300). One thing that I noted from most of the readings of the Hurricane II during the early stages of the war was that it was very capable at fighting at par with all Japanese fighters (including the Ki-43 and A6M), but in its current state it isn't.

It might be even more substantial than you think. Since I believe the the Hurricane IIBs that were sent to SE Asia in early 42 were of the "tropical" variety, which has even lower performance in some crucial stats. Also note that many of the HurricanesIIBs sent from the mideast lacked O2 gear because they were intended to be used soley as low altitude ground attack aircraft.

Thanks for the link, very interesting.

[Brady]

The info posted above regarding the Huricanes seams to match what I recall geting from the OOB sources I had before..I lost them[:(]

......................


I to feal compleatly unconcerned with a lack of shiping while playing as the Allies in the "Big One", Shiping, supleis, ect seam available in an overabanudance from the get go, I am so unconcerned I dont even bother escorting the Convoys unless their carrying troops, so what if I lose a few freighters I got scades more comming and so many suplies I am more woried about overstocking than running low. Also their realy does not seam to be a magor inf. sortage either. Heck it is 4/42 in the Me vs AI game I am playing and Their will be no Solomons battle Rabaul is a smoking hole and I have the NZ divishion planed up the slot building a base for my medieum bombers to help finhis off Rabaual, Size 6 bases at Henderson and PM suporting B17's. Tarawa fell a week ago, and Kawaglin will soon be a smoking hole as well, the SRA is not yet secured by Japan, and Burma is not compleatly secured either....the AI is stupid, this is a fact, it is a learning tool.

[TIMJOT]

ORIGINAL: JohnK

41st didn't sail till March 42.......

The orders to sail came Feb. 14, 42. It was available for shipping since Nov 41 when it was offered to MacArthur as part of his Philipine reinforcement. I think you are getting a little to hung up on historic shipping dates rather than more applicable historic "availability" dates.

Regarding shipping...

Does anyone else playing as allies feel REMOTELY strapped for shipping? I feel like I have more than I know what to do with.

Well YES and NO. Yes if you limit yourself to shipping troops on APs. No if you use your ample AKs for shipping troops, which is gamey IMO.

As it is you start the game with less than two dozen APs on the west coast. Sure thats enough to ship several divisions but not if you want to ship all those AA, CD, Base, MDBs, units to garrison the LOC to OZ.

To put it into perspective. Historically the US shipped in the first months of the war, discounting the TF6184 (Americal Div.) a total of 7 AA Regts, 5 CA Rgts, 3.5 Inf. Regts, 3 Marine DBs, 6 fighter Squadrons, along the LOC to Australia. That doesnt even include all the Base forces and tons of supplies sent to Fiji, BoraBora, Christmas, Canton, Tonga, and Efate.

Problem in WITP is that any Allied player has a pretty easy time of quickly zipping those divisions into the SOPAC with very little trouble, far ahead of when they were actually deployed.

Not sure you have that easy of time of it if you are garrisoning and supplying the SOPAC LOC as thoroughly as was historically. As well as sending the tons of supplies to Australia that were historically sent durinig this time period.

I think the major problem is the fact there are no load limits for AKs when its comes to airgroups. Presently you can load entire airgroup no matter what the size onto a single AK of any size. Historically much of the shipping was taken up sending the hundreds of aircraft and the thousands of corresponding personel for the air units sent to Australia.

Why cant there be load rates for aircraft as there is currently for guns, tanks, Inf. ect ?......... It wouldnt have to be as specific as keeping track of the size of each individual aircraft model. A simple generic Large, Med, Small aircraft designation would surffice well enough for game purposes.

Do this, and increase the penalty for loading personel on AKs and I think you will solve your premature deployment perception.

[Halsey]

For my arch nemesis. He was sorely upset that the Fiji Islands had their own label, but Samoa was missed for some reason. An easy fix, right?[;)]

[VictorCharlie]

Just some errors in the Australian OOB in the War in the pacific scenario, starting 8th Dec 41.
The 1st Australian division and the 1st Australian cavlary division should start in sydney not brisbane bases.
The 11th Australian brigade is missing from the OOB and should start in the Townsville base.
The 29th Australian brigade is missing from the OOB and should start in the Bribane base.
The 3rd Australian brigade in adelaide has 76mmAT in its TOE, which didn't come into service till 1944.
Sydney has a 3rd tank regiment with 17 honey tanks and brisbane has a 2nd tank regiment with the same. The honey didn't start to arrive in australia till mid 1942.
I couldn't find the above tank regiments anywhere in the Australian OOB though the 1st Armoured division had a brigade, the 1st in Sydney and the 2nd brigade in Melbourne but the units were manned by cadres only and had no tanks. It did had some wooden cutouts tied to the side of trucks and used these until shipments of Honeys/Stuarts arrived mid 1942.
The 3rd Australian division is given ratings of 80 morale and 86 experience which is higher the the other divisions (1st,2nd & 4th) but they were all reserve divisions all with the same problems in manpower and equipment.
Also this was brought up in a post by TIMJOT.
The 23rd brigade should not be in Darwin.
It had 3 battalions, Sparrow force, Gull force and Lark force.
Lark force had already deployed in Rabaul.
Sparrow arrived in Koepang (Timor) on 12.12.1941 and Gull arrived in Ambon (Ambonia in game) on 17.12.1941, helped by the fact that advance parties and most of their supplies were already in place. Artillery, vehicles, bombs, ammunition, aviation fuel, radios, and general stores had been prepositioned there during the proceeding months due to a pre war decision to defend these places. These forces should be part of the SW pacific command as well.

[Cap Mandrake]

The Maldives would seem to make the map SW of Southern India..not a big deal..but might be useful as a seaplane base to screen the Indian Ocean

[Blackhorse]

The Alaskan / Canadian rail net portrayed in WitP is more wrong than right.

The one rail line in Alaska during WWII was centered on Anchorage and should extend 1 hex south to Seward on the Gulf of Alaska, and roughly due north to Fairbanks in the center of the state. Click here to see how it should look.

That was the only RR in Alaska at the time (and still true today). There was no rail running east from Anchorage as shown in the game. There was no rail connection between Fairbanks and Nome. And there was no rail (not even a road!) running along the Pacific Coast of Canada linking Seattle to Southeast Alaska.

In WWII, and today, the northernmost rail link of the US-Canadian RR net was the terminus of the Canadian National Railroad at Prince Rupert, just north of Vancouver. Prince Rupert, a magnificent deepwater port, became a major supply point supporting the US military in Alaska by ship. Until the Alcan "highway" (a mostly dirt and gravel road, closed during much of the winter) opened and allowed a trickle of overland supply to reach Alaska from the "Lower 48," all reinforcements and supplies had to reach Alaska by sea.

Historical RR Trivia: There was a second Alaskan RR. The White Pass & Yukon ran from Skagway - a port above Juneau in Southeast Alaska - to the gold mines of the Yukon. It is strategically insignificant in game terms and is properly not represented in the game.

[akbrown]

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

The Alaskan / Canadian rail net portrayed in WitP is more wrong than right.

I am doing some work on making a suggested alternative Australian map to correct errors with it, mainly major errors in the rail net. Perhaps when that is done I can have a look at doing the same thing with Alaska, with help from those with knowledge of how it should be portrayed.

Is it worth doing this?

[Blackhorse]

I am doing some work on making a suggested alternative Australian map to correct errors with it, mainly major errors in the rail net. Perhaps when that is done I can have a look at doing the same thing with Alaska, with help from those with knowledge of how it should be portrayed.

Is it worth doing this?

AK, your work on the Australian map is outstanding . . . if it is relevant (if your work will be included in a future WitP patch) then I think it is worthwhile to do Alaska, too. I'll be happy to help with links to maps and information.

In real life, Alaska was as militarily isolated from the continental US as any Pacific Island. All significant reinforcements and supplies came by sea.

The games' supersized rail nets in Western Australia and Alaska make it too easy for the allies to reinforce these isolated sectors, and allow them to ignore threats that very much concerned their real-life counterparts.

What I hope for in this -- or any game -- is that my opponent and I will have the same capabilities that our historical counterparts had. The current game maps give the allies a capability that they did *not* have historically and for that reason, I think the maps should be changed.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

I am doing some work on making a suggested alternative Australian map to correct errors with it, mainly major errors in the rail net. Perhaps when that is done I can have a look at doing the same thing with Alaska, with help from those with knowledge of how it should be portrayed.

Is it worth doing this?

AK, your work on the Australian map is outstanding . . . if it is relevant (if your work will be included in a future WitP patch) then I think it is worthwhile to do Alaska, too. I'll be happy to help with links to maps and information.

In real life, Alaska was as militarily isolated from the continental US as any Pacific Island. All significant reinforcements and supplies came by sea.

The games' supersized rail nets in Western Australia and Alaska make it too easy for the allies to reinforce these isolated sectors, and allow them to ignore threats that very much concerned their real-life counterparts.

What I hope for in this -- or any game -- is that my opponent and I will have the same capabilities that our historical counterparts had. The current game maps give the allies a capability that they did *not* have historically and for that reason, I think the maps should be changed.

I'm hoping any major map changes like this are adopted. Anything to make the Allies job harder than it is presently is a good thing in my book.[:)] Makes Prince Rupert the strategic asset it was historically and will, with isolating Darwin, tie down some Allied merchant shipping. Thanks for your efforts.[:)]

[brisd]

From discussions on this thread: Japanese Aircraft Production and the Art of Zen

The Japanese army fighters should be upgradable to their historical replacements, as the A6M2's can be upgraded through all their guises till the A7M2. Specifically: Ki-43's all should end up as Ki-84's if available. The Ki-84 was the planned upgrade as stated from such sources as Francillon's "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War" and this is a major flaw in the game system IMHO.

EDIT: I have since realized that the city of Gumma has 0 (320) Ki-84a's in research at scenario/war's start. With a Total Build Out of only 324 aircraft from the dozen or so Ki-44 and Ki-84a units in the game, this supports my contention that someone may have forgot to add all the Ki-43's to the Ki-84's upgrade path. Only by adding in the over 1000 TBO of this types do you justify such ramping up of Ki-84 as hard coded in the game. I have no problem with the designers (it's their design ) simulating the huge effort Japan put into researching a replacement for the Ki-43 series as shown in the 320 factories devoted to research in Gumma. I just want them to follow thru and allow us to use the fruits of that labor!

[Svar]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
I'm hoping any major map changes like this are adopted. Anything to make the Allies job harder than it is presently is a good thing in my book.[:)] Makes Prince Rupert the strategic asset it was historically and will, with isolating Darwin, tie down some Allied merchant shipping. Thanks for your efforts.[:)]
[quote]

While I certainly don't disagree with your assessement that the rail networks in these areas are wrong is it possible that they don't represent rail at all but small merchant shipping that isn't represent in the game? I would think that there could be hundreds or thousands of coastal ships from both sides that handle freight that aren't represented in the game and the logistics are handeled with rail lines instead. While you could add an equilivant number of small AKs on both sides to handle freight they would be much easier targets than the multitude of ships they actually could represent. This game is complicated enough as it is without adding potentially thousands of additional small craft.

[Svar]

ORIGINAL: Svar

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
I'm hoping any major map changes like this are adopted. Anything to make the Allies job harder than it is presently is a good thing in my book.[:)] Makes Prince Rupert the strategic asset it was historically and will, with isolating Darwin, tie down some Allied merchant shipping. Thanks for your efforts.[:)]

While I certainly don't disagree with your assessement that the rail networks in these areas are wrong is it possible that they don't represent rail at all but small merchant shipping that isn't represent in the game? I would think that there could be hundreds or thousands of coastal ships from both sides that handle freight that aren't represented in the game and the logistics are handled with rail lines instead. While you could add an equilivant number of small AKs on both sides to handle freight they would be much easier targets than the multitude of ships they actually could represent. This game is complicated enough as it is without adding potentially thousands of additional small craft.

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: Svar
While I certainly don't disagree with your assessement that the rail networks in these areas are wrong is it possible that they don't represent rail at all but small merchant shipping that isn't represent in the game? . . . This game is complicated enough as it is without adding potentially thousands of additional small craft.

Svar,

I don't think it works that way. The game *does* abstract away the coastal shipping used to support Alaska's 72,000 civilian residents in 1941. But small steamers could not ship coastal defense guns to Dutch Harbor, or crated aircraft to Anchorage. The military would have to have its own dedicated shipping above and beyond the "abstracted" ships used to meet civilian needs. As an educated guess, a single division-equivalent of US troops would require more shipping support than the entire civilian population of Alaska.

And, after all, the entire purpose of merchant shipping in the game is to support a player's *military* requirements. In Alaska, the military had to be supported by sea, even after the "Alcan" highway was built.

It is hard to imagine today just how cut-off Alaska was from everywhere else during World War II. In 1939, an entrepreneur, trying to show that a land route was feasible took *seven months* to travel from Seattle to Alaska -- and it was considered a successful demonstration! The Alcan "highway" (a 1,400 mile one-lane, dirt road) "opened" in November of 1942 . . . but only bulldozers could use it! The first trucks did not use the road until 1943 -- and the road closed down that Summer when the exposed permafrost melted, turning the road surface into foot-deep gumbo. It wasn't until 1944 that any significant number of military troops and supplies could be carried along the road.

The Alcan highway route was selected because it connected a string of air bases between the rest of the United States and Alaska (trivia: it starts at Dawson's Creek, Canada, on the Canadian National main rail line). Most of the traffic on the road was to service the air fields, not to Alaska.

Here is a nice map showing the Alcan, as well as the other roads and rail in Alaska and Western Canada in 1943.

[Tankerace]

Don't know if theis was mentioned earlier, but the Tench class submarines are not in the game. 10 boats made war patrols during the latter months of the War (July-August '45), but with the game extending into '46 it is reasonable that at least 10 more would have been ready to make at least a few patrols by March of '46.

[Bradley7735]

Even if the rail/highway to Anchorage does reflect civilian ships, why would only Juneau and Anchorage get the benefit? Sitka, Dutch Harbor and Kodiak aren't on the rail line and need to be supplied by ship anyway.

To be accurate, the rail/highway/road system needs to be removed from Prince Rupert north. Of course, the Alcan highway should magically show up in late 43 to be accurate too. (but only going from vancouver to Anchorage and not touching Juneau) (I know the Alcan doesn't start at Vancouver, but there isn't a better place for it to start on the map)

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Don't know if theis was mentioned earlier, but the Tench class submarines are not in the game. 10 boats made war patrols during the latter months of the War (July-August '45), but with the game extending into '46 it is reasonable that at least 10 more would have been ready to make at least a few patrols by March of '46.

Used Balao class. Nearly identical, late game arrivals,and only a limited number made patrols.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: akbrown

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

The Alaskan / Canadian rail net portrayed in WitP is more wrong than right.

I am doing some work on making a suggested alternative Australian map to correct errors with it, mainly major errors in the rail net. Perhaps when that is done I can have a look at doing the same thing with Alaska, with help from those with knowledge of how it should be portrayed.

Is it worth doing this?

While you are at it, could you put Port Moresby back into C-47 range from Australia?
It seems to have migratedabout 100 miles between UV and WITP