Vehicles and armament production

[FirstPappy]

Thanks Tanaka. I'll plan on playing a scenario where the Japs are at their peak. This way, all the production stuff should have alreay been optimized by the scenario designer.

[esteban]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

186 Vehicle 682 Arms

So you pretty much doubled starting Japanese vehicle production, and increased armaments by about 30%. That seems reasonable. I would probably have boosted vehicle production less, and armaments more. But what you did is not far from what my experience has been.

[mogami]

Hi, I have to wait for my Heavy Industry to expand a bit. I don't like to make major changes in many areas at the same time. However my arms appear to me to be keeping up with demand but then I allow it time. When a new unit appears I decide where it is going to go 3 months from then and set the objective. The unit then has 3 months to "grow up"

I try to keep a portion to replace loss as I go. Southern Area HQ is in Malaya currently as I am still fighting for Singapore.
14th and 16th Army have taken Bataan and are recovering for the next step (Java)
The current date is 3/3/42

Allied Army Loss Points 3855
Japanese Army Loss Points 146
Allied Aircraft Points lost 888
Japanese Aircraft Points lost 288
Allied Ships Sunk 136 (FOW)
Points 1461 (FOW)
Japanese ships sunk 16 (Actual)
Points 108

[Xargun]

Mogami how are you using so much manpower ? Isn't manpower only used - along with armament points - to create weapons or squads ? I just don't understand how I can have 187,000 manpower with 11,000 armament points and 300 vehicle points in my pools.. What am I doing wrong ?

Also, do old weapons get recycled like old aircraft ?

Xargun

[mogami]

Hi Keep over 20k supply in the hex where the units needing replacement are.
There are a lot of units that arrive in Tokyo. If Tokyo has 19,999 supply and the pools are full of arms nothing is issued.

Also units need to be in range of their HQ.

What are your current heavy industry numbers? total Heavy Industry and in pool points. (i'm asking if you have a surplus of heavy industry points being created. I have around 100 extra per day and have 2000 or so in the pool)

My economy will really get better here once I clear the enemy air from Batavia. There is
over 200k oil in Palembang I have not moved because of enemy bombers. I have a few Heavy Industry not producing points because of a lack of oil. (I'm not moving it from one center to another. I'll wait for oil produced to be moved)
Also Hong Kongs HI was badly damaged on capture and has not been repaiired yet. Palembang was about the only center I captured with light damage.

[mogami]

3-7-42 Manpower 49178 so my pool is going down. (used is now 404167) But last turn I unloaded supply at Manila where the troops that just finished off Bataan have been resting waiting transports.


How do we compare here

Name In Pool/used
Engineers 0/812
Support 159/9064
Motorized support 17/78
Aviation support 22/2161
IJN Cav Sqd 0/14
IJA Inf Sqd 226/2272
IJA Eng Sqd 4/250
SNLF Sqd 117/4174
13mm AAMG 0/160
37mm AT 2958/125
47mm AT 76/3560
81mm mtr 14/691

[esteban]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

Mogami how are you using so much manpower ? Isn't manpower only used - along with armament points - to create weapons or squads ? I just don't understand how I can have 187,000 manpower with 11,000 armament points and 300 vehicle points in my pools.. What am I doing wrong ?

Also, do old weapons get recycled like old aircraft ?

Xargun

It would be nice if we had the option not to upgrade some LCUs, so we could extend the use of some of the old weapons stockpiles in units that are in Manchuoko, or garrisoning cities in China.

[Xargun]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi Keep over 20k supply in the hex where the units needing replacement are.
There are a lot of units that arrive in Tokyo. If Tokyo has 19,999 supply and the pools are full of arms nothing is issued.

Also units need to be in range of their HQ.

What are your current heavy industry numbers? total Heavy Industry and in pool points. (i'm asking if you have a surplus of heavy industry points being created. I have around 100 extra per day and have 2000 or so in the pool)

My economy will really get better here once I clear the enemy air from Batavia. There is
over 200k oil in Palembang I have not moved because of enemy bombers. I have a few Heavy Industry not producing points because of a lack of oil. (I'm not moving it from one center to another. I'll wait for oil produced to be moved)
Also Hong Kongs HI was badly damaged on capture and has not been repaiired yet. Palembang was about the only center I captured with light damage.

I currently have the following:

Industry In Pool / Used

Manpower 189,463 / 161,492
HI 15,620 / 847,142
Armaments 10,905 / 46,220
Vehicles 25 / 10,195

Engineers 7 / 282
Support 127 / 2665
Motor Support 26 / 65
Aviation Sup 24 / 567
IJA Cav 0 / 6
IJA Inf 150 / 558
IJA Eng 12 / 47
SNLF 72 / 1288
13mm AA MG 2 / 82
37mm AT 3134 / 40
47mm AT 53 / 3538
81mm Mortar 40 / 187

I obviously have delivered / built less equipment than you (although I am a month behind) but I have a HUGE armament pool. My HI pool is growing roughly 200 a day. I also have several Armament factories offline right now to conserve HI - I expanded probably about 70% of my armament factories at game start and double or so my vehicle production. I have a lot of tanks in the pool as well as being delivered to my tank regiments.

Xargun

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: esteban
Japan starts with a surplus of about 2500 heavy industry per day at the start of the game. Generally, between what you can capture in Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong, Changsha, and maybe Yunan, you can get a few hundred more. So that pretty much takes care of the initial expansion. Your air production doesn't so much increase as change, as you move production from some of your transports, and planes like Nates, to models that you need more of, like Kates, Zeroes, some more R&D for certain models, and maybe another Nell/Betty factory. Also, you run out of pilots before planes. You can use an expansion of the Japanese naval shipyards early on as well, but only about 80 points or so, as far as I can tell from my not-to-exacting observation of the yard build list. That only uses about 240 HI points per day.

So there is a fair amount of room for expansion of the existing industry before you hit your first wall, lack of more HI. After the first wall, comes the second wall, of capturing enough resources and oil before your stockpile draws down. After that, comes the third wall, which is being able to produce and ship enough resources to expand your HI further. Then the fourth wall, being able to preserve your resource/industrial base from Allied attack as best as possible.

However, the armaments industry is the single biggest shortfall in the Japanese production system. Japan produces about 6 manpower points for every armament point she starts with. Some of that manpower will be needed for industrial expansion and vehicle production, but I would guess at least 2/3 of it can be used for armaments. Thats where I get the 400% expansion from. I have done a 200%+ expansion so far in the games I have played versus the AI, but I have not played any of those games past mid-1942.

Unfortunately, the disparity between manpower and vehicles and armaments is such that pretty much any manpower points that go into your manpower pool, and are not nearly immediately kitted out with a vehicle or armaments, are just going to sit there for the rest of the war. It would be nice if you could turn off some of the manpower centers, but you can't.

I have done a couple of the 44/45 scenarios as Japan for 6-8 months too, but in those cases, the at-start situation is not conducive to a lot of industrial expansion. By then, most of the fatal mistakes have been made, and it is just a question of being able to hold an island or two or preserve a city or two that couldn't be saved historically.

Here are some figures I got from the May 1942 campaign:

Oil Centers………………..2,750 (16,500 Oil Points)
Resources Centers………16,500 (23,775 Resource Points)
Manpower Centers…………806
Heavy Industry…………13,830

Manpower Centers consume 8,060 Resource Points leaving 15,715

Heavy Industry consumes 13,830 Oil Points and 13,830 Resource Points.
Leaving 1,885 Resource and 2,670 Oil Points to go into reserve.

This is a best case scenario because if anyone of the oil or resource center are damaged it can have a significant effect on output, plus any ships lost to allied submarine action will take their cargo with them. So best case Heavy Industry can be expanded by 1,885 before your industry is begins to feed off of reserves.

Caveat: most Japanese player will make some gains in China which will increase production slightly.

Heavy Industry……..………13,830
Merchant Shipyards……..….-3,000
Naval Shipyards…………....-3,522
Vehicles (90)……………..…..-540
Armaments (501)………..….-3,006
Aircraft Engines (1527/30)…...-916
Aircraft frames (677/30)……..-406

Surplus HI points……………2440

At the start of the war you have approximately 2,500 surplus HI points as you indicated, and once you make the historical conquests the Japanese made you can expand the Heavy Industry by almost 2,000 and break even, if you lose no production to damaged facilities, sub, or whatever. That means at best you will have 4-5 thousand Hi points to spend on expansion. Doubling armaments (501 expansion) eat up 3,006 Heavy Industry points.


I agree that something seems odd with manpower if the rules are correct. I wish the Manpower Centers could be turned off, as they consume resources to produce points that I will never use.


PS. My figures could be wrong. I hope they are wrong as I would very much like to increase production.

[esteban]

Yep, the only thing that I can think of is that you have to find ways to economize. If you can hold down your merchant ship losses, perhaps you can turn off some of your merchant ship yard production. There is not much slack on the naval production list. Perhaps you can argue a case for not completing the Musashi in the age of carrier-dominated combat. But you need all the carriers you can get, and all the destroyers. You probably need all the subs you can get. And Japanese cruisers are most always worth building.

The only ship on the naval list that I definitely think you can pass on is the CL Oyodo. It's not a bad ship, but it has no long lance torpedoes, and those are what makes a Japanese cruiser stand out. However, one CL out of the whole build list is precious little slack.

Well, we must do as best we can, with what we have!!

[mogami]

Hi, There are many Japanese LCU that begin scenario 15 understrength. THe difficulty in using the manpower and arms is getting these units to a base with 20K+ supply and in range of their HQ.

Add to this replacing battle loss and In mid Feb I am watching my manpower pool shrink every turn.

[esteban]

Mogami:

LCUs don't need 20K supply and to be in the range of their HQ to draw replacements. They will draw replacements as long as they are at a base that has more than 2X its required supplies.

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: esteban

Mogami:

LCUs don't need 20K supply and to be in the range of their HQ to draw replacements. They will draw replacements as long as they are at a base that has more than 2X its required supplies.

Don't have to be at a base either: "15.3....Units are within supply range of the base if the supply range is 50 or greater from a base where you trace a path...." and "Each base that the unit is within supply range of may send replacements, so there is an advantage of being near lots of well stocked bases."

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: esteban

Mogami:

LCUs don't need 20K supply and to be in the range of their HQ to draw replacements. They will draw replacements as long as they are at a base that has more than 2X its required supplies.

Given that Mogami's pools are shrinking and his LCU's are filling out, I would tend to accept Mogami as the Gospel and the Manual as apocryphal.

[mogami]

Your right I do the 20k for my airgroups. My HQ are at the base with the airgroups and to upgrade you need 20k. Sometimes when you get a really large number of units in a single hex 20k is not 2x required.

My manpower pool has fallen from 49178 to 48190 However my armaments in pool are rising. (7208)

I've issued around 1200 tanks of all types and have 920 in the pool. Issued some 600 of the 70 and 75mm Howitzers/Inf Gun/Mtn Gun but only 4 105mm and 155mm

[mogami]

Hi, Manpower down to 32,976 in pool on 3/22/42 it looks like in another month I might actually run down to where I am only using what I get per turn (809)

I have 2,113,809 supply. By this point the Japanese player will have discovered the value of the base outside Japanese Home Islands that contain heavy Industry. Most of my operations are being supported with supply created inside the SRA. Formosa is making a large portion of my combat supply. (Formosa is 400 miles closer to the resource/oil centers then any Home Island industry.)

[mogami]

4/2/42 manpower pool 23548 (seems to be going down at around 1k per day)
I think the massive battle that has been raging at Yenen for weeks is part of the cause.
I captured the base but then the Chinese returned in force and for weeks the battle has been going on. Every 3 or 4 days the Chinese assault. Every 7-10 days I attack back.
I need to drive the Chinese out of the hex in order to get the industry there to operate.
However I hope to add major resource and oil income by the end of the month. Japanese forces have landed in strength on Java. With the fall of Singapore I can expand a major Heavy Industry center a mere 360 miles from Palembang. (as well as all the resource in Malaya.

[mogami]

Yeow manpower pool droped to 6840 in one day!!![X(] The arms pool droped by several K

[Xargun]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Yeow manpower pool droped to 6840 in one day!!![X(] The arms pool droped by several K

In two days my Manpower total has dropped over 50,000. So I guess Mogami's suggestions and me allowing all base forces to draw replacements to fill themselves out is working.. That and I must have 20 units or more sitting in Tokyo filling out !!

Xargun