The return of tristanjohn

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: pauk

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn


You're saying that the Japanese ability to overrun China has been squashed? How?

I can agree with that. How? honestly I don't know, didn't follow all patches and "what changed" but i found Chinese more resistable to Japanese. If you want facts, i can offer you only my AAR.

All Chinese army units had their prep points set to 100 for the nearest Chinese city. The effect from Prep points means that Chinese forces are roughly twice as effective in defense as they were previously. It also means that they accumulate experience from day 1, so they become more powerful from that as well.

[pauk]

thanks for info...

however, i found that Chinese are also more resistable in the open hex too.

Ok, it could be my imagination, but i've experienced combat with pretty uncommon results (from the TJ point of view).

[moses]

ORIGINAL: Oznoyng

ORIGINAL: moses
Pace of operations is effected by local issues. Ease of use of captured supply and ease of converting local resourses into combat useable supply makes it easier to establish forward bases early in the game. So you land at a base and within a day or two you're flying 200 aircraft and supplying your ships off local and captured supply.

Japan's ability to open forward air bases after capturing them was noted in China before the US entered the war and a day was what it took them in China.

As for the usability of captured supply... What items in supply would you expect to be unusable?

AVGAS? Aside from potential octane rating variations, I can't see how captured avgas would be unusable.
Gasoline? Ditto.
Diesel? This was WW2, not California present day.
Fuel oil? Um, why would it burn in an Allied ship and not a Japanese one?
Ammo? Pick up the rifles from dead, injured, fleeing, or captured soldiers and use the ammo.
Bombs? Rig a mating kit so they can be dropped
Cement? Um...
Food?
Water?
Radios?
Canteens?
Tents?
Wood?
Metal?

How is all of this unusable?

About the only supplies unlikely to be used would be large calibre gun ammunition and torpedos, and even that assumes that none of the guns were scavenged. Even some aircraft spare parts (especially instruments) would be usable.

No need to get excited. I didn't claim this was even a major issue in fact I specifically said it was a minor issue. I was responding to a post which indicated a desire for clarification of the point of view.

I never claimed that captured supply is unusable. It is usable, although not on a one-to-one basis. Some is destroyed, some is incompatable, and some is lost in the shuffle but certainly a significant portion is usable and was used historically.

In the game it is nearly 100% usable. This is incorrect in both historical and game terms. Again not a critical issue but since it came up I post about it.

1.) It was not all usable as I discussed above.
2.) Due to the neccesary game abstraction that their is only one supply class it leads to some problems. For example you can land at a base containing no aircraft or ships and immediatly operate a large air force entirely on captured supply as well as replenish your battleships with main gun ammo.

This helps speed the pace in the first couple months as your early operations can be run with greater ease by relying on captured supply and by the supply produced at newly captured bases. The larger than historical transport fleet (which I think most agree is the case) further eases the Japanese burdan in the first months.

The problem becomes of much less importance as the game progresses.

Personnally I don't care a great deal about the issue or whether any change is made or not. I'm just clarrifying the viewpoint.[8D]

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: pauk

thanks for info...

however, i found that Chinese are also more resistable in the open hex too.

Ok, it could be my imagination, but i've experienced combat with pretty uncommon results (from the TJ point of view).

Part of the question here is what hex? By open hex, do you mean clear terrain, or do you mean a non-base hex? If you mean a non-base hex, you should be aware that woods hexes, mountain hexes, and urban hexes multiple Defensive AP by x2, x3, and x4 respectively. If your opponent is defending in hex 46,36 ( a clear terrain hex), they will be 1/2 as powerful as if they are defending in hex 45,35 (a wooded hex). Likewise, the force that you could kick out of Sian (47, 29 - clear) might be too powerful in hex 46,29 (woods), and would be even more powerful in hex 45,29 (mountain).

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: moses
I never claimed that captured supply is unusable. It is usable, although not on a one-to-one basis. Some is destroyed, some is incompatable, and some is lost in the shuffle but certainly a significant portion is usable and was used historically.

In the game it is nearly 100% usable. This is incorrect in both historical and game terms. Again not a critical issue but since it came up I post about it.

1.) It was not all usable as I discussed above.
2.) Due to the neccesary game abstraction that their is only one supply class it leads to some problems. For example you can land at a base containing no aircraft or ships and immediatly operate a large air force entirely on captured supply as well as replenish your battleships with main gun ammo.

This helps speed the pace in the first couple months as your early operations can be run with greater ease by relying on captured supply and by the supply produced at newly captured bases. The larger than historical transport fleet (which I think most agree is the case) further eases the Japanese burdan in the first months.

The problem becomes of much less importance as the game progresses.

Personnally I don't care a great deal about the issue or whether any change is made or not. I'm just clarrifying the viewpoint.[8D]

Got it.

[moses]

ORIGINAL: pauk

thanks for info...

however, i found that Chinese are also more resistable in the open hex too.

Ok, it could be my imagination, but i've experienced combat with pretty uncommon results (from the TJ point of view).

China has improved a great deal since the beginning and this is an area where I have some expertise. (In game terms -I really have no advanced knowledge about the actual historical campaign).

When the game came out it was a trivial matter to defeat China. Most of the experts councelled an immediate withdrawl to Chungking in order to survive. I played a number of test games which showed that the Chinese situation was nearly hopeless against normal Japanese play.

At this point it appears to require great skill and a greater willingness to absorb casualties in order to defeat China. The added prep points, some changes to the combat model and the river assault rule appear to have done the trick. I think it can still be done but more and more AAR's show allied players holding on in forward positions for long periods.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Oznoyng
All Chinese army units had their prep points set to 100 for the nearest Chinese city. The effect from Prep points means that Chinese forces are roughly twice as effective in defense as they were previously. It also means that they accumulate experience from day 1, so they become more powerful from that as well.

If they are not actually in the city, prep points mean doodly-squat.

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

ORIGINAL: Oznoyng
All Chinese army units had their prep points set to 100 for the nearest Chinese city. The effect from Prep points means that Chinese forces are roughly twice as effective in defense as they were previously. It also means that they accumulate experience from day 1, so they become more powerful from that as well.

If they are not actually in the city, prep points mean doodly-squat.

Move them there. You have plenty of time before the IJA can concentrate his forces to attack.

[Ron Saueracker]

Please avoid victory disease ! Another vote here for your carriers to come together and support your drives around rabaul and the marshalls.

Your view that the japanese carriers are going to spend months reforming their airgroups is wishful thinking. In the real world yes but in witp no. The japanese have unlimited resources and oil which means their aircraft production can be very high - I mean how did he get over 600 zekes so soon to shoot down (over the last few weeks) - they only became available in aug or sep 43. Training pilots - no problem - china churns out unlimited exp60-70 pilots in a few weeks - same level of exp as your most of your pilots. Result is that you should never ever assume the japanese land or carrier air are out of planes with experienced pilots.

Raiding supply lines - why ? He has masses of resouces oil and supply points - all easily replacable. Culling a few ak's or ap's - pointless - japanese in the standard game only need a fraction of the many hundreds of merchant ships available. The rest are just expendable.

You should think about why you won this recent victory. Your measured advance around rabaul invaded bases crucial to him and as an aggressive player he counter-attacked strongly. This gave you the opportunity to strike these heavy blows on terms advantageous to your forces.

Keep plugging away around rabaul - use the carriers as a counterattack force to keep his fleet away ( he still has 12 bb's remember). Patience will reward you in due course - when the logjam breaks at rabaul I think you will make good progress.

Just my thoughts - I have been following this aar since wobbly days and I really want the allies to avoid any more naval disasters at all costs ! One strong base-hoping drive on japan is all you need to win in 1945 I hope

Asdicus

Thought this quote from the PzB/Andy Mac game interesting...

This one too. I'm just starting to search around to see just how many folks think that the supply situation is a bigger deal than many influential folks seem to believe.

It drives me nuts when I see threads like these trying to hamstring one side or another based on the author’s personal bias. Yes supply is too high in this game, but it is much worse on the Japanese side than the allies. How many games do we see base after base getting pounded every turn by massive numbers of Japanese Battleships every day almost non-stop?

In real life Japan couldn’t have hoped to use their battleships in more than two or three major bombardment operations a year due to a severe shortage of fuel oil. At one point during the Solomons fighting, Japan had to use the Yamato as a fuel tanker for the smaller ships due to these shortages and just transferring the big battleship to a new base was deemed too costly in fuel so the battleship remained at anchor.

I don’t have my sources handy, but the war started with Japan facing a shortfall in available fuel stocks and it only got worse as time dragged on. Now the Japanese fanboys would scream bloody murder if they were faced with the dilemma of not being able to pound base after base with massive battleship fleets on a daily basis, but that would be far more accurate than limiting allied supply just to gain another 6-12 months of Japanese initiative.

By Dec. 1942, Japan should find it near impossible to advance anywhere, but we see game after game where China/India is caving in to MASSIVE Japanese assaults. I have never once read anyone complaining about severe supply shortages for these NON_HISTORICALLY large Japanese campaigns.

Historically as Japan conquered more and more territory the strain on their logistics network became extreme, but in the game Japan never suffers from severe supply shortages, there is too much supply available and far to many ships to send it everywhere they need it at once. They should be faced with a dilemma of shipping shortages forcing them to leave some bases unsupplied, but I have never once read anyone complaining they were forced to choose like this.

Both sides have too much supply and Japan is the big winner if you were to compare what they had historically to what the game provides. Japan probably has more than a 1000% increase in supply tonnage available compared to their historical stocks, the allies might have a 200%-300% increase if that.

Remember US supply was really only limited by available shipping, not by production shortages back home. The US never had a supply shortage problem, they simply didn’t have the military assets to guard the forward bases so they left their ships idle in port while they rushed to increase their force sizes across the board. They needed troops, engineers, base forces etc. to build and guard forward bases. Without them, sending the supply ships out was pointless.

I would delay the entry of some of the US AK’s perhaps to simulate the early buildup phase, to keep available shipping on map down for the first 6 months or so, but I would not reduce their supply or you run the risk of having too little supply late in the game when their massive assets will have each forward base sucking up tens of thousands of supplies a day.

One final point, until Japan is prevented from out producing the allies in front line fighters through the end of 1943, I will never feel sorry for the Japanese when it come to 4E bombers. Reduce those fighters and perhaps reducing the 4E bombers would be fair, but of course you never hear a Japanese fanboy address the over abundance of their fighters, they simply harp on the allied 4E bombers.

Of course the bloody air combat routines throw historical loss rates totally out of whack, so the real “fix” to “game play” should probably be to make unlimited air frames available to both sides.

After all, both sides left air combat groups in the front lines for months on end flying missions every day, but that is impossible given the overly bloody air combat routines. So what we see is a day or two of action followed by weeks or months of no fighting at all. I say feed the monster and make air frames unlimited to both sides, so we can actually see some fierce air campaigns in critical theatres go on for months as they historically did.

Jim D Burns

In General I can agree with your assessment above, though some of what you complain about is actually quite accurate. Transferring aircraft did and should increase losses. It's one of the reasons "operational losses" exceeded combat losses for both sides during the war. They don't even come close in the game.

Supply IS a big problem. There is too much "free" on the map, and the ability of both sides to move it from "home" to the "front" is excessive. Japanese capability is WAY to high---the "average Japanese Merchant Ship" in 1941 IRL was a 2500 GRT vessel. In the game, they not only have access to too many, but they are too large as well. For the Allies, the shipping is more accurate but probably still excessive, and the availablity of supply to be shipped is too high too early.

The problem with saying the Japanese Pilot Replacement Rate is too low is that historically is WAS low.
It's one of the reasons that the IJN had more aircraft than pilots even before the war started. And veterans sufferred attrition just like everybody else, though at a much reduced rate.

You are definately on track with the A/C production rates. They are absurd on both sides. US B-17's are a great example Of the 200-odd that might have been in the Pacific, the game provides about 1,000. The designers seem to have pulled some of the numbers out of the air. And for the Japanese, the actual numbers produced each month are available---and they totally ignored them. Shoddy research is one of WITP's biggest problems. And this is the area where it shows up the worst....

I find the complaints about PDU accurate, but funny. The change was made at the request of the "Japanese Fan-Boys" (sorry, but that's the accepted term), but when it was found to apply to BOTH sides they howled bloody murder. They wanted to drive a truck through a loophole, but when the Allies came through with an 18-wheeler from the other side they cried "foul". The game should be played with the PDU option turned off.

You are right that the average allied unit in the Pacific required and recieved much more "supply" than a Japanese one. Especially US troops were thought to need a much higher level of "creature comforts" to maintain "morale". Worst case was probably the replacement of the ice cream freezer being included in the list of "must have" repairs to the Yorktown before Midway. But that excessive supply of supplies was also the reason Allied "support" units were able to supply much better "support" than the Japanese recieved. Meant much better logistical and medical support. Allied units should use more supply. A LOT more.... But they should also be less effected by the Malarial Zone, and more likely to recover damage, and much better at construction and repair.

Can't say I'm in favor of some of your proposed "solutions" though. I think the "fan-boy" slips through in some of them. 2A comes to mind. Do you also propose to extend the map all the way to Florida for all this training to take place? US and Allied pilot training was another "mass-production" effort. The Axis in general, and Japan especially, subscribed to an "elite pilot" training doctrine. Few, but very well trained pilots were to be the Japanese answer---and in the tradition of the Samurai and Bushido. Didn't work well in what rapidly became a mass production war. You never see anything on the Japanese side like the Military renting every hotel room in Miami to house the enormous influx of pilot trainees for the war effort.
Japan didn't have the resources (or Miami Beach) to attempt such a program.

Mike Scholl

This is not meant to be a an Allied Fanboy versus Japanese Fanboy thread. Simply a discussion what can be done to slow the game down without removing historical possibilities.

From reading the AARs, its obvious that the majority of PBEM games end well before December 1942. IMO, the main reason for this is that the game moves too fast and becomes unbalanced much too quickly when compared to RL. Part of that is obviously due to the individualistic styles of play but I think a large portion is also related to the early and ahistorical arrival of allied supply much sooner and in greater quantities than they did IRL. As it is now, the allied player becomes much too strong much too quickly due to this supply.

The war IRL had 3 stages: initial Japanese superiority, parity and then overwhelming allied superiority. IRL, the Japanese had superiority through roughly the fall of 42. Then came a period of approximately 1 year of parity where neither side had the ability to force the other to capitulate. Then by mid-late 43, the allies, having gathered their forces, begin their steamroller offensive.

Now compare that timeline with the game and see how well it matches. It doesn't. It can’t unless the allied player places severe limitations on his style of play. The allied forces simply become much too strong much too early.

There are a variety of reasons for this but IMO the primary reason is the overabundance of supply available to allied forces much earlier than was historically possible. There is no ramping up of allied production of supply or aircraft. US industry had begun moving to a war footing early in 1941 but this was mainly a result of Lend-lease requirements. Much of the US industry still had to be converted to producing war materials and many new factories built. US war production didn't reach its zenith until late 43. Most of the historical accounts I've read state that the limiting factor for allied forces was the lack of supply. Theater and force commanders were always complaining about the lack of supply. Fuel, on the other hand, seemed to be in ample quantity with tanker availability being the limiting factor, not production of it.

But because the game doesn't allow for increasing levels of supply production, it simply gives the allied player the same amount of supply in 1942 as would be needed in 1944. This greatly increases the allied ability to respond much too early. Supply requirements for individual units aren't accurately modeled either. The game assumes that the typical allied soldier used the same amount of supply the Japanese soldier did. This is a gross misrepresentation. Allied LCUs, especially US land units, typically used supply at a rate 3-5 times greater than did the equivalent Japanese unit.

The same with aircraft production, allied or Japanese. The game doesn't attempt to reflect the typical production process where numbers increased over a period of time. The game does model this somewhat for the Japanese player if he expands any aircraft production (but the baseline production remains the same). It also doesn't allow for the siphoning off of production models for training commands. Once an aircraft becomes available, it is produced in the same numbers on day 1 as on the last day of production.

As a result, the game typically yields a preponderance of allied heavy bombers much too early in the game, especially with PDU activated. The game then becomes one of bombing bases into oblivion with the Japanese player having no means to contest them. It basically allows the allied player to keep his carriers in port and changes the entire context of the war and soon resembles the European Theater more than the Pacific. Is it any wonder that Japanese players become discouraged and quit?

Another factor is the ridiculous pilot replacement rate for Japanese air forces. We are in a quiet period in my PBEM yet I am losing 3-5 aircraft (and pilots) a day just simply flying CAP and patrols. Transferring of aircraft greatly increases this rate. I had one great day where I lost 17 aircraft to operations. Two types of aircraft seem to be especially prone to this: the Zero and the Betty. The size of the airfield seems to have little if any impact though transfer range does. My opponent loses less than half that to operational causes. Of course, given the allied aircraft and pilot replacement rates, this has zero impact on him.

Now, it can be argued that this is a reasonable operational loss rate given a force of 5000+ IJAAF and IJNAF aircraft and it may very well be. But when coupled with the ridiculous pilot replacement rate, the Japanese end up losing approximately 75-100 trained pilots a month with no hope of replacing them. This does not include losses from combat.

To help offset these advantages/disadvantages, I recommend the following fixes through the editor:

1. I recommend reducing the amount of supply available to the allied forces on the West Coast and India by at least 50-66%. There is no need to adjust transport availability or capacity, as the allied player has a shortage of them early in the game. This would still allow the allied player the ability to horde supplies in preparation for an offensive, just at a slower rate.

2a. Total removal of pilot replacement rates and force on-map training for all nationalities. Allowing a starting replacement pool of 100-200 pilots depending on the nationality would be acceptable. But once that pool is depleted, pilot training would have to be conducted on map. While this will not address the operational loss rates, I feel it does even out the overall effect more. If allied players had to expend the same significant time and effort in pilot training as does the Japanese player, they would probably be a little more judicious in their use. Currently, there is little to prevent the allied player from throwing massive air forces at the enemy because he knows that they can be replaced in a timely manner. The major impact on the allied player would be to slow down his employment of forces. If both air forces are less experienced because of this on-map training, I think it will help reduce the bloodiness of the air combat model.

2b. If that doesn't work, I would recommend increasing Japanese pilot replacements to 25 a month for IJNAF and 50 for IJAAF to at least offset the operations losses somewhat. Why the game designers limited them to 10 and 20 per month is beyond me as it in no way reflects the historical record.

3. Leave the Zero bonus as is. People can argue for or against the Zero bonus but the fact is that this bonus is fleeting and has little impact after March 42. By 1 May 42, it is totally removed and ceases to have any factor whatsoever. IMO, players who argue for its removal are looking for a parity of air forces in December 1941. I do not favor adjusting experience levels to compensate it is to adjust allied levels downward while leaving Japanese levels alone.

There are other changes I would like to see but as they are hard coded into the game, there is little benefit detailing them here. What I am looking for is to slow the pace of the game to a more historical timeline yet still allow players the opportunity to explore other strategic possibilities.

I know I have primarily concentrated on allied concerns here but I do feel it is here that the fast game pace originates. The supply issue I believe has been discussed before and I think it may have already been incorporated into one of the mods out there. The pilot training idea came from Andrew's CHS thread.

Your thoughts / comments?

Chez

I'm going to drop back here a moment since I was not involved in the effort to first decrease the amount of supply available to USA.

I assume all this debate is related to an attempt to first reduce the amount of supply availble to USA ( allies ) early in the war ( game ). And that we are down in the details of how to do this and if we cut it back too far, we need a way to increase the allied supply later in the war. Hence the idea of using damaged resource points and having them repaired to generate more supply in the second half of the game. Further the idea of having damaged resource points apparently includes an idea to have "extra repair" supply to fix the damaged resource points. Just ( hopefully ) re-stating all this for clarity.


I do think that that the most historically accurate means of representing what happened in 1941-1945 is to reduce the ability to load, move and unload supply in the forward areas. However, unfortunately 2 of these three items ( loading and unloading ) cannot be corrected without changing the code. We have probaly reduced carrying capacity to the correct point and now, because we cannot correct loading and unloading we are experimenting with the "work around" which involves reducing supply generation in USA but at the same time trying to increase supply generation in the later period of the war to correct represent increased ability to load / unload in the forward areas. A complicated work around .. but a good idea if we want to improve accuracy. But, this is difficult to test as it takes many days to run even an AI versus AI against itself through 1945 ... ( I'd estimate 3 days on most decent machines ).

So good ideas. I support effort to reduce supply availble to allies in forward areas early in the game. I wish this could be done via correct means ( reducing load / unload ) but that is not possible since we do not have access to change the code. Thus artificial reduction of supply available is the only viable alternative. So what remains is to determine how to do this. And I think Andrew's comments are on target.

The only issue with Andew's plan is that the Allies have the option to mortgage the future. This option allows them to bring greater pressure on the Japanese in the first 6 months ( than they could historically ) and would be something that most ( all ? ) Allied players would do. Towards the end of 1942 they would probably relax the mortgage to then begin building up supply. But in the critical first 6 months, they will mortgage. I would say it sounds like we don't have a solution for this issue. Unless we can find a way to decrease the "extra repair" supply in the first six months. If we can keep the "extra repair supply" out of the first 6 months, then we might have a solution.

JWilkerson

I've been experimenting with a variation of Andrew's original idea and I think it has merit.

Instead of adding daily supply to delayed-arrival bases, add on-hand supply to delayed-arrival land units. A unit with large on-hand supply will slowly bleed it to land bases if stationary and will shed it all at once if loaded on ships. Using this method the amount of supply can be more precisely controlled and there does not appear to be a "mortgage" cheat to garner more supply earlier.

Basically, one would calculate the amount of additional supply that is required per period. Using the original idea's values of 6000 daily supply per base and one base per year starting January, 1943:
2,190,000 additional spread throughout 1943
4,380,000 additional spread throughout 1944 (leap year ignored!)
6,570,000 additional spread throughout 1945

It can reasonably be expected that some surplus supply will exist in the U.S. by the end of 1942 so the "spread evenly" can be replaced by "arriving in batches" with no appreciable effect.

One could select a number of arriving units and allocate supply to them so that the totals are in line with the above. Perhaps ten units spread throughout 1943 with 219,000 each, 20 with 109,500, etc. If necessary an individual unit can arrive with up to 999,999 so a minimum of three would be required in 1943, five in 1944, and seven in 1945. The multitude of U.S. Base Forces and/or SeaBee battalions might be good choices.

There appears to be at least one unit arriving at U.S. bases every month between January, 1943 and September, 1945. Perhaps a few late-arriving British units as well to simulate the transfer of supply from the Atlantic theatre in mid-1945.

Don Bowen

I like this approach, and it really does reflect the problems of the early war year logistical efforts, as well allowing for inceased effeciencies of transportation reflected in increased capacities.

Rereading some of the various histories of 1942 (Willmott, Morrison, etc.) another big logistical bottleneck was the shortage of tankers. But this is not reflected in the game, indeed if anything by February 42 the US is awash in tankers. At least for combat ships, I think that endurance and/or speed values need to be re-examined. For example below is a short deiscussion on some of the major factors:

Ship speed/fuel endurance

One of the most under modeled aspects of the game is the cruising speed/ endurance value for ships. It appears that “designed” rather than operational endurance is used, for peace instead of war. This essay is an attempt to rationalize fuel consumption in the game with the realities of war. Peace time and war time steaming and fuel consumption is affected by different sets of operational parameters. Peace time steaming is done at the most economical method available, thus overall speeds are slow and fuel economy is high, as well as maintenance failures are low due to less strain placed on machinery.

In war time steaming, however, there is less concerned about fuel economy and instead the priorities are survivability and attainment of mission goals. For survivability, this means that ships will steam with most boilers lit, even if they are not actually being used, to mediate effects of machinary casualty. Split plant operations will also be the norm, although this is also very inefficient. Average task force speeds, especially combat types, will be high (not low as some have suggested) due to the need, for instance, to limit the ability of submarines to effectively intercept. Relative cruising speeds are especially high in Carrier Task Forces, where unfavorable winds require the carriers to frequently steam at high speeds to aid in the launching and recovering of planes, a not to infrequent event. Carrier escorts likewise need to be at least as faster, and often faster, in order to maintain proper station.

Vessels were often forced to forgo regular refits and dry docking with a corresponding related loss of efficiency due to increased marine growth on hulls and machinery wear and tear not being properly addressed. In the following example of actual record from the HMS Vanguard illustrates this relationship (Ref 6):

Endurance out of refit (@15 kts): 8250 miles
Endurance 6 months temperate (@15 kts): 7150 miles - or a 14% reduction
Endurance 6 months tropical (@15kts): 5700 miles – or a 31% reduction
Two items of interest: First these figures are for a ship operating in peacetime. Second the difference between temperate and tropical waters.

King George V class also displays this, where the effect is instead seen in SHP:
SHP for 24kts clean: 66000 SHP
SHP for 24kts 6 months in tropical waters: 99000 SHP - 33% increase in required SHP

Not much modders can do to simulate this, but it does illustrate a missed opportunity of requiring mandatory refits or have the have the vessels suffer increasing poorer fuel economy and slower max speeds. Maybe this could have be done as a permanent systems damage that only a refit at a size 8 or more port or by a dry-dock (including floating drydocks) can remove (got to haul the ships out of the water to really clean that marine gowth off).

Another factor relating to reduction in endurance was as the war progressed increasing amounts of equipment were added to most vessels, often with little compensation to mediate any adverse effect. This equipment ranged from increased anti-aircraft weapons to electronics such as radar, along with the resulting increase in ammunition, manpower, and supplies. These additions added significant weight further eroding max speed and fuel economy.

Thus, although the game is fun to play and a decent combat simulator on an operational level, as a good logistical model if falls short. Ships (primarily combat)move too slow, do not suffer from prolonged absence of proper refits (indeed, ship repairs are much too fast and the current "refit" is a joke in the short amount of time it takes to be implemented), and have too high of an endurance. Included below is a graph further illustrating this.

Alaskan Warrior


Partial Reference List
1. Ballantine, Duncan S. U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1949.
2. Carter, Adm. Wordall Reed, Ret. Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office; 1953.
3. Friedman, Norman. U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History. Raven, Alan and Baker, A. D. III, Illistrated by. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institue Press; 1985.
4. ---. U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design history. Baker, A. D. III and Raven, Alan, Ship Plans by. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press; 1984.
5. ---. U.S.Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History. Baker, A. D. III, Profile Drawings by . Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press; 1982.
6. Raven, Alan and Roberts, John. British Battleships of World War Two. Third Impression ed. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press; 1981.
7. Wilmott, H. P. Empires in Balance. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press; 1982.

[mogami]

Hi, But it only really applies to that game. A lot of that is a result of that game being a early version

Japan can only train pilots in China in a normal 1.60 game for a while at and risk and this does not help the CV groups around Rabaul unless the airgroups move there break down and combine. A process that does take some time and managment.



Ron your the submarine expert. How many Japanese AK were sunk before Japan didn't have enough for transporting required material? Japanese didn't collapse in 1942 they went down in late 44 after losing several thosand AK but pople in WITP want them to collapse right off.

I am not worried about Japanese who try to load large formations on AK for opposed landings. It takes 3 or 4 times as many AK compared to AP and they cost more in VP when lost. As Japan I hope the Allied player uses AK as well to invade Tarawa. The lost AK from CD fire will exceed the loss I suffer from the base and LCU defending it.

[Oznoyng]

Stop posting and do the turn for our game. :p

[mogami]

Hi, I think there is a misunderstanding about supply.
First supply is not food or ammo. Supply is space on transports that can become food or ammo or aircraft or replacement infantry or guns.

Look at your pools all those aircraft and men and tanks and guns exist only as supply untill they are added to an on map unit. They must be transported as supply.

Supply at the main bases for Allies (Karachi and San Francisco) should always equal the load points for your pools (thats why it is so high) The Japanese have to maintain high levels at Osaka. It is quite easy for Japan to produce pool levels that cannot ever actually be converted to on map material because of low supply.

Players must fight this tendancy to view supply only as food or ammo.
Supply is Av gas
Supply is the basic items LCU require to survive
Supply is for munitions LCU ,airgroup (bombs) ships (ammo, torpedos)

but first and formost supply is cargo space on transports and the cost of all the weapons aircraft and men.

When you add an aircraft to a fighter group on Noumea the supply subtracted from Noumeas supply is representing the cargo space it took to move the fighter from where it was built to Noumea and the cost of the aircraft in material.

Supply is not a new concept in war games. It was always been a requirment in Grand Strategy games that the units on map in order to function at full strength be in supply.
Supply in these old games was never defined it was taken for granted that players knew what the term represented.

In order to be in supply units had to be able to trace a path back to a "Supply Source"

In WITP this remains true only the "Supply path" in this game is on map transports. Our transports must be able to move from a "Supply source" to where the supply will be converted to the requirments of war.

Merely viewing supply points as food or ammo or av gas forgets the fact that as items are placed into the pools they must be both paid for and transported. If the only supply WITP provided was that consumed for the basic upkeep of units or expended in munitions
then 999,999 supply in San Francisco might appear excessive. But keep in mind it is also every transported able item in the US players pool. Nothing appears in Noumea by magic. If transports don't maintain the supply path and bring supply there Noumea would soon be unable to replace lost items.

In fact supply can be called "War Material" because that is what it truely is. It does not become ammo or food or av gas or replacement P-38's untill such conversion is required.
The excellent supply officers on both sides will always insure the material required is present (thats the hard part) as long as you insure the path back to the source is open and that the material is moving. (thats the easy part)



Example: suppose as Japan I was producing 3000xA6M2 per month[X(] In order to place these fighters on the map I would need to also produce 36,000 supply points per month and to fly them everyday 90,000 supply.
If I was to place them in a hex not connected to Osaka I would need to transport 36,000 supply to place them on map.

Thats 36,000 (the cost of the HI labour, aircraft factory labor, engine factory labor, recources and oil expended)
90,000 the amount of munitions and AV gas and their cost AND the space required on a cargo ship to move it.

Supply is also SPACE on transports. Supply is the amount of cargo space every item not tracked by WITP untill it joins on map unit will require in order to move from the pool to on map existence.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, I think there is a misunderstanding about supply.
First supply is not food or ammo. Supply is space on transports that can become food or ammo or aircraft or replacement infantry or guns.

Look at your pools all those aircraft and men and tanks and guns exist only as supply until they are added to an on map unit. They must be transported as supply.

Supply at the main bases for Allies (Karachi and San Francisco) should always equal the load points for your pools (thats why it is so high) The Japanese have to maintain high levels at Osaka. It is quite easy for Japan to produce pool levels that cannot ever actually be converted to on map material because of low supply.

Players must fight this tendency to view supply only as food or ammo.
Supply is Av gas
Supply is the basic items LCU require to survive
Supply is for munitions LCU ,airgroup (bombs) ships (ammo, torpedos)

but first and formost supply is cargo space on transports and the cost of all the weapons aircraft and men.

When you add an aircraft to a fighter group on Noumea the supply subtracted from Noumeas supply is representing the cargo space it took to move the fighter from where it was built to Noumea and the cost of the aircraft in material.

Exactly so. And it is because supply can be converted to whatever a player wishes to have whenever he wishes to have it that the entire game system falls apart. Or at least the generic nature of supply (along with the greater logistics model, to include shipping and ports) might be reasonably viewed as a chief contributor to that unfortunate result.

Supply is not a new concept in war games. It was always been a requirment in Grand Strategy games that the units on map in order to function at full strength be in supply.

I'm glad you finally mentioned this. For awhile there I fully expected Gary to be nominated for "inventing" such an "elegant" solution to one of the world's most complex and demanding problems" military logistics during war, and most especially logistics during World War II in the Pacific.

Supply in these old games was never defined it was taken for granted that players knew what the term represented.

In order to be in supply units had to be able to trace a path back to a "Supply Source"

This kind of design fudge more or less works if the supply levels are realistic to begin with, the scale of the game is small enough, and the forces being so supplied are not too dissimilar of nature. But even so, it's not so hot.

In WITP this remains true only the "Supply path" in this game is on map transports. Our transports must be able to move from a "Supply source" to where the supply will be converted to the requirments of war.

Merely viewing supply points as food or ammo or av gas forgets the fact that as items are placed into the pools they must be both paid for and transported. If the only supply WITP provided was that consumed for the basic upkeep of units or expended in munitions then 999,999 supply in San Francisco might appear excessive. But keep in mind it is also every transported able item in the US players pool. Nothing appears in Noumea by magic. If transports don't maintain the supply path and bring supply there Noumea would soon be unable to replace lost items.

I don't quibble with the gross amount of supply in San Francisco, just for instance. I quibble with the fact that it can be so easily lifted to any point on the map I care to lift it to and become whatever I want it to be once it gets there. So, lets say in mid 1942 I send a convoy of 1 million supply points from San Francisco to Noumea, something I've done before. I've no idea what's in that convoy, just 1 million points of whatever I'll need once it gets there. But it takes awhile to get there, and by that time the situation might have changed. Port Moresby might be under attack, and maybe the B-17s stationed there are falling apart and need new crews and mechanics and parts and whatnot. So I break off a portion of that convoy that heretofore had been headed for Noumea . . . with "whatever" . . . and send this new convoy instead, in the nick of time, on to Port Moresby, where all of sudden its "supply" becomes not "whatever" but . . . B-17 crews and B-17 parts and . . . "whatnot."

Sorry, but that doesn't work so well. It's too easy. It makes the game play too fast. and so right away my Japanese opponent says, "Hey, stop knocking the snot out of me with those B-17s. That's ahistoric! The Allies never could have kept that many B-17s supplied at that miserable mosquito hole." And what can I tell him? "Look! That's the only weapon Gary gave me that will make any headway against you in mid 1942. It isn't my fault. Tell Matrix!"

And that's just one bare aspect of the overall problem.

My opponent might also bitch and moan because when that new convoy gets to Port Moresby it will all offload in an instant, maybe 30 or 40 ships worth. And if I split that convoy up while it's unloading so that the Japanese aren't allow to bomb it into little pieces with aircraft from Rabaul, because the air model is whacked, too, you see, I'll likely be told that that, too, represents a "cheat" in his eyes. I'm supposed to let the Japanese either bomb the bejesus out of me from Rabaul, or let Port Moresby wither on the vine. Never mind that the same or similar nonsense has been going on since the start of the game over on the Japanese side of the board as well.

In fact supply can be called "War Material" because that is what it truly is. It does not become ammo or food or av gas or replacement P-38's until such conversion is required.

Precisely so. It magically becomes whatever one wishes it to become, as a matter of convenience, wherever he finally decides to dump it off. And up until the final moment, when he finally decides what he wishes to convert those magical supply points into, he is allowed to reserve judgment on that.

Has it never struck you as being the least bit incredible that "supply" might be used for . . . aviation gasoline? And least of all by the Japanese, for that was a war commodity which, for them at least, was almost always in short supply almost from the start of the war. And so on.

I tell you it's all too pat and easy.

The excellent supply officers on both sides will always insure the material required is present (thats the hard part) as long as you insure the path back to the source is open and that the material is moving. (thats the easy part)

Well, it's arguable that Japan, depending on the timeline, actually had back in the home islands what it needed to ship to various places on the map in the first place, but that won't be a consideration with the game system we have. And while the Allies (America) had everything required (more or less) at all times, San Francisco is a long ways from the front, and in reality it wasn't possible for the San Francisco "supply officer" in charge to "change his mind" all of a sudden about whether he was shipping food, bullets or parts for those poor B-17s at Port Moresby once the convoy was halfway across the Pacific.

And we haven't even gotten into some of the niceties that this system winks at, like getting the trained specialist personnel to where they need to be when they need to be there. For you see B-17 crews and mechanics didn't grow on trees, and least of all on trees in the jungle forests of Melanesia somewhere.

The logistics model simply doesn't work, and in interaction with the game's combat models inevitably fuels, supplies and encourages play which is fantastically too fast, too efficient, too bloody.

I tell you there's a game system here that desperately cries out to be fixed. And in the meanwhile, dreaming up excuses for it is doing nobody any good.

[moses]

I would prefer your definition as "war material" over "transport space" although both are essentially correct. Transport space is a little more abstract then needed.

So supply is basically anything until it is converted into something concrete like planes, pt boats, bombs for aircraft, unit replacements, or combat supply (food and ammo),etc.

This definition helps explain the minor issue with captured and locally produced supply.

Its easy to accept that the supply brought in to a location is fully convertable to anything. Presumably these things are planned in advance by the staffs and they know what they are likely to need.

Captured and locally produced supply is a little different. Out of the 20,000sp captured at Kendari and the 600 per day you get from the local economy you start producing zero's???? Main gun ammo for the big BB's????

Being able to use this supply in this way gives Japan a little extra help in the first couple months. Its not a huge issue and it pretty much goes away after the first months. But there it is.

A couple things that might help if anyones interested:
1.) Half of captured supply is immediately destroyed (or some other apropriate %).
2.) Allow the allied player some method to toggle off or disable production centers which are cut off. So you have fewer instances of bases being captured with huge stockpiles of supply. As a side benifit the allies could turn off oil production in some of the sites which currently get captured with HUGE oil and fuel stockpiles.

As I said several times this is a not a gamebreaker IMO and I am hapily playing the game as is. Just clarifying what the issue is and why it might merit some attention.

[Ron Saueracker]

In fact supply can be called "War Material" because that is what it truely is

OMGawd, Magnum! I think you now understand the basis of my arguement. Supply has to be war materiel in the game because there is no other function for it...no civilian economy. Therefore, given the design of the logistics/supply model, this war materiel should not be found all over the place in universally usable caches at every base. Moses makes it quite clear above if I have not already.

[mogami]

Hi, Quite often players mistake their own supply for captured supply.
When LCU first capture a base they dump the supply they are carrying into the base and if this supply exceeds the basic required they load up combat supply again.
So if you take a base with LCU loaded with 50k supply and the base is empty when you check you'd think you captured close to 50k supply when in fact it is what you brought with you.

[mogami]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

In fact supply can be called "War Material" because that is what it truely is

OMGawd, Magnum! I think you now understand the basis of my arguement. Supply has to be war materiel in the game because there is no other function for it...no civilian economy. Therefore, given the design of the logistics/supply model, this war materiel should not be found all over the place in universally usable caches at every base. Moses makes it quite clear above if I have not already.

Hi, Never mind I'm wasting my time here. Do what you will and call it what you will. I'm not worried I'm not playing the mod.

[Mr.Frag]

Ron, why don't you simply eliminate all manpower and resource locations that are not in Japan or India or USA? Add a little to make up for those removed. Problem solved.

[moses]

I tell you there's a game system here that desperately cries out to be fixed. And in the meanwhile, dreaming up excuses for it is doing nobody any good.

Have to agree with the basic thrust here. Of course while excuses are of no help neither are calls for the entire system to be rebuilt from scratch. As a practical matter no such rebuild will occur and only tweaks are going to even get to the debate stage.

The key is to reduce the ease with which each side can maintain supply levels at the forward edge of battle. The two recommendations in my previous post are to that end. Others:

1.) Maximum op points limits for ships in port determined by base size. If a big fleet reaches a level four port with refueling OK on-well there go your op points-no loading until tomorrow. Want to load 100 ships up at a level 4 port. OK but you only have so many op points and its going to take a while.

2.) Impose a supply cost for the consolidation of any newly captured base. There's a lot of work involved trying to take control of a city. Plus just repairing facilities, clearing hazardous sites, dealing with prisinors etc.
Maybe 5000 sp??

3) Drastically increase the supply cost for heavy bomber use and heavy ship ammo replenishment at any base with less then 40,000 sp on hand. Hey if you want to resupply the Yamoto from Lunga on a regular basis OK. But at least you better have hauled in a bunch of heavy equipment (How do you lift those 18 inch shells) to the port.


All these work within the current system and make it harder to abuse the 100% convertability of supply at forwward locations. Lots of other ideas have been floated and the ones offerred here are just possible suggestions for debate purposes.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Ron, why don't you simply eliminate all manpower and resource locations that are not in Japan or India or USA? Add a little to make up for those removed. Problem solved.

So, what would be the point of invading anywhere?