Taming Expansion of IJ Production

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Actually Jim according to World War II - A Statistical Survey

Japan's peak airframe production occurred in 1944-

Fighters- 13,811
Bombers - 5,100
Recon - 2147
Trainers - 6,147

Without the trainers that comes to 21,058. Throw in the trainers and airframe production - 27,205. Part of the question for these stats is what the trainers were composed of...

Yes, yes you're right. Sorry it's late and I'm bleary eyed, I misread the charts. Sorry about that. Japan's production is still way over the top, and WitP does not include trainer aircraft, so don't count em.

Jim

[Andrew Brown]

My interest in this thread is for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the production system in WitP vs reality. What I am doing is gathering data, basically. For that reason more production information from other games, to gain a general perspective, is what I am interested in.

Andrew

[Gen.Hoepner]

My opinion is that the real problem isn't that Japan can produce much more things than it did in reality.
The real problem is that Allied production (of planes) is stuck and cannot be changed.
As someone more aknowlegded than me said, with the actual numbers (especially in CHS), the allies cannot stand an attrition air war, while Japan can (given for a fact that both player uses training programs bombing empty bases so forming high skill pilots continuosly).
So probably the best and easiest way to solve this problem would be a little code that makes grow the allied a/c production as jap a/c production grows... 

[Reg]

Andrew, so what are you after. A series of game saves about a month apart over a period of time (as long as you can get) perhaps. Or maybe a set of particular data items (that you will have to specify) from saved games.

This would allow you to map production levels over time and see how many resources the Japanese players control at each point.

So come on you Japanese players, here's your chance to prove all those AFBs wrong!!! (I'm sure he'll sign a NDA)[:)] [:)] [:)]

(The more games that are contributed, the better statistical sample Andrew will get).

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Reg

Andrew, so what are you after. A series of game saves about a month apart over a period of time (as long as you can get) perhaps. Or maybe a set of particular data items (that you will have to specify) from saved games.

Since the rates of production increases in the game may not match RL, the most useful information would be a cumulative total of aircraft produced, by the Japanese, up to a particular point in the game. If that information is available for various dates then it can provide a picture of how quickly, and how far, Japanese aircraft production ramps up in WitP as compared to RL. Many veteran players may already have a good idea of this, but I freely admit I do not (I am a veteran modder, not a veteran player, and certainly not of the Japanese).

Thanks,
Andrew

[Andy Mac]

I think it is rude to post data from a live game where you know the opponent will see it without that person approval I now need to never look at this thread again - thanks Jim for giving me free intel.
 
 

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

ORIGINAL: treespider

Part of the problem faced here is the 20-20 hindsight of history...

-Everyone will implement a convoy system for the Japanese unlike their historical counterparts.
-Everyone will allocate much more resources to ASW for the Japanese unlike their historical counterparts.
-Everyone will try and optimize production for the Japanese unlike their historical counterparts.
-Everyone will optimize supply logistics for the Japanese unlike their historical counterparts.
-If playing with PDU's players will concentrate on a few select airframes unlike their historical counterparts.

If playing vs the AI it doesn't matter because the AI is a bonehead anyway, however a human opponent will do these things.

So some suggested house rules for historcities' sake.

-Japanese ships moving resources can only be in unescorted single ship TF's until lets say for starters 1943.
-Japanese players should play with PDU's off.
-Japanese players may only expand factories once per year.
-Japanese units in China cannot have Accept Replacements turned off.

That's for starters....

But what's the point of playing WitP then?


WitP is game and not documentary that replays 100% according to what happened in history... [:)] the very first turn we play WitP we throw away history of real WWII and create our own... [:D]


Tactics and strategy in WitP game should not be constrained to WWII in any way IMHO!


BTW, please be 100% certain that I am all for realism of how certain weapons and units (ships, aircraft, tanks, guns...) behave in game (i.e. for them to be as close as possible in game to what they were in historic WWII)!

I agree with you that this is a game and not a documentary...but it might be interesting to see what the Japanese can accomplish if they are constrained by the same logistics system they had historically.

Afterall by you're own words you are for realism of how certain units and weapons behave - why not the logistics system?

I am for realistic logistics and production as well - no problem at all!

What I don't like is that, for example, Japanese players can't use convoys - we all know that IJN was extremely ignorant regarding that and there is absolutely no need to replay very bad historical decisions... that's what I was writing about...

There fore I am and I always was for 100% realism in all aspects of wargame/simulation except regarding tactics / strategy that player can influence (because we are in command in our games and we "alter" history with every tactical / strategic decision we make within historic boundaries of realistic equipment, supply and production)!


Leo "Apollo11"

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

My interest in this thread is for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the production system in WitP vs reality. What I am doing is gathering data, basically. For that reason more production information from other games, to gain a general perspective, is what I am interested in.

Andrew

I'd like to offer two observations. Number One is that on BOTH sides, MORE A/C were lost to "non-combat" causes than to enemy action. AVERAGE losses to this cause were close to 10% a month (with Japan's being marginally higher than the US.., don't know about the Commonwealth). The game doesn't really reflect this.

Two..., for those doing a "study" for Andrew, some comparison numbers on Japanese production of game-included A/C:

1942..........Produced.. 6,335..........Average Monthly of 528
1943..........Produced 13.029.........,,...Ave. Monthly of 1002
1944..........Produced 21,058..............Ave. Monthly of 1755

[Woos]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown
What I am doing is gathering data, basically. For that reason more production information from other games, to gain a general perspective, is what I am interested in.

The nice thing about witpDecoder is that everyone who uses it has those information at his fingertips. Well, _now_ he has them at his fingertips. Download http://extweb.retsiemuab.de/witp/acprodump.zip , unpack it into your witpDecoder directory, click on acproddump.bat and get something like

Code: Select all

ACProductionDumper V0.1 (C) 2007 by M.Baumeister.
 
 Date 1942-03-06
 Side: Japan
 VP ratio: 4.31
 Potential Plane productions:
 
 DB	51
 F	230
 FF	14
 FP	32
 LB	89
 P	16
 R	64
 T	68
 TB	20

A few notes:
* It's a quick hack, so absolutely no warranty or support. Actually I didn't even test it on Windows (only on Linux).
* It is only useful for IJ players. It does not produce useful numbers for Allied players.
* It shows the _potential_ monthly production if all factories were switched on and had sufficient HI/engines. Those conditions are not checked.
* Be aware that you are giving Intel to your opponent if you are posting results here (so maybe PM them to Andrew).
* You might want to write something about the general situation as the VP ratio is not going to tell everything. E.g. how much HI / Engines you have left.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Too early to go to bed, so I just throw in my 0.02 Euro cents... In a game I want a realistic framework of factors like geographic limitations (e.g. logistic bottlenecks due to port size), political restrictions, unit/equipment capabilities and ressource availability, but I want my own choices on what strategy to pursue, what to do with the units and on what to spend the ressources - of course with the benefits of hindsight. And if I want to waste precious supplies and manpower for overextending industries - well, everyone has to make his own mistakes...     [/align]So I believe the Japanese production doesn't need taming, as I find it hard enough to generate the supplies for repairing the expanded industries - the initial supply stockpiles melt away fast during the conquest phase even without doing much expanding. Granted, I'm most probably just a bad player, but increasing HI and production of aircraft, engines weapons etc. and having enough supplies left for operations, base extensions and keeping units up to strength is already quite a challenge. How many IJ players actually manage to outproduce the Allies? Not me for sure, not in CHS. Furthermore, oil and ressources and manpower cannot be expanded in the game (although some expansion of certain ressources may has happened IRL), which puts a limit on useful industry expansion. And after all, the limiting factor for the Japanes war effort is not the number of airframes, it's high quality pilots (and I don't bomb empty bases, it's gamey). [/align]If taming is really considered necessary, this could be achieved by lowering the availability of ressources/oil/manpower or increasing costs for expansion and production. There could also be a cap for maximum expansion, say the double or triple of the original capacity of a factory or a max limit of say 500 units per month per factory. [/align]However, taming or not - it is not fair to leave the Allied player stuck with fixed production levels. As Allied production system will not be changed to match the Japanese one, it should at least increase Allied production in relation to the Japanese production figures. Or the Allied player may get the option to spend political points to obtain more aircraft, like "spend 1000 pp to convince Hap Arnold that he should allocate 10% more P-38s to the PTO" - with diminishing returns, like 2000 pp for another 10% or so in order to avoid overextension of the Allied production figures.     [/align] [/align]
[/align] [/align][/align]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
Or the Allied player may get the option to spend political points to obtain more aircraft, like "spend 1000 pp to convince Hap Arnold that he should allocate 10% more P-38s to the PTO" - with diminishing returns, like 2000 pp for another 10% or so in order to avoid overextension of the Allied production figures.   

An interesting idea...., but probably too late to make it into AE.

[Mynok]

I'm a die-hard Japanese fanboy, and certainly would not be in the "historical simulation" camp as far as what I want. I seem to agree with Apollo's approach: equipment should behave historically, but don't restrict me to strictly historical strategy and tactics.

However, there are interesting questions being asked about how "fast" Japan could ramp up. Since the act of expanding factories "doubles" the current value in unrepaired new factories, would it not be simple and logical to restrict that doubling to occuring only while factories are undamaged? As it is, I can max out my factories/yards/etc from turn one if I choose and expect to have the supply. This would eliminate that. Click expand and you get damaged factories. The expand option goes away until all factories repair.

If the new resource/supply model does indeed reduce the massive amounts available today, then I believe that the two items together would dramatically reduce how *quickly* Japan can expand her factories, even if the fact remains that she can eventually way outproduce historical numbers.

[JWE]

Woof !!

I guess I gotta be the heavy. Ain’t gonna happen.

AE is philosophically the same as WiTP-1. The war in the Pacific “was”. AE allows a lot of interconversion, but only on a scale that is based on existing models, and only to the extent that those existing models did indeed convert to whatever they converted to.

AE cannot, and will not, step onto the slippery slope of “what if”.

Your ideas may seem incontrovertibly reasonable, but if they “weren’t”, they “won’t be”, for no other reason than that they “weren’t”.

You must see the implications. No matter how reasonable your “what ifs” are, how about someone else’s ? Where do we draw the line ? At the Space Battleship Yamato ?

No. I’m very sorry, but we gotta hew to the clear wood. We gotta do what “is”, and what “was”, not what “might have been”.

That's what the editor is for.

Anyhoo. Ciao.

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Woof !!

I guess I gotta be the heavy. Ain’t gonna happen.

AE is philosophically the same as WiTP-1. The war in the Pacific “was”. AE allows a lot of interconversion, but only on a scale that is based on existing models, and only to the extent that those existing models did indeed convert to whatever they converted to.

AE cannot, and will not, step onto the slippery slope of “what if”.

Your ideas may seem incontrovertibly reasonable, but if they “weren’t”, they “won’t be”, for no other reason than that they “weren’t”.

You must see the implications. No matter how reasonable your “what ifs” are, how about someone else’s ? Where do we draw the line ? At the Space Battleship Yamato ?

No. I’m very sorry, but we gotta hew to the clear wood. We gotta do what “is”, and what “was”, not what “might have been”.

That's what the editor is for.

Anyhoo. Ciao.

Well, I hate to say it, but that makes sense to me. Start adding stuff to AE and it will never get done. I was for four years on the PM team of a 24-month project that that happened to.....

[Mynok]

Controlling Japanese industry expansion seems much more in the spirit of getting closer to what "was" than a "what if". And it isn't really adding any functionality, just controlling a current one more tightly.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

My opinion is that the real problem isn't that Japan can produce much more things than it did in reality.
The real problem is that Allied production (of planes) is stuck and cannot be changed.
As someone more aknowlegded than me said, with the actual numbers (especially in CHS), the allies cannot stand an attrition air war, while Japan can (given for a fact that both player uses training programs bombing empty bases so forming high skill pilots continuosly).
So probably the best and easiest way to solve this problem would be a little code that makes grow the allied a/c production as jap a/c production grows... 

Unfortunately, this just smacks of two wrongs making a right. The game's mechanics are too bloody already so why add more meat for the grinder? I'd like to see Japan's economy brought into a realistic orbit. Not saying that players should not be able to improve upon Japan's historical apogee, what I'm saying is that the mechanisms by which Japan accomplishes this be made believable, This means not just adjusting the economy, but improving the game mechanics so that such things as the cornucopia of resources present in the stock release is addressed (AE sounds like it has made steps in this direction and removed the hardcoded supply/fuel bonus from resource/oil centres), fantasy military capabilities are addressed (ie, UBER CAP, endless use of BBs as strategic bombers via bombardment missions made possible by every piddly base being a major naval base in capability), removal of the respawn nonsense, poor land combat models...etc.

Can't all of the economic aspects be made editor accessible so that the players can adjust the myriad of factors involved so that the model can be tweaked to players taste? If so, those who want to play silly bugger can fill their boots and those who what a semblance of reality can be sated as well.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

I would just like to repeat something that I posted earlier in this thread - these discussions are not really helpful (to me at least) if we don't have production figures from WitP games to compare against real life figures (along with the context of the state of the game, of course).

Andrew

Well we know from history the most air frames Japan produced in a single year were 13,811 in 1944. This image from PZB’s game shows an assembly of 3,295 air frames a month. Multiply that by 12 and you have a production of 39,540 a year. Or 25,729 more air frames a year than the highest level Japan ever achieved in reality.



I don’t really know what more you would need for proof. Japan's production is so far over the top, I’m actually amazed anyone would say they needed proof before they'd believe it.

Jim

P.S. Japan only built 76,320 air frames of all types for the entire war. 15,201 of those were trainers, so they only built about 60,000 combat air frames. We don't build trainers in WitP, so their production is so far over the top it's funny.

Oops the evidence provided in this post does not support the conclusion. The aircraft assembly number shown on this screen does not consider what factories are actually producing aircraft. Some folks got excited in my AAR about my aircraft production (I'm playing Japanese) but the total numbers should be viewed as the "maximum capacity". And no way do I have the HI or resources or oil to be able to use all this capacity. Hence the bulk of my aircraft capacity is always turned off. So, you might ask why have excess capacity that you are not using? Reasons are to accelerate transition to new types and to provide surge capacity in the event of an emergency. But there is no way I can support production of more than a fraction (20-30 percent) of my capacity on a sustained basis.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
Can't all of the economic aspects be made editor accessible so that the players can adjust the myriad of factors involved so that the model can be tweaked to players taste? If so, those who want to play silly bugger can fill their boots and those who what a semblance of reality can be sated as well.

They pretty much are. Resources, Oil, HI, Engines, aircraft, etc. are all devices attached to bases ... you want to reduce Japanese aircraft production in your game, go reduce the airframe factores. Nik actually includes this in his mod. What he did was consolidate the aircraft factories into a smaller number of larger factores producing the same totals of aircraft. This makes it generally more expensive to increase production. PDU on really changes things - and I noted Michael Wood's statement a few days ago that if he had it to do over again - he might not have added PDU. I doubt we will take it out - but it is a toogle which can be used or not.

[witpqs]

Want to jump in with this: I think PDU ON is a better simulation because it provides the kind of flexibility (for both players) that everybody in this thread says the Japanese should have for production. I think when PDU is a problem it's really because of other factors - having PDU OFF would simply mask those problems. Having PDU makes WITP better. There is no way the political or military masters would say "I know there are no P-40's left, but you cannot touch those hundreds of P-39's", or vice versa. Consider that the game code does not tell you what ships to group together ("Sorry, no Bristol DD's left? Tough, you can't use the Wickes/Clemson DD's with CV's!") Commanders should be free to use available aircraft as they see fit (within doctrine and command structure), just like they are with ships. Please don't take PDU out (even in future patches of AE or in WITP II).

I think the real issue with Japanese production is that Allied - particularly USA - production is not allowed to react to game events and Japanese production, while Japanese production can react as chosen.

I don't know, maybe some of the things mentioned in earlier posts make Japanese production more over the top (or just look that way, as Joe is indicating), but PDU isn't the problem. I have not done much with it myself, but some of my perceptions about Japanese production have been influenced by postings of advice where experienced IJ players talked about having 600 - 700 Zeros producing per month within a limited number of months after war start. And that while only conquering roughly what was historically conquered IRL (meaning there were not additional resources from Australia, India, all of China, etc.). With the Allies unable to make compensatory adjustments (which were within real life historical capabilities as shown by the early slowdown of production), well you can see where I feel it's off kilter.

Maybe those perceptions are misguided by exaggerated reports or, as Joe seems to be pointing out, getting an incomplete picture of actual production in those reports.

I have no problem with Japanese production expansion as long as it is within the realm of realistic capability. If availability of resources already contains it to realism (in AE), that's fine with me. If (and I stress if) Japanese actual production goes beyond a threshold that would trigger an Allied adjustment, we really should have some means for the code to deal with that.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
I think it is rude to post data from a live game where you know the opponent will see it without that person approval I now need to never look at this thread again - thanks Jim for giving me free intel.

Oops sorry Andy and PZB, it was very late and I was caught up in the discussion and didn’t think. I’m very sorry about that it won’t happen again.

As to Jwilkerson’s assertions that the capacity isn’t being used, I seriously doubt that’s the case. If you look at just the Oscars used, he’s used 31+ months of Oscar production (assuming it hasn’t been expanded from the day they came online) so it’s been going full speed ahead since they became available for production.

Now I agree bombers, recon planes, transports etc. can and are turned off for long periods of time. But I seriously doubt any Japanese player turns fighter production off for any significant period of time and that’s the area of over-production that causes Japan to have a more powerful airforce than the allies.

Jim