Brave Sir Robin

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: JWE

I think I have mentioned this three or four times before. For logistics purposes, a “ton’ is either a “measurement ton” or a “Metric ton”. A gross ton or net ton is expressed in terms of 100 cubic feet of cargo space, but this is a tax measurement. Just think of how taxes are assessed against holders of millions, and you will understand just how utterly useless these numbers are in determining the actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel.

The actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel is contained in her builder/shipper/supercargo records. These are the data that shipping companies (and the various Naval establishments) used to determine who could carry what. Gross/Net tonnage was a lying shibboleth, as everyone understood.

What you could carry was a function of the ship’s “bale cubic” and its “Net Cargo Deadweight”. It had nothing whatever to do with gross or net tonnage.

AE has incorporated “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” in its determination as to who can carry what. The AE group has had the benefit of input from various Japanese sources that, despite contemporary assertions to the contrary, still exist. The AE cargo capacities are a mathematical functional aggregate of the “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” of the vessels at issue.

We know the bunker contents of the majority of ship classes and their design range. We also know how much of bunkerage was in deep tanks. We also know when, and to what degree, IJGHQ ordered reduction of deep tank capacity and it’s replacement with ballast. We also know when and to what degree various vessel classes were fitted out with strenghthened kingposts.

i am glad to hear this is the case for AE - but i am pretty certain it wasn't the case for Stock/Vanilla, and many mods seemed to have just used a percentage of the Stock to derive the shipping capacities of the ships. My original remarks (which provoked the post that led to this one) were pertaining to the current game, not AE.

Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

He didn't. 85 per cent of Japanese urban area was burned out. At the end of the war, the vast majority of records which still existed were destoyed by order (or even assumption there was an order). And the records were not to our standards to begin with. Nor can you read them easily - Japanese ships being the worst case - mixing English traditional and metric data - often confusing even experts in the era.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: el cid again



He didn't. 85 per cent of Japanese urban area was burned out. At the end of the war, the vast majority of records which still existed were destoyed by order (or even assumption there was an order). And the records were not to our standards to begin with. Nor can you read them easily - Japanese ships being the worst case - mixing English traditional and metric data - often confusing even experts in the era.

Biting tongue in anticipation.


It seems that we all forgot el cid is the only source of all knowledge in this arena.[:)]

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: JWE

I think I have mentioned this three or four times before. For logistics purposes, a “ton’ is either a “measurement ton” or a “Metric ton”. A gross ton or net ton is expressed in terms of 100 cubic feet of cargo space, but this is a tax measurement. Just think of how taxes are assessed against holders of millions, and you will understand just how utterly useless these numbers are in determining the actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel.

The actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel is contained in her builder/shipper/supercargo records. These are the data that shipping companies (and the various Naval establishments) used to determine who could carry what. Gross/Net tonnage was a lying shibboleth, as everyone understood.

What you could carry was a function of the ship’s “bale cubic” and its “Net Cargo Deadweight”. It had nothing whatever to do with gross or net tonnage.

AE has incorporated “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” in its determination as to who can carry what. The AE group has had the benefit of input from various Japanese sources that, despite contemporary assertions to the contrary, still exist. The AE cargo capacities are a mathematical functional aggregate of the “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” of the vessels at issue.

We know the bunker contents of the majority of ship classes and their design range. We also know how much of bunkerage was in deep tanks. We also know when, and to what degree, IJGHQ ordered reduction of deep tank capacity and it’s replacement with ballast. We also know when and to what degree various vessel classes were fitted out with strenghthened kingposts.

i am glad to hear this is the case for AE - but i am pretty certain it wasn't the case for Stock/Vanilla, and many mods seemed to have just used a percentage of the Stock to derive the shipping capacities of the ships. My original remarks (which provoked the post that led to this one) were pertaining to the current game, not AE.

Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

He didn't. 85 per cent of Japanese urban area was burned out. At the end of the war, the vast majority of records which still existed were destoyed by order (or even assumption there was an order). And the records were not to our standards to begin with. Nor can you read them easily - Japanese ships being the worst case - mixing English traditional and metric data - often confusing even experts in the era.

I've already read detailed lists of where the shipping records came from. [8|]

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: el cid again

REPLY: You are correct here. For logistic purposes a "ton" is probably 100 cubic feet of cargo. Only some cargos weigh a ton - and most of those are absent. The main cargo is coal - everything else combined only amounts to half the amount of coal moved (at least by Japan - and it won't be much different for other countries). Then there are complications like deck cargo: this may mean a ship carries MORE than its rating. These matters were carefully looked at for RHS - and in many cases ship cargos were indeed reduced. Also we found ranges were often excessive and fuel often understated. I called ships in WITP "practically nuclear powered" - they could go farther and faster than IRL on less fuel. Typical stock errors were hundreds of per cent - sometimes thosands of per cent. That may have created erronious ideas about how easy it is to move things.

Not sure I know how to reply. Multiple sequential SPAM posts are kinda hard to respond to. Maybe that's the point.

Categorically No.

I think I have mentioned this three or four times before. For logistics purposes, a “ton’ is either a “measurement ton” or a “Metric ton”. A gross ton or net ton is expressed in terms of 100 cubic feet of cargo space, but this is a tax measurement. Just think of how taxes are assessed against holders of millions, and you will understand just how utterly useless these numbers are in determining the actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel.

The actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel is contained in her builder/shipper/supercargo records. These are the data that shipping companies (and the various Naval establishments) used to determine who could carry what. Gross/Net tonnage was a lying shibboleth, as everyone understood.

What you could carry was a function of the ship’s “bale cubic” and its “Net Cargo Deadweight”. It had nothing whatever to do with gross or net tonnage.

AE has incorporated “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” in its determination as to who can carry what. The AE group has had the benefit of input from various Japanese sources that, despite contemporary assertions to the contrary, still exist. The AE cargo capacities are a mathematical functional aggregate of the “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” of the vessels at issue.

We know the bunker contents of the majority of ship classes and their design range. We also know how much of bunkerage was in deep tanks. We also know when, and to what degree, IJGHQ ordered reduction of deep tank capacity and it’s replacement with ballast. We also know when and to what degree various vessel classes were fitted out with strenghthened kingposts.

Irrespective of posts that suggest that Japanese is incomprehensible to Westerners, I have been conversing with the Japanese, in the course of my business, for about 15 years. My business is high-technology patent law. I don’t speak (write) Japanese, very well, but my correspondents have never failed to understand and translate my wishes. Apropos, I have never failed to understand and translate the responses of my Japanese associates.

Any indication that we (westerners) cannot understand Japanese, is Horse $h.. !!!!

Ciao. John

The term SPAM has a technical meaning - so you misuse it here. I never engage in spamming - and might have to go to jail if I met someone who did (for murder).

You are correct that a 100 cu ft ton is a tax concept. As a sailor I hate it - we use displacement tons - which has meaning in damage control terms - in the Navy. But cargo ships are all rated in this way. And it turns out so is logistics in other senses: with a few exceptiosn (e.g. Iron ore or coal) - cargo is space limited - not weight limited. There are whole threads on this matter - and I did oversimplify - but in basic terms we use space limited logistics in WITP. Joe Wilkerson wrote (privately) "in the end a ton is a ton is a ton" - and there are several different ways to come at it - so his phrase is apt. But in the end - it is not catagorically no. It is catagorically yes.

Your comments are way to technical to be honest and true: AE cannot use the technical terms you properly say it does because we lack the data for all the kinds of vessels and cargo carrying things in the game (trucks, trains, porters). Even ships are not so defined in many cases (native craft, military vessels of several sorts) - and those that are are so numerous no one (even me) has the time to look em all up (never mind a source to look em all up in). In the end - no matter how much work is done - there must be compromises and estimates - and these are going to be based on rules of thumb more often than going through constructors specifications (which may not really be correct later in time either). In any case - all that is moot - THIS forum is WITP - not AE - and we play WITP - not AE (unless you have a copy to send out for us to play). We are not talking about what will be some day - but what is right now. I spent a man year or so on this - guided by Joe Wilkerson and a couple of professional seamen - and there are long threads devoted to how this was done. There are many dimensions of it - and several possible approaches might be reasonable - but only if one is comprehensive in application will it work out well. To some extent that requires code changes we are not going to see - ever likely - and certainly not in AE - for which coding is not getting more tasking. There is no real standard for tonnage - but if I had my way - it would be the metric ton - and we would then redefine ships in terms of that - not the nominal tax capacity - but the actual real cargo capacity - including deck cargo. That still would not really work however: if they put a space limited cargo on the ship it could not carry its rating in metric tons - and that is the NORMAL case. So maybe then we go for a percentage (AK Warrior suggested 85 per cent) to get statistically valid? I would prefer more sophistication still - but we must work with the system we have NOW.

If you really were going to look up the fuel bunkerage of every class in the theater - and the cargo capacity - for every change of practice (and FYI nationlity - the British used different rules than the US did) - it will be about 20 years before we see AE. I laud the boldness of the assertion - it is very different from WITP as originally done - but it is also impossible. The data does not really exist - although you can escape rating vessels you simply leave out - and you can lump all near sisters together in one class - in more than a few cases nothing at all survives but the name - we don't even know the ship's speed - never mind more than that. Even US Army records (and US ARmy operated more vessels than anyone else in the world - well over 80,000) are incomplete and ambiguous. In the case of Japan we have ships in the database which are different translations of the same name - or different names at different times for the same ship - and we have cases where there is no data whatever beyond the name and perhaps a year of induction for use. I am slightly offended at the claim this all can be done - this year - for a data set so vast - even if it could be done at all. That implies a gross misunderstanding of the sheer amount of data involved - which in turns makes the whole work very suspect. In any case - information theory requires there will be errors in any large set - never mind problems of definition and sources - which for this case are both gigantic. WITP requires we give things a load cost. This is not even related to ships - except when we try to carry the thing. And it is not really the same for different kinds of ships either. Nor is it men - but it will report that way.

Moved elsewhere to avoid hijack.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Moved elsewhere to avoid hijack.

Darn John!!! Its been awhile since the forum has seen a bonafide Donnybrook the likes of the Zero v Wildcat debates...

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: JWE

I think I have mentioned this three or four times before. For logistics purposes, a “ton’ is either a “measurement ton” or a “Metric ton”. A gross ton or net ton is expressed in terms of 100 cubic feet of cargo space, but this is a tax measurement. Just think of how taxes are assessed against holders of millions, and you will understand just how utterly useless these numbers are in determining the actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel.

The actual carrying capacity of any individual vessel is contained in her builder/shipper/supercargo records. These are the data that shipping companies (and the various Naval establishments) used to determine who could carry what. Gross/Net tonnage was a lying shibboleth, as everyone understood.

What you could carry was a function of the ship’s “bale cubic” and its “Net Cargo Deadweight”. It had nothing whatever to do with gross or net tonnage.

AE has incorporated “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” in its determination as to who can carry what. The AE group has had the benefit of input from various Japanese sources that, despite contemporary assertions to the contrary, still exist. The AE cargo capacities are a mathematical functional aggregate of the “bale cubic” and “Net Cargo Deadweight” of the vessels at issue.

We know the bunker contents of the majority of ship classes and their design range. We also know how much of bunkerage was in deep tanks. We also know when, and to what degree, IJGHQ ordered reduction of deep tank capacity and it’s replacement with ballast. We also know when and to what degree various vessel classes were fitted out with strenghthened kingposts.

i am glad to hear this is the case for AE - but i am pretty certain it wasn't the case for Stock/Vanilla, and many mods seemed to have just used a percentage of the Stock to derive the shipping capacities of the ships. My original remarks (which provoked the post that led to this one) were pertaining to the current game, not AE.

Point of curiosity: Where on earth did you manage to get these shipping records? i've been trying to locate figures for total imports for various countries, and cargo handled (by port) without much success... to get individual shipping records for ships is really cool! [8D]

He didn't. 85 per cent of Japanese urban area was burned out. At the end of the war, the vast majority of records which still existed were destoyed by order (or even assumption there was an order). And the records were not to our standards to begin with. Nor can you read them easily - Japanese ships being the worst case - mixing English traditional and metric data - often confusing even experts in the era.

Wot? No Japanese merchies visited the US before the war?

i would think you could get some kind of handle on it (from cargo shipped prewar) - and a lot of shipping did survive the war to (potentially) visit US later (where records as to cargo shipped, etc.) might be available.

[pad152]

So what is gamey?

To me - gamey is taking advantage of game engine limitations that could not have been done ITRW...such as dropping one squad in a hex behind an enemy to block that enemy force from retreating and thereby forcing a surrender....Or perhaps landing one squad in San Francisco or Truk to see what engages that squad in the land combat phase - a sort of 'super recon'.

Well if recon worked right, we wouldn't have do gamey stuff like this! You recon an small enemy base for a week only to get there is 1 base unit there, then you invade only to find 6 units. [8|]

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Shark7

OK guys, gonna give you my take on it.

First off, if the AFB wants to pull a Brave Sir Robin on me, I'm not going to complain.  Just don't expect me to sit on Truk with 250k troops and not try to save them in return when the game switches momentum.

That being said, there are a few problems with being able to evacuate all the troops.

1.  PI --  are you going to stay and try to defend your village or get on a boat with Macarthur to defend Oz?  Some might have left, but not all.

2.  Dutch Units -- NEI was a colony.  Soldiers with family back in Europe would have little reason to stay and fight on, however soldiers with families in the NEI would have a reason to fight tenaciously.

3.  Singapore -- IRL, the British actually tried to reinforce Fortress Singapore.  However, from a strategic standpoint it makes much more sense to evacuate it.

What I would do to fix it is simple.  PI and Dutch units need to have devices of their own in the Database.  These would not be produced and start with a pool for replacements only for a short period of time (to simulate emergency conscriptions for replacements to defend their homelands).  Once the pool was used up, these units would not be able to rebuild, so while you might save them from being over-run, they don't become usefull combat units down the road.  It doesn't prevent Brave Sir Robin, but it also doesn't make risking ships worth it either.

The game deviates from history as soon as the Japanese player issues his first order.  This is part of wargaming, to see if you can do better.  However, there does need to be a difference between what is possible and what is plausible. 

It would have been very possible for MacArthur to take elements of the Phillipine Army with him, however getting replacements for the Phillipine units with the PI under Japanese occupation is just not plausible.

And in fact, the Dutch did evacuate to Australia during the war.  So that is very possible as well.  But once again, with Holland under German Occupation replacements would have been hard to find. 

Another way to deal with this is to allow the LCUs to be disbanded into other LCUs similar to air groups being disbanded.  In this way you could get 1 or 2 fully functional PI or Dutch units by withdrawing fragments, but not end up with a dozen fully staffed units as is possible by pulling Brave Sir Robin.

This doesn't apply only to AFBs either.  If Manchuria or Thailand were to get over-run (in a mod that includes those units) then the same rules should apply.

The Philippines DID organize units during the war. So did the Dutch. WE never let the Dutch marines into combat - but that was because we didn't support imperial aims - not because it was not a good unit. However - Philippine units were NOT Philippine Army units - but US Army units. Philippine Army was not something you would take anywhere. It had eight command languages in each unit, no boots in most, no artillery in most batteries, no training above company level - the list is long. [See The Philippine Army, University of Manila Press]
Philippine Scouts - and later US Philippine-American regiments - were effective.

Militias and guerillas either should never leave country - or if they appear outside always want to go to their country. [Kim Il Sung appears with a Korean guerilla unit in the USSR - but he wants to kill Japanese in Manchukuo or Korea. Viet Ming will appear at Kunming if their point of appearence is enemy occupied - and they will REFORM there as well if they are destroyed. But they try to go back to Indochina.] Militia is not very useful out of country. ATG (Alaska Territorial Guard) may be better than regulars in the wilderness, but would be incompetent in any other place). Militias are made of people with jobs - removing them is a problem for the economy and their families. And militia is restricted by law in every case - the only exception being Australia - which permitted AMF units to go off the continent late in the war - when there was NO risk to Australia and AFTER changing the law. By then the units were virtually regulars - not true militia - but retained the name. Indian forces are present to defend (and occupy) India. RHS has all these sorts of units in numbers - we added NZ militia, Indian local forces, name it - to prevent a "Nemoesque" invasion from being unopposed - not so the militia would go invade Japan. Same for guerillas - the Dutch NEI has a proper formal guerilla unit on Celebes when the war begins - and it is USELESS if it leaves that island - actually the SW part of it - it was intimately organized for that one area.

Cid, I am well aware that the majority of the combat troops in the PI were in fact American units. Those I have no problem with you moving anywhere you want to. I was speaking specifically of the home grown militia units. Those units made up completely of PI natives would be very unlikely to be willing to move, if the US had even thought of it. Those units should draw from their own pools and be harder to rebuild.

Dutch units could forseeably act much as the Free French, and I would surmise they likely did. From things I've read, not all the units in NEI, India, or PI were exactly unhappy about the Allies being gone either.

I'm trying to differentiate between being able to withdraw UK, Australian, and US troops, and the ability to withdraw and build up the home grown militia units. Regular Major allied powers with their normal units drawing replacements from unoccupied locations are quite fine as it works now. It's the home grown units that can still rebuild even when withdrawn and their homelands are over-run that I take issue with.

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: JWE

Moved elsewhere to avoid hijack.

Darn John!!! Its been awhile since the forum has seen a bonafide Donnybrook the likes of the Zero v Wildcat debates...

Just a flesh wound.......

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: JWE

Moved elsewhere to avoid hijack.

Darn John!!! Its been awhile since the forum has seen a bonafide Donnybrook the likes of the Zero v Wildcat debates...

Just go up to the top. Bonnybrook was a small stream compared to this one. Erin go bragh! Perdition to the oppressor!

Peace, love, and happiness through superior armament. Ciao.

John

Gotta go up & over, cause "As much as I wish the death of the false Prince, I must not herald the point. He is as a bag of wind, and cutting him opens the air, as a pipe buvets." Extra credit for who and when.

[mdiehl]

You recon an small enemy base for a week only to get there is 1 base unit there, then you invade only to find 6 units.

And that is historically inappropriate because.......?

[Big B]

See the wonderful things I try to do for your entertainment! [;)]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: JWE

Moved elsewhere to avoid hijack.

Darn John!!! Its been awhile since the forum has seen a bonafide Donnybrook the likes of the Zero v Wildcat debates...

Just go up to the top. Bonnybrook was a small stream compared to this one. Erin go bragh! Perdition to the oppressor!

Peace, love, and happiness through superior armament. Ciao.

John

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Big B

See the wonderful things I try to do for your entertainment! [;)]

Ah, Brian, me lad .. I love you like a son.

[jeffs]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Some ravings form another Madman.

3. If the objection is to a tactic then there is no basis for argument unless you and your opponent agree beforehand that ahistorical tactics are to be avoided. But be careful. The original US/Filipino plan was to move as much supplies into Bataan as possible and then slowly withdraw there for a final stand or releif to come. The problem is that the Japanese advanced so fast that they were not able to accomplish the plan. So technically at least as far as the PI is concerned is Sir Robinning to Bataan is actually historically correct. Point being that one man's "gamey tactic" may just be a viable solution to the historical problem.

The original orange plan had the bulk of the US/Philipine forces and supplies in Bataan/Clark area. However, under the delusional visions of McArthur, who thought he could hold the Japanese at the beaches, forces and supplies were spread out. After realizing his folly when the IJA proved tougher than he thought, McArthur basically ordered the Sir Robin back to where they would have been originally employed. However, the big problem was that while the troops could move quickly, supplies could not (there was a law that did not allow rice to be shipped between provinces that both McArthur and President Quezon thought best to uphold. This further act of incompetence lead to the loss of 10 million tons (i need to check this number, I am probably wrong..Just let`s say they lost a lot of rice) of rice in Manila). Had the supplies (and troops) been in the Bataan/Clark area from the begining as originally planned, the fight would probably have gone on much longer as malnution and disease significantly weakend the allied troops.

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

You recon an small enemy base for a week only to get there is 1 base unit there, then you invade only to find 6 units.

And that is historically inappropriate because.......?

When the US invaded most Japanese held locations, they had a pretty good idea as to what forces they were up against. This is not the case in WITP. You really have to take all your recon results with a grain of salt.

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

You recon an small enemy base for a week only to get there is 1 base unit there, then you invade only to find 6 units.

And that is historically inappropriate because.......?

When the US invaded most Japanese held locations, they had a pretty good idea as to what forces they were up against. This is not the case in WITP. You really have to take all your recon results with a grain of salt.

More like a rock of salt!

Chez

[Big B]

John - love the new avatar![:D]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Big B

See the wonderful things I try to do for your entertainment! [;)]

Ah, Brian, me lad .. I love you like a son.

[panda124c]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

I agree that there is a large discrepancy between the Japanese shipping required in the game to move resources to Japan when compared to real life, as others have already mentioned above.

It is not easy to correct that in a mod. For CHS a couple of things were done, such as reducing the tonnage of cargo ships by a certain amount, and modifying the number and location of resource centres, but both of these approaches are very limited. Reducing the number of ships present is another option, but if you do that too much you distort the Allied submarine offensive (fewer targets). Not representing very small Japanese cargo ships helps as well. As mentioned these are to some extent abstractly represented in any case.

I also agree that political factors are not well represented in the game as is, and that this contributes to the ease of conducting a "Sir Robin" strategy by the Allies. They would not be easy to add, I think. One possibility would be to change the victory conditions such that a small amount of VPs are awarded each turn for bases in friendly control. This would discourage evacuating bases early as more VPs would be lost as a result. But this is something that is not within the scope of WitP.

Andrew

An anti "Sir Robin" mod would to make it only possible to move (retreats not counting) to a different command area if you expend a certain number of PP's (less than to change the unit to that command). This would leave units in a RL situation where it was politically unacceptable to 'bug out'.
Personally I am a proponent of "Run away to fight another day school of thought." particularly if you know you can't win. Of course this has to be balanced against delaying the enemy so that your troops can get away (classic rear guard action).

[panda124c]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Feinder

The more (longer) that I play WitP, the more that I consider the WitP engine (and especially so the land combat engine) a steaming pile of poo.

IMO, the OBs of the units, and the capabilities of the units themselves, bear little resemblence to their actual historical counter-parts.  I do NOT consider the full-scale invasion of Australia or the whole-sale conquest of India a "historical what-if".  I -do- cosider it entertaining fantasy.   But no, I do not by any attempt at justification, cosider it "a historical what-if".  While I am quite sure many would say I was myopic biggot for claiming that, well - I've been called worse.

Given that in WitP a massive invasion of India or Oz seem to be the norm, WitP is therefor categorized as "entertaining fantasy".  It -IS- a very enjoyable game.  But it is a very POOR simulation.  It's an excellent, very complicated and detailed *fantasy*, but as far as simulation is concerned; well, it's not. 

Yes, I just gets my craw. Imagine what three or four decent armor brigades would do to any IJA troops-no matter the quality in the open desert. Versus any Japanese tank or AT gun in 1942, Grant tanks would be uber monsters. Not to mention valentines and matildas or M3's for that matter. It is nothing but a fantasy and just kills me to see Japanese troops push Aussie and American armor around.

Oh I don't know the IJA was the reason people started putting hatch latches on the inside of tanks, during the Russo-Japan war the IJA use to run up to Russian tanks climb on open the hatch (no latches) and toss grenades inside. [:-]

And don't you watch those John Wayne movies where the Japanese trooper grabs the satchel charge and runs under the American tank.

[mdiehl]

When the US invaded most Japanese held locations, they had a pretty good idea as to what forces they were up against.

That is true. But information on the numbers of units & to a degree numbers of men was not accurately gleaned by aerial recon and not over a period of six days. Such information was more a product of traffic analysis and signal decrypt. The Japanese had very weak intel on most of the places they attacked apart from Singapore and Hong Kong. The Allies by 1943 tended to have decent intel and by 1944 great intel.

This is not the case in WITP. You really have to take all your recon results with a grain of salt.

WitP should be providing that sort of intel from sigint not from aerial recon. But if it's not providing that info to the Allies at all then I agree that it is a problem.