Japanese airframe production

[Mike Solli]

The only reason to build some Sen Baku is to bring on the 63 planes in the two reinforcment units.  Other than that, I can't see any reason. 
 
It will cost a significant amount of supply to change the factory though.  I'd like to keep the A6M2 factory around and just shut it off.  When the Sen Baku arrives, turn it on to build some, then turn it off again until it upgrades to the A6M5b.  That's an awful lot of down time though.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

ORIGINAL: vonSchnitter

@ Kitakami

The M3 may not be carrier-capable, but I shudder when I think about 1-2 factories producing 150 M2s between them a month... I'd rather have some of that factory space producing M3s, because they will automatically upgrade to M3a's in December '42

Yup - my way of thinking - a second - or even third - M2 factory could be the ticket ?
We just need to find something suitable - Pete ? A Navy transport ?

I have never put that much effort into A6M3 production (in WITP). Only enough to provide 4 (total) "interceptor" datais in Timor and the Solomons. I keep the M2s as escorts and for the Carriers until the world comes to an end (or I get M5s, which ever comes first). Why the excitement about the A6M3a?

I liked the A6M3a in WitP. It always served me well. Plus, you get free upgrades to that. Why not build it?

[Mike Solli]

Hmm, Timtom just said this in the air thread:
 
"All new air units will arrive on their historical formation date with a few a/c of the specified type. This regardless of whether the player has any aircraft of that type in pool or indeed if it's even in production. However units which the player has volunterily withdrawn or disbanded is a different story.

Basically if the value of any of the "air group" editor fields "ready", "damaged" or "reserve" of a given unit is greater than 0, that unit will appear on the specified "delay" (arrival) date. If the value of all those fields equals 0, then the unit will require filling out from the replacement pool. Same as in WitP. This is what the manuel is saying in a less technical manner."
 
Well, that changes things.  Now we don't have to keep something in production in order to get the unit.  We'll get it as long as one of the fields is >0.  So long production of the Sen Baku.  We should get those air units anyway.  Then just upgrade them and we're off. [:D]

[Elladan]

So the best way should be to keep A6M2 factory till 12/42 and then convert to A6M3a, right? Now the question is whether to expand this factory at start or not

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli


I liked the A6M3a in WitP. It always served me well. Plus, you get free upgrades to that. Why not build it?

Mike,

I don't remember its performance specs from WITP, just never saw the advantege to spending a lot of effort to expand A6M3 production to get it or the eventual free upgrades. Maybe I was missing something though. I spent more time on the Army side trying to expand Tojo production to have some decent interceptors to deal with the hordes of 4Es the enemy could throw at you in WITP.

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Hmm, Timtom just said this in the air thread:

"All new air units will arrive on their historical formation date with a few a/c of the specified type. This regardless of whether the player has any aircraft of that type in pool or indeed if it's even in production. However units which the player has volunterily withdrawn or disbanded is a different story.

Mike, did you confirm the reinforcement air units draw pilots from the replacement pool? For some reason I thought their progammatic requirements for pilots were planned in addition to the pool pilots--I may have just been having a pleasant dream..

[Kitakami]

ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace

No worries. I had to give you a hard time since you took as a log in name my favorite table-top naval miniature to play...

LOL!!! You could take the Oi... [:D]

[Kitakami]

ORIGINAL: vonSchnitter

@ Kitakami

The M3 may not be carrier-capable, but I shudder when I think about 1-2 factories producing 150 M2s between them a month... I'd rather have some of that factory space producing M3s, because they will automatically upgrade to M3a's in December '42

Yup - my way of thinking - a second - or even third - M2 factory could be the ticket ?
We just need to find something suitable - Pete ? A Navy transport ?

The Ki-56 2(0) factory might be a good candidate for this. I know... it is a IJAAF factory... but the other candidate is the 10(0) Ki-27 factory, which also is IJAAF [:)]

[Kitakami]

ORIGINAL: Elladan
I wouldn't count on that for 2 reasons (that is if it is working as it was in WitP):
- R&D factories are notoriously slow in repair, the farther the entry date, the slower the process. So 24 points repaired in December 41 is rather impossible methinks.
- Research points are only generated by undamaged factories, so the accumulation in case of A6M3 would start in March/April at the earliest if expanded.
So no chances for early A6M3, sorry.

Thanks for the info. I did not know damaged research factories did not produce development points. June '42 will have to be then.

As for A6M2 vs A6M3 and G3M3 vs G4M1, why not keep both in production? We would lose a bit of optimization, but that shouldn't be a big deal as performances are so close and we would save on factory retooling costs.

I agree with you on this, but... we DO have to incresase production. So, the question is, what production do we increase? Between Nells and Bettys the answer might be Nells, for a total of 44 Nells and 25 Bettys per month. But what about fighters? 24 M3s will not be enough, so we increase production to 48. But will 56 M2s per month be enough? Probably not, so we increase that production too, but not to 112... that would be too many resources sunk in a factory that will upgrade in '44. That means we need another, small, factory to convert to A6M2 production... Ki-36 seems to be the candidate for this...

[Wirraway_Ace]

ORIGINAL: Kitakami

The Ki-56 2(0) factory might be a good candidate for this. I know... it is a IJAAF factory... but the other candidate is the 10(0) Ki-27 factory, which also is IJAAF [:)]

Such a conversion should cost a few thousand Political Points...

[Mynok]

I didn't use the A6M3 much in Witp, but the M3a was a very different plane and well worth the upgrade.

Jury's still out for me in AE on the M3, but certainly not the M3a.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Hmm, Timtom just said this in the air thread:

"All new air units will arrive on their historical formation date with a few a/c of the specified type. This regardless of whether the player has any aircraft of that type in pool or indeed if it's even in production. However units which the player has volunterily withdrawn or disbanded is a different story.

I have no reason to think Timton is confused or wrong, we'll find out soon enough, but this is huge. Saves a TON of supply expenditure to just get reinforcement air units.

Already, it didn't matter in terms of pilots; if it doesn't matter in terms of planes either, just make what you want, and don't worry about the rest! There are a whole host of models we could just leave on the drawing board.

Now if I could just solve the problem of getting 100,000 Resources a day to Honshu......

[scout1]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Hmm, Timtom just said this in the air thread:

"All new air units will arrive on their historical formation date with a few a/c of the specified type. This regardless of whether the player has any aircraft of that type in pool or indeed if it's even in production. However units which the player has volunterily withdrawn or disbanded is a different story.

I have no reason to think Timton is confused or wrong, we'll find out soon enough, but this is huge. Saves a TON of supply expenditure to just get reinforcement air units.

Already, it didn't matter in terms of pilots; if it doesn't matter in terms of planes either, just make what you want, and don't worry about the rest! There are a whole host of models we could just leave on the drawing board.

Now if I could just solve the problem of getting 100,000 Resources a day to Honshu......

Now my head hurts ..... [&:]

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: Kitakami

I have been thinking about the A6M2 / A6M3 issue, and have been having conflicting thoughts. There are 2 factories at start, 56(0) for the M2 and 0(24) for the M3. The M3 model starts production in June '42. Now, if we were to let that factory do its research, the 100 research point level should be reached in April, thus making A6M3 production start in May, not June.

That is not necessarily the case. The manual states, "For every 100 development points the availability of the aircraft or engine may be moved up one month."

It's a die roll. Not a given, unfortunately.

Actually the dice roll is about fully repaired factories ... the factories need to be fully repaired before R&D actually happens, and then R&D occurs similar to plane production - a 30(0) factory will produce 30 prototype planes / mth (well it was in witp)

Upshot - there is no chance getting this plane into early production.

--Damian--

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: Kitakami

Note: attacks made at distances greater than 11 hexes will be unescorted from the point of origin so

14 hexes with drop tanks.

[vonSchnitter]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Hmm, Timtom just said this in the air thread:

"All new air units will arrive on their historical formation date with a few a/c of the specified type. This regardless of whether the player has any aircraft of that type in pool or indeed if it's even in production. However units which the player has volunterily withdrawn or disbanded is a different story.

Basically if the value of any of the "air group" editor fields "ready", "damaged" or "reserve" of a given unit is greater than 0, that unit will appear on the specified "delay" (arrival) date. If the value of all those fields equals 0, then the unit will require filling out from the replacement pool. Same as in WitP. This is what the manuel is saying in a less technical manner."

Well, that changes things.  Now we don't have to keep something in production in order to get the unit.  We'll get it as long as one of the fields is >0.  So long production of the Sen Baku.  We should get those air units anyway.  Then just upgrade them and we're off. [:D]

Well, sounds interesting.
Even With PDU ON, you still need to get some AC for spawning Airgroups - in the case of the Sen Baku up to 63 to make them operational ...

With PDU OFF - different story: Air Group 297 721 Ku S-1 supposed to spawn on 441001 with Sen Bakus has the A6M7, M8 and A7M3-J in its upgrade path - and the M7 enters production in 9/45 - you get the AG - but without ACs for quite some time.

There is another thing about spawning groups and production plans:
Some AGs have set the AC ready option to some number - some do not.

Group 56 Kisarazu Ku K-1: 45 Ready - 15 Reserve / 420401 Spawn date (Nell)
Group 77 Misawa Ku K-1: 0 Ready - 0 Reserve /420210 Spawn date (Betty)

Does than mean with Group 56 something like 60 Nells are coming for free ? Why else make the differences ?
And yes some groups are tickmarked for "training" - suppose these are the Kamikazegroups, and if so, come with a full complement of AC - according to former information.

[Q-Ball]

What Mike said is that you don't need to produce ANY Sen-Baku, for example, to get the 63-plane groups. They will come in with a handful of Sen-Baku, but you can then switch them to other types immediately from the pool, and also fill them with pilots from the pool. If true, this is a major change from WITP.

In WITP, you would have to start a production lines for types you didn't want, for the sole purpose of getting the airgroups and free pilots, then switch them to types you had in your pool. That required alot of supply expenditure and time to get crappy planes you didn't want into production.

So, forget Sen Baku. Don't produce it, don't research it. There are other types we can probably forget. Utlimately, the fewer types you need to produce, the better, makes life simpler.

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


I didn't use the A6M3 much in Witp, but the M3a was a very different plane and well worth the upgrade.

Jury's still out for me in AE on the M3, but certainly not the M3a.

The M3 has a much better maneuver rating at higher altitudes than the M2 - I think about 5-10 points better in each band above 15k feet.

[BShaftoe]

I'm following the discussion, and it's very interesting. But I'm wondering if you're taking into account service ratings. I mean, you're comparing speeds, maneuvering ratings in each altitude band, etc... But what's the point in having the best plane if it's going to be grounded most of time?

[Kitakami]

ORIGINAL: BShaftoe

I'm following the discussion, and it's very interesting. But I'm wondering if you're taking into account service ratings. I mean, you're comparing speeds, maneuvering ratings in each altitude band, etc... But what's the point in having the best plane if it's going to be grounded most of time?

A very valid observation. Thanks for bringing that into the open.

- The A6M2 and A6M3 have the same service rating... 1-10 days.
- The B5M1 and B5N1 have a 5-15 day service rating, while the B5N2 has a 1-10 day service rating.
- The G3M2, G3M3, and G4M1 ll have a 5-15 day service rating.

Generally speaking, service ratings seem to get worse as war progresses though... something to think about I guess.