Japanese airframe production

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: Hanzberger

ORIGINAL: n01487477

Use it ... Don't use it ... but this has pretty much all you need[;)]

AirFrame Production
Engines & calc
ALL Airgroups

If you want to reinvent the wheel ...

Has this changed or been moved? It won't open up or dl.

Yeah I've taken down the site at present for refurbishment [;)], if you want the files pm me with your email and I'll get them to you ...

--Damian--

[GB68]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

A bit of analysis on the IJA fighters and bombers ...

Fighters
IJA seems to have 582 fighter slots. I use the term "slot" to refer to a place to put an airplane in an air unit. Since there is no air unit production in AE (nor was their in WITP) we live with what the OOB gives us in terms of slots. And slots determines the maximum amount of aircraft we can use at any point in time - hence the maximum useful size of the air force. So, in the case of IJA fighters this seems to be 582 (if my arithmetic is correct). I am not counting the 102 additional slots in "static" fighter units - those which cannot be deployed out of Manchurian or the Home Islands. So, in my terminology, we have 582 "mobile" fighter slots for the IJA.

These start with about 70 deployable Oscars. So to "retire" the Oscars would require upwards up 500 new planes to be built, not counting losses. At the starting rate of 32 per month, this would take over 15 months to accomplish by which time these Oscar Ic would be obsolete. And on average, we would still be using Nates, in the slots for half of this time. Re-stated, about half the slots would be full of Nates on average.

Tojos will come in Around September 42, and Tony's around February 43, so we won't need to build Oscars for 15 months. But if we build them for a year, building a total of 500 might make sense. If we average about 50 per month - then we would be buliding Oscars for about 10 months - if we build 500. Having several small factores building Oscars is probably good, then as the Tojos and Tonys come on line, some factories can switch over. Any excess Oscars can be used as trainers later.

Nates, will be used as trainers until they cease to exist. This is most useful in PDU ON games, where you can "downgrade" as well as "upgrade". For air units performing on map training - I will "downgrade" the unit to Nates while it is training - then upgrade it to the latest fighter type as it returns to the front. This means that I only need to build enough new fighters to fill up the units at the front. And I can continue to fully utilize obsolecent types for training until they all attrite away. Note that this is only possible in PDU ON games.

In stock I had about 2/3rds of all IJA fighter units "in training" on average. So given the AE slot totals 200 front line fighters available for forward deployment, plus another 200 in the pools seems a sufficient target for the first year.

Bombers
As for IJA bombers I count 779 slots with about 230 Sally's in these slots (in my game). So not quite 1/3rd are Sally's already. I cannot predict the percentage of bomber units that will need to be in training at any given time in AE. But given that the Japanese will surely switch to the defensive by the end of 1942 and surely lose air superiority, the need for bombers will drastically decrease at the front. Remaining bombers we can try to switch to ASW as we did in stock, but they will not be nearly as effective, so keeping the IJA bomber units at full strength after 1942 is probably not nearly as useful as it was in stock. Consequently, I do not plan a major investment in growing IJA bomber production. But I will build up Helen production to roughly the same as Sally production.

Thanks for that analysis jwilkerson. Very helpful.

The only rider I would put on it, is upon scanning the database, I notice there are Oscar and (especially) Nate units arriving right up until mid-1945?

I did not do a count but it seems to be quite significant in qunatities. Would this affect your analysis?

[Hanzberger]

ORIGINAL: n01487477

ORIGINAL: Hanzberger

ORIGINAL: n01487477

Use it ... Don't use it ... but this has pretty much all you need[;)]

AirFrame Production
Engines & calc
ALL Airgroups

If you want to reinvent the wheel ...

Has this changed or been moved? It won't open up or dl.

Yeah I've taken down the site at present for refurbishment [;)], if you want the files pm me with your email and I'll get them to you ...

--Damian--

Damian I think alot of ppl would use it so when your done polishing it maybe just repost it for everyone to use and or if your using a website, just give us your web address. TY
OH yea, stop posting and get that tracker going, JK<. [X(]

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

A bit of analysis on the IJA fighters and bombers ...

Fighters
IJA seems to have 582 fighter slots. I use the term "slot" to refer to a place to put an airplane in an air unit. Since there is no air unit production in AE (nor was their in WITP) we live with what the OOB gives us in terms of slots. And slots determines the maximum amount of aircraft we can use at any point in time - hence the maximum useful size of the air force. So, in the case of IJA fighters this seems to be 582 (if my arithmetic is correct). I am not counting the 102 additional slots in "static" fighter units - those which cannot be deployed out of Manchurian or the Home Islands. So, in my terminology, we have 582 "mobile" fighter slots for the IJA.

These start with about 70 deployable Oscars. So to "retire" the Oscars would require upwards up 500 new planes to be built, not counting losses. At the starting rate of 32 per month, this would take over 15 months to accomplish by which time these Oscar Ic would be obsolete. And on average, we would still be using Nates, in the slots for half of this time. Re-stated, about half the slots would be full of Nates on average.

Tojos will come in Around September 42, and Tony's around February 43, so we won't need to build Oscars for 15 months. But if we build them for a year, building a total of 500 might make sense. If we average about 50 per month - then we would be buliding Oscars for about 10 months - if we build 500. Having several small factores building Oscars is probably good, then as the Tojos and Tonys come on line, some factories can switch over. Any excess Oscars can be used as trainers later.

Nates, will be used as trainers until they cease to exist. This is most useful in PDU ON games, where you can "downgrade" as well as "upgrade". For air units performing on map training - I will "downgrade" the unit to Nates while it is training - then upgrade it to the latest fighter type as it returns to the front. This means that I only need to build enough new fighters to fill up the units at the front. And I can continue to fully utilize obsolecent types for training until they all attrite away. Note that this is only possible in PDU ON games.

In stock I had about 2/3rds of all IJA fighter units "in training" on average. So given the AE slot totals 200 front line fighters available for forward deployment, plus another 200 in the pools seems a sufficient target for the first year.

Bombers
As for IJA bombers I count 779 slots with about 230 Sally's in these slots (in my game). So not quite 1/3rd are Sally's already. I cannot predict the percentage of bomber units that will need to be in training at any given time in AE. But given that the Japanese will surely switch to the defensive by the end of 1942 and surely lose air superiority, the need for bombers will drastically decrease at the front. Remaining bombers we can try to switch to ASW as we did in stock, but they will not be nearly as effective, so keeping the IJA bomber units at full strength after 1942 is probably not nearly as useful as it was in stock. Consequently, I do not plan a major investment in growing IJA bomber production. But I will build up Helen production to roughly the same as Sally production.

Uh... maybe a stupid question, but - what about losses? How are these included in your calculations?

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

Uh... maybe a stupid question, but - what about losses? How are these included in your calculations?

Well I used the words "not counting losses" since I was "not counting losses. Losses are basically impossible to predict, hence the plan for how to deal with losses is to react. The safety stock levels give some buffer, this time is used to turn the factories back on and rebuild the safety stock. If losses regularly massively replenishment ability, then one would need to reconsider the operational pattern generating the high losses and change it.

Another aspect is "ramping for upgrades" and I have not exhaustively studied this yet. But when new types come on line - mostly just a few fighter types - that are desired in front line units quickly - then we would want to ramp up production capacity for that plane for a while. Since training time will be at least 2 months and "predicted life at the front" will probably only be a few days - I would expect training units to out number front line units by about 2 to 1 in the "steady state". This means I only need to build enough front line types (like Tony) to fill one third of the front line units. The training units (assuming PDU on) can continue to use Nates until they are exhaused, and Oscars there after. So I need about 200 Tony's plus safety stock, but I would like to have those Tony's quickly, so I might ramp up to a 100-200 production capability for Tony's even though I might only use it briefly. I can probably only afford to do this for a few critical types, but perhaps Tony's are one of the ones that are worth it. Maybe George as well. I don't have as much experience with these types in AE as I did in WITP, so can't be sure yet.

[Historiker]

How many planes are needed to get a group activated? Is one sufficiant?

[Mike Solli]

Yup, one will do.

[Hanzberger]

Anyone come up with an airframe production flowchart. (Japan)

[Barb]

I just messed with Plane and engine production somehow with Japan. And I dont know if the japanese industry will survive that
Basically I switched some factories and enlarged some a little. With Aircrafts it was easy (total 104 size factories that need to be rebuild or were expanded). Then I looked for the engines and was shocked! [X(] To built all those planes, i need to switch or enlarge 266 size engine factories total. All and all in something like month or two 370k supplies will be consumed just for this ...[:D]

[Historiker]

I stop the production of - at least - 4 engines without loosing any significant combat strength or having to spend tons of supplies.
The production will only be enlarged in the franes that the supplies allow. But my total 25.000 supply per day will already have to build HI, Naval and Merchant shipyards as well as repair shipyards...

[Historiker]

I'm now thinking about restarting the production of the Ki-30 while keeping the Ki-51 in production.
Both are light bombers and can fly without any problems from lvl 2 airfields. This means they can operate at very exposed bases, at newly established bases and from bases the opponent might not consider.
The Ki-30 has a good range and carries one 250kg bomb which will make it usefull against unarmoured ships. The Ki-51 has 4 small bombs which will help against ground forces, especially in china.

I will also restart the production of the Ki-32 as the Kawasaki (early) engine pool is still filled while its out of production and only used by the Ki-32. The planes will consequently cost only half of the usual plane costs as the engines are for free. The Ki-32 shall be usefull for pilot training and secondary roles.

[vonSchnitter]

Well, Historiker;

I think you are wrong - mostly. A little play testing against the AI reveals a few things:

a) Army air assets used against any sort of shipping are useless (most of the IJA single engine stuff is now level not dive bomber).
b) Any IJ Bombers are in big trouble if unescorted - even the Brewster stuff is bad news.
c) You are right - using any 2Es - including Lilys - from AFs smaller than 4 will cause a lot of OP losses.

Some more findings: Nates are pretty good at breaking up allied bomber incursions - as a point defence fighter it is doing fine - just do not expect any kills.

Zeros do fine against fighters - on Sweep missions around 20k
The same is true for Oscars ....

That leaves a problem:

Jap bombers (IJN land based / IJA ) are very good in CAS missions no matter what (where Stuka types should excell) but are mediocre at interdiction strikes and are utterly useless on deep AF strikes.

Besides: the last paragraph is going against the grain of US AirCorps and GAF doctrine - or experience in he latter case.

Cheers

[bklooste]

Another consideration is survivability , the 2 engine types are more survivable which mean fewer pilot losses. A few of the 1 engines are nice for smaller fields and as trainers but i'm not sure it is wise to be building more.

Im a firm believer that pilots are much more important for Japan than airframe or production efficiencies.

[hmota]

For my game I want to make some changes in aicraft production, for now I´m thinking about this...(target is to fill quickly starting airgroups with zeroes and oscars,change the IJA bomber groups to Sallys/Helens and maybe Lillys types, and bring second generation of fighters Tojo/Tony/A6M3a to production earlier)



Ki-56 Thalia 2x change to Ki-44-Iia Tojo 1x (after change)
Ki-51 Sonia 30x change to A6M2 Zero 21x (after change)
Ki-36 Ida 32x change to A6M2 Zero 22x (after change)
Ki-27b Nate 10x change to Ki-43-Ic Oscar 7x (after change)
Ki-27b Nate 35x change to Ki-43-Ic Oscar 24x (after change)
F1M2 Pete 3x change to Ki-61-Ia Tony 2x (after change)
E14Y1 Glen 9x change to A6M3a 6x (after change)
Ki-202 Shusei 2x change to ???

i want to increase the numbers after changing models but I will wait for situation with resources...

Some aditional changes that I plan...

D3A1 Val 12x increase to 30x
B5N2 Kate 0x increase to 30x
A6M2 Zero 56x increase to 70x
Ki-21-Iia Sally 23x increase to 50x
Ki-43-Ic Oscar 32x increase to 40x

these changes as I think frees 5 slots from engines production...Kawasaki(early), Nakajima Hikary, Hitachi Amakaze, Nakajima Kotobuki and Hitachi(early)...I plan to change these factories to Nakajima Ha-35 and Nakajima Ha-32 plus increase production in them to supply A/c production...

[findmeifyoucan]

Just a question about the 36 Kate's that start the war in Japan. How do you release them so that you can actually use them on your Carriers? Do you have to physically move a Carrier to the same hex in order to move them off the mainland. They are restricted and it would be a shame with such highly experience pilots in this group to be stuck on the Japan mainland for the rest of the war.

[findmeifyoucan]

Just a comment on all these increases in production which I might add is a great idea but will you have enough good pilots to man all these aircraft??

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: findmeifyoucan

Just a question about the 36 Kate's that start the war in Japan. How do you release them so that you can actually use them on your Carriers? Do you have to physically move a Carrier to the same hex in order to move them off the mainland. They are restricted and it would be a shame with such highly experience pilots in this group to be stuck on the Japan mainland for the rest of the war.

You can't release them, they are stuck there.

What you can do it click on the pilot to release to Group Reserve, then click again to release to General Reserve. Do this for all but 2 pilots. Those 34 pilots are now in the Bomber Reserve Pool, and ready to replace your Kate losses on KB. Save them, you will probably need them early.

With the remaining unit, I would "upgrade" it to Jeans if PDUs are on, and flesh it out with 48 replacement pilots. Set them to 100% Train, Naval Attack, Torpedos. Wait a couple months and you will have 48 OK (not great, just OK) pilots for more Kate replacements.

Go back to step one and repeat.

Think of all the restricted Home Island units as basically Training units, even though you can't officially make them training units.

[findmeifyoucan]

Okay, thanks.
How do I check on how many units I have both in training and teaching training units in Training Command?

[FatR]

I'm currently trying not to deviate from historical production too much, to see how different planes perform, but one thing I decided to do is to convert Ki-21s production to Ki-49s, immediately after Ki-49-II will become available. It has armor, and armor means alot in AE. Also, I consider expanding Ki-49-Is production by 2-3 times. Unlike later versions it has a magnetic anomaly detector and so is better against subs, so I want to stockpile enough of them for Army ASW patrol units to last the entire war (obviously, ASW is not a very hazardous duty, but ops losses will accumulate over time). Ki-49-I seems to be the only IJA plane any good at ASW, and you really need IJN Netty and Mavis/Emily units for other purposes. Moreover, said detector makes it practically unique, because Lorna is really, really hampered by short range it has in AE, and it arrives only in 44/4, anyway. Even if MAD just works as a bad radar, having a radar-equipped ASW plane in 1942 is not bad (G3M3 units are needed for naval search, after all). The only reason not to stockpile some Ki-49-Is for your ASW needs I see is gamey-ness of this decision.

[findmeifyoucan]

So left clicking puts them into TRACOM and right clicking deactivates them. Is deactivating putting them into the General Groupl which you had indicated? Also pilots I have sent to TRACom, how do I pull them back out of that group. For example, say I don't want them training green pilots anymore and put them back to the front?