The Japanese Economy

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: pacificbetta

Ok, I "think" I am almost done with the planning stage of the Japan economy before I go into detailed tactical planning and after which I can kick off my first ever game. I was wondering of the following factory sizes I have planned for is adequate.

Japan aircraft/engine
Zero 100 (1942) => 125 (1943) => 175 (1944)
Kate (replaced by Jill later) 30 (1942) => 40 (mid 43)
Val (replaced by Judy later) 30 (1942) => 40 (1944)
Nell/Betty 40 (all the way)
Oscar (replaced by Tojo later) 30 (until mid 43)
Frank 140 (with a massive 120 research factory dedicated to it, I am hopeful it becomes available from late 43)
Land based IJA bombers 40

I also intended to expand naval shipyards by 100, and merchant ship yards by 300. I thought I calculated the HI that Jap have and it can support these expansions. My chief concern is the weak IJA fighter support until Frank comes online. Is that cutting things too thin? Dive bomber and torpedo bombers also appear a little light weight imho.

NO USSHENRICO OR CRIMGUY
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I'm a comparative novice at IJ production, so take this for what it's worth:

Your Oscar / Tojo replacement rate seems very low to me. You will want to upgrade front line Nates ASAP and replace IJAAF losses. I'd recommend something much higher, were I you. For my 2xPBEMs I have The Oscar Ic replacement set at 85-90 IIRC. The Oscar Ic is going to be your frontline IJAAF fighter for *at least* a year, you're going to need to plan on replacements. I prefer to take losses in IJAAF versus IJNAF where possible, so maybe some of this is my desire to 'spare' my naval aviators and carrier capable aircraft as much as possible at the expense of the landlubbers.

Your A6M2 replacement seems low too. You will have LBA A6M2 units, carrier aircraft replacements, ops losses and Claude upgrades to contend with. I'm pulling slightly ahead at 120 a/c per month right now.

Many other posters have commented on the need for prodigious levels of Nell / Betty replacements. Did your annotation above indicate that it would be a TOTAL of 40 /month for these two airframes or 40 apiece (total of 80)? I don't think 40/month is sufficient. I have (IIRC-I'm at 'work') about 50 Bettys, 25-30 Nells / month.

Also, what are your engine production settings? Your post above just reviewed your a/c assembly numbers.

ETA: Changed number of A6M2s to better reflect reality in my games. Original post was a (bad) guess.

[pacificbetta]

First of all, thanks for all the feedback.

Ok, from the posts so far, I assume my air production is set too low. I will relook at the numbers and crunch a new set out. Looks like I do need to expand the HI of Japan to host the new airplane numbers if I need to double oscar/nell numbers. Personally I hate to expand Oscars since they (and the Tojos) use Ha35 engines and eventually they will upgrade to Frank which uses Ha45 engines. Makes a big mess in swapping the engine production (compounded by the fact that Ha35 is a massive and cumbersome factory that you cannot really switch)

arms/veh factory: expanded already in my plans. Veh to 72=> 111, Arms 620 => 690. From your posts I take it that I need to expand arms factory more, my original thoughts were that I had sufficient numbers there.

Nells/Betty: 40 is the total for both airframes

a/c Engines: Yes, I made sure there was a parallel increase the engines needed. Did a detailed analysis matching engines numbers to needs every month till end of the war.

Shipyard expansions: I kind of felt my numbers were a little low tbh. Cannot get much done even with these expansions......

Zeroes:

Your A6M2 replacement seems low too. You will have LBA A6M2 units, carrier aircraft replacements, ops losses and Claude upgrades to contend with. I'm pulling slightly ahead at 185 a/c per month right now.

Which year are you in now?

[SqzMyLemon]

pacificbetta

Just some numbers in my PBEM for you to consider too. I'm new to the game, so take my 2 cents worth with a grain of salt, but I think a lot of new Japanese players really underestimate the amount of plane production they'll need. Here's where I sit in my game as the Japanese in terms of the major planes being produced, and note this game is with PDU off, so imagine if you were free to upgrade most units to say Zero's for example where you'd be.

This is as of Jan 10/42.

A6M2 Zero's In pool = 9 Production = 89x(147) brackets are factory expanding values yet to repair
Val's In pool = 3 Production = 36x(60)
B5N2 Kate's In Pool = 1 Production = 33x(95)
Ki-43-Ic Oscar's In Pool = 26 Production = 69x(83)
Betty's In Pool = 4 Production = 50x(0)
Nell's In Pool 64 Production = 38x(6)

So you can see I have almost nothing in the pools and I have not upgraded a lot of Nate, Claude, or Jean's squadrons yet. Factor in combat losses on top of upgrading and you can see there's a huge shortage of aircraft right now. I'll know in hindsight if I increased production too soon, but starting with small factory upgrades won't come close to producing what's needed. Hope this helps.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: pacificbetta

First of all, thanks for all the feedback.

Ok, from the posts so far, I assume my air production is set too low. I will relook at the numbers and crunch a new set out. Looks like I do need to expand the HI of Japan to host the new airplane numbers if I need to double oscar/nell numbers. Personally I hate to expand Oscars since they (and the Tojos) use Ha35 engines and eventually they will upgrade to Frank which uses Ha45 engines. Makes a big mess in swapping the engine production (compounded by the fact that Ha35 is a massive and cumbersome factory that you cannot really switch)

arms/veh factory: expanded already in my plans. Veh to 72=> 111, Arms 620 => 690. From your posts I take it that I need to expand arms factory more, my original thoughts were that I had sufficient numbers there.

Nells/Betty: 40 is the total for both airframes

a/c Engines: Yes, I made sure there was a parallel increase the engines needed. Did a detailed analysis matching engines numbers to needs every month till end of the war.

Shipyard expansions: I kind of felt my numbers were a little low tbh. Cannot get much done even with these expansions......

Zeroes:

Your A6M2 replacement seems low too. You will have LBA A6M2 units, carrier aircraft replacements, ops losses and Claude upgrades to contend with. I'm pulling slightly ahead at 185 a/c per month right now.

Which year are you in now?

NO USSHENRICO OR CRIMGUY>>>


Use some of those worthless (Nakajima Kitabushi or some such-I'm at 'work') small engine production plants to convert to Ha-35s. Other threads abound with ideas of which redundant air system to cut off to 'free up' another engine plant production. I have 4 or 5 plants producing Ha-35s now, some small some large.

You'll need a scad of Ha-35s to keep up with the A6M like and beyond as well as some of your IJAAFs, so it's not like the Ha-35s will need to be scavenged for parts-you'll have a need, particularly after some of your carrier engagements. Don't the B5N2 Kates also run on Ha-35s?

I'm in late January 1942. The number I indicated (185) included factory points under repair as well as currently functional. I have 3 or 4 plants producing A6M2s, so if my pool gets too extensive (ha!), I can turn off some of the larger ones and whittle down production a bit.

Assume that you will start losing aircraft in spades in late 1942-1943. You MUST have built up a reserve by then or your airforce will be crippled quickly. IMO, ensuring an abundance of fighter aircraft has primacy. Don't skimp on your frontline fighters in the first year hoping to pile all your hopes onto the Frank's arrival-I believe that would be a mistake.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

pacificbetta

Just some numbers in my PBEM for you to consider too. I'm new to the game, so take my 2 cents worth with a grain of salt, but I think a lot of new Japanese players really underestimate the amount of plane production they'll need. Here's where I sit in my game as the Japanese in terms of the major planes being produced, and note this game is with PDU off, so imagine if you were free to upgrade most units to say Zero's for example where you'd be.

This is as of Jan 10/42.

A6M2 Zero's In pool = 9 Production = 89x(147) brackets are factory expanding values yet to repair
Val's In pool = 3 Production = 36x(60)
B5N2 Kate's In Pool = 1 Production = 33x(95)
Ki-43-Ic Oscar's In Pool = 26 Production = 69x(83)
Betty's In Pool = 4 Production = 50x(0)
Nell's In Pool 64 Production = 38x(6)

So you can see I have almost nothing in the pools and I have not upgraded a lot of Nate, Claude, or Jean's squadrons yet. Factor in combat losses on top of upgrading and you can see there's a huge shortage of aircraft right now. I'll know in hindsight if I increased production too soon, but starting with small factory upgrades won't come close to producing what's needed. Hope this helps.

NO USSHENRICO OR CRIMGUY>>>

IMO, 96 Vals/month seems excessive, as does 128 Kates. I'm keeping mine around 30-40/month and 20 a month, respectively.

[SqzMyLemon]

Hi Chickenboy,

In hindsight they do seem high right now. But I think the Kates will be suffering high losses in combat operations and it will be nice to have a good pool built up. I think my reasoning for higher numbers was that I noticed when changing a factory to production of a different airframe you actually lost production, the factory became smaller so to speak. I think the example was something like producing 40 planes at start and after switching production it dropped to 22 or something like that. I guess I figured with a higher starting production number when I switch, say to Jill's or a new aircraft type I'll actually be producing more new aircraft quicker if that makes sense? Time will tell, and if I have too many Kates/Vals I can always switch production to another aircraft type.

Yes, I may have gone a little overboard with the Kates, but they are so cool! [8D]

[Swenslim]

Expanding Armament factories is a bad idea, I have some 60 000 surplus with basic plants in may 1942 and had to stop 300 armament factories because it eats very much HI.
Airframe and engine factories eat very small amount of HI, I am producing average 31 airplanes per day ( 930 per month) and 54 engines per  day  ( month - 1700 ) it eats only 577 HI for frames and 800 for engines. That is very low numbers, for example armament eats 2790 HI for 460 armament and Naval shipyards eats 4560 HI for 1530 naval points (i have 5 CV's accelerated).
 
And after all this I have 3000 - 5000 HI surplus per day and 266 000 HI already stored.
 
I am producing 112 A5M2, 136 Ki-43C, 50 Bettie, 44 G3M3 Nells, 48 Vals, 47 Helens, 42 Sally , 32 Kates and others.
Also I have R&D for 68 Tojo's, 80 Zero A5M3, 110 Franks, 60 Judy's and others.
I thinks that is exact number of planes that will be enough to fight against allied side. I dont need more because i will not have so many good pilots for every plane.
 
 
Only problem will be transporting enough fuel and oil to HI. Resources are not problem at all, because I can easily transport more than 120 000 per day from Keijo, Fusan, Port Artur, Shanhai, Hong Kong, Shikuka and Hakodate. Additionaly i can have few big 50 000 - 70 000 convoys with DD escort from Manila and Singapore.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

pacificbetta

Just some numbers in my PBEM for you to consider too. I'm new to the game, so take my 2 cents worth with a grain of salt, but I think a lot of new Japanese players really underestimate the amount of plane production they'll need. Here's where I sit in my game as the Japanese in terms of the major planes being produced, and note this game is with PDU off, so imagine if you were free to upgrade most units to say Zero's for example where you'd be.

This is as of Jan 10/42.

A6M2 Zero's In pool = 9 Production = 89x(147) brackets are factory expanding values yet to repair
Val's In pool = 3 Production = 36x(60)
B5N2 Kate's In Pool = 1 Production = 33x(95)
Ki-43-Ic Oscar's In Pool = 26 Production = 69x(83)
Betty's In Pool = 4 Production = 50x(0)
Nell's In Pool 64 Production = 38x(6)

So you can see I have almost nothing in the pools and I have not upgraded a lot of Nate, Claude, or Jean's squadrons yet. Factor in combat losses on top of upgrading and you can see there's a huge shortage of aircraft right now. I'll know in hindsight if I increased production too soon, but starting with small factory upgrades won't come close to producing what's needed. Hope this helps.

SML

I will not comment on your target numbers but I will caution you that overly rapid industrial expansion can utterly destroy you (just to be "overly" dramatic [:D])

Per your numbers, just this expansion action cost you something over 50,000 supply which is roughly two days total supply production. Actually bringing just these changes on line will require over 500,000 more supply for repair.

This level of expansion will not cause you HI, fuel or oil problems for about a year but it can effectively bring Japanese expansion to a dead stop in just a couple of months if you are not careful. I would suggest that you increase any given factory by no more than five points at a time; once that expansion is repaired you and look at your supply situation and decide if you can afford another increase immediately or not.

[Swenslim]

Remember that Japan player got a lot of supply from occupied allied bases in Malaya and DEI. I dont send any supply from HI exept to Truk. DEI is self sufficient and even has exess of supply wich japan player can use in Burma if you get Palembang, Balipkapan, Singapore, Batavia and Soerabaja intact.

[SqzMyLemon]

Pompack,

Thanks for the information, I'll limit my expansion now to make sure I don't over tax it until I see whether I can sustain it. One thing though, is there a way to set the actual number of points you want a factory to expand by? For example, my Kate production is too high now that I look at it, but when I choose to expand that factory again the AI tells you how much it is going to expand by, I wanted more Kates and the option at the time was doubling the production, that was the option it gave me. Can you overide the amount the AI sets to expand a factory by? You mentioned only expanding by 5 points or so at a time, how do you do that?

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

Pompack,

Thanks for the information, I'll limit my expansion now to make sure I don't over tax it until I see whether I can sustain it. One thing though, is there a way to set the actual number of points you want a factory to expand by? For example, my Kate production is too high now that I look at it, but when I choose to expand that factory again the AI tells you how much it is going to expand by, I wanted more Kates and the option at the time was doubling the production, that was the option it gave me. Can you overide the amount the AI sets to expand a factory by? You mentioned only expanding by 5 points or so at a time, how do you do that?

Under patch II, you can identify factories on your industry screen and increase size by units of 1.

In your situation, the damage (overexpansion) is likely done and probably cannot be feasibly undone. I'd turn the factories off once I got the pool I wanted so as not to overproduce redundant airframes.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

Pompack,

Thanks for the information, I'll limit my expansion now to make sure I don't over tax it until I see whether I can sustain it. One thing though, is there a way to set the actual number of points you want a factory to expand by? For example, my Kate production is too high now that I look at it, but when I choose to expand that factory again the AI tells you how much it is going to expand by, I wanted more Kates and the option at the time was doubling the production, that was the option it gave me. Can you overide the amount the AI sets to expand a factory by? You mentioned only expanding by 5 points or so at a time, how do you do that?

Under patch II, you can identify factories on your industry screen and increase size by units of 1.

In your situation, the damage (overexpansion) is likely done and probably cannot be feasibly undone. I'd turn the factories off once I got the pool I wanted so as not to overproduce redundant airframes.

Actually very little damage has been done as yet. Just stop REPAIRING selected factories if supply gets tight. It only costs 100 supply/point to actually EXPAND (which you have done) but it cost 1000 supply/point to REPAIR (which you have not done much as yet). I would suggest using WitPStaff (or Tracker) to watch it since the supply numbers in the in-game reports do not allow for supply loaded on ships while WitPStaff includes all supply in the totals. Also it provides a history graph to watch trends

Planning supply use is tricky since there is no way to really predict how much will be used in one day: you may or may not repair any given factory or resource/oil center, any given LCU may or may not fight , any given a/c may or may not fly, etc. WitP Staff computes a six-day moving average of supply consumption (among other things) that at least gives you some idea of instantaneous consumption to compare against daily production.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: pompack

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

Pompack,

Thanks for the information, I'll limit my expansion now to make sure I don't over tax it until I see whether I can sustain it. One thing though, is there a way to set the actual number of points you want a factory to expand by? For example, my Kate production is too high now that I look at it, but when I choose to expand that factory again the AI tells you how much it is going to expand by, I wanted more Kates and the option at the time was doubling the production, that was the option it gave me. Can you overide the amount the AI sets to expand a factory by? You mentioned only expanding by 5 points or so at a time, how do you do that?

Under patch II, you can identify factories on your industry screen and increase size by units of 1.

In your situation, the damage (overexpansion) is likely done and probably cannot be feasibly undone. I'd turn the factories off once I got the pool I wanted so as not to overproduce redundant airframes.

Actually very little damage has been done as yet. Just stop REPAIRING selected factories if supply gets tight. It only costs 100 supply/point to actually EXPAND (which you have done) but it cost 1000 supply/point to REPAIR (which you have not done much as yet). I would suggest using WitPStaff (or Tracker) to watch it since the supply numbers in the in-game reports do not allow for supply loaded on ships while WitPStaff includes all supply in the totals. Also it provides a history graph to watch trends

Planning supply use is tricky since there is no way to really predict how much will be used in one day: you may or may not repair any given factory or resource/oil center, any given LCU may or may not fight , any given a/c may or may not fly, etc. WitP Staff computes a six-day moving average of supply consumption (among other things) that at least gives you some idea of instantaneous consumption to compare against daily production.

Pompack is right, provided that you still have a large number of unrepaired / damaged units within the airframe factory. If they've all been repaired already, the damage is already done.

[SqzMyLemon]

Those numbers I posted were very recent so once I reach 40 to 50 airframes for my Val's and Kate's I'll halt repairing and just keep them at that level. Supply situation is great actually, I'm using tracker and I'm holding my own in that department so I think I'll be ok. Thanks for all the comments, saved a potential ugly situation, but I'll monitor supply usage during the repairing phase, if it doesn't drop substantially I'll know I'm producing enough supply. I'll figure out the factory increases by increments of 1 and be able to customize my expansion much more closely, shame there's not much documentation out there.

[findmeifyoucan]

Personally, I don't like wasting any production or stopping any factories. If you start producing the right stuff and plan it out right then you won't need to stop any factories producing. I am a firm believer in air power and lots of it but the right kind of air power. You certainly won't need no 100 naval torpedo bombers or VAL's(not even 50) for that matter a month. You get that kind of attrition in Carrier battles then there won't be any Carriers left to put these planes on them. ) Lot's of land based fighters and bombers. Probably double production from start of war at least for the first year. Oh and increase supply production by building up your refineries but everything in increments. We don't want to crash the Japanese economy after all.

I do have a question though? How do you increase your R & D development or speed it up rather for any particular engine or aircraft?

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: findmeifyoucan

I do have a question though? How do you increase your R & D development or speed it up rather for any particular engine or aircraft?

Read this, particularly my posts where I explain stuff on R&D ... there are many who might disagree, but I've tested this pretty well.

tm.asp?m=2253970

[pacificbetta]

I did some basic maths and found that the Japanese economy (HI + LI) consumes about 11000 oil/fuel to run at full capacity. This is without significant expansion of the basic HI infrastructure. Note also that this does not account for military usage.

Now, if we total the oil/fuel in the DEI, it comes to about 10-11k oil+fuel too. Am I correct the say that:
1. Japan is effectively condemed to having fuel crisis even without military intervension from the allies.
2. Japan has to somehow slavage the exsiting (read: captured from alllies) stock piles and use this for military use?
3. There really is not much point to increase HI since we all expact Japan to be crippled in late 44/45 onwards, especially with interdiction on the fuel/oil toute. (I was a proponent on increasing HI until i realise this issue about not haveing that much oil/fuel locations in the map.

[vonTirpitz]

That looks about right. Makes the DEI much more valuable to the Japanese than China, doesn't it? BTW: I can't confirm this at the moment but I read one post some time back that stated HI expansion for Japan would take 2-3 years or more to "break even" the investment.

ORIGINAL: pacificbetta

I did some basic maths and found that the Japanese economy (HI + LI) consumes about 11000 oil/fuel to run at full capacity. This is without significant expansion of the basic HI infrastructure. Note also that this does not account for military usage.

Now, if we total the oil/fuel in the DEI, it comes to about 10-11k oil+fuel too. Am I correct the say that:
1. Japan is effectively condemed to having fuel crisis even without military intervension from the allies.
2. Japan has to somehow slavage the exsiting (read: captured from alllies) stock piles and use this for military use?
3. There really is not much point to increase HI since we all expact Japan to be crippled in late 44/45 onwards, especially with interdiction on the fuel/oil toute. (I was a proponent on increasing HI until i realise this issue about not haveing that much oil/fuel locations in the map.

[findmeifyoucan]

Which means if you are going to do any HI or LI expansion it should be done in the first month of the war before all your AC and Engine Factory expansions start to kick in. Also I think 40 kate and 40 Val production per month is plenty.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: pacificbetta

I did some basic maths and found that the Japanese economy (HI + LI) consumes about 11000 oil/fuel to run at full capacity. This is without significant expansion of the basic HI infrastructure. Note also that this does not account for military usage.

Now, if we total the oil/fuel in the DEI, it comes to about 10-11k oil+fuel too. Am I correct the say that:
1. Japan is effectively condemed to having fuel crisis even without military intervension from the allies.
2. Japan has to somehow slavage the exsiting (read: captured from alllies) stock piles and use this for military use?
3. There really is not much point to increase HI since we all expact Japan to be crippled in late 44/45 onwards, especially with interdiction on the fuel/oil toute. (I was a proponent on increasing HI until i realise this issue about not haveing that much oil/fuel locations in the map.

You have non-insignificant oil source at Sakhalin and a bit at other places. Overall, and adding major Magwe oil field in Burma, this seem to create a significant surplus, as long as you don't allow fuel to spoil (I propose shutting down the refineries until you can haul fuel from smaller bases at a steady rate, or expand them to combined size 10). At least in my patch 2 game oil levels started climbing after taking SRA. Taking the key oil fields fast is crucial, however, particularly if you want to expand HI.