Taming Expansion of IJ Production

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

First; the reason the average Jap player does much better than his historical counterpart is because he knows from hindsight not to do certain things/do certain things. There is no real consequence of doing something wrong. Let KB hang around Pearl a week or two and bomb the base to bits. If you screw up and lose a CV or two, a new game is just a restart away. There is no IJA/IJN conflict, the supply system is abstracted enough to let you reload 16 inch-shells from any random base on the map you captured two days ago. Aircraft magically appears on a remote jungle base simply by clicking on a button. Etc etc etc. Production comes very low on this list of why the Japs do better than historically.

Second; the idea to cripple the Japanese industry by putting a limit on the production is ridiculous. That is like claiming that it was physically impossible for an industrial nation with millions of citizens to build more than 1000 aircraft a month. Thats just stupid. Does anyone in here really believe that if the Japs had had enough resources, factories, manpower, oil, infrastructure etc, they wouldnt have been able to build more aircraft than they did in real life? The US would always be able to produce more, yes, but that is a different kettle of fish entirely. Then your beef is with the US production system and not the Jap production system. A far better solution would be, then, to increase US production if Jap production reaches a certain threshold. For example, if Japanese aircraft production gets higher than 1000 aircraft per month, then the US production doubles. If it gets higher than 2000 aircraft per month, then the US production is quadrupled.

In many of the AARs where the Jap player has huge production numbers, the Jap player has also captured large parts of China, sometimes even India or Australia. With all that the added industry, resources, manpower who can really argue that it would be impossible for the Japs to produce more than they did in history?

While I agree there are many factors that can be attributed to the average Japanese player achieving far greater success in most games than was done historically, MASSIVE over-production is the dominate reason.

Here’s the overall Japanese air frame production numbers given in John Ellis’ book, World War II: A Statistical Survey. Transport air frames are unknown, but I think that’s because most Japanese transport aircraft doubled as bombers so are tabulated in bomber production.


………………. Fighters………. Bombers………. Recon………. Trans………. Trainers
1941………. 1,080…………… 1,461.............. 639…………… unk…………. 1,489
1942………. 2,935…………… 2,433.............. 967…………… unk…………. 2,171
1943………. 7,147…………… 4,189.............. 1,046………… unk…………. 2,871
1944………. 13,811………… 5,100.............. 2,147………… unk…………. 6,147
1945………. 5,474…………… 1,934.............. 855…………… unk…………. 2,523

I’m not going to list the allies as they massively out-produced the Japanese in all areas, but as a comparison, the US alone produced 4,416 fighters in 1941 which is almost 100% pre-war production levels. They built 10,769 in 42, 23,988 in 43, 38,873 in 44 and 20,742 in 45.

The UK more than doubled Japanese fighter production until 1944 when they actually were out-produced by Japan by a few thousand, but by then they depended on the US for the majority of their fighter production.

So for 1942 the Japanese averaged 245 fighters a month of ALL types. Japan typically produces more than 300 zeroes a month in game and hundreds more other types. I seriously doubt Japan could ever have achieved such levels of fighter production historically no matter how much its economy was tweaked.

At its highest point in 1944 Japan only produced 1150 fighters a month of ALL types, Japan beats even that production figure in game from the first few months of the war on. I think I read one AAR where Japan's in-game economy was building 3,000+ fighters a month in 42 or 43 with no reported shortages to other areas of the games economy.

This is just fighter production, Japan only produced 13,350 artillery guns (including AAA and AT tubes) for the entire war. Heck just the AAA upgrades to its ships probably accounts for more than half these historical tubes, I bet Japan builds 10-20 times as many artillery tubes in game as they did historically.

Over-production for the Japanese is a huge game imbalance when it comes to historical accuracy and capabilities. And it is the main reason the Japanese can achieve so much more in game, not some historical hindsight on the players part. Hindsight helps, but isn’t as big an issue as you might think, since both players have that advantage so it negates out a lot of the advantage.

Jim

Only commenting on the (land-based) artillery and AA production in the AE:

Japanese artillery production: The Japanese over-production in this area in WITP was mainly an OOB issue (overstrength organic artillery assets in most IJA divisions and brigades). This was taken care of with historical TOE's in the AE (but we added some independent artillery units). Japan may produce more artillery guns that it historically did if its industry is still capable to fill out the artillery units that were raised in 1945 (which existed more or less only on paper historically).

Japanese AA units: Many were missing or represented abstractly in base forces. Lots of Japanese AA units were added in the AE.

K

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
While I agree there are many factors that can be attributed to the average Japanese player achieving far greater success in most games than was done historically, MASSIVE over-production is the dominate reason.

Here’s the overall Japanese air frame production numbers given in John Ellis’ book, World War II: A Statistical Survey. Transport air frames are unknown, but I think that’s because most Japanese transport aircraft doubled as bombers so are tabulated in bomber production.


………………. Fighters………. Bombers………. Recon………. Trans………. Trainers
1941………. 1,080…………… 1,461.............. 639…………… unk…………. 1,489
1942………. 2,935…………… 2,433.............. 967…………… unk…………. 2,171
1943………. 7,147…………… 4,189.............. 1,046………… unk…………. 2,871
1944………. 13,811………… 5,100.............. 2,147………… unk…………. 6,147
1945………. 5,474…………… 1,934.............. 855…………… unk…………. 2,523

I’m not going to list the allies as they massively out-produced the Japanese in all areas, but as a comparison, the US alone produced 4,416 fighters in 1941 which is almost 100% pre-war production levels. They built 10,769 in 42, 23,988 in 43, 38,873 in 44 and 20,742 in 45.

The UK more than doubled Japanese fighter production until 1944 when they actually were out-produced by Japan by a few thousand, but by then they depended on the US for the majority of their fighter production.

So for 1942 the Japanese averaged 245 fighters a month of ALL types. Japan typically produces more than 300 zeroes a month in game and hundreds more other types. I seriously doubt Japan could ever have achieved such levels of fighter production historically no matter how much its economy was tweaked.

At its highest point in 1944 Japan only produced 1150 fighters a month of ALL types, Japan beats even that production figure in game from the first few months of the war on. I think I read one AAR where Japan's in-game economy was building 3,000+ fighters a month in 42 or 43 with no reported shortages to other areas of the games economy.

This is just fighter production, Japan only produced 13,350 artillery guns (including AAA and AT tubes) for the entire war. Heck just the AAA upgrades to its ships probably accounts for more than half these historical tubes, I bet Japan builds 10-20 times as many artillery tubes in game as they did historically.

Over-production for the Japanese is a huge game imbalance when it comes to historical accuracy and capabilities. And it is the main reason the Japanese can achieve so much more in game, not some historical hindsight on the players part. Hindsight helps, but isn’t as big an issue as you might think, since both players have that advantage so it negates out a lot of the advantage.

Jim

AMEN Jim. This is why I've always thought the basic Campaign Scenarios in the game should be referred to at the "Hirohito has a Wet Dream" Scenarios... I don't object in principle to their inclusion..., but passing them off as "historical" is a really bad joke.

[Hortlund]

Again, your beef seems to be with the US production, not the allied production. According to those figures, the Japs managed an 100% production increase per year from 41-44. I see no reason why they should not have been able to produce 1943-level figures in 1942 if they had the resources, manpower, and leadership. You seem completely hung up on the fact that the US production figures in the game is too low compared to the the Jap figures. That is a US issue, not a Jap issue. Take your compaints to the US production model then, not the Jap production model.

[treespider]

Well are some of these complaints based on PDU games which are fantasy to begin with?

Panzerjaeger has a point - 100% production increase yearly in aircraft production is fairly impressive...irregardless of what the US produced. US production is a separate issue.

I'm not suggesting that production does not need to be changed but Jim's posts about the production capabilities of the Allies have nothing to do with what Japan accomplished or was capable of accomplishing.

To me the cost to expand industry is too cheap in WitP I...but again the production model we know and love in WitP I will be a different beast in AE.

[tsimmonds]

I believe the problem is exactly that it is so easy to expand factories. Hence my proposal to introduce a die roll into the factory repair routine. Let the players decide whether to leave it as is, slow it down a little bit, or slow it down a lot.

[Andy Mac]

Is it the dammed AI crutch research factories that are the real isasue then ?

[tsimmonds]

I don't think the problem is so much that there are too many factories (after all, it costs very little to expand an existing factory, 90% of the cost is in the factory repair), but that

• there is hardly any limit on how much factories can be expanded, and
• once expanded, the new capacity comes online far too quickly

As an example, it is possible to increase naval shipbuilding capacity by about 10% within the first month of the war. If one wants to make it a priority, far more expansion is possible. Sure, it is expensive of supplies, but there is plenty of supply, particularly if you capture the DEI intact....

[pad152]

The are two issues

1. Historical, I see no problem limiting production for a historical scenario or campaign.

2. Non-Historical, I also want and see no problem with rewarding the Japanese player with additional production if they do better for non-historical campaign & scenarios.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Again, your beef seems to be with the US production, not the allied production. According to those figures, the Japs managed an 100% production increase per year from 41-44. I see no reason why they should not have been able to produce 1943-level figures in 1942 if they had the resources, manpower, and leadership. You seem completely hung up on the fact that the US production figures in the game is too low compared to the the Jap figures. That is a US issue, not a Jap issue. Take your compaints to the US production model then, not the Jap production model.

No my beef is with the tendency to limit the allies to historical figures while allowing Japan to over-produce at levels they never could have achieved no matter how much they tweaked their economy. I want both sides limited to their historical capacity as I prefer an historical scenario over a fantasy scenario.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem playing the game as is, I just get tired of everyone hamstringing the allied production quoting historical reasons, yet no one seems to care how over-powered the Japanese production model is.

If you’re going to give Japan the ability to compete with or dominate allied production levels, you can’t really claim you’ve got an historical scenario.

The US alone was out-producing the Japanese in fighter production by 4-1 even before it entered the war. In game the US is out-produced in front line fighter numbers by Japan for almost the entire game. This completely changes the power dynamic between the two air forces.

The same goes for land units. The US might be able to rebuild a division or two worth of combat losses in a year, while Japan could rebuild 10, 15, 20 or more divisions if it needs to given how flexible its equipment pools are.

Japan’s economy needs some serious scaling down if it is to ever be considered an historical economy. Personally I say throw out the factories and give Japan limited pools as well. Then you could easily create an historical scenario for both sides and a fantasy one as well, which is what we have now.

Jim

P.S. One of Japan’s biggest advantages in the land game is Japan can easily upgrade most of its on-map forces to late model squads, while the allies usually don't have sufficient replacement levels to upgrade more than a brigade or division or so a year. And that's only if combat losses aren't so high they soak up all the replacements. So the allies are stuck fighting with early war equipment for most of the game.

[Andy Mac]

Now this is something I am looking at hard Jim.
 
Its a balancing act but I also dont like the fact that allied squads especially are so difficult to upgrade.
 
It the balance between enough to upgrade squads which after all are really only getting increased small arms i.e. the manpower is the same.
 
Doing this without double counting is tough but we are looking at it in relation to squads in particular.
 
Andy

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac
Doing this without double counting is tough but we are looking at it in relation to squads in particular.

But you see, that's my entire point. Here you're balancing your decision on how to treat the allies against history (thus harming their capabilities in game), while Japan can upgrade its entire army in about 1 month. Either give the allies the ability to upgrade in a month as Japan can do, or restrict both powers to the same solution you decide to use.

Jim

[Andy Mac]

Jim its a fact that one side controls production and the other doesnt that is a matter of game spec and is not going to change.
 
Equally we must in some way restrict espeically British Infantry replacements to reflect the severe shortage in 44/45 otherwise this isnt WITP.
 
So it is a balancing act I have two solution for allied squads and combat engineers but we dont know if it works yet.
 
(I am not at all concerned about other devices because frankly they were restricted and should remain restricted i.e. Lewis AAMG's were NOT all replaced by Bren AAMG's, Grants had not fully replaced Matildas in Armoured Regts, Rolls Royce AC's were still inuse despite Humbers and Daimlers being around and 2 pounder AT guns were still around despite 6 pounders and 17 pounders being around)
 
But Squads where the manapower is the same and its small arms changes these I agree we need to do something about

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Jim its a fact that one side controls production and the other doesnt that is a matter of game spec and is not going to change.

Equally we must in some way restrict espeically British Infantry replacements to reflect the severe shortage in 44/45 otherwise this isnt WITP.

So it is a balancing act I have two solution for allied squads and combat engineers but we dont know if it works yet.

(I am not at all concerned about other devices because frankly they were restricted and should remain restricted i.e. Lewis AAMG's were NOT all replaced by Bren AAMG's, Grants had not fully replaced Matildas in Armoured Regts, Rolls Royce AC's were still inuse despite Humbers and Daimlers being around and 2 pounder AT guns were still around despite 6 pounders and 17 pounders being around)

But Squads where the manapower is the same and its small arms changes these I agree we need to do something about

I agree Andy, I want historical accuracy, but I want it to apply to both sides. The idea of limiting allied production to historical numbers while allowing Japan to build unlimited amounts of any items is ridiculous.

Japan built a total of 380,000 machine-guns (not including submachine-guns) during the war. The US built 2,679,400 the UK built 297,336 and Canada built 251,925. I see no justification in limiting the UK machine-guns if you’re not going to limit Japan.

If it is impossible to limit Japan then limiting the UK simply changes the power dynamic between those two nations. You have to consider how restricting one power to history and not the other changes the overall situation.

Japan only built 2,515 tanks and self propelled guns during the war. The US built 88,410, the UK 27,896 and Canada built 5,678. So again the power dynamic is drastically changed when Japan can flesh out all its armor units at will and replace unlimited losses yet the allies are severely restricted.

I applaud your efforts regarding the allied historical limitations, but without applying those same limitations to Japan, you’re simply magnifying the overall power and effectiveness of the Japanese land army.

You’re also making the allies much weaker than they were historically, since it will be much harder to defeat an enemy with unlimited equipment pools when you’re so severely restricted yourself. Japan can replace losses at will, the allies cannot. So as the battles progress and equipment gets destroyed the allies will become weaker and weaker while Japan can replace all losses at will.

Jim

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
P.S. One of Japan’s biggest advantages in the land game is Japan can easily upgrade most of its on-map forces to late model squads, while the allies usually don't have sufficient replacement levels to upgrade more than a brigade or division or so a year. And that's only if combat losses aren't so high they soak up all the replacements. So the allies are stuck fighting with early war equipment for most of the game.

There're no late-war squads for Japan in the AE.

To explain this (in short): After some lengthy discussions (and with some help from Japan) we reached the conclusion that Japanese infantry squads did not see changes that would warrant late-war squads with improved firepower (despite more widespread use of 7.7mm LMG's as squad weapons).

[Before somebody asks: We have reinforced (= stronger) rifle squads in some IJA divisions].

[Reg]

So far we can quote what historical production was and the Allied production is fixed. However, statements of as how big Japanese production can actually get are very generalised.

Has anyone got some actual Japanese production figures from a real game (over a fairly long period) so we can do some meaningful analysis of how big an issue we have here.

My personal impression of anything with a expandable economy (those EEE -Explore, Expand, Exploit type games) are that the economies tend to be exponential in nature, ie they start off slow but when things get going they really take off and the sky is the limit... Maybe we need a model that tends to produce a law of diminishing returns???

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Reg
Has anyone got some actual Japanese production figures from a real game (over a fairly long period) so we can do some meaningful analysis of how big an issue we have here.

That is exactly what is required in a discussion such as this. General comments or anecdotes are not enough. Any presentation of Japanese production figures from games should also be qualified with information about whether the Japanese conquered more, or less, areas than historically.

Andrew

[jolly_pillager]

My concern is the flexability inherent for Japan in the current system that is not inherent to the Allies.

Consider PzB's and Andy Mac's game. In that game, Andy Mac ran out of Hellcats. Certainly IRL Hellcat production would have been ramped up (yes, likely at the expense of something else) if the carrier fleets couldn't fill out their squadrons!

More to the point, the Japanese player in the same situation CAN modify his output of a given plane type and thus has more production capability than the Allies (not neccessarily more production overall...just the ability to react to the way any particular game is going and adjust his production accordingly...the US cannot).

Shipping construction is another good example.

In the real war (and thus in the game) the US began to reduce ship building as the war neared it's end. This translates into reduced naval construction throughout '45...no problem if you are winning as the US at that time...but what if you have lost a large amount of fleet units? Would the US have blindly stuck to the historical drummer of reduced production in this case? As it now stands there is no flexability there.

Perhaps charging not only industry, but Victory Points (reflecting the public getting tired of military production instead of civilian production) for each ship (more for late war ships if necessarry) and then give the Allied player the option of reducing production to save VP's or keeping production going to get units?

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Reg

So far we can quote what historical production was and the Allied production is fixed. However, statements of as how big Japanese production can actually get are very generalised.

Has anyone got some actual Japanese production figures from a real game (over a fairly long period) so we can do some meaningful analysis of how big an issue we have here.

My personal impression of anything with a expandable economy (those EEE -Explore, Expand, Exploit type games) are that the economies tend to be exponential in nature, ie they start off slow but when things get going they really take off and the sky is the limit... Maybe we need a model that tends to produce a law of diminishing returns???

That's why I suggested kth root of k factors of production. Some will be very hard to expand.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Personally, I'd rather have the player control of production be removed from the game all together! What is this, Age of Empires or Total Annihilation? The only thing the player should have control of is getting the supplies and resources needed for the economy to the necessary points...none of this fantasy crap.[8D]

Again...any chance we can have a choice between the add water and stir instant Japanese fantasy model and a simple historical production rate, possibly improvable on a limited scale if Japan infuse more raw materials into the major manufacturing centres? It seems every time something is added, it benefits the Fantasy Island fans...PDU for example. Many of us were against it because we knew what would happen (WITP would become more of an Age of Empires type game and less a wargame), but of course it was added because it satisfied the What If Fantasy clubbers...a more vocal, whiny group than those out for a wargame with some historical basis I suppose, and guess what?...of course it turned WITP into Age of Empires, The Wrath of Kimono and now PDU is viewed as a failure and rarely toggled on.

So, how about it? It would take next to no effort to provide this historical variant.

Thanks

[Andy Mac]

NO FAIR - using my own prejudices from my own game to prove I am an idiot.
 
I call that bad sportmanship...[:D][:D][:D]
 
I think its fair to say I will be looking at Hellcat produciton numbers very carefully when we get them finalised...
 
The issue was never really Hellcat number just that to many were allocated to NF variants in stock.
 
It should have been 280 v 20 not 144 and 144 as per stock - it was the split that was wrong.
 
Having said that its a real point and we are looking at it.