This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!
Brady, so you've lost 85 P40Es and have 85 in the pool having used -6 so far. This means that if you had used replacements, your pool would be sitting empty.
It is far worse than that. Brady lost 53 P-40Es to op losses. That's about 2/3rds of the production run to date lost to op losses. So the writing is on the wall, the allies will eventually run out of P-40Es because they receive too few and can barely replace their op losses with the low production pools, forget about combat losses.
And once they get another 10 or so air groups into action that are using the P-40, their op losses will increase until eventually they exceed the production. So because of the tiny US production numbers, it is actually a hindrance to get a larger airforce into operation...
This may be an editor question but is related.
How do you change future A/C production rates in the editor? I see how to change the starting aircraft factories (eg the starting SBD factory in LA) but how do I change the mid 42/43/44 prodction rates?
Beezle - Rapidly running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas.
You can reduce Op losses by standing down a lot. Maybe that's the key: that we keep units active/flying all the time rather than rotate them and only use a few units at a time.
Beezle - Rapidly running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas.
I also feel there is an issue in this area. In my game against the computer the Japanese are producing 30 zeros and 30 bettys daily. I am producing 1.5 p-40's and .5 b-17 daily. In my games I must always cede anyplace that the Japanese place aircraft within range because within a few days my air groups are decimated due to lack of replacements and will need months to rebuild while the Japanese need days at most. I don't mind low production numbers but limiting allied production to historic levels but then giving Japan unlimited production of aircraft means the allies can't win a war of attrition. Japan should have it's production numbers capped to historic levels or boost allied production to the same level as Japan. In my game by the end of 42 Japan will have produced more betties than were produced in the actual war. In the screen shot above the lost rate of allied aircraft is almost the same as production. Large numbers of allied air groups are at 50% strength or less while Japan's are all full with hundreds of aircraft in the pools. Why are the allies training thousands of pilots but not producing the aircraft for them to fly? In just a month or two I will have more pilots than their will be aircraft produced during the entire war. If Midway were to occur in AE the allies would field their carriers with between 50-100% airgroups while Japan would field 6 cv's with full squadrons and with spares packed everywhere. The allies almost need to have carriers sunk just to have production to fill what carriers would remain and not need to spend months in port waiting on the slow trickle of aircraft to fill out their squadrons.
I’m running into the same problem as others… unless you play the Allies as they fought historically you’ll run out of aircraft… but the game is based on what if’s … if I wanted historical outcomes I’d read a book. If I’m choosing to take a different route than the real events then there should be some way to compensate for this. The Japanese can by adjusting their production. But the Allies are stuck with historical production/replacement numbers only. I don't want my carriers sitting out the first six months if I'm doing really good.
I can’t believe that if the Carrier’s ran out of planes that the production wouldn’t have been found to get them more planes.
How about paying a political point cost to increase a production run of a plane type?
I'm trying to think and write at the same time. While most of the replacement aircraft is out of the sky and hard coded (I think) don't we have the ability to set up various aircraft factories and tweak production for what we feel is a reasonable educated guess number? This will impact supply (again I think) but is there not the ability to be able to tweak that too?
The Japanese have limits to how they can adjust their production. Severe ones. Don't imagine it's just a twist of the knob to increase production.
...yes but the point is that they can adjust it and the allies can't at all.
Even if you could it would take time. Which means you still couldn't get a lot more before the replacements kick-in in late 42/early 43.
The only reason the Japanese have on map industry is so the Allies can bomb it to death and recreate the sub campaign. If those weren't strategic elements of Allied strategy, Japanese industry would work just like Allied industry.
"Measure civilization by the ability of citizens to mock government with impunity" -- Unknown
What happens in the later game (which none of us non-Betat testers have gotten to)? The Allies have more production per model and make more than one model (F6F and F4U, P38 and P47 etc). They also have more units to fill out. Are the allies scrimping for A/C in 1944? Is it a viable strategy at that time for the Japanese to fight a war of attrition vs the allies because IJ production outstrips Allied production?
(BTW that is a theoretical queston. As I understand it the real air war was decided well before then, before the F6Fs and P38 arrived in any numbers. The allies had _already_ attrited the IJ aircraft prodcution and pilot production by the end of 1942).
Beezle - Rapidly running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas.
What happens in the later game (which none of us non-Betat testers have gotten to)? The Allies have more production per model and make more than one model (F6F and F4U, P38 and P47 etc). They also have more units to fill out. Are the allies scrimping for A/C in 1944? Is it a viable strategy at that time for the Japanese to fight a war of attrition vs the allies because IJ production outstrips Allied production?
(BTW that is a theoretical queston. As I understand it the real air war was decided well before then, before the F6Fs and P38 arrived in any numbers. The allies had _already_ attrited the IJ aircraft prodcution and pilot production by the end of 1942).
Assuming that the Japanese can import sufficient material to keep their factories running, the critical limitation is going to be pilots. Without pilots, its not going to matter how many aircraft Japan produces.
The main goal of the allied player in mid-late war should be to attrite the Japanese air forces and merchant fleet. Allied losses will go down as time progresses because the quality of the Japanese pilot will also go down. A crappy pilot in a George or Frank won't survive very long against Hellcats, Corsairs and P-47s with average exp pilots.
Attriting the mecrhant fleet will ensure that Japan can not import enough material and will cause her to divert naval assets to protect her merchant fleet.
I foresee many Japanese players screwing up their production to the point that nothing gets produced. Japanese production is a complicated thing and it doesn't take much to bring it to a halt.
Remember, the Japanese can expand their aircraft factories all they want but they have to ensure they have engines to match. Without engines they ain't goning nowhere!
Chez
Ret Navy AWCS (1972-1998)
VP-5, Jacksonville, Fl 1973-78
ASW Ops Center, Rota, Spain 1978-81
VP-40, Mt View, Ca 1981-87
Patrol Wing 10, Mt View, CA 1987-90
ASW Ops Center, Adak, Ak 1990-92
NRD Seattle 1992-96
VP-46, Whidbey Isl, Wa 1996-98
The main goal of the allied player in mid-late war should be to attrite the Japanese air forces and merchant fleet.
In my game (Scen 6, Allies vs AI, Hard) the IJ pilot quality is starting to deteriorate at least in some units as early as May 1942! I know because I look every so often at the IJ side to see who it is doing.
Some units are still in the 50's and 60s (a few in the 70s) but some LBA already have averages in the low 40s and many pilots in the 30s.
The units in question are Sallys and Bettys, losing pilots due to flying with little escort or none vs the relatively few P40s and Hurricanes deployed so far.
Beezle - Rapidly running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas.
Airframes without pilots are useless. That's the Japanese problem.
Wasn't much of a problem in WITP - you can strafe a base in China and produce your aces strafing hapless Chinese for a few months. So the Japs had the production and the pilots. Hence why I stopped playing WITP.
I don't really see all that much in AE to suggest it'll be all that different. You'll need to spend some on map training time for your new guys, and the Allies will too but maybe not quite to the same extent. How its done is different, but the bottom line isn't all that different aside from now the Allies can do it too as you don't need Chinese bases for training purposes. SAIEW.
Really, the main difference is that the average Zero kill ratio has come down hugely, and that Japanese shipping seems much more constrained than it was in WITP. The Allies have a better time of it - but nothing to do with pilots... and their plane shortages will still be acute compared to the Japanese until more plane models come into production.
In bomber production the Japanese might have more of a problem, as Betties really do get used up in vast numbers. Even escorted ones suffer very high casualties in my experience.
I am withholding judgement until I get a year into a PBEM game as Japan. From the small amount of replacing, the drop-off is substantial from front-line pilots to the replacements in many units, particularly on the CVs. Maybe on-map training can make up the gap, not sure; "trained" pilots enter at 35.
I think the Allies in AE will be well-served to focus on the same things that killed Japan IRL; killing pilots, sinking TKs, cutting off OIL shipments. These things will hurt alot more in AE than they did in WITP.
Killing pilots will be easier, because the Zero isn't as dominant as it was in WITP early, and I suspect that pilot quality will get very ugly once P-38 and friends are available.
Airframes without pilots are useless. That's the Japanese problem.
Wasn't much of a problem in WITP - you can strafe a base in China and produce your aces strafing hapless Chinese for a few months. So the Japs had the production and the pilots. Hence why I stopped playing WITP.
I don't really see all that much in AE to suggest it'll be all that different. You'll need to spend some on map training time for your new guys, and the Allies will too but maybe not quite to the same extent. How its done is different, but the bottom line isn't all that different aside from now the Allies can do it too as you don't need Chinese bases for training purposes. SAIEW.
Really, the main difference is that the average Zero kill ratio has come down hugely, and that Japanese shipping seems much more constrained than it was in WITP. The Allies have a better time of it - but nothing to do with pilots... and their plane shortages will still be acute compared to the Japanese until more plane models come into production.
In bomber production the Japanese might have more of a problem, as Betties really do get used up in vast numbers. Even escorted ones suffer very high casualties in my experience.
Witp had a big pool you could send wherever you wanted. AE's big pool is mostly assigned to groups already and don't all arrive at the beginning.
ALL newly arrived pilots will have to go through about 3 months of training to be serviceable, all requiring aircraft groups and supply etc. This is based on reports that you can train up to around 60 in a skill in about a month of specialized training. This could change...and likely for the worse.
The pilot problem in AE is much, much worse, not just a little bit worse.
"Measure civilization by the ability of citizens to mock government with impunity" -- Unknown
As somebody else mentioned, limiting the allies to what was historically delivered seriously limits the freedom of action of an allied player.
Historically, the allied carriers were rarely used in the first six months of the way. Hence replacements were not required.
If you model that in game with an extremely low replacement rate, it means that, *in the game* allied carriers will, of necessity, sit out the first six months of the war.
Forcing the allies to use historical delivery patterns for their airframes forces them into a historical operational tempo as well, which severely limits their freedom of action and limits them vis-a-vis Japan which has complete freedom of action.
Additionally, as somebody else noted, the allied industrial base was massive and quite capable of adjusting to differing frontline demands. If the allies were losing 200 Dauntless a month in combat, you can bet they'd have produced 200 dauntless a month to offset that burn rate. There'd have been ramp-up time, and the issue of getting the materiel forward mind you, but the allied industrial base could have, and did, adjust to actual burn rates.
I have not delved into the game as much as any of you have yet, however I think many of you are missing the main point that the US had a "Germany First" policy. The Pacific is the backwater. "If the allies were losing 200 Dauntless a month in combat, you can bet they'd have produced 200 dauntless a month to offset that burn rate." I disagree. Adm King would have been told to order Adm Nimitz and Gen MacArthur to play much more defensive. While many would not like to play the game this way the primary goal of US forces first was always to maintain Hawaii and the West Coast. If losses were staggering, we would have pulled back and given up Australia. It was not necessary to our survival. I think you have to play with that context in mine. It would be great if the US adopted a "Japan First" strategy but it did not and that is food for the modders if they so choose. It is not the position that you are in in playing this game.
ORIGINAL: Herrbear I have not delved into the game as much as any of you have yet, however I think many of you are missing the main point that the US had a "Germany First" policy. The Pacific is the backwater. "If the allies were losing 200 Dauntless a month in combat, you can bet they'd have produced 200 dauntless a month to offset that burn rate." I disagree. Adm King would have been told to order Adm Nimitz and Gen MacArthur to play much more defensive. While many would not like to play the game this way the primary goal of US forces first was always to maintain Hawaii and the West Coast. If losses were staggering, we would have pulled back and given up Australia. It was not necessary to our survival. I think you have to play with that context in mine. It would be great if the US adopted a "Japan First" strategy but it did not and that is food for the modders if they so choose. It is not the position that you are in in playing this game.
Boy are you wrong! The President of the United States during WW II was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WW I...., and with his "soft spot" for "his" Service, the Navy was not going to get "short changed". The official policy may have been Europe first, but until the middle of 1943, more US material and troops went to the Pacific than to Europe. Sometimes the Navy even got things it didn't want (like Kaiser's 50 "jeep" carriers) because of Roosevelt.
My issue with aircraft production is in real life 30% of supplies sent to the pacific was STILL out producing Japan. In my game if all the allies represented put 100% of their production into the pacific Japan would still be out producing them. Japan in my game is producing 700 aircraft a month of just one fighter and one bomber. I think allies limited to historical levels of aircraft is a wonderful thing. Why do the Japanese have to produce more betties in 42 than they did during the whole war historically? I think Japan should have a historic limit set on all production. I think massive changes to production should be limited to the strong Japan scenario. Japan should still be able to manipulate production but no higher than historic levels. Another option would be to have a strong Japanese production switch for those who don't want historic production levels. I'm looking for a game where both sides are limited to the levels that were available historically, not where only the player has any limits set on them at all.
It's harder to tell but I believe I'm being out produced 10 to 1 air and ground. If the AI had control of ship production I'm sure I'd be out produced 10:1 there as well.
It seems as if someone thought that the best way to improve difficulty as the allies was to have Japan massively out produce the player. As is happening in my game. A war of attrition should be the last thing Japan wants but in my game Japan is producing as many aircraft in one day as I do in a month.
