So the Japanese never invented the bulldozer?

[tacticon]

Bull dozers are very effective when it comes to pushing dirt and flattening trees. They are not as useful when it comes to setting up the rest of the airbase. I never saw a bulldozer build a fuel and ammo depot, never seen one run electrical or plumbing. I have seen a bulldozer knock a building down but have yet to see a dozer put a building up. That takes squads.

I look at the engineering vehicals as an abstracted level of efficiency. Should some Japanese units have engineering vehicals or a few extra squads, possibly. I don't think they should have anywhere near the efficiency that Seabees have. My feeling is they are fairly well modeled. But, if a couple of "dozers" were added to a few units here and there, I would have no objections.

[Brady]

"This entire system is so filled with prejudice it is scary. I am amused by the players who whine how Gary makes his games pro-Axis. "

Ya I gota agree with this, at first I kinda thought their would be some of it going, their always is when it comes to this theater espichaly, at least that has been my experance in other forums forother games, but the closer I look the more I see of it...at every turn it is stunning realy that a game like this wouldhave so much of it.

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This subject as mentioned before in this thread was discussed at length way before game realsise, and as mentioned before the Japanese did employ several types of engenering vehicals, yet their are non in the game, they employed trucks as well they just aloted them diferently than the Allies did they were aloted to independednt transport companys and asigned to various ares to suport operations their, Speciliased construction companys for road and airfied for example (Bothe army and Navy) had the more specilaised engenerar Equipment, dozers trucks, roller, rock crushers ect...Their is ample evadiance of this of course but again we see non of this in WiTP.

Also we see no evidance of the masive manpower pools the Japanese Enginer untis relied on, yes some of the Enginer units had Equipment, but they all used Mased manpoer to some degree, this mapower was composed of Paid Labor units comprised of Korean and Okinawan, and other manpower, and used to Make things hapen, these units were also used to flesh out combat units that were depeleated in action, See the Link below to an old thread on this subject:


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p. 24 Japanese Pacific Island Defenses 1941-45 by G. Rottman:

" A bewildering mix of weapons was encountered on many islands, espichaly with regard to artillery and AA guns. As the Allies approached closer to a region, its islands were greatly reinforced. New units arrived to supplememnt the garrison and with them came different allocations of weapons. Adational weapons, sometimes obsolite, were sent from depots aboard supply ships sailling from island to island. Crews to man them were drawn from existing units augmented by service troops and they were incoperated into the suport operations. Ammunition, rations, and watter had been stockpiled in positions as movement in the open was virtualy imposable. Caches of weapons, ammunation, medical suplies and rations were often hidden about most islands in bunkers and dugouts. Up to six months of supplies were stockpilled on most islands. While a few small service elements were retained, most were armed and told to fight the Americans to the death. Many did, but the few prisoners taken were mainly laborers. These units defended coastal areas in the rear to prevent additional landings, secured flanks, prepared and often manned additional lines of defense, thickened the front line by attachment to divishions and brigades, and were used as a source of replacements for frontline units. The allies were often astonished at how the Japanese rebuilt shattered units by feeding in service troops. All Japanese soliders were taught to be rifelmen first and then were only required to defend a posation to the death."



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From an old Thread:

To build these bases specialy trained and equiped Japanese army and Navy Enginer untis were detailed to this task, and they took with them their equipment, which included Rollers, tracters, rock crushers, ect... The Small scall railway was another common Japanese Enginers tool. Also as mentioed before they employed a lot of Labor wch augmented their efforts, generaly the parent enginer unit would supervise the work and help to a degree. For Fortifacation building portable saw mills, concreat batch plants and the like were employed as well.
Now the detail of all this somewhat lost in UV, the only realy aparent diferance is the presnnce of Dozers, which represent a lot of enginers, though couriously in UV the Japanese Enginer Units dont realy represnt all the men who were working, it is very abstract to say the least.

The japanese in general also tended to alocate their trucks diferently than we did, basicaly because they had nowhear near as many as we did. Many units did have some to help move guns(or a prime mover tracked) or preform specific duties. But typicaly a transport unit was asigned to a local comand to serve a general area, transport units consisted of Trucks and sometimes trucks and Horse drawn transport assests.

From Peleliu 1944:

Japanese forces present Palau District:

14th Divishion HQ-300(number of men)
2nd Infentry regement-3,960
15th Infentry regement-3,160
57th infentry regement-3,160
14th divishion tank unit-130
14th divishion signal unit-235
14th divishion transport unit-130
14th divishion sea transport unit-1,540
14th divishion independent service unit-130
14th divishion ordance duty unit-100
14th divishion water suply and purification unit-160
14th divishion field hospital-595

" The 14th Divishions 15th (-3rd battalion) and 59th Infentry regements (-1st Battalion) defended Babelthuap along with the 53rd IMB (-346th Battalion), almost 21,000 troops and 10,000 Korean and Okinawan labors."

" Yap Island was defended by 4,000 troops of the 49th IMB, 3,000 IJN personal of the 46th base force and 1,000 labors."

Other tables show the actual Enginer units asigned to these areas, but the number of men in them is very small, like:

53 IMB Enginer Unit-220

which clearly is in no way reflective of the men at their disposal.

Also while UV and I suspect WiTP will show the Japanese Regements as not having transport, the fact is they did typicaly just not on the scale the allies did and since their oob differed in how their transport was allocated it is outside the scope of the game to represent. Though just what real impact this will have is unclear to me.

5/16/2004 6:33:18 PM


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At the very least we should see a few Enginer vehicals in the Airfied construction and Road Construction, units, and some reprensation fo the Massed labor these and other units relied on.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Hmmm Strange IIRC, one of the things that saved/helped the Marines on Lunga, was a Bulldozer that the JP had left behind (remember seeing pics of it)

hmmm, some of them Korean laborers were smarter then the JP thought

HARD_Sarge

They had some equipment that looked like old fashoned steel wheeled tractors---but
comparatively speeking they had NOTHING in the way of earth-moving equipment
compared with the US. They really never had the need to develop it..., their auto-
motive industry was 25 years behind the US where the need to create 100's of thou-
sands of miles of highways spurred the growth of construction machinery.

[tacticon]

Forget about the TOE of the engineering units completely.

The first question we need to ask is what relative construction power of a Japanese engineer unit vs. a US Seabee. Seabee just being just a baseline. Lets just say for arguments sake that Seabee unit was 8 times more effective then a Japanese engineering unit. Now the Seabees in the game are 30 squads and 20 vehicals. The total engineering potential is 230. One eighth of that is 29. So if the Japanese engineering units have only 30 squads then the game models the IJA engineers correctly.

If all come to a concensus that US Seabee unit was only 4 times more effective then a Japanese engineering unit (230 / 4 = 57). We should add 7 Korean labor squads and 2 vehicals.

My opinion is the ratio is closer to 8 then 4. I am sure there is some anecdotal evidence to support 4 but I don’t think it would hold up if we were able to figure what the average performance of all engineering units. I think that the after the fall of Rangoon, the Japanese should get 30 squads of allied engineers for bridge building in Burma. You got to admit that’s only fair.[:D]

[BPRE]

Well written tacticon.

Isn't there another angle to this also. You can airlift engineering squads but not an engineering vehicle (at least I don't think so).
From that point of view 5 or 10 squads might be preferably to an engineering vehicle.

/BPRE

[tacticon]

Korean labor squads shouldn't be allowed to ride on fine Imperial Air transports either. Let'm ride barges.

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: Beezle
Even that is not the problem as I see it.

One guy can move 10 tons of sand in an 8 hour day (by your schedule).
So 100 guys can move 10 tons of sand in about 10 minutes. (the arithmetic isn't the point. Stay with me on this)
And a bulldozer can move 10 tons of sand in ten minutes.

BUT

The bulldozer can move 10 ton boulder in 10 minutes.
The 100 people can't move a 10 ton boulder at all.

We sure are lucky that space aliens build the Pyramids. [;)]

The problem is no so much getting the job done with manpower… just that it is so slow.



GREAT PYRAMID (Khufu belongs to the Horizon)

Build mostly of limestone, its original height was 146.6m and the base is 230 meters square with an estimated volume of 2,521,000 cu m. The pyramid is estimated to contain 2.3 million blocks of stone weighing 6.5 million tons. The average weight of each stone is 2.5 tons with some weighing more than 50 tons.

Herodotus said it took ten years to prepare the ground, waterways, underground chambers, ramps etc; and another 20 years to construct the actual pyramid.

[meyerg]

I think it is obvious the Japanese had bulldozers.
I think it is obvious the Japanese didn't know how to use them as effectively as the allies.
I think Japanese fanboys want to have bulldozers and use them as effectively as the allies. If there is a setting for historical use of bulldozers, the Japanese fanboys will insist that we turn it off for the Japanese and turn it on for the allies.
If this makes me an allied fanboy so be it. My favorite side to play in Axis and Allies is still Japan, and I don't care that I don't start with bulldozers, I can still beat Germany to Moscow.
Greg

[brisd]

I think that the after the fall of Rangoon, the Japanese should get 30 squads of allied engineers for bridge building in Burma. You got to admit that’s only fair.

That's a good idea. I think a proper mod would be to add slave labor units to aid the Japanese war effort, to counter-balance their lack of fancy engineering gear like shovels, bulldozers and such. I wonder how many units that could be created with all the prisoners captured in Bataan, Singapore, China??? Opens up a whole other aspect to the game I never considered before. As you use the units, they take casualties and can't be replaced but only use 1/2 the supplies of regular engineers as there is no need for a balanced diet or medical supplies.

[SiTheSly]

There is a general bias towards the Allies engineering capabilities verus the Japanese in WWII.

The classic example is in the film The Bridge over the River Kwai (sp?), where the Japanese railway bridge building is mocked by the British.

The simple fact was the Japanese were considered to be one of the best railway bridge/tunnel builders in the world then and now.

Anyone who has been to Japan and experienced there excellent railway or is a general railway buff would know this.

Undoubtly as the war progressed the Allies (mainly the US of course) gained an advantage in this area as indeed practically all areas of the war effort but at the start of the game there shouldn't be that much difference.

[tsimmonds]

The simple fact was the Japanese were considered to be one of the best railway bridge/tunnel builders in the world then and now.

Anyone who has been to Japan and experienced there excellent railway or is a general railway buff would know this.

Useful skills to have, certainly, but in the Pacific not nearly as useful as the American expertise in building roads and their close kin, airfields.

[SiTheSly]

Useful skills to have, certainly, but in the Pacific not nearly as useful as the American expertise in building roads and their close kin, airfields.

Building roads and building railroads are very similair. Take off the tracks and you have an excellent road. Building railroads is a bit harder as well. Railroads are closer to roads than airfields are to roads.

[tsimmonds]

Railroads are closer to roads than airfields are to roads.

But airfields (which are the real point here) are much closer to roads than they are to railroads. Also it depends on what kind of roads you are talking about. I was thinking that concrete roads, of which many thousands of miles were built in the USA during the 30s, were very much like the runways constructed on, say, Tinian.

[SiTheSly]

But airfields (which are the real point here) are much closer to roads than they are to railroads. Also it depends on what kind of roads you are talking about. I was thinking that concrete roads, of which many thousands of miles were built in the USA during the 30s, were very much like the runways constructed on, say, Tinian.

The point I was trying to make is that there is a perceived notion that the Japanese were not as good at civil engineering as the Allies during the early 1940's. The fact is they were and still are excellent engineers capable of building roads, airfields, ports etc just as well as the Allies.

Now whether they had the equipment or personel in the same abundance as the Allies during this period is another issue. To say that, for example an x sized bulldozer in American hands would be more efficent than the same in Japanese hands in just plain wrong. (I'm not saying you said that - just trying to get across what I'm on about).

[tsimmonds]

We're not arguing, we're just making different points using quotes from each others posts.[;)]

[Wilhammer]

Marston Matting.

They (the Japanese) couldn't support making all that stuff, and we made enough to throw away.

IMPO, Marston Matting was as important as the C-47 or the Jeep, if not more so.

[Hard Sarge]

Hi Sithesly

I think you are totally missing the point here, they may of had civil Eng's as good as anything the west had, but not in the IJA

who commanded these units ?, the dogs, just like who commanded the Radar units and other bits of importent stuff, that the Allies thought to be very importent, the IJA/IJN did not, the right way to be a Warrior, was to lead a Combat unit, or lead a ship, not build a road or figure out how much food would be needed, or look for little dots on a screen

and another thing, nobody is saying that a x sized bulldozer in American hands would be better, they are saying we had bigger and better bulldozers then they had, and in much larger numbers, but if you want to follow that line of thought, how long did they work on (what turned into)Henderson, with out getting it built, and how long did it take the Americans, useing mostly there tools

the whole battle of Canal, boils down to how dumb and lazy they were (the commanders, not the people)

the battle of Savo island should of been a great victory, the commander got cold feet, and dis-obayed orders and ran for home

they landed a btn of troops to take on a Div of Marines, that didn't work, the landed a Reg, guess what, that didn't work, by the time they figured it out, we had even more men there

and in the end, all because, they took there time building an airfield, they lost the campaign, and maybe, any chance they had of winning what they had hoped to win at the start, a peace treaty

HARD_Sarge

[cyberwop36]

ORIGINAL: Brad Hunter

Also, IMHO, the engineering units in the game do not represent their historical ToE, but instead, represent the unit's ablilities within the game system.****

Hope this helps,

Brad

The Japanese occupied Lunga on what date? It was several months and they didn't have a functioning airfield. Allied engineering capabilities were decades ahead of the Japanese.

The engineering units are set up to REPRESENT the amount of work they can get done. So if you want your 10 or 12 Jap dozers I want all my road graders, cement mixers, welders, multi-axle dump trucks, ect., ect.,. About 65 or 70 "engineer vehicles" would be about right for the Sea Bee's. And throw in a allied additive for having professional, experenced commercial contractors who worked all over the world before the war. There should be a negetive for using forced labor to account for sabotage and lack of cooperation {read "Unjust Enrichment" good book}. 10 willing free men get a lot more work done than 100 slaves.

Then we will have the game completely unbalanced. We could build dots into level 10 airfields and ports in about a week and a half.

Some TOE decisions were made to make the units fit into the game SYSTEM in a more historical fashion. If you edit 10 or 20 "engineer vehicles" into jap construction units why stop there. How bout jet fighters? :]

Bottem line, if you up the jap construction capacity you have to up the allies even more and you unbalance the game. And if you unbalance the game why play it, declare victory and move on. YAAAH You Win.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: SiTheSly

The point I was trying to make is that there is a perceived notion that the Japanese were not as good at civil engineering as the Allies during the early 1940's. The fact is they were and still are excellent engineers capable of building roads, airfields, ports etc just as well as the Allies.

Now whether they had the equipment or personel in the same abundance as the Allies during this period is another issue. To say that, for example an x sized bulldozer in American hands would be more efficent than the same in Japanese hands in just plain wrong. (I'm not saying you said that - just trying to get across what I'm on about).

Actually, you are TOTALLY wrong. The Japanese weren't even close to being in the same
league with the US in Civil Engineering. Show me the equivalent of a "Hoover Dam",
a "Grand Coulee", ot a "TVA" in Japan in the 30's. Or the hundreds of thousands of
miles of paved roads and RR trackage of the US (Good luck.., America had more of
both than the rest of the world combined in 1940). Most US earth-moving equipment
got it's start as farm equipment..., and only in North America were the farms big enough
and rich enough to need that kind of equipment. The acre or two of a Japanese Peasant
could be tilled by hand. It's simply a matter of need and resources---America had both
and the Japanese had neither. What they had and used were Korean Labor Battalions.

[Drongo]

ORIGINAL: cyberwop36
The Japanese occupied Lunga on what date? It was several months and they didn't have a functioning airfield. Allied engineering capabilities were decades ahead of the Japanese.

Actually it was several weeks. [:)]