ORIGINAL: John 3rd
The decisions to be made must be done in the context of the late-30s:
1. Warships---We are placing a retrospective look back at what the Japanese 'should' have done. This applies to AA Cruisers, the uselessness of BCs, the Scout Cruiser concept, etc... The bottom line is decisions must be made from the time with the 4th Circle Plan.
a. The BCs have to be built as a compromise with the Big Gun Admirals. These are built to act as 'Scouts' for the Yamato pair and Japanese Battleline for the 'decisive battle.' To placate this faction they get a pair of modern, fast capital ships.
Why do they need to be placated more than historically...You are building the Yamatos , Tones etc . from the launch date of the BC you are almost looking at a 5th circle ship.. By this time ie 39-40 start air was better for searching ( whether CVS , AV , CV or Tone type CA is a factory by degree) . I cannot see such a hull in the yards on Jan 42 not being changed to a CV ... like SHinano. I repeat
Every Capital ship over 8K tons which was in the docks at Dec 41 was completed as a CV , CVL or CVE. Even BBs and CAs were converted to monstrocities how can you be more air minded ?
b. Air-Minded leadership gains the Improved Shokaku CVs and less haggling over Taiho.
These prob would be built on teh BC hulls.
c. The Scout Cruiser concept, while scorned by many people on the Forum, is useful. The Japanese were wedded to it. AE is all about recon and search. Having a pair of ships carrying 6 floatplanes while packing the punch of a CA is a worthwhile addition.
Im not against them but would rather have a 10 gun CA with 3 FP , and a cheap AV or CVS for the scouting that way im only risking an AV ...
d. I am swung over in the argument to simply build the Oyodos as 6" cruisers carrying 3 turrets of 3 guns. This is a somewhat inconstistant position with what is said above but there was considerable argument over the design of these ships from the very beginning so we'll simply show the 'conventialists' winning the design battle.
Note your building a CL with 7 main arnament turrets and arcs may matter . I think the IJN prob thought something like 3*3 + 5*2 * 3.3"/60 or 2*3 + 4* 4"/100
Compare weight
Triple 6.1" Mogami /Oyoda 125 ton
Twin 6.1" Agano 45 tons
Twin 4" Oyoda/Moon class 34ton
Total turret weight atm is 2*125+ 4 * 34 = 386 tons. Proposed is 511 which is equivalent of 11 Agano style twin 6" mounts. Its certainly possible though since Mogami carried 7-800 in turrets.
Oyodo does show up in 44 so what good is an extra 6.1" turret , wouldnt you change durring construction in 43 for another 4 Twin 4" ?
e. If Shimakaze's power plants were so rough to build, then we'll simply add another pair of Moon-Class and Yugumo-Class.
Note the historically planned Super moon class would have been easier and as is showed you can reduce bunkerage to build bigger engines. For destroyers tehy have massive range
f. Killing off the Army Subs makes great sense to me but they weren't started until after the war began--RIGHT?--so the player can simply choose NOT to build them.
g. Michael asks about ASW and unfortunately our good Admiral and the Plan had no provision for that threat. I agree with Kaigun in asking how could the Japanese NOT have foreseen their terrible vulnerability to SS Blockade.
Probably everyone thought it was someone elses job everyone wanted to be involved in the exciting stuff big guns , subs and CVs.. Leaving some junior Comodore stuck with ASW responsabilities.
2. AA Gun---It is my understanding that the only true successor for a heavy AA Gun that the Japanese had in realistic development was the 3.9 that went on the Moons. Unless there is a cogent argument towards another gun that COULD have been deployed in reasonable numbers in mid-to-late 1942 then this is the gun of choice and happenstance. It is frustrating to know that there were BETTER guns to work with but you've got to work with what you got at start.
The Upgrade that features this retrofit will, by neccessity, be much longer and we'll have to figure that one out. How long to change the original Secondary armament over to the new is a good question?
the 3.9"/65 was the only effective DP gun... There were other AA guns especially the Aganos 80mm/60 a scalled down 3.9"/65 with tripple the barrel life. It could easily be mass produced and single double and tripple mounts produced. Note Like the US 5"/38 non barbetted mounts would have a much lower fire rate ( 50%) but the game engine forgets about this ...
For upgrade time it depends if the secondary arnament is on barbettes its much harder and may require cutting the deck.
3. Naval Fighters---Here is where the most impact has been made in the Forum discussion. This Mod will definately throw out the Jack and concentrate everything on Zero. This will allow for research to realistically bring the later design forward where they have a chance of keep air parity with the American counterpart through early-43. After that all bets are off. I really like the proposals of moving the deployment dtaes WAY forward on the M5 and later models. This still needs to be settled time wise but it should be a positive factor.
4. Yards---Went around the map in the game looking at Shipyards and then went on-line to do some checking. I concur about the land-locked and highly limited possibilities of Naval Shipyard expansion in the Home Islands.
a. Think we can do some limited expansion and add some Merchant Yard conversions for a decent gain in shipyard points. We'll follow the advice of the Forum contributors and do a good-sized expansion of the Uraga (Yokosuka) area for a new slipway
QUESTION: While reading last night I came across comments about the size of Shanghai. This led to me wonder if a Naval Yard could have been established there?
I dont think converting merchant ship yards is viable in actual fact the problem is worse... See my post above about actual shipyard size and the problem is not that big ie there are 15 slips for ships of 10K tons , 2 of those slips were upgarded to 72Kton ships , another 2 build 35K ton ships
Im living in Shanghai at the moment and Shangahi could easily have been brought up to building large ships. It had a large workforce already with some technical skill and plenty of areas being an estuary . There are LOTS of places now that are shipyards or piers. Though over the last few years the shipyards are being demolished to make way for apartments. That said its a political decision to build a yard > 10Ktons requiring investment but could be started in 38.
b. The loss in Merchant Yards in Japan will be countered with expansion at Fusan, Port Arthur, and Shanghai. How is Woochang, China able to be a Merchant Yard??!! Didn't even know it was there until I was checking around. That is one big river!
You cant even see the other side of it. Its limited today to about 8000 tons.
