Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Brady

p.9: "During the 1937-45 war , some 18,900 Yokern of all classses were killed in action out of 241,463 entering trainess. (This figure does not include the old Sohren programe priour to its incorperation into the Hei-Class Yokaren, or any of he commissioned Officer programs)

Not all of those that entered as I mentioed before were to become piolets, the figure that we can at present work with is the dead,as this does indicate the figure that actualy was trained at least in part.

.............

Betty 6-8 crew members. When I did the math for my coments above I alowed for multy crew Aircraft, those with two piolets. Crew members other than piolets are Not Yokaren.

Brady, you keep throwing out that quote as if it's gospel. Here's another quote on the subject:

Because of rapid expansion near the end of war, the trainee of yokaren system was 241,463, among which only about 24,000 finished the course. including death of trainees(air-raid etc.), 18,900 men were killed in action or training, including 2,534 in Kamikaze attack.

http://maisov.oops.jp/e/lindd.htm

So according to this, your 18,900 figure includes those killed in training accidents, or killed in air raids (if there were over 100,000 trainees at the end of the war, and most training establishments were in or near urban areas, it stands to reason that many trainees would have been killed in air raids in the last year of the war). I suspect that the rate of training accidents increased dramatically during this time period, as well, due to stresses on the training system from the demands of trying to do more with less. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it stands to reason that that the vast majority of the 24,000 would have graduated during the last stages of the war, with low skill levels.

ORIGINAL: Bodhi

ORIGINAL: pasternakski
Anybody but me interested in having an end put to this drivel?

I'm still hoping to find out what on earth a piolet is, haven't even managed to find one in my copy of WitP, maybe I should demand a refund?

Bodhi, why don't you not make fun of Brady's spelling? Although I think he's all wet on the training issue, his ability to express himself has no bearing on the merits of his arguments.

Hi, It just never registors with him that the pilot he pulls from his pool with a 30 training level is one of those 24,000 pilots. Every pilot he pulls is one of those pilots. Just like the actual Japanese he decides what a "Trained" pilot is not the game. He gets pilots via other means (new groups arriving) But every pilot not from a new group in excess of the very low ration for the pool comes from the Japanese training program. He keeps forgetting/ignoring/not seeing (not sure which) That his 1943 pilot skill is up to him.
If the Japanese had 1k pilots training from Dec to May then he needs to DO IT AS WELL IN ORDER TO MATCH THEM. It will not occur unless he says so. Just like we don't tell him what ships to speed up or slow down. What units to move to or from China. We also don't tell him how many pilots to train. He is in control. If he feels he needs more groups in order to match the Japanese that is a different and maybe valid point. Personally I could do with a few more groups myself but the main limit is not number of groups but supply amounts and time.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

and make up your mind, was the Frank and George better then anything the Allies had or wern't they

even if they were just as good as, and if the pilots were trained in how to fly them, how did they lose so many of them ?

HARD_Sarge

That is one issue in this game. Even if you have really skilled pilots, you will still be pretty much pwned if the other side has better aircraft. Try flying a squadrons of 75-80 experience Zeros versus a squadron of 60ish experience Hellcats or Corsairs, and you will see what I mean.

Spitfire, My source Says that the 18,900 is for KIA, and is not inclusive of training acedents, the Book Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units also indicates that this is so. KIA can as you sugest be the result of Bombing of say an airfield or the sinking of a ship, and some were killed in Midget/kaiten operations but their were very few that were lost from the later. Most as you sugest were indead traiend in the later part of the war:

" Otsu Yokaren Class No. 19 of Dec. 42 still had only 1,500 recuits. The figure then sudenly jumped to 2,951 in the following class No.20 of May 43 Among the Ko Yokaren, by far the largest of the Yokaren programes, anaual class sizes remained in the 250-260 range for most of the China War perioud. Numbers did not excead 1,000 until class No. 10 of Aprial 1942, a year later Class No. 12 counted 3,215, divided into three groups. The figure then exploded to almost 28,000 in class No. 13, divided into two gropus of October and December 43."

Howeaver most were also consumed in the later part of the war. Even still the numbers traiened in 42/43 Still excead the Numbers that are received in the game in New units by a signafagant margine. The catch phrase for the longest time is well you get all your new units fully trained when they arive on map, yet the piolets for these new Navy units for the first two years of the war in game only add up to about 2,000, just looking at the incompleat list above showing graduates for the two years 42/43 far exceads that by a stagering margine. The whole point of this debate is to show that the Pool for Japanese piolets should on average containe Better trained piolets than it presently does.

"Hi, It just never registors with him that the pilot he pulls from his pool with a 30 training level is one of those 24,000 pilots."

Of course It does Mogami, like I mentioned before their is a HUGE gulf between the number trained and the Number we get in the game in new units, for the first two years of the war Japan gets 2,000 piolets (aprox.) in New combat units, that leaves literly 10 of thousands trained men doing what?....Replacements?....This is what I am getting at the pool system presently used should not have such insainly low levals of traing in it. Likewise we should not have to use units that were historicaly combate ready to train these men as they were historicaly already traied to the point of being ready to be used as replacements of for asignement to a new combat unit. The game should alow for a scaled aproach as sugested above by year for the leval of traing for these piolets.

ORIGINAL: Brady
The whole point of this debate is to show that the Pool for Japanese piolets should on average containe Better trained piolets than it presently does.

Brady, Mogami has explained several times that the pool represents pilot recruits, not trained pilots. The Japanese player is responsible for training his pilots. Could you please explain exactly why you think this system is unrealistic? I can't really tell from your posts.

yet the piolets for these new Navy units for the first two years of the war in game only add up to about 2,000,

Brady you do this over and over. You completly refuse to accept any responsabilty for training a single pilot. You expect the game to provide your pilots. You have to make up the difference.

I'll clue you in on a little secret. The pilots pool and arrving pilots that are trained. They are not for you. No you get to use them but they are there so the game can be played by the AI. It is not smart enough to train pilots. Humans are and we even give them this head start intended for the silly AI. (It would never have a new group)
Technicly algroups should arrive on map 12 months or so before they do in the game with untrained pilots. Because we don't do this we let the human have them trained (to a degree) But if he just says "ok they are done" rather then setting these groups to further training that is his call.

WITP should never provide you with a single pilot. Just recruits for your pilot schools. That is the best way to do the game. Stop crying about the pilots you get for free. You should not get them at all.

well,
the germans enlarged their training program late in the war (too late)..

the russians "produced" from the beginning a lot pilots... and still got kicked against german trained pilots..

i think the whole "exp."-discussion is wrong.

First - you should not get unlimited pilots, not for the axis and not for the allied side...
second - we should just differ between trained pilots (a certain level should be reached) and untrained pilots = this means can the pilot start and land his plane, can he work with the engine, know the physics, etc... this say nil about his worth in combat !
third, this "new" pilot could be trained on-map. You give him into a plane, a transporter is much easier as a fighter, a carrier-training should be fully different !

Now, your pilots will be scanned by the computer and get a category... like KAMIKAZE, Transporter for the lowest,Torpede/Dive/Level- Bomber, Fighterbomber, Fighter, Dive/Torpedobomber-CARRIER, Fighterbomber-CARRIER...
As better the ability is, as farer to the end of this row the pilot is.

The american training should create much more fighterbomber-pilots, more carriercabable pilots as the japanese... but even then, a experienced (attention, a pilot with war knowledge, who had killed some/many enemies or at last did fight against enemies should be far superior to any trained pilot) pilot should be better... here we could build in a factor for again american training system, cause they withdrew their better and experienced pilots and gave this experience better to the trained pilots.

So, if the japanese player has zero pilots, he just can use KAMIKAZE, some really stupid boys who can start the engine and have say 2 flight hours (a weekend course)... but all other pilots should be limited...
just my 2 cents... but the whole experience calculation has this disadvantage (i know, cause of the programming.... )

But i agree 100 % to Mogami, if the japanese have 20k trained pilots, the planes should have 1/10 durability... otherwise some numbers are really NOT correct

"Brady, Mogami has explained several times that the pool represents pilot recruits, not trained pilots. The Japanese player is responsible for training his pilots. Could you please explain exactly why you think this system is unrealistic? I can't really tell from your posts. "

The Japanese player should Not under the present system have to train any piolets on map with the units the game provides him, at least not the degree he presently does,those units he receaves are ones that near as I can tell arived traied and ready for action. To use them as training removes a signafagant percentage of the combate strength from the Japanese. He can explain this till he is blue in the face his assesment of the situation is imo wrong and the whole system presently is compleatly slewed in a very unhistorical and pro allied maner, though I cant posably beleave this is intentional. The Japanese had on average Certainly not early but defenatly later plenty of replacement piolets for its front line units. If you want to creat a system that forces the player to train these men on map then fine do so, give us the planes ect to do this, if you want to stick with the abstracted system we presently have the pool should have a higher traing leval, or we should have More traiend piolets per month, 10 is freaking joke.


.....................................................





"not many of the Kamakises were well trained, most were not even trained to start with, other then taking off, didn't need to waste time learning how to land after all "

Yes this is true, thats why they were used in this capacity largely.

"and make up your mind, was the Frank and George better then anything the Allies had or wern't they "

They were better than some and not as good in some ways as others depends on the plane types.

"even if they were just as good as, and if the pilots were trained in how to fly them, how did they lose so many of them ?"

Many were lost on the ground during air raids, many were lost in lopsided battles, some did fairly well, genda for example formed a Unit with a large number of A type piolets in Georges that maintained a posative K/D ratio, this unit also lost several aircraft on the ground in a raid at one point.

Interestinly as noted above Well maintained and well flow Georges could do a good job, Air Groupe 343, CAPT. Minoru Genda, formed this unit and brought in hand picked experanced units from all over the navy to fill it. of the 170 some odd piolets in the unit 35 were Class "A" piolets (figure given for just before operations over Okinawa). During operations over Okinawa the groupe managed the los of 29 aircraft for 106 kills, and 165 aircraft sortied.
During a 2nd of June battle over Kagoshima bay a groupe of F4U were caught in a bad position and 21 N1K2's atacked 23 F4U's and 18 of them were shot down.

Above from Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in WW2 Hata & Izawa, Naval Institute Press.

OK Brady give yourself 100 Sentai/Daitai of 72 pilots each and train away.

I would rather see the Pool traing leval increased and scaled as sugest above, or a realistc model of the traing programe similar to what you like to see whear Japan has to pay to train using the real planes used in this role, since many of these training planes were consumed in Kamakisie atacks it would add to her war fighting capacity in the end war perioud.

But Now I nead to go pain the eve and clean the Gutter's, so If I dont return I fell[:)]

ORIGINAL: Brady

The Japanese player should Not under the present system have to train any piolets on map with the units the game provides him, at least not the degree he presently does,those units he receaves are ones that near as I can tell arived traied and ready for action.

Are you saying that air units just magically appear "trained and ready for action?" All new units go through a significant period of working up before they can properly be considered "combat-ready." (although in dire circumstances they are occasionally sent into battle without this "shakedown.") Even new units that are reconstituted from veterans need time to train together as a unit. Air groups formed from pilots fresh from training schools would especially need such an advanced training period.

During a 2nd of June battle over Kagoshima bay a groupe of F4U were caught in a bad position and 21 N1K2's atacked 23 F4U's and 18 of them were shot down.

the hassle is, I have seen this same report, and it was hellcats that were shot down, I have also seen this report and it was Mustangs shot down, also have seen this report and it was a mixed group of Hellcats and F4u's that were shot down

the great Ace Muto shot down, depending on which reports, 5 F4u's, 5 Hellcats, or 5 Mustangs in one fight, but they tend to forget to mention that the next day, he was blown apart by a Mustang he never saw, seems he was caught sleeping in the cockpit

HARD_Sarge

the great Ace Muto shot down, depending on which reports, 5 F4u's, 5 Hellcats, or 5 Mustangs in one fight, but they tend to forget to mention that the next day, he was blown apart by a Mustang he never saw, seems he was caught sleeping in the cockpit

That's what happens to your 85 experience pilots (god, it is so hard not to type "piolets"!) when you fly them with 67 fatigue and 36 morale.

"Are you saying that air units just magically appear "trained and ready for action?".."

No just that the replacements come from the pool at a leval indicated on the formentioned pool replacemt schedual. Also that New Units as they come presently arive with a traing leveal comenserate with the preent leval in the game.


"All new units go through a significant period of working up before they can properly be considered "combat-ready." (although in dire circumstances they are occasionally sent into battle without this "shakedown.") Even new units that are reconstituted from veterans need time to train together as a unit. Air groups formed from pilots fresh from training schools would especially need such an advanced training period. "

Also as I mentioned before the Units we receave in the game as New, both allied and Japanese come for the most part about when they did historicaly to theater, that is they have already gone through this work up perioud. The game already adjusts the Experance leval by year for the Units as they arive on map.

"the hassle is, I have seen this same report, and it was hellcats that were shot down, I have also seen this report and it was Mustangs shot down, also have seen this report and it was a mixed group of Hellcats and F4u's that were shot down "

Actualy their are several such reports and from different units contained in the book, depecting diferent actions at diferent times and places, what you are likely doing hear is confusing this one with others you have read.


"the great Ace Muto shot down, depending on which reports, 5 F4u's, 5 Hellcats, or 5 Mustangs in one fight, but they tend to forget to mention that the next day, he was blown apart by a Mustang he never saw, seems he was caught sleeping in the cockpit "

Sh!t happens, war sucks.

Mogami et al,

you are correct in every thing you say; however, what you don't say is of equal importance.

The system as it stands is moronic.
"Ah, guys, we are out of 70 exp pilots who have trained for 14 months, so the next pilot automatically sent out without the players control has 6 months training and a rating of 33."

what happened to the pilots who were 1 week from graduation? Or 1 month? 3 months? The system is very poor and yet you have the gall to berate Brady for his ideas!
While i do not agree with Brady, i do feel something needs to be done about this.

It does not need to be on map like you gave as an example Mogami, it could be abstracted like in the boardgame on the Pacific War whos name i can never remember. In that game both sides had a certain number of pilots in training at all times. If you ran out of trained pilots you had the CHOICE to remove some or all pilots at several levels of exp to fill your squadrons.

I am sorry but if a board game 20 years ago can do this why can this computer game not do it?

The Matrix fanboys arguing that everything is perfect in this game, and besides if you piss off Matrix they might not make a game like this and they are the only ones making a game of this type, so watch out, just really annoys me.

Mogami,
I love the work and ideas you put into pilot training on the map; however, with groups taking what 60 or 90 days to reform there are just not enough navy groups to train pilots. If this is gospel, why are the Japanese training groups not in the game?

So you are saying 'well if the Jap pilots are trained then their planes should have lower durability'
Bulldefecation!
Are you conveniently forgetting that when a Japanese base with 100 fighters and 70 bombers is hit by 500 American Naval aircraft that are at least a bit better, the Japs are going to be a tad outnumbered and take disproportionate losses?

Mike

OK one more time from the top.

I challange a Japanese player to edit in as many groups as he feels the need for just for training and use these groups just for training and still keep 100 percent of the groups WITP provides in combat. There is a surplus of Japanese groups and pilots every where except the minds of Japanese players.

If you had 1000 Daitai of 27 A6M2 you could employ no more then you could base, maintain and supply. They would never be all in combat every day.

There are 21 Daitai of IJN fighters in the first 1 years of WITP Just flying this requires 300,000 supply. At no time in the history of the Japanese Navy were all 21 Daitai in front line service. At no time in the History of the Japanese Navy were all 21 Daitai at full strength. At no time in the history of the Japanese Navy was there a period where pilot shortage was not a factor in planning Operations.

Why then do players expect WITP to solve all these problems without so much as a single player input?


Brady will never forget the pool. When he does he says being forced to use the groups provided "Seriously limits the available combat force" He says it like it was not even a consideration. The simple solution I have advised him to take is to simply add as many groups for training as he wants. This is met by "but then I have to produce far more combat aircraft then was the historic case" Ignoring the fact that aircraft in WITP never wear out and before a pilot can fly combat he has to have an aircraft.

If he had 200,000 pilots fully trained in his pool he could only fly as many as he had combat aircraft for.

Many of the Allied war objectives target Japanese economic facilities.

If Japanese pilots arrive in the pool in amounts pre set and at levels pre set these targets lose all their value.

Japanese pilot training both numbers and levels was a dircet result of Japans ability to train pilots. They always had both the people and aircraft what they did not have was the time and fuel. You cannot detach fuel and time from training. They are dependant on one another. Japan has to have the aircraft to use in combat and trained pilots for them to be effective. Currently Japan always has the pilots but it remains to be decided game by game what levels of training they get.

I am profoundly sorry that I have been unable dispite repeated efforts to make these simple truths easy to understand.

Japan will always have a pilot source to draw from when deciding what when and where to train pilots. I am fundamentaly opposed to the notion that they just appear from thin air with no connection to events produced by the war.

Yes Japan might have 1000 aircraft in the pool
Yes Japan has a body to place in every one of these 1000 pool aircraft

The questions that can only be answered by how that particular Pacific war is resolving are

Is there supply at the training sites
Is there time to train them to the desired level.

These questions can only be answered by the Japanese player on map.

If there are too few groups then lets add more.

I however doubt the Japanese player can use what he already has. If you are playing against the AI just add the pilot numbers you want to the pool.

No allied player would protest adding groups that could only be assigned training missions.
(Because you still have to supply these groups and still have to spend the time training)

While you are training your 10000 extra groups and 270,000 extra pilots a good portion of your "Combat" groups will be sitting idle for lack of pilots. They could just have well been used for training as any new groups you edit into being.

The points I think are valid that have been rasied so far are.

1. Starting pilot pool too low. (what the number should be is beyond me. You all just agree and I'll consent)
2. Not enough groups to train with. (same as above)
3. Disbanded groups require too long a period between reforming (I am in complete agreement here)

I'll let you know what pilot shortage I encounter in my 7 games as Japan PBEM.

"At no time in the history of the Japanese Navy was there a period where pilot shortage was not a factor in planning Operations. "

This is simply not true, particulary later in the war, their were many instances whear they had plenty of piolets and not enough planes.

"Why then do players expect WITP to solve all these problems without so much as a single player input? "

I dont have a problem worrying over this inthe game, it is just that at present their are two ways to go, use the existing model or creat a training airforce.

"The simple solution I have advised him to take is to simply add as many groups for training as he wants."

This is not realy my concern, my concern is that this is totaly unhistoric, it would be like having F4Us as my training aircraft just wrong, and the system is not set up for this suply hit, it neads to be scaled to suply this.

"If Japanese pilots arrive in the pool in amounts pre set and at levels pre set these targets lose all their value"

The present system does not alow for targeting the "pool", while you can target suply and inderectly target the capacity to train, the system is again not set up to do this.

"They always had both the people and aircraft what they did not have was the time and fuel."

The proposed sliding scale of training leveals proposed in the pool takes into acount this, that is why the piolets arive at a lower skill leval later in the war, while this is not perfect it is abstracted. I would realy prefer a system that has the training airfoce in place.

"I am profoundly sorry that I have been unable dispite repeated efforts to make these simple truths easy to understand"

Your points came through, I personaly did not agree with your inturpation of the situation, as noted above in this post you can see whear and how we differ.

"Japan will always have a pilot source to draw from when deciding what when and where to train pilots. I am fundamentaly opposed to the notion that they just appear from thin air with no connection to events produced by the war"

I agree that their should be an efect, but both system proposed do this, the pool system as sugest above does offer up piolets with a decreasing leval of skilas the war goes on. The Training airforce will offer the same thing if it can be created.


From whear I sit their are two ways to go..well three realy:

1) We do nothing..well Matrix does nothing....The Complaints continue.

2) We Adopt this Pool System:

Non-ready pilot pool value 1942 = 60
Non ready pilot pool value 1943 = 50
Non ready pilot pool value 1944 = 25-30
Non ready pilot pool value 1945 = 10-20

3) We creat a Training Airforce, with at least two types of generic training aricraft (like the K5Y) and they are only capable of Kamakise combat mishions, other wise just training, one for the Army and one type for the Navy. The players must build these in factorys, Fead them in the field, and wory over them. The Resources and the Ecenmoy will nead to be scaled to provide for them. Their Squadrons will nead to arive as they did historicaly or the players will nead to be able to actualy form suadrons on map.


No mater what their will still be complaints, complaints are the only ture constant.

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag
I thought I would point out that there is no limit on this pool.

You can pull pilots out of it forever. It is bottomless. Some of you might not understand this.

If you *really* think about it, this means the Pilot pools are too LARGE! [:D]

[:D] Stirring the pot?

The system used for pilot replacement is interesting and if I had a choice I would like to see some changes.

1st. I would like to retain my trained pilots in the pool and use them where I deem necessary… so I would like to see the player given the choice of reforming disbanded air groups with either pilots from the pool or inexperienced pilots.

2nd. Since individual pilots stats seemed to be tracked, I wish I could move pilots into a pool (Navy fighter, Army fighter, Army bomber, etc) That way I could reassign qualified pilots to the groups I wish.

Neither issue is a game killer, I would just like more control over my assets operationally.