Working title: Zen and the Art of Japanese Aircraft Production

[Oznoyng]

I've spent some time pouring over Japanese aircraft production, and wanted to share some insights. I might be wrong, I might be right. Let me know what you think.

First Principal of Aircraft production:

Aircraft in the pool do not do you any good unless they are Terminal Upgrades (TU), or SLOC's to SRA are broken.

What good does an aircraft in the pool do for you? It sits there waiting to be put into an active squadron. Until it is used as a replacement, it is useless. What malice does an aircraft in the pool do for you? It sucks up an engine that may never benefit you.

Think about it this way. It is January 43. By producing Ki-27 Nates for the last year, you have 500 in the pool even after replacements/reinforcements them. All of a sudden, oscars can replace Nates and those 500 extra planes are worthless to you as more and more get added to the pool from upgraded units. Your goal should be to have a pool of ZERO on the date that an aircraft type upgrades to another aircraft. Compare the two situations: I lose 18000 HI (or 500 engines and 500 airframes) when I kept producing for too long. For every aircraft in the pool when an upgrade to the aircraft is available, I wasted 36 HI (18 of it most likely "banked" - see Second principal).

You can ignore this principal in two cases: the aircraft being produced is a Terminal Upgrade, or when the SLOC's to the SRA are cut (or the home islands are under bombing threat). In the case of a terminal upgrade, the aircraft will never be replaced. You do need to make sure the pool numbers are not insanely high compared to the Total Build Out (TBO), but for most types this should not be a problem. In the case of SLOC's and bombing of the home islands, you need to turn stuff into planes while you have the ability to do it.

Spend a little more on production capability, and less on the aircraft themselves. If you overbuild your production and halt it when the pools get too high, you can build planes out as you need them, then rapidly build out when the home islands or the flow of supply from the SRA are threatened.

Second Principal of Aircraft production:

Engines in the pool are money in the bank, keep em there unless you need them to replace losses "just in time", or to produce a terminal upgrade.
A Nakajima is a Nakajima is a Nakajima. If you use one in an aircraft that gets scrapped, you have wasted 18 HI. I would much rather Halt production on a Nate and have the extra engines for later Franks, A6M5's, etc. Build your pools of engines early in the war while your industry is safe. Halt engine production when the islands are under threat and use your pools to produce the latest aircraft models.

Third Principal of Aircraft production:

Get bang for your buck when you do research. Make sure the Total Build Out of the aircraft type is large enough to merit the resources you put into it and make sure the aircraft type is not a Self Starter.

Researching aircraft is expensive in terms of factory usage and the returns are somewhat underwhelming. Choosing wisely is important. What makes a wise choice? The first thing to consider is the upgrade's Total Build Out. Choosing an aircraft that only has a few airgroups totalling only a hundred aircraft (like the Myrt) is simply stupid when compared to researching the A6M5/A6M8/A7M2 series (approx. 1900 TBO). An early war research priority should probably be the Oscar, since it has the next largest TBO at roughly 1200 a/c.

One thing to be wary of when it comes to research is "Self Starters". Self Starters are aircraft that are never an upgrade path for another aircraft. Let's say you manage to get the Frances to production status 4 months ahead of time. Great, where are the airgroups you can put them into? Does researching an aircraft move the arrival date of reinforcements for that aircraft up?

Fifth Principal of Aircraft production:

Better planes = fewer dead pilots.
The problem in this game is not really limited Japanese production of aircraft, but rather training of pilots. Towards that end, putting your pilots in better planes asap is a priority. A better plane is no guarentee of keeping a pilot alive, but producing and upgrading aircraft should be done as fast as you can. This argues (again) for a large factory capacity that is Halted when pool sizes and upgrades are sufficient.

Sixth Principal of Aircraft production:

Big is not better.
Large plants are risky for two reasons:
1. Limited HI, etc. can shut down a large plant more easily than a small one.
2. Small plants are easier to repair and harder to damage than large plants.

Therefore, increasing production capacity should be accomplished by focusing on fewer aircraft and procuding each at multiple plants.

Glossary
Self Starter - an aircraft that is not an upgrade of another aircraft. The Total Build Out of a Self Starter is the total of the OOB plus replacements. An example of a Self Starter is the P1Y Frances - nothing upgrades to it.

Terminal Upgrade (TU) - an aircraft type that does not upgrade to anything else. The A7M2 Reppu is a Terminal upgrade - it doesn't get any better than that.

Total Build Out (TBO) - the total number of aircraft in the OOB for the aircraft type, including air groups upgraded to the aircraft. For example, in Scenario 15, the Ki-43 IIa enters the game from replacement airgroups totaling 468 aircraft. However, most of the the Ki-27 aigroups upgrade to the Ki-43 IIa. Airgroups totalling 504 Ki-27 start the game in play and reinforcement airgroups add another 252 a/c for a Ki-27 TBO of 756 a/c. The TBO for a Ki-43IIa is 1224 a/c (468 + 756).

[brisd]

Outstanding job! This is exactly what I've been looking for and I forwarded it to my email so I have it handly. Thanks!

[Oleg Mastruko]

My god. Or OMGZ, as would new online generations say [:D]

I still don't have the game, but I have played UV to death (and still have several UV PBEMs active). I was looking forward to WITP with great anticipation, and only the unfortunate set of circumstances delayed my purchase of the game for the time being.

Having said that, all this in the post above sounds TERRIBLY boring to me, and totally uninspiring. Please tell me WITP can be played without all this knowledge at all? As I already said in my private mails to Apollo - I don't want to be Albert Speer, handling various ultra-boring stuff like engine and airframe production, I want to be Yamamoto, Spruance, Nimitz etc.

Please tell me I can enjoy the game's grand campaign without having to handle "airframe production" or resource management. I will be shipping oil and resources to Home Islands, and protecting conwoys etc. as it IS the Navy's task anyway, but I don't want to know jack sh*t about "airframe production"!

Can I hire AI-controlled Albert Speer to handle that and still enjoy the game? How good is AI Albert at his job?

O.

[2ndACR]

Sure you can. If you are the IJN just do not change a darn thing. The factories will upgrade themselves automatically on the a/c available date. But if you look at it and study it a little, it isn't too bad. Actually I find kind of easy.

When you look at the amounts and quantities of what are going to be or will be built, you may be in for a shock
if you do nothing to it.

You build a VERY low number of Kates and Vals. You will never at the rate they are built replace any combat losses except in 2 and 3's. Lose 20+ and you will be short very quickly. It really does not take alot to understand it.

I still like BTR's production engine better though. I loved being able to completely streamline my production and crank out mass quantities of the best a/c. I could upgrade or downgrade a sqdrn at will as long as it stayed in type ie Fighter.
Same with the original PACWAR.

But overall, it is a great game. The game everyone wants can not be built though.

[daft]

Very good job! It will probably be a while before I'm ready to tackle the Allies as Japan, but when I do, the above will be very helpful. Thanks! [:)]

[worr]

Kudos!

Worr, out

[Oznoyng]

Okay, I am home, and it is time to continue my brain dump on Japanese Aircraft production.

First, engines.

By now, everyone should know that Ishikawajima and Nissan engines are useless for aircraft production. You should definately change all of these to Nakajima. So,

Tokyo has Ishikawajima (0) x 20 xfer to Nakajima
Hamamatsu has Nissan (0) x 9 xfer to Nakajima
Shimuzu has Nissan (0) x 7 xfer to Nakajima
Tokyo has Nissan (0) x 10 xfer to Nakajima

Now, Hitachi has a single plant in Tokyo producing 120 engines per month. Short version: On or about 1/7/42, convert this plant to Nakajima.

Long version: The planes that can use that engine are the Ki-36, the Ki-54, and the Ki-32. I am going to be charitable and say that these planes suck only a little worse than a two-bit hooker.
- The Ki-36 has 2 air groups with 39 total aircraft in game. Thirty-seven aircraft are in that squadron and there are 45 already in the pool. The Ki-36 upgrades to nothing, is slow, rickety, and suffers from very short legs. Usable early in the game, but you should probably not waste the pilots and VP later. There is absolutely no reason anyone would want to produce more of these trash heaps. If you even keep them around, 45 of them will replace every one in your squadrons with extras to spare. If you are stupid enough to waste pilots out of your pool to put them in these death traps, I want to play you.
- The Ki-32 is not currently being produced and in any case is replaced by the currently producing Ki-48. So, no need for engines for the Ki-32.
- The remaining type that uses this engine is the Ki-54 Hickory. Technically an upgrade to the Ki-59, it has half the range of the aircraft it replaces. The Ki-59 has 4 squadrons of 12 with 27 AC in those squadrons and 11 in the pool. The Ki-54 has one squadron of 36 that arrive in 404 days. Ideally, we would go back to the Ki-59 and forego the upgrade, but game mechanics do not allow it. So, I plan produce enough Hitachi engines to produce approximately 60 Ki-54. With the 28 I have in the pool to start, I will have 88 aircraft. I will then consolidate the Ki-59's into three squadrons by upgrading or withdrawing one squadron and giving me 36 a/c in three squadrons and 2 in the pool. I will then use 48 of the 88 for the squadrons of 12 and 36. That leaves me 40 a/c for the pool, etc. Once the engines are produced, I will xfer production to Nakajima. Once there are no engines left, the Hickory plant will be retooled for something else.

Aichi engines I plan to leave alone. The engine is used in the D4Y, the best dive bomber Japan gets. The TBO for the D4Y is 393 a/c and can begin production in 11/43. If I produce 20 per month, I will have enough engines stockpiled by 11/43 to completely replace my Vals and have a pool of 60 or so as cushion. Since the D4Y is a Terminal Upgrade, I don't need to be concerned about the number that end up in the pool. Depending upon losses, I might increase production by converting an additional small plant later (10 or fewer engines).

Kawasaki engines are used only in the Ki-61 Tony. The TBO for the Tony is 432 a/c beginning around 8/42 and not upgraded again until 2/45. Current engine production is at 160 engines per month. In 8 months, I will have stockpile of 1280 engines, far in excess of the 432 a/c TBO. Also, better than half the Tony squadrons do not appear until '44. Fortunately, the Kawasaki production is split up into several factories, so I plan to keep 40 prducing per month at Maizuru and convert the rest to Nakajima:

Maizuru produces Kawasaki (0) x 40
convert Osaka Kawasaki (0) x 10 to Nakajima
convert Kitakyushu Kawasaki (0) x 10 to Nakajima
convert Hakodate Kawasaki (0) x 10 to Nakajima
convert Nagoya Kawasaki (0) x 40 to Nakajima

I am still pondering what to do with Mitsubishi and Nakajima. I have converted the Mitsubishi plant at Shimuzu ( (0) x 50 ) to nakajima as well. When the Hitachi plant is converted and all changes take effect, I will have

Mitsubishi (0) x 815
Nakajima (0) x 646
Kawasaki (0) x 40
Aichi (0) x 20

I may expand the 3 10 engine Kawasaki plants that were converted to Nakajima to 40 engines each.

[BlackVoid]

Excellent post!

But what I hear is really disappointing. What is the point in managing research and production if you CANNOT change what planes your squadrons use??? [:(]

Instead you have to micromanage engine production - a task that could easily managed by the AI. I really do not see a point in all this production. Sad...

[Drongo]

ORIGINAL: BlackVoid
But what I hear is really disappointing. What is the point in managing research and production if you CANNOT change what planes your squadrons use??? [:(]

So long as you plan your R&D around the upgrade paths and reinforcement schedule then you can still get benefits.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Oznoyng

I've spent some time pouring over Japanese aircraft production, and wanted to share some insights. I might be wrong, I might be right. Let me know what you think.

First Principal of Aircraft production:

Aircraft in the pool do not do you any good unless they are Terminal Upgrades (TU), or SLOC's to SRA are broken.

What good does an aircraft in the pool do for you? It sits there waiting to be put into an active squadron. Until it is used as a replacement, it is useless. What malice does an aircraft in the pool do for you? It sucks up an engine that may never benefit you.

Think about it this way. It is January 43. By producing Ki-27 Nates for the last year, you have 500 in the pool even after replacements/reinforcements them. All of a sudden, oscars can replace Nates and those 500 extra planes are worthless to you as more and more get added to the pool from upgraded units. Your goal should be to have a pool of ZERO on the date that an aircraft type upgrades to another aircraft. Compare the two situations: I lose 18000 HI (or 500 engines and 500 airframes) when I kept producing for too long. For every aircraft in the pool when an upgrade to the aircraft is available, I wasted 36 HI (18 of it most likely "banked" - see Second principal).

You can ignore this principal in two cases: the aircraft being produced is a Terminal Upgrade, or when the SLOC's to the SRA are cut (or the home islands are under bombing threat). In the case of a terminal upgrade, the aircraft will never be replaced. You do need to make sure the pool numbers are not insanely high compared to the Total Build Out (TBO), but for most types this should not be a problem. In the case of SLOC's and bombing of the home islands, you need to turn stuff into planes while you have the ability to do it.

Spend a little more on production capability, and less on the aircraft themselves. If you overbuild your production and halt it when the pools get too high, you can build planes out as you need them, then rapidly build out when the home islands or the flow of supply from the SRA are threatened.

Second Principal of Aircraft production:

Engines in the pool are money in the bank, keep em there unless you need them to replace losses "just in time", or to produce a terminal upgrade.
A Nakajima is a Nakajima is a Nakajima. If you use one in an aircraft that gets scrapped, you have wasted 18 HI. I would much rather Halt production on a Nate and have the extra engines for later Franks, A6M5's, etc. Build your pools of engines early in the war while your industry is safe. Halt engine production when the islands are under threat and use your pools to produce the latest aircraft models.

Third Principal of Aircraft production:

Get bang for your buck when you do research. Make sure the Total Build Out of the aircraft type is large enough to merit the resources you put into it and make sure the aircraft type is not a Self Starter.

Researching aircraft is expensive in terms of factory usage and the returns are somewhat underwhelming. Choosing wisely is important. What makes a wise choice? The first thing to consider is the upgrade's Total Build Out. Choosing an aircraft that only has a few airgroups totalling only a hundred aircraft (like the Myrt) is simply stupid when compared to researching the A6M5/A6M8/A7M2 series (approx. 1900 TBO). An early war research priority should probably be the Oscar, since it has the next largest TBO at roughly 1200 a/c.

One thing to be wary of when it comes to research is "Self Starters". Self Starters are aircraft that are never an upgrade path for another aircraft. Let's say you manage to get the Frances to production status 4 months ahead of time. Great, where are the airgroups you can put them into? Does researching an aircraft move the arrival date of reinforcements for that aircraft up?

Fifth Principal of Aircraft production:

Better planes = fewer dead pilots.
The problem in this game is not really limited Japanese production of aircraft, but rather training of pilots. Towards that end, putting your pilots in better planes asap is a priority. A better plane is no guarentee of keeping a pilot alive, but producing and upgrading aircraft should be done as fast as you can. This argues (again) for a large factory capacity that is Halted when pool sizes and upgrades are sufficient.

Sixth Principal of Aircraft production:

Big is not better.
Large plants are risky for two reasons:
1. Limited HI, etc. can shut down a large plant more easily than a small one.
2. Small plants are easier to repair and harder to damage than large plants.

Therefore, increasing production capacity should be accomplished by focusing on fewer aircraft and procuding each at multiple plants.

Glossary
Self Starter - an aircraft that is not an upgrade of another aircraft. The Total Build Out of a Self Starter is the total of the OOB plus replacements. An example of a Self Starter is the P1Y Frances - nothing upgrades to it.

Terminal Upgrade (TU) - an aircraft type that does not upgrade to anything else. The A7M2 Reppu is a Terminal upgrade - it doesn't get any better than that.

Total Build Out (TBO) - the total number of aircraft in the OOB for the aircraft type, including air groups upgraded to the aircraft. For example, in Scenario 15, the Ki-43 IIa enters the game from replacement airgroups totaling 468 aircraft. However, most of the the Ki-27 aigroups upgrade to the Ki-43 IIa. Airgroups totalling 504 Ki-27 start the game in play and reinforcement airgroups add another 252 a/c for a Ki-27 TBO of 756 a/c. The TBO for a Ki-43IIa is 1224 a/c (468 + 756).

Interesting comparisons here: http://www.matrixgames.com/default.asp? ... om/forums/


Xargun


Convert A5M4 Claude -> A6M2 Zero (Nagasaki has 6)
Convert G3M Nell -> G4M1 Betty (Gumma has 20)

Convert Nissan engines to Nakajima
Convert Aichi engines to Nakajima
Expand Nakajima engines

Leave the rest alone for the next 6 months of the game

Out of the 9 engines designs you only need 5 different ones and then only a couple in large amounts. You need Aichi, Nissan, Hitachi, Mitsubishi and Nakajima... With Nakajima the top and Mitsubishi the second. I believe Aichi is only one aircraft design (D4Y Judy) but you definately want that one - better DB for your CVs. Kawasaki has 1 type as well (Ki-46-III KAI Dinah fighter. HItachi has several types - mostly recon and transport planes. I forget what the Nissan engine is for, but I think only 1 design as well.

In my current PBEM game, I am currently producing all 5 engines in varying amounts. I think I have only a single factory for the small three and large factories of Mitsu and Nakajimas.

The A6M3 is crappy, but you need them to fill incoming fighter squadrons. Upgrade to Zekes as fast as you can once you get them... Right now I have over 100 A6M2s in production and unfortunately only have like 10 in my pool - just reloaded all my CVs and airgroups and upgraded all CV Claudes to Zeros. So now I just have to produce enough to cover my losses. BTW, dont expect to convert aircraft overnight on CVs - so far its been like 3 days and only 9 Zeros have been repaired while the other 9 are sitting around broken. Sloooooow..

Xargun

I agree. I like smaller factories (size 50 or so) compared to 80+. Its just better that way, as you must have HI in the pool equal to the entire factory size before it will even consider producing ANY engines and the larger factories may not make any in the later years when HI grow short. I think I have AIchi expanded to 50 (I want lots of DBs for my CVs) and the others are in the 20-30 range. I have one huge Nakajima factory (150+) and the rest are smaller. As 42 closes I will probably convert at least one or two of the Mitsu (80 size) factories over to Nakajimas as the need for Mitsu decrease a lot in late 42 and onward (when compared to Nakajima need).

I believe HI points accumulate into a pool and are spent from that pool in a certain order. The trick with engines is that if you have a 30 Kawasaki Engine factory you need 30 HI points available before it will even THINK about making engines... Then, you will only produce 1-2 engines out of the factory per day. So if you have 30 HI left - the factory will run, but it will only produce 1 engine as the each cost 18. The extra 12 HI would carry over to next turn.

Basically the factory will not produce ANY engines if you do not have HI points equal to the size of the factory left in your pool - which is why those large Mitsubishi factories are not that great - you'd be better off having 2 or 3 smaller ones than 1 large one.

Xargun

These questions were confirmed via Betas and the design team in another thread. HI consumes 1 oil and 1 resource ONLY - BUT it needs 2 oil at the location per HI point for it to run - kinda like a reserve. If you have 500 HI, it checks to see if you have 500 resource and 1000 oil at the location - if you do - it will run and consume 500 of each and produce 500 HI (also produce 500 supply and 750 fuel). If you do not have the 500 resource & 1000 oil no HI will run at the location.

HI production is ALL OR NOTHING - same as Aircraft Engines... If it doesn't make the checks it won't run any of the industry.

Xargun

[viking42]

I'm in march '43 now and readed everything about poduction and i'm still completely lost,
I shuted down all nate's production, changed engine production as said.
I still have a few questions:

- 0(20), in prodution, what means the "0"?
- r&d: have somebody figured out which research to cancel?
- How much does it cost in time to repair when a production is changed (aprox?)

pretty much all for the time

[AmiralLaurent]

- 0(20), in prodution, what means the "0"?

0(20) should actually be (0)20 (parathensis first)

(0)20 means 20 factories producing, none disabled
(20)0 means 20 disabled, none producing

- r&d: have somebody figured out which research to cancel?

Depends on what you want but the farther the planes are scheduled to arrive, the les likely research is likely to advance. It's almost useless to research 1945 planes on 1941.
As said here, it is also probably useless to research planes that are not upgrades.

- How much does it cost in time to repair when a production is changed (aprox?)

If there is enough supplies (1000 per factory ?) in the hex, a factory point is repaired each day

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Great post - thanks for your effort!

Interesting ideas to think about in this whole thread...


Leo "Apollo11"

[viking42]

well in fact, i was more looking to hints or a list of research to cancel/speed up, i believe somebody is already compiling it... (in my dreams)
Like speeding up oscars and slower some loosy version of the zero?


fromton ki pue rulez

[FirstPappy]

ORIGINAL: Drongo

ORIGINAL: BlackVoid
But what I hear is really disappointing. What is the point in managing research and production if you CANNOT change what planes your squadrons use??? [:(]

So long as you plan your R&D around the upgrade paths and reinforcement schedule then you can still get benefits.

So what you are saying is that the developers have given us the capability to manage production somewhat but since certain things are hard-coded our task is to manage the uncoded part to match the coded part. Sounds more like a test. Once we all have the "crib" sheet then what's the point?

[pry]

Interesting thread,

A few comments, historically engine production was the bottle neck in Japanese aircraft production.

I expand my engine production starting on turn 1 while I have both the TIME and SUPPLIES to do it and not wait until I am forced to expand due to airframe production later in the war when my Time and supplies have diminished to the point where it becomes a hardship.

Engines do not rot in the pool, and you can ramp up early to what you will be needing in 1945 and have a plentiful surplus in the pool.

If you leave historical airframe production intact then this is where you need to be by 1945 for engine production, to supply the 2021 airframes you will be producing a month.

Mitsubishi 900 engines a month
Nakajima 1300 engines a month
Hitachi 100 engines a month
Kawasaki 100 engines a month
Aichi 135 engines a month

If you change airframe production then you need to figure your long term engine needs, if you up production of Betties then you must also up Mitsubishi engines by a factor of 2 engines to compensate.

[Cap Mandrake]

Holy postgraduate thesis! How could mere mortals hope to compete?

It seems to me, the consumption side of the equation is the unpredictable component. What is needed is a tally of consumption of various aircraft types as players move forward in time....ie..

Strategy: Aggressive attack in New Guinea and Burma..time June 43


Bettys: 240
Zeros 312
Vals: 180
etc etc


If 10 players did this, patterns might emerge, allowing advance planning for needs.

[Caltone]

Well if we ever get it to where everyone does "x" on day 1, "y" on Jan 1 '42, and "z" on Dec '43 [:D][:D][:D]

Seems that might take the "game" out of it. There's always going to be choices and different ways to approach things. For example, I plan on using up all of my Claudes in one game I'm playing and in another I've upgraded them rather quickly.

Great post Oznoyng!

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: viking42

well in fact, i was more looking to hints or a list of research to cancel/speed up, i believe somebody is already compiling it... (in my dreams)
Like speeding up oscars and slower some loosy version of the zero?


fromton ki pue rulez

I am, I just haven't gotten there yet. First, I thought about what rules should govern my choices. You saw that as the principals. Next, I worked on how engine production should be handled. You have seen the first pass at that. I plan to look at what to accelerate, etc. and the impact of that on engine production next. I will almost certainly expand some engine production after I do more analysis of the airraft upgrades and make decisions on research and production of aircraft.

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Caltone

Well if we ever get it to where everyone does "x" on day 1, "y" on Jan 1 '42, and "z" on Dec '43 [:D][:D][:D]

Seems that might take the "game" out of it. There's always going to be choices and different ways to approach things. For example, I plan on using up all of my Claudes in one game I'm playing and in another I've upgraded them rather quickly.

Great post Oznoyng!

Good point [:)] Of course, as soon as there is a consensus strategy, somebody will find a crack in the armor.