Should Tokyo Replace Osaka?

[el cid again]

In one respect, Japan is like Russia: there is a single city that is its political and economic heart: Tokyo. In game terms this is even more true than in the real world: the Tokyo hex ALSO includes the gigantic port and industrial center of Yokohama; as well the Tokyo hex ALSO includes the biggest of all Japanese naval bases and one of the biggest two naval yards: Yokosuka.

It is not at all clear why Osaka was chosen as the heart for the convoy system, special ship conversions, and other economic functions? Granted Osaka is a major port and industrial center. Granted also it includes Kobe (important enough the hex is renamed Osaka/Kobe in RHS). But it is not particularly more important than Hiroshima/Kure and it is clearly less important than Tokyo (/Yokohama/Yokosuka). It may have been nominated due to its central location.

Should we change this? Should the place the convoy systems route to and from be Tokyo instead? Should the place you convert AKs to other ships be Tokyo (Yokosuka) instead of a place this would not happen? Should the biggest economic stockpiles (under code control) be Tokyo instead of Osaka?

It is pretty likely this is an option. The functions of Osaka are probably hard coded and would apply to whatever hex we associate with the slot.

[Mifune]

I agree that Tokyo does make more sense. Have you tried any tests yet for possible "side effects"?

[el cid again]

I agree that Tokyo does make more sense. Have you tried any tests yet for possible "side effects"?

Nope. I am proposing we try it. I think it will work. But RHS is the "risky" scenario - willing to take chances - and rarely I have to take it back: Soviet subs (actually done for CHS but implemented first in RHS) don't work - or worse - work TOO WELL - they sail EVEN if Russia is NOT active! And attack. I got one down in the South Pacific! I had to 9999 them out in scenarios with Russians passive - and Russian Active scenarios CANNOT have the Allies played by AI. [Joe says the AI cannot do the Allies anyway - in ANY form - stock, CHS, RHS - matters not. It is too dumb. I agree - if you don't want to abandon everything in the Philippines without a fight - except Bataan - you cannot let AI be in charge. I have not succeeded in changing this either. The AI is determined to be dumb!]

[Herrbear]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

... Should we change this? Should the place the convoy systems route to and from be Tokyo instead? Should the place you convert AKs to other ships be Tokyo (Yokosuka) instead of a place this would not happen? Should the biggest economic stockpiles (under code control) be Tokyo instead of Osaka?

It is pretty likely this is an option. The functions of Osaka are probably hard coded and would apply to whatever hex we associate with the slot.

If it works, I am all in favor also.

[Mifune]

I am up for a try, I am sure others are as well. I have enjoyed the evolution of RHS so far. Would this be a seperate scenario, or are you going to implement with the existing ones?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
[Joe says the AI cannot do the Allies anyway - in ANY form - stock, CHS, RHS - matters not. It is too dumb.

I agree that the AI is not great. Far from it. But it is not entirely non-functional. In the first AI vs AI game that I ran to 1946 on my map, the Allies eventually invaded Japan itself and controlled a portion of it by game's end.

And yes I also noticed what you did about AI controlled Soviet subs - they sail off and attack Japanese ships even when neutral. So we do have to have a separate "Allied AI" scenario with these subs deactivated or removed, unfortunately.

Andrew

[rockmedic109]

Do they {Russian subs} move and attack if the allied side is player run and Russians inactive?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

Do they {Russian subs} move and attack if the allied side is player run and Russians inactive?

Hopefully not. I have yet to test that though (maybe El Cid has?). It might depend on the game settings...

[JeffroK]

Are their torpedos better than the US torps??
 
The only negative I can think of using Tokyo is the Port might get cramped, plus the Repair pts at Osaka  get to service Transports and the RP's at Tokyo can be used for Combat vessels.
 
(Pretty font!!)

[el cid again]

One of the nice things about CHS is that we can have our cake and eat it too. 

We have choices: 
 
1) We can implement the reversal of Tokyo and Osaka in all RHS scenarios;
 
2) We can leave things as they are in RHSCVO (and its clone RHSRAO) - to preserve their "almost like Scenario 15" flavor
 
AND make the reversal in RHSBBO (and its clone RHSRPO) - to preserve their "this may be better history than history" flavor.
 
3) We can leave things as they are in all versions of RHS. 
 
My first impulse is that this is such a good idea we should just do it.
But I decided to post first to see if anyone thinks it is likely to be a problem - or not good simulation?  Brainstorming consists of
a) thinking of an idea
AND
b) criticism of that idea

[el cid again]

The problem with Russian subs seems to be that, to code, they are NOT Russian.
 
Apparently:  since there are NO Russian subs in stock, programmers thought it was no problem assuming ALL allied subs were NOT Russian.  So they act as if they are USN.  Period. Does not matter if the Russians are active or not.  What matters is "are the Russians run by AI or not?"  IF the Russians ARE active, AND IF YOU run the subs, they do what you want - even stay in port and be passive!  IF the AI is boss of the Russians  - "Russian" subs are defacto USN subs!

[el cid again]

Russian torpedos are the worst in the war.  Not having slots for them, I used the worst available torpedo. 

Russian subs are aggressive - but not effective! 

[el cid again]

Osaka is NOT a major port for ship work.  Only Hitachi has a significant shipyard in the hex, and it is used mainly for Army contract ships.  It is probably better to have the shipyards of Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka and Uraga Dock (all in the Tokyo Hex) do most of this work. 

[pad152]

Russian subs - one way to handle them would be to set a date where you think the Russians should be active and have them arrive on or after that date. So of the Russians don't become active until 1945, don't allow subs to arrive until 1945.

[mogami]

Hi, A few of the reasons Osaka is the main supply port in WITP.
There are 33 cities contained in the hex called Osaka.
Osaka contained the largest munitions plant in Japan
Osaka contained more railyard and moved more rail cargo then cities contained in tokyo hex.
Tokyo was important because western concenrs had always been restricted to that area but only the fact that Edo is contained in hex made it important politcally to Japanese (more cargo was moved in ports not located in Tokyo hex then was moved there even though Yokohama is number 2 port in Japan. 
Osaka is larger then any of the cities grouped together to form Tokyo
we didn't want to place all Japans eggs into 1 basket that could be hit by bombs. (Osaka hex was bombed more then any other target in Japan excluding the Tokyo hex) The Tokyo hex already contains all those cities combined into easy to target facilities.

More Japanese Ship Lines were registered out of Osaka then registered out of cities that comprise Tokyo

[Mifune]

Thanks Mogami for shedding some light. I had a suspicion on a couple of the reasons, but had no idea of the magnitude of importance placed in the Osaka hex.

[el cid again]

The problem with setting a date for Russian subs in 1945 is they do not have any deterring effect on Japan's decision to attack Russia - which it is ALWAYS free to do - and they have zero value in any Russian attack on Japan - if for any reason that decision is taken before 1945.  We long wanted and advocated early Russian entry into the Pacific War - only changing our minds about the time they did it!  What if they listened to us?  Anyway, the point of doing the work on a Russian Navy was not for a few days of 1945 - slots are too valuable to waste on that.  It was because NOT having the ships (and subs) is ahistoric, and means Russia operates at still another (ahistoric) disadvantage.  I don't think non-students of the Russian situation understand how LITTLE of the real force they have in stock - and until now - in CHS (which is making heroic efforts to fix it).

[el cid again]

Most of the things Mogami says about Osaka (which should be read to mean the vast 2800 sq mile area including Osaka) are quite true.  This hex contains two major maufacturing centers as well as several smaller ones.  However, it was not the center of gravity for the IJA (Hiroshima was) nor the IJN (Kure and Yokosuka were), nor the center of shipbulding (where one might logically expect to convert the ships we can convert:  the big navy yards are at Kure and Yokosuka and Nagasaki, with a smaller one at Maizuru;  nor are the big Merchant yards there:  the biggest of these is in Yokohama = Tokyo).  But Osaka might be called the center of CIVIL shipping - and it is true many ships were registered there. [Like the USA, Japan had three different agencies controlling shipping - Army, Navy and Civil].  Given the WITP focus on the military economy, one might have expected either Hiroshima/Kure or Tokyo/Yokahama to have been chosen as the focal point - the former if dispersal was desired. [Note Hiroshima WAS a target of an atomic bomb - there must be something there.  It was the IJA primary shipping port.]
 
It is also historically incorrect to say that foreigners were confined to Edo/Tokyo:  they were in fact long confined to Nagasaki - the only important enclave of Christians in Japan (who ironically were bombed with an atom bomb - along with thousands of US soldiers working there).  There were - and remain - places foreigners are not allowed to go - you will have a very hard time up in Muroran (a military manufacturing center) and almost as hard a time in what was called Fukuoka then - but not in Osaka - then or now. 

[mogami]

Hi, Hiroshima and Nagasakai had A-bombs dropped on them because they had not been bombed conventionaly. It was deemed important to have undamaged targets to detirmine effect of the A-bombs. If these cities had been more important then Osaka then why in the more then 6 months of B-29 raids had they never been selected as targets while Osaka was bombed 6 times by massive strikes?  (Osaka and tokyo were both rejected as targets for A-bombs because large portions of these cities had existing bomb damage)
 
Note that the combined facilties in a hex often represent what would require multiple target selection to attack.  Tokyo is not just one city that can be tagrted in reality. Osaka and Hiroshima as well (most hexes in Home Islands contain a multitude of cities that would require each to be selected as targets with only a portion of facilities exposed to each attack. In WITP the Allied player can target the entire industry.  This is an operational level game however so when you see "300xB-29 bomb resource in Tokyo" it is meant to represent 300xB-29 attacking the seperate targets in the hex.
 
(The industry is a collective and the bombing strikes are a collective)
 
I don't think it makes a lot of differance where you select to place Japanese conversions. The supply is placed where oil/resource/HI convert and Tokyo wilol produce more supply compared to Osaka.
But Osaka has advantages that provide smoother operation of program. It has direct rail connections to many cities and it is nearer to ports on in-land sea for the special coastal movement of oil/resource/supply

[el cid again]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Hiroshima and Nagasakai had A-bombs dropped on them because they had not been bombed conventionaly. It was deemed important to have undamaged targets to detirmine effect of the A-bombs. If these cities had been more important then Osaka then why in the more then 6 months of B-29 raids had they never been selected as targets while Osaka was bombed 6 times by massive strikes?  (Osaka and tokyo were both rejected as targets for A-bombs because large portions of these cities had existing bomb damage)

There is lots of documentation - and debate! - about the choice of atom bomb targets. It appears the preferred target - once Truk was rejected after the fleet was decomissioned - was Kyoto! This was strongly objected to by the former Ambassador Grew - the reigning expert on Japan. Also - as I recall - Nagasaki was NOT the intended target - but the alternate - accidently bumped up for some technical reason I forget. I do not wish to debate the choice of targets: I only was saying Hiroshima must have been significant to be a deliberate atom bomb target - and indeed it was: it was in fact the PRIMARY port for IJA - something you seem to be ignoring in your reply.