Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

I vote yes.

 

I feel silly now, not realizing it would be in tons of material used and not pieces assembled. While I do not wish to ask you to do more work than you are already doing, It would be interesting to see what we are currently producing in war materials, and how many. We decided a while back to standardize as much equipment and weapons as we can. I would be interested in seeing how much of an initial hit we take in output caused by retooling factories currently manufacturing products we have no intention to keep producing.

 

Not silly at all. I produced the spread sheet, but didn't fully explain what all the numbers meant. I was mainly using it to show the overall resource/oil needs, our stockpiles and overall manufacturing. I included things in the spreadsheet I did not reference in my explanation because we were not discussing that particular aspect at the time. The spreadsheet is global in that changing something in one area effects all other areas and the spreadsheet reflects how a change on our part changes requirements in all other areas. I intend to use this spreadsheet to update the council on overall changes to our economy. I also have spreadsheets for each individual sub area within the overview. I can provide these at any time, but currently they are reflecting the production levels set by our predecessors. Once we get final approval on ICR-002, I believe it is the Prime Minister's intention to address the pilot training levels. Once we get that done we will next address the aircraft production rates, which will impact engine production rates.
You are correct about my expressed desire to standardize and streamline our production in order to maximize our output. One change I would like to put forward at the appropriate time is designing our aircraft so that we can field a version with either the Nakajima or Mitsubishi engine of the appropriate HP rating. This would allow us more flexibility in our aircraft production. If we have a desperate need for more fighters we can field say an A6M2-M Mod21 (Mitsubishi engined) and an A6M2-N Mod21 (Nakajima engined). I would not intermix the two types within a squadron, but because of their similar performance and flight characteristics they could easily operate together from different squadrons. This would allow us to accommodate production problems, damage to production facilities or developmental delays with a particular engine model. If we engineer the airframe from the beginning to take either engine with minor modifications, i.e. different motor mounts, cowling's, etc. we should be good to go.

 

Alternately, why not standardize engine production? I see the value in having production distributed to different sites, but rather than having Nakajima and Mitsubishi both produce a 950 hp engine of similar weight and displacement why not simply select the better engine and have both companies produce it? (One under license.) Both companies will still have an incentive to develop engines, as the winner of the bid gets the lions share of the profit, but both companies get work thus we retain production flexibility. (For this reason it would probably be good to spread our "winning" bids between companies somewhat, in cases where the quality is fairly close.) There's no particular reason we couldn't spread airframe production like that as well, though we have not done so before to my knowledge.

 

yes

 

I believe that to increase pilot training we first need to expand the capacity first, mainly facilities and pilot trainers.

 

Haven't been a part of this thread, So hope you don't mind if I contribute a little otherwise just disregard it =).

I would agree with producing a single engine type, While allowing both companies to design there own engines and produce the better of the 2. In such a way as well when new engines are in the process of being brought into production you tend to get a drop in numbers produced due to various reasons, By having multiple production facilities you are able to switch them over a period of time, Allowing the current engine to stay in production while the new one build's up it's production numbers and available spare parts for when they are deployed.

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, But what about a central office that compares and possibly combines different designs? As some designs may have good and bad features that could be mixed with the competing design.. Just a thought.

Increased pilot training would be a must, (Historically it's what hurt the Luftwaffe and IJNAS/Japanese Air force the most). I agree with steverodgers801 to increase the facilities and pilot trainers, Also to rotate all recruits through China for final training, While this wouldn't give them aerial combat experience it would provide limited real life experience in ground support operations.

 

We have a reached a majority vote on ICR-002.

Col. Bobimoto: Support
Prime Minister: Support

Feild Marshal Nishio: Yes
General Terauchi: Yes
Admiral Karonada: Yes
Admiral Michizana: Yes
Admiral Noka: Yes
GB 375FA: Yes

Admiral Rikanaga: Abstain
Admiral Takao: Abstain
General Kourei: Abstain

ICR-002 is passed by the Imperial Council

Prime Minister Belasar Tekisasu

 

All are welcome here, and everyone is welcome to express their thoughts and opinions. If you would intend to participate heavily I would encourage you to contact Belasar, who is serving as Prime Minister, by PM. Choose an area you are most interested in, or have particularly in depth knowledge of and have him appoint you to the council in that area. It can be an area we have not addressed, or an area we are heavily staffed in. It does not matter. Choose a Japanese name and he will assign an appropriate rank and position and you will have a vote on the council.
Whichever way you choose, welcome to the thread.

 

Col. Bobimoto,

As our next order of business is the Pilot Training program, it would be a good time to present your report on this. We need to know how many pilots per month we are currently training, how many aircraft we have dedicated to the training program, how many new airframes we are currently producing for the program and how many instructor's currently assigned.

I would also like your reccomendation for the expansion of pilot Training. It would be helpfull to know how many new aircraft, instructor's and other items we need to keep our current standards in place, and how much time it will take to collect these.

As always, any additional data you feel is relevant, please include.

Prime Minister, Belasar Tekisasu

 

one suggestion is that we start the physical expansion first and then once we have finished the initial operations we start rotating pilots back to the training facilities for a temporary duty to help train pilots who have completed their basic training.

 

Administrative reply: I feel it necessary to address your post out of character because you raise some interesting points and I feel it necessary to give some historical background, some of it in areas we would not be aware of, and how the game system simulates real world aspects of aircraft production. We have not addressed this area, officially, as of yet, but I am sure it will be one of our next subjects. Everything you stated Admiral Noka makes perfect sense, and I agree with your logic. Unfortunately, some of the decisions we need to make in this area appear to be counter-intuitive. I'll now take the time to explain the complexities so that you and the other council members are fully appraised of the factors that need to be considered.
The main two primary engine makers in Japan in WWII were Mitsubishi and Nakajima, just as in the US the two major radial aircraft engine developers and producers were Pratt & Whitney and Wright. In the game engine, aircraft production requires two separate manufacturing areas, airframes and engines. Airframes and engines are not generic. Specific aircraft require a specific engine or engines of a specific type and model. You must also develop newer more advanced airframes and newer and more advanced engines. This requires that you designate certain factories to this task and you lose their production capacity until the airframe/engine you are developing comes online or you abandon the project. You must balance your research and development into these areas with your actual production of the necessary component parts. Example: You're building 30 A6M2-Type 0 Model 21 airframes per month, but only producing 24 Nakajima HA-35-12 engines, you will be stockpiling 6 airframes per month due to lack of engines, but only fielding 24 aircraft. The A6M series of aircraft were designed and produced by Mitsubishi. The original A6M1 was powered by a Mitsubishi Zuisei 13, 780 hp engine. They mounted the more powerful Nakajima Sakae 12 (HA-35), 940 hp engine on the A6M2 and the combination proved to be a world beater early in the war. So there is precedence for substituting one manufacturer's engine for that of another in order to field an aircraft. While both engine series were radial engines, their design was different. The Mitsubishi Zuisei was based upon the earlier Mitsubishi Kinsei which was based upon the Pratt and Whitney R-1689 Hornet. The Nakajima Sakae series engines were based upon the Gnome-Rhone 14K engine. IMO, we need to follow both development lines because we do not know, going forward, which basic design can be developed to it's fullest potential and which type will top out and no further improved performance can be pulled from it.
There is a baseline R&D development cost, for both airframes and engines, built into the game that parallels the historical expenditures. You can turn off development for an engine or engines, or an airframe type or types and save that industrial capacity. If nothing is changed, and engine models and airframe types will appear at their historical dates. If you choose to increase resource allocation (factories, materials and heavy industrial capacity) to development of advanced types you will have the item become available at an earlier than historical date. There is no hard and fast way to predict how much earlier or even if you will have a particular type available, due to unforeseen production/development delays. This actually occurred with the D4Y Judy and the B6N Tenzan, Jill. The D4Y was originally designed for the Aichi Atsuta, liquid cooled V12 engine, a copy of the Daimler-Benz DB601. The engine was never reliable, was more prone to mechanical breakdowns, was less robust and required more maintenance than contemporary Japanese radial engines. The aircraft was finally fielded with a Mitsubishi Kinsei 62. With the B6N there was an available engine of the proper size, the 1850 hp Mitsubishi Kasei 25, but the aircraft was held up for a very long time waiting on the Nakajima Mamori 11/12 engine which had issues that were never fully resolved. The Kasei 25 was eventually fitted and the aircraft entered service.
This is the first issue I was seeking to avoid when I suggested all airframes be engineered from the beginning to take either manufacturers engine. The airframes quite often have reached a level of development where they are ready to be produced prior to the engines becoming available. If we plan for this before hand and the necessary changes are pre-engineered, there will be little of no delay in fielding the aircraft.
The mention of license building one engine in the other manufacturers facility, does not account for a number of real life factors that are modeled in the game. For example, the Kinsei engine went through at least twelve modifications and increased the horsepower from 910 to 1560. Many of the models were differentiated simply by the addition of a supercharger or a two stage supercharger or water-methanol injection. Minor improvements that required few changes to the actual production line so virtually no decrease in production. This is modeled in the game and if you are moving from one engine to another within the same development tree you can convert with no loss of production. If you change from one type to another, example a Sakae to a Zuisei, the factory involved suffers damage that must be repaired before production resumes. This is used to simulate the real world factor that the lines must be reconfigured, some machinery removed, new machinery installed, jigs changed, additional building structure built, etc., so there is a loss of production. The same is true of the airframe, if you are moving from an A6M2 to an A6M3 the changes are minimal and the resultant loss of production minimal. The differences in mounting one engine or another likewise would not hurt production as the differences in most cases are minor, repositioned engine mounts, slightly different cowling, re-routed carburetor ducting. Things that could be changed with no delays to the overall production line. If you're swapping over from a Zero to a Frank, disruption of production is greater, if swapping from a Zero to a Betty even greater.
There are many different factories, of different sizes, located in different locations, possessing different capacities. You can improve a particular factory to increase it's production capacity, but doing so damages it, to simulate the demolition/construction activities required in real life. The factory will not resume production until the damage is repaired.

The next factor we need to be aware of is that we are not restricted to the historical development tree that Japan's aircraft actually followed. The game has a very powerful editor that can be used to change parameters. For instance one of the Zero's weaknesses was that it's armament consisted 2 x 7.7mm (.303) machine guns and 2 x 20mm Type 99 cannon. The cannon were effective but had a relatively slow rate of fire and limited ammunition. The 7.7mm machine guns were relatively ineffective against heavily armored, rugged US aircraft. The Japanese already had a version of the .50 cal browning, why not mount four of these in addition to the 20mm cannon and delete the 7.7mm guns? It would result in additional weight and take some wing/skin strengthening. When the Sakae 21, 1150hp engine enters production we could mount it with the improvements I mentioned and actually have a slight performance increase, slightly better rate of climb, slightly higher top speed, greater dive speeds due to the strengthened wing, but lose about 120 miles off our maximum range due to the additional airframe weight and slightly larger engine displacement, from about 1900 miles down to 1780.

So gentlemen, while we discuss our pilot training program, also ponder our aircraft production program. We need to ponder possibilities the historical leaders did not pursue, we need to look at manufacturing efficiencies, but we will be restrained by real world factors that are well simulated by the game.

 

Gentlemen of the Imperial Council,
Prime Minister Belasar has asked that I address the pilot training component of our military. I feel that after the issue of oil and fuel to power our industry and military, which we have addressed, this is the most crucial area for our consideration. Our predecessors within the government were planning on a first strike against the United States that would hurt them seriously enough, militarily, that they would be unable to respond to our seizure of the Southern Resources Area. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto estimated this period in which the United States would be unable to mount a serious response at 6 months or so. Many of the previous leaders believed that during this period we could make our defenses sufficiently strong that we could force the United States into a negotiated settlement. Based upon my knowledge of the American people and their history, I think these assumptions to be incorrect. During two separate postings as a military attaché to the United States, I have learned a great deal about the American culture and its people. It is my assessment that if we attack the United States, it will be a war to the finish, with no chance of a negotiated settlement, unless we can stretch the war out long enough and make their military campaign against us costly enough that their population tires of the war. If war is instigated by the United States I would estimate that the population would tire of the war in 2 to 3 years, if we instigate war that time line would move out to 3 to 4 years. In either case unlike our predecessors we should plan for a long war, not a short war.

Situation: At present we have the third most powerful navy in the world, behind the United States and Great Britain. These two nations due to the war in Europe are, and will be forced to split their forces between the Atlantic and the Pacific, in the case of England they also need to provide naval forces in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. We also enjoy a qualitative advantage in that our ship's crews and pilots are highly trained and extremely proficient. The United States has an enormous shipbuilding program in progress. Starting in early 1943 they will be commissioning sufficient ships to have numerical superiority in any area they choose to contest. They also have a highly developed electronics industry so we can expect that they will continue to gain superiority in those areas involving electronics such as radar, computation devices for naval and anti-air gunfire, sonar, etc. We cannot, due to our industrial base, match them in the area of shipbuilding nor in electronics development and production.

We have an excellent Army. Highly trained, much of it combat experienced, very dedicated soldiers. In informal talks with General Nishio, I have addressed changes in organization, training and doctrine that we think will even further improve our capabilities there. Based upon his duty as an observer to the Wehrmacht and participation in the Battle of France and the invasion of the Soviet Union, it is General Nishio's military opinion that Germany will eventually be defeated in the Soviet Union. This will probably occur in late 1943 or 1944. While current events make it appear that Germany will soon conquer the Russians, they have weaknesses that the general believes will lead to their eventual failure. Their logistical support is weak, they have so alienated the local populace due to atrocities that partisan attacks against their increasingly long logistic lines require a large commitment of forces to protecting those lines. This commitment of forces to guard their LOS/LOC makes unavailable considerable manpower that could better be used in their forward combat operations. There are other issues with the unit structure, and doctrine of their non-armored units that he feels are weaknesses that the allies will eventually be able to exploit. We need to pay heed to his observations because our situation is similar. Initially, many of the native people greeted the Germans as liberators until the Germans oppressive occupation and atrocities against the populace destroyed this goodwill. We will be facing similar situations when we invade Malaya, Borneo, the Celebes and Java. We have already driven a wedge between ourselves and the people of China and Korea, a split that will take considerable effort to heal. Fortunately, our opponents in China have been equally brutal and we can probably reverse this problem. Until such a time as Germany has been defeated there is little chance that we will have to face a threat from the Soviets. We feel that during this period we can sufficiently improve our armored forces to deal with an eventual Soviet incursion.
View attachment 16934
This leaves airpower. Initially, if we go to war with the United States they will only be able to mount military operations against us in two areas, submarine warfare against our naval and merchant shipping assets or carrier based airstrikes. Airpower is our most effective counter against either of these options. Currently we have 2202 IJ Army pilots and 1700 IJ Naval aviators, for a trained pilot pool of 3902 aviators. We have 185 IJ Army and 150 IJ Navy pilot trainees entering the pilot training program each month and graduate approximately that same number each month. The graduate numbers vary due to candidates washing out, being injured or killed in training accidents or graduating at a slightly earlier or later due to their individual talents. For our purposes we will use the combined number of 335 graduating each month. The United States has 12975 aviators assigned to the West Coast of the US or the Pacific Theater. Britain, Australia, New Zealand, China, India and Canada account for another 3907 Allied pilots. Britain has their number stretched from the west coast of Africa to Malaya and the Southern Resource Area. The later group, excepting the United States has been at war for sometime and are close to full mobilization and it is not expected that they can significantly increase their numbers in theater, due to commitments in Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa. The United States on the other hand can be expected to greatly increase their pilot training program once they begin to fully mobilize due to a declaration of war against Germany or ourselves. At present we can match only 23.11% of the number of Allied pilots we might potentially face. Appendix A shows the numbers for each of our potential adversaries, the number of newly trained pilots that can or likely will be deployed to our theater of operations. The totals including the new pilots that can be fielded by month and the percentage of our pilots compared to their deployed numbers for the next eight months. It should be noted that we can maintain parity with all other nations, excluding the US with the current training levels. It should also be noted that if we do not avoid war with the US and all other factors remain unchanged we can field less than a third of the number of pilots the US can field alone.

 

View attachment 16935
Once the US declares war and begins full mobilization the situation becomes even worse. We have good intelligence on the United States war mobilization plans. We also know from intercepts and captured documents that the United States and Britain intend to prosecute a Europe first strategy, whereby the bulk of their military assets will be deployed against Germany and Italy first, before turning their attention to the Pacific. Due to the nature of the theater we can expect the vast majority of all new US Navy pilots and virtually all US Marine Corps pilots to be deployed against us. The US Army Air Corps will probably deploy up to 40% of their strength to oppose us. The attached table displays these numbers based upon a US mobilization starting in January 1942.

 

Excellent made as always, Col. Bobimoto! This shows clearly where we are and where our way should lead us. I´ll set the pilot training on number two at our list. Number two for the reason that our number one should be a as soon as possible reconciliation with the Chinese and Korean natives which will give us a huge number of troops that we will need to defend us from the Western Allies. This troops shouldn´t stay any longer with the task to guard our supply routes and areas at China and Korea.

 

Co. Bobimoto,

Thank you for your report. I gather from it that our attrition rate for new pilot trainee's is low and that would indicate that current training program is well balanced in reguard to training aircraft, instructors and ground support. If elect to increase our pilot training by say 25% how will this be reflected in the attrition rate? Or 50%, or 75%, or 100%? How long will it take to create the infrastructure needed to ensure that twice the number of recruits recieve the same level of training as our current crop?

 

Sorry to have gone mia so long but yes. Always support the esteemed members of council. Hoping Admiral Takao has weighed in also.

 

Thank You Admiral Rikanaga, I understand how pressing your other duties can be. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions reguarding the expansion of pilot training?

 

Among all of our pressing concerns this should be a high priority along with the stabilization of the Chinese hinterlands and SRA occupation. Colonel (General) Bobimoto's eloquent post is a careful and effective treatise with which I wholeheartedly concur. I am sure all of the esteemed Admirals will devote their highest energy levels to training effective combat pilots for the home defense, ASW, support of China and land based operations among other military priorities. A daunting task at best, but one which we will confront with our usual professionalism and determination. This ability to harass and interdict the enemy over long distances may determine the outcome of the struggle in the final analysis.

 

One question, is there a need to have the Sally and Lilly heavy bomber. Except for India I see no real need for these bombers, so what about dropping production, maybe keep a few squadrons and some production. We can then devote the resources to other planes.