Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

You are correct, it was a huge handicap. I hope we will alleviate this on the lower, area command levels, I assume we will still have some of it on the Council level because each service will be fighting over very limited resources. Either way it's a what if. Japan also had a lot of advantages early on in the war, if they had been more efficient in managing their resources and had changed their operational strategy somewhat, who knows? We will see.

 

I can detect a bit of difference of opinion already, which is good for this exercise. Some of which would not be my first choice as a strategy, but that too will be good as my task is to help everyone reach a concensus view rather than my own singular opinion. This tracks well with my understanding of actual Japanese military strategy in the desire to come up with a course of action acceptable to the Emperor for his approval. In actuality though often each branch was left to pursue its own agenda reguardless of the effect to the other service and the Empire as a whole. It will be interesting to see if we can stay on point together or if one or more interested party is able to push events in a particular direction not held by the others.

 

That is what it makes interesting, to see how everybody reacts when the game goes on.

 

Whatever differences we have, I expect we will be unhistorically cooperative compared with the Japanese army and navy!

I have to make yet another correction, to my comment on the twin 40mm/2pdr. navweaps describes it as manually operated, which leaves me wondering why it was almost four times the weight of the single. Must have been quite a "handful", so to speak, which may be why I don't recall seeing it actually listed on ships.

 

Likewise and well said. View attachment 15789

Ichigaya Military Academy on the grounds of the Ministry of Defense of the Empire.

Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/ijn.htm

View attachment 15790 HIJMS Taiho

 

The single mounts were air-cooled, the multiple mounts were water- cooled. Twin and Quad mounts were power driven, from "Mount/Turret Data" in the "Notes on USA-built Weapons and Mountings"; Note 2) for the twins

and for the Quads see Note 3)

Finally, don't forget that the Twins were usually fitted with gunshields, whereas the single mounts did not.

Also, if you looks in the photos section, you will see that there was a lot more to the Twin mount than there was to the single mount.

 

OK guys, I'm working on finalizing a few things to kick this off. Here's a list of things I could use help on.

1)-We still need an overall moderator, (this person doesn't have to be an actual forum moderator or trustee but needs to have a firm historical knowledge base, or be willing to research the question). They won't have to be heavily involved, just at certain points. They will need to make judgement calls, based firmly on the actual historical situation, as to the feasability/probability that certain things will occur.
Example: In the exercise Japan negotiates a seperate peace treaty with Australia's diplomat. Would Britain be able to veto it or would the Australian Government approve it? Or Japan invades Dutch Territories but avoids attacks on US and British assets. Will the US and/or Britain intervene?
2)-We need a Chief of Staff for the Imperial Japanese Army. This individual would be responsible for proposing and implementing strategy in areas involving the IJA. They would be responsible for representing Army interests on the Supreme Council. They would be responsible for authorizing/rejecting land based weapons systems, TOE changes, allocation of Army resources and Army controlled Air assets, etc.

The preceeding two slots are critical for the exercise to progress.

3)-Industrial/Logistics Minister. This is a "would be nice to have" position. It is not critical but would make the exercise more interesting.

I have a couple of additional members who are interested in participating. They will fill any position necessary but, the above positions are not their primary area of interest and I want it to be fun for the participants and not a chore. Please talk to your friends on the forum, that might not know about the exercise and see if you can recruit someone for these positions.

Thank you.

 

A couple of requests for the Honorable Belasar-san to consider for his loyal subordinates.

Increased number of Ammunition Ships to support capital ships in areas were port availability/size may be a concern.
Increased ASW capabilities. Both in munitions/delivery systems and ships to perform them.
Increased number of SNLF Forces (would prefer not to borrow army units).

That’s it for the moment.

 

The single mounts were air-cooled, the multiple mounts were water- cooled. Twin and Quad mounts were power driven, from "Mount/Turret Data" in the "Notes on USA-built Weapons and Mountings"; Note 2) for the twins
.....

Finally, don't forget that the Twins were usually fitted with gunshields, whereas the single mounts did not.

Perhaps I was unclear, I was referring to the Japanese 40mm/Vickers 2pdr, correcting an erroneous speculation from my earlier post.

which may be why I don't recall seeing it actually listed on ships

is hardly a comment one would make about the US weapons! On-mount gunshields were used on quad 40mm on larger ships that could take the weight; quads on DDs, DEs, etc. were unshielded. I don't recall seeing shields on twin 40mm in the USN.

 

I strongly support proposal number two, and generally support proposals 1 and 3.

What becomes of weapon systems removed from current ships to be replaced by more effective systems? Are they 'lost' or can some of the AA mounts be transfered to out merchant shipping to offer limited protection from air-surface attacks from the enemy? Can they be deployed to isolated garrisons to offer firepower?

 

My biggest troubles are the tanks. There is no tank in the IJA that can compare with the tanks of the US Army and to look more into the future, with the USSR. So i recommend purchasing the German PzKfw III as a main battle tank. I don´t believe that it is cheaper to set up on a japanese platform with more horsepower, better armor and a bigger and better main gun. Any opinions?

 

I certainly agree that removed weapon system should be "cascaded" down to units which can benefit from them, if the game allows. Much of the transition, though, will take the form of simply not producing the less desirable items. I wonder if we need to formally "turn off" production of things like multiple 25mm mounts?

I had a similar thought with regard to ships' machinery. I would recommend for example ceasing construction of the battleships Shinano and #111 (as was done historically, they were about 50% and 30% complete) which should in itself free up resources, but I wonder if we can reuse their engineering plants? These had four sets of turbines and twelve boilers which generated 150,000hp for a speed of 27.5 knots.

My main concern is aircraft carriers, current American plans include no fewer than eleven Essex class which will start joining the fleet in 1943. We have just started developing the Unryu design which calls for a heavy cruiser type four-shaft plant of 152,000hp and a speed of 34 knots. This may be our best option for large-scale production, but engines could be a bottleneck; historically two ships had to use destroyer type plants, 104,000hp, which reduced speed to 32 knots.

Could the Shinano plant be adopted? It might need different reduction gears or propellors, both fairly "high-tech" items. Unryu also had eight boilers, but ships within a class often have different boiler arrangements. Plants of similar horsepower ought to take comparable interior volume, unless one uses significantly higher steam pressure than its contemporaries.

Another option, if it is difficult to adapt the Shinano engines for significantly higher speeds, might be to use a two-shaft plant. 75,000hp in an Unryu or similar hull should get 28-30 knots, not ideal but comparable to carriers like Kaga or Zuiho. There was an example in WWI; there were under construction in Germany four sets of turbines for a 26-knot battle cruiser (Navarin) for Russia. These were employed in two minelaying light cruisers (Brummer and Bremse) which made 28 knots.

We have surprisingly few further options for deferring construction. The largest ships planned but not yet laid down are the cruisers Sakawa and Ibuki (another 152,000hp plant, later started conversion to a carrier). With war looming, we recently formulated a fairly good construction plan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Naval_Armaments_Supplement_Programme_(Japan,_1941)

which among other things starts construction of the Etorofu type escort vessels, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of "fat".

 

Another two Superdreadnoughts we don't need. as I recall it took forever to turn Shinano into a CV, could this be done faster then historicly? Is it possible to convert fast liners to Light Carriers?

 

I see someone's been playing the game Yes, sir. Tankers and munitions ships in an anchorage near the front keep your ships in action and are a force multiplier. We need a robust capability in these ship types. When not needed they are also valuable for transporting cargo (munitions and fuel) to ports.

Mike Batzel wrote:

Carronade wrote:

I agree with the "needing to increase ASW capability" coming out of the gate. There are ways to do this, or I think there are. I can edit in ship types that were not historically available. We can decide on a configuration and create it. Some ideas: The US 110' sub-chasers were wooden hulled. Why can't we produce a similar type for ASW patrolling around our ports? It would conserve steel, they could be produced rapidly and they would, combined with land based ASW aircraft, provide a decent ASW capability.
The US also produced a 173', steel hulled version. Does anyone know the longest wooden hulled vessel produced? If there is an example, to prove it feasible, we could produce a larger version and save more steel. These, wood or steel, would be a handy escort for coastal shipping, which we could do more of, to reserve the larger types of merchant vessels for transport between major ports. The US Treasury class CG Cutters were a very successful class, with an ASW success ratio about 6 times that of a US DE. Could we not build a similar type? Japan used pre-fabrication starting in the Uruku class of 955 ton displacement, 255' long escort vessels, and could produce one in 4 months. They accomplished this despite the deteriorating war situation. Early war, we could probably even further reduce the production time. They were dual-purpose ASW/AA escorts.
I think you two, in particular, will really like the intellectual exercise of what could have been done, but constrained only by the real world limitations on resources and production capacity.


Carronade wrote:

I'm really not sure. I think it does, but if not, I will manually track weapons removed, take a probably 10% loss (due to being damaged or worn out) and using the editor return them to the weapons pool, by type, once or twice a month (game time) for re-installation. I'll take the original cost in steel, for the lost weapons, and return it to the steel resource pool to simulate scrapping of the metal and recycling.

I am not as familiar with the production side as I need to be, because it isn't used in most of the smaller scenarios, production in these being based upon historical weapons production, aircraft and ship availability. I've played them a lot. The full campaign scenarios, I've only attempted a couple of times.

 

I don't want to shortchange us but is 10% too low. Is 15 or even 20 more realistic?

 

Is it worth our while to convert Chitose/Chiyoda/Nisshin from Seaplane carriers into Light CV's at our earliest oppertunity? Say one at a time from the start? Mizuho is slow (22 knots) but would she not do well as a light ASW carrier and as an emergency light carrier?

 

Of course, but the learning curve has been slow. I'll probablly be asking you a few questions in the next few days, but for now it's been a simple matter of screw up badly, then retry. I'd like to start getting an idea of what will be under my command ship-wise. If you don't mind, I would like to list all the ships and classes of the IJN to give to Belasar-san so he can decide which commands need what resources.

 

Belasar-sama, we seem to be on the same wavelength, I've been pondering the same about Chitose and Chiyoda. Supposedly they were designed under the naval treaties to be capable of conversion to real carriers. By the time they were completed and commissioned, we had withdrawn from the treaty, so I wonder why our predecessors did not just go ahead and complete them as carriers, but that appears to be water over the dam in our current situation.

I suppose the question is how useful these ships were in their original role, operating floatplanes - reconnaissance, attack, or fighter. That is of some value, sort of a low-budget air control, but it doesn't require a fast ship; in fact they might well operate at anchor in a bay or atoll as we planned in the Midway operation (Kure or Midway). I'm not aware of any maor contribution by seaplane carriers - anyone? - or any that could not be done just as well by a simpler conversion like Kamoi (though preferably a cargo ship rather than a fleet oiler).

The IJN did convert five 21-22 knot liners into CVEs (including an ex-German ship called Scharnhorst). I would like to see a few more of these, though I would respectfully suggest that a ship like Mizuho which already provides some aviation capacity be left as is. The difference between 22 and 28 knots is more profound for carriers than other types, especially in a navy like ours which does not use flight deck catapults. As a weaker power (so sorry) we need to get "bang for the yen", so I suggest that auxiliary carriers could do double duty as convoy escorts while providing advanced training for new pilots.

We seem to have agreement on additional aircraft carriers, which means we need to ramp up both pilot/aircrew training and aircraft production. Even now our light carriers are forced to operate obsolescent aircraft like A5Ms and B4Ys (biplanes which were still on Hosho at the time of Midway). We need to make provision both for additional carriers and combat attrition.

There were wooden minesweepers/escort ships up to about 180' such as the US MSF/PCE which also highlight the ability of a single hull to perform both missions. Trawlers can also be useful and can be built by small commercial shipyards. I'd caution against going too small though, the American SCs were minimally useful in either war.

I think the IJN escorts were fairly good, except perhaps overgunned; a kaibokan has little need for more than one 3" or bigger gun. They usually used 4.7s which we presumably have in storage from WWI-era destroyers, but again one per ship enough. They don't need major AA armament either - or if they do we're in real trouble! - might be good candidates for a twin/triple 25mm as we upgrade front-line ships to 40mm.

Bobimoto-san, I think that by "recycling" weapons, Belasar-sama (and I) meant resusing them on merchant ships, land bases, etc. - in fact the one WWII type I can think of that used the old 40mm/2pdrs was subchasers. Actually melting down weapons should be reserved for the totally obsolete.

 

Shinano was suspended in Dec 1941, and little if anything was done until it was decided to convert her to a carrier after Midway, so she might be completed six months earlier if we make that decision immediately. My thought was to use the labor and materials for "real" carriers; what does the group think?

 

That would make it Summer 1943? Which ever is the most effective in cost and time in my opinion.