Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

Even if the float fighter cannt kill the plane the threat can help eliminate prying eyes. I am not saying dont supply the Germans with info, but I dont see any short term results so we shouldnt send anything that can be of value to us.

 

OK Gentlemen, I've spoken with our Honorable Prime Minister and gotten his approval, and I'm going to hijack the thread for a little while. As I stated earlier, I've been in research hell lately, now I'm ready to put some of that information to good use. In character terms we're on October 4th, 1941. The attempted coup took place 02 October and we first met in council 03 October. I'd like to kick off the actual game in about one month, 03 October 2012. I will try and run a turn each day and post the results when important events take place. When we start I do not want too have to go back and reboot/restart the game because of some issue I did not forsee, or because a mod I made doesn't work the way I thought it would. So I've gotten permission to discuss our mods in this thread and I'll actually run a test version of the game to work out the kinks. I feel that this will be more beneficial than doing it by private e-mail because everyone has access to all information and can give their input. Secondarily, our alter egos had years of experience in their jobs and players of the game have experience in using the game interface and game engine, we need to get our players here up to speed. So for the present I'm going to be telling you what I've done or am doing and I'm looking for your input into what you'd like included/changed. I don't want to totally derail our council deliberations so in order to help me, and Belasar and others multi-task I'll ask that you follow a new, temporary procedure. If posting about the game test/modification post in black and use your real or screen name. If posting as your alter ego and in your capacity as a council member, use your in game name, in game persona and post in blue. It will help at a glance determine how to reply appropriately. I've already gotten with Symphonic Poet/David and he's on board. Ulrich replied to me yesterday and he's willing to do what's necessary, all council members or just interested observers are welcome to give their input (Lwd comes to mind, a really valuable resource that is not officially a council member).

So let's get started. I'm going to use some excerpts from a private e-mail I sent to Symphonic Poet/David to get everyone started. Many of the files/spreadsheets I've created are too large to use as attachments here, if you would like copies of any spreadsheet send me an e-mail address by PM and which spreadsheets you desire and I'll send them to you. Your address will not be disclosed to anyone else.

Step 1) Download and read the linked Japan Economy PDF. It gives a good understanding of how the economic game mechanics work. I have made changes to the game data to make certain aspects of the economy harder to run and more reflective of the historical situation. (i.e. aluminum for aircraft construction is not shown as a separate resource but I have added the sources of aluminum as resource centers with historical production rates and if we do not move those resources I will limit or shut down aircraft production; manganese for aircraft engine superchargers, same thing, if we don't move the material, I will curtail production of supercharged engines, etc.) The underlying economic game engine however is unchanged. Once you understand what we need to do, I'll have you set up a shipping program to address the problem.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17642556/Draft.pdf

Symphonic Poet/David has been assigned this task (setting up the shipping program). He's in charge. Anyone wishing to give input address their concerns to him, but do so here in open forum, so the process is transparent.

Step 2) Download and save the linked planning map. Once you've downloaded it, right click and save to your computer. You can then open it with most image programs and zoom it in until the data you need is legible. Port sizes are shown in the upper left above the location name. Size ten is the maximum port size allowed, nine is the largest size a port can be expanded to within the game. Sizes are shown as port size potential/port size developed. You can develop a port up to three levels above it's potential. Your initial task will be to set up shipping to get resources and fuel to our industrial centers, mainly HI. Don't worry about supply initially. Once we get that up and running we can worry about supply. First priority should be supporting our efforts in mainland China. I think, based upon Ulrich's planned organizational setup we need to have Tientsin 5/5, Tsingtao 4/5 and Shanghai 7/7 as our initial hub ports. I will also assign you LCU's (Land Combat Units) such as Naval Construction Battalions to improve port facilities. The aforementioned ports could be expanded to 5/8, 4/7 and 7/9 if we assign construction units and provide supplies to do so. We also need to form a command chain, you need to give it a name such as Naval Transport Command or whatever you desire and decide where you'd like it headquartered. Then decide upon subordinate commands and where you'd like them assigned initially, they can be moved later.
http://www.urban-netz.com/AE/PlanningMapA_PortAFBasename_Scen1.png

Step 3) I need to know what program you use for your spreadsheets. I can export files from AE Tracker as .csv files. I open and save them in Excel. I use 2010 but save my files as Excel 97-2003 workbooks. Tracker provides daily updates on all important information and I can filter and save the files to send to you. I also have several spreadsheets I have generated that list information we will need. I'd like you to update them with the information you've generated and we can share them amongst the participants. For instance I have the Tracker spreadsheet showing all merchant ships, building merchant ships and future builds. This is based upon the historical shipbuilding program 07Dec 41 on. I have created a spreadsheet of my own, based upon the one used in the Economic PDF above, showing merchant ship classes, numbers, tonnage, fuel economy, building shipping and proposed builds. (The latter two areas are combined). In my opinion we should stop all future planned builds and build more Yusen S types. They have a very good carrying capacity vs displacement and are our most fuel efficient type. This could make a huge difference in fuel usage/availability over the course of the war. I can edit in additional individual ships of this type if you agree and we can build them based upon a building plan you devise and we get the council to approve. We can always restart construction on the historical ships if need be. I also think we should create an AKA, APA and AKE variant of these ships. I'd like to know your opinion on this. We're currently building or planning to build 64 hulls. At the bottom there is a proposed building plan that would more than double our shipping capacity with just 50 hulls. We can get more into this later once we've taken care of the immediate shipping problem.

I'll keep a running list of the latest versions of each spreadsheet, incorporating the latest changes David or others have made/requested. They will be e-mailed to any member upon request so you can view/manipulate them.

Let's get started.
Bob Price

 

Spreadsheet #1. Send to David 02 Sept 2012.

MerchantShip Cargo v0902

 

From David/Symphonic Poet (excerpt)

"I need to look over the Yusen S again. Available slip length would, in the real world, limit what we can build and I think the spreadsheet I built is a close approximation of what was there, though obviously not exact."

You are correct David, slip length would be an important consideration in our modified game. The standard game uses shipyard points, generated by shipyards (merchant, naval, repair). The size of the shipyards very closely approximates the actual historical production tonnage rates and that is what the shipyard points represent. This is not an issue in the standard game because historical ships appear at preset shipyards where they actually appreared. You can spend your points to accelerate production of certain types or suspend production. Now we are going to add different ships, build more of one class than was historically built, build modified types and all new types. In order for us to do this and reasonably replicate the real world factors, we will need to take dock/slip size into consideration. I created a spreadsheet that lists all shipyards portrayed in the game, their historical capacities and production levels. You sent me a spreadsheet sometime back that you created named, "Yard_Prod". I used your figures to verify my information and to fill in gaps in the information I had. Thank you, it was of great help. The problem I see here though is that my research and the named spreadsheet I mentioned of yours, is primarily in the aggregate building way length, for example the Mitsubishi Yards in Kobe Japan had a building way length of 2434 ft. This was not the length of a single slipway but the total of all docks/ways. Where this presents an issue is if we wanted to build a ship of 800 ft length and had a shipyard with an aggregate building way length of 1000 ft, but it consisted of three individual ways, 2 of 300 ft length and a third of 400 ft. Well, in reality we could not build an 800 ft ship. IIRC, you had been doing research into the actual sizes of individual ways/slips/docks at the various shipyards. Do you have that information? If so we could incorporate it into a spreadsheet and from the time a ship is laid down until it is launced the facility is unavailable for other builds. This brings us to another real world consideration. Ships are laid down, launched and then fitted out and completed. By using a spreadsheet we can also simulate freeing a building way before the ship becomes available. Let's use the Yugumo class DD, Makinami as an example. It was laid down on 11 April '41 and launched 27 Dec '41 and completed 08 Aug '42. We plug the ship into the correct, building way slot on the spreadsheet on 11 April '41 and begin expending shipbuilding points in the appropriate yard. The slip is unavailable for other construction until we launch the ship. On 27 Dec '41 we launch the ship and have the slip available for a follow on build. We set the available date for the ship in the game editor for 08 August '42, so we will continue to use shipyard capacity and have to expend shipyard points from 27 Dec until 08 August. This will adequately simulate the fitting out and completion phase of ship construction.
Your thoughts on this subject, as well as those of other members would be appreciated.

"Let me dig through this a bit and get back to you. What's the deadline?
Sincerely,
Noka Shijin"

No deadline. I'd rather spend the time to get it right the first time.

Thanks,
Bob

 

In case it hasn't been mentioned there's some info in this thread:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Shipyards of the Major Powers
on Japanese shipyards.
As for wooden ships theres
Axis History Forum • View topic - Wooden ships(boats?) transportation in South China Sea
which points to:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Wooden merchantmen during WWII
This one had some pictures of at least one Japanese yard but they seem to be broken now
Axis History Forum • View topic - Chinese Navy flagship: Ning Hai class light cruisers

This one might prove interesting but not sure how relevant to the topic at hand:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/kojinshavolume6.pdf

 

Thank you for the links LWD. I will try and read them this weekend. You are always a source of valuable information.

 

Spreadsheet #2, MerchantShip Tankers v0904, is now available. It lists all Japanese tanker and AO classes, plus pertinent associated data. Also listed are types that can potentially be converted. I went back through and double checked the included info Tuesday night.

Available Spreadsheets

#1, MerchantShip Cargo v0902
#2, MerchantShip Tankers v0904

 

After I made the post it occured to me that post or pre bomber mission photographs might enable you to get a lot of the ship yard data (i.e at least a good estimate of slip lengths). A quick search didn't turn up much useful. Using the actual name of the yard in the search string might be the ticket.

I initiated a thread over on the IJN board on this topic. Some of the posters over there have very extensive photo collections as well as other knowledge (including a few that live in Japan). Here's the link.
http://www.j-aircraft.org/smf/index.php?topic=12913.0
no replies yet but I just posted it.

 

Yesterday I went through the game data and insured all historical Chinese land units were adjusted to reflect the earlier start date. Any unit appearing after 12/41 was not adjusted. New spreadsheet available listing all Nationalist and ChiCom units present at start, and the one unit forming that will become available in mid December. #3.) ChineseLCUStart v0907

Available Spreadsheets

#1, MerchantShip Cargo v0902
#2, MerchantShip Tankers v0904
#3, ChineseLCUStart v0907

 

Since we are in a time out, thought I'd point this out.

Good news! Only 39,000 more views and we crack the 15 most viewed threads on WW2F!

Bad news! We should have given this thread a more sexy title, only 15 members have viewed it, most of which are on the council.

Darrell

 

Well the thread kinda took on a life of it's own. As for the number of viewers, I'd say I definately got quality, so I'm not as concerned with quantity.
You're probably right about the name. In your position as a great and powerful trustee do you have the powers to change it? If so make it "Live nude girls" and we'll probably get 40K views in 24 hours.

 

One of several ship conversion ideas I had. This is still a work in progress. I have all the research and data to support the changes. Just working on the graphic representation. I'm not very proficient in paint, but this may give you an idea of what I'm thinking.

 

14 x 3.9" guns in twin turrets-18 x 40mm bofors in 9 twin mounts-Type 94 gun director-4 funnels trunked into two Akizuki type funnels. Additional superstructure behind bridge to support additional spaces for extra communications/electronics/radar equipment and a CIC for coordinating air defense with other escorting vessels or to act as a destroyer floatilla leader.

 

Dear Col. Bobimoto!

Would you please hand me a copy of this spreadsheed to the Chinese Land Uints? It would be fine to know the enemy.

Thank you in advance!

Sincerely,

Field Marshal Nishio

 

Spreadsheet sent Ulrich. Check your personal E-mail. Let me know if there are any questions.

 

Just checked the thread linked above and Eugen Penak has posted what looks to be a very exhaustive lists of docks and slips along with their lengths.

 

I would go for something a lot less radical using the lighter mount used in Oyodo, the sort of conversion you propose is likely to cost as much a a brand new ship. Simplyreplacing A, B, Y and Z mounts with twin 3.9" and removing the remaining guns and catapult for 8 40mm twin mounts would give us an excellent leader with good AA capability at a limited cost. On the downside she could barely face a large DD like a Porter or Tribal and a small light cruiser like a Tromp or Arethusa would outmatch her in a long range daylight action.

 

Unfortunatly later post indicate some errors in the data. Probably should be taken as a ballpark figure. Photo's may help clear up things. One photo/drawing is posted.

 

I was going to use the 3.9 mount from the Azikuki. It was my understanding that the 3.9 inch mounts used on the Oyodo were also the Azikuki type.
You are correct the 3.9" (21325yds) is outranged by both the 6"/50 BL Mk XXII (25480yds) of the Arethusa or the 5.9"/50 Bofors Mk 11 (28400yds) of the Tromp. I don't see this as a deal killer though because the US has the Atlanta class CL's with the 5"/38 which our gun actually outranges (17325yds). We need stronger AA protection for our carriers. We can upgrade their AA suite, but that will have to be down the road, after our initial offensive phase. We can afford to pull 2-4 of these light cruisers for upgrades and have them back with the fleet before we have to face an American carrier fleet. If we build one from the ground up we have a couple year wait.