Subchaser
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Joined: 11/15/2002
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Charles_22
subchaser: Oh, okay, that was the '44 average. In terms of WITP, 600 Tonies a month could not be produced, unless you had 600 of the corresponding engines (or, you might say, what's a frame without an engine?), so obviously any player who literally does that, has boosted the kawasaki engine output to make it possible. Historic IJ didn't produce 600 Tonies a month, and it's almost as unlikely it was producing that many kawasaki engines, but then the supreme player emporer can change a lot of things to hopefully make a better match for the allies than the historic IJ did.
Actually, I think that july '45 figure for IJ is dramatically wrong. According to one source I have, and I have seen much higher, IJ had 10,700 planes ready for Operation Olympic, half of which were kamikaze. All of them may not had qualified as 'front-line' aircraft, especially since half of them were one shot kamikazes, but even the conventional air available exceeded the july figure alone. For Olympic, the USA was considered to have 9,000 planes. OTOH, Operation Olympic wasn't scheduled until 11/1/45, so maybe the figures I have seen was an estimate of IJ production of aircraft keeping apace until then. Notice also how the july USA figure fell from over 21,000 to 9,000. IJ could bring a great deal of front line aircraft to the battle, whereas the USA could not. The source does not go into any IJ planes elsewhere, as it focuses only on that proposed invasion.
It’s hard to find two sources on this subject providing the same data. It’s clear though that 10000+ figures are total number of all IJA/IJN aircraft, the info I’ve provided before covers only true combat aircraft. The following is lifted from Clayton’s “Japan 1945” ULTRA decrypted messages in may ‘45 indicated that the Japanese had a large inventory of 3335 combat and 3530 training aircraft, albeit obsolete, they could be used for kamikaze attacks. Allied photographic intelligence supported the ULTRA-derived claims. Nimitz’s intelligence staff estimated that 10290 aircraft were available on 13 august for Japanese homeland defense.
And this is from Richard Frank's "Downfall” “U.S. military intelligence initially estimated the number of Japanese aircraft to be around 2,500. An Army estimate in May was 3,391 planes; in June, 4,862; in August, 5,911. A Navy estimate, abandoning any distinction between training and combat aircraft, in July was 8,750; in August, 10,290.”
It’s obvious that by august US intelligence thought about entire Japanese aircraft park as a combat capable force, since it was unclear how many and what kind of aircraft will be used conventionally and as kamikaze. Nevertheless I would not go so far as to claim that Ki-17 trainer biplane was a first-line combat aircraft only because it was capable to take off with 60kg bomb and crash into something 20 minutes later, as a combat unit it simply did not exist. As for 9000 allied figure, this is probably the number of aircraft ready to take part in Olympic, carrier-borne USN, RN, Marines and long-range USAAF planes, the larger part of allied air power was simply out of the range. Japan had 3500-4000 true combat aircraft and something like 4000-4500 “other units”, total number of a/c available at home bases could be well over 10000, no doubt. But how many of these could have been really used against US invasion?
As an indication of the deteriorating quality of workmanship and materials, particularly in engine and power plant accessories, it was stated that at the beginning of the war the Japanese Navy was able to maintain operational availability of 80 percent. The percentage progressively became 50 (1944) and in some cases 20 (1945). These losses were due to a combination of poor factory workmanship, inferior materials and poor maintenance. By 1945 in many cases only one out of three airplanes ever reached the front lines due to engine failure…
…at the Kawasaki’s Akashi factory, 857 engines were received from the Army for overhauling over the period November 1944 - April 1945, 457 were found to have failed because of defective material, largely bearings and crankshaft. An index of the failure of landing gears is the increase from 40 percent ordered for spares in 1942-43 to 70 percent ordered in late 1944-45. A Japanese pilot's diary indicated that of 80 Ki-84 (Franks) which set out from Japan for Lingayen Bay in November 1944, only 14 arrived. The others developed trouble with engines, fuel system, landing gears, etc. The ATIG reported: “at the beginning of the war engine tests covered seven hours running time for the Army and nine hours for the Navy. By the end of the war only one out of ten engines was being tested and time had been reduced to two hours. Alcohol, low-grade gasoline with methanol and water injection systems were used for test runs. The combination of poor engines and poor fuel caused difficulty and losses.”
Because of the sheer shortages of magnesium and t.f.s alloys essential for engine production Japanese were simply unable to produce quality aircraft engines in 45, at least not in required numbers. US subs defeated Japanese a/c industry long before B-29s came. Japanese engines produced in late 44-45 had extremely short operational life of around 100-180 hours before a major overhaul was required. If it was a fighter aircraft (that was often operating at full throttle and at high G) then engine is almost always was beyond the repair (pine fuel, ersatz oil, poor manufacturing and maintaining). 200 hours of overhaul life means that aircraft remains operational only for 3-4 months before it grounded for weeks. With a/c industry, supply system and air force itself all in deep coma, I doubt that Japanese, facing Olympic, were capable to get more than 500 a/c airborne on any given day.
As a devoted Japanese fanboy, I’m already happy that there is only one “Japanese player” in the game, actually there must be two different players, IJN and IJA, both setting up different goals, unwilling to cooperate and even trying to steal resources from each other. In witp world you’re already in a better position, you can enforce standardization of your industries, so you can produce more combat-ready a/c and maintain that force, you have only one supreme HQ and only one strategic goal, if you’re planning an operation you don’t have to wait months to get approval from various committees, ministries and genro people, you don’t have to advocate ASW and convoy system for 2 years, you’re armed with a deadly weapon - hindsight. Japanese player is really not in position to complain, game perfectly balanced for me )))
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RE: Kates BY SHATTERED SWORD - 
my own horn....back oh 3 years or so ago... 
but it was nothing to it. I didn't bother to make calculations for nr of HI points when they fell i just switched off some Merchant shipyards. I only keept track of number of engines avaliable.
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