Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Well, I crunch the numbers on plane production like this.
Scen 1
End game 9/45 onwards: Allies get ~1000/month top line fighters from production (P51,P47,F4U,Spit,Yak9). They get another 500/month in 2nd line fighters (older p51/p47/p38 types). Double that to account for all the new groups that come in fully stocked. At best, I have to plan for 1.5:1 loss rate. So, 3000 fighters/month losses. Minimum. Assuming I have not let the allies build pools, or that I have built pools to match.

IJ top end fighters are a mix of: Ki84/94, Shinden, A7M, Ki83, Ki201. Assuming 85/15 split between the 1E/2E that means 3450 (let's round it to 3500) 1E equivalents or ~130,000 HI/month. Also means that I had to expend 6M supply to have built the factories.

These are the numbers that haunt all of my early and mid-game plans. Given that the amount of supply and HI that IJ will have between 12/7/41 and 9/1/45 is finite and calculable, if your strategy is to outlast historical IJ efforts and push the game to 46, then the player has to temper their expenditures in the early/mid game (which historically IJ did). Arriving at 6/44 (my target date for keeping DEI whole at a minimum, I need to have 6M supply in the bank just for AC factory builds (less whatever I have already spent on final factories which will be some) and at least 2M HI in the bank with full ARM/VEH pools (minus whatever final engine pools) to be able to build out my AC plan.

That's it in a nutshell.

This is why I have long believed and espoused the Major Solli methods of economic expansion: slowly, carefully, and only the minimum needed. It is so hard not to build 1000/month Ki44 in the mid game and just dominate easily. But if you do, then you are going to have to fight endgame Stangs with Tojos … I prefer Shindens for that, but that's just me.

I mean the whole thing... The whole thing. Mind boggling, how in the H$ll do I do that.

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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enough for 337 Helen bombers and transports.

I've produced few Army bombers to date, feeling I wanted more of the Helen-IIb. I've only got them a month or two. Only produced a few IIa's. So now I'm moving to catch up mode on them.

Don't know how many you've in the field, but 300+ may bit a bit short, given that the transport model will more likely be your only Army transport. From my experience transports are difficult to get to high experience levels and subsequently take fairly high op losses, WRT to other plane types. So it might be better to have a few more than you think to be safe. Just a thought.

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

I re-activated the Tojo after the Tony was performing poorly, particularly against bombers. Not what I expected given the relative strengths of the airframes, but the Tojo is just a better CAP plane even if the Tony is slightly better overall. Even in late 1944. You basically have to choose between the two and they're both mediocre.

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

What about the SR ratings? Don't I need some SR1 planes to help out. If not how do I keep all those high SR rated planes in the fight? I mean I have a few ideas, but no experience as yet. One of the reasons I'm continuing my current AI game.

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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IJ top end fighters are a mix of: Ki84/94, Shinden, A7M, Ki83, Ki201. Assuming 85/15 split between the 1E/2E that means 3450 (let's round it to 3500) 1E equivalents or ~130,000 HI/month.

OK, I should be good here, with the exception of the Ki-201. Not going for it. That should leave the Ki-83 as the only twin engine plane.

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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and at least 2M HI in the bank

It'll be tough, but I should make it. Got about 900k in Feb. '43 and rising well.

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Also means that I had to expend 6M supply to have built the factories.

If you're including the R&D investment, I'm well on my way. I have about 3.5M in the bank right now, and rising slowly. That should change soon as I, at least, am dealing with my early '43 aircraft increases. At least for me I've gotten a bunch of 'new' aircraft to play with. Production went from 10-12/day to about 20-23/day with the new 'toys'.

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It is so hard not to build 1000/month Ki44 in the mid game and just dominate easily.

Not even close. I just started getting the 'c' a couple of months ago and am building 'up' to five/day right now. The 'a' production was a mere three/day. Now in a PBEM its probable I'd need some more if the tempo demanded it, but I try to only produce the bare minimum to 'get by'.

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with full ARM/VEH pools

Not sure how much is enough here. I'm approaching 200k in the ARM pool, but I've shut off a few. Producing ~400/day now, although that might be a mistake. VEH pool is ~38k with full production expanded over time to 250/day. All three divisions and most regiments have the Type-1 tank at the moment. A few in China and Manchukuo still have lesser models.

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I prefer Shindens for that

I've had five R&D sites working from day one. All will likely go straight to production. Of course they still have a long way to complete their research. Is that enough?

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ORIGINAL: rustysi

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but my outlook is that they should be gone in favor of the Frank by 7/43

7/43???? Oh, I hope I haven't screwed up here, I won't have the Frank that early. I've got one factory to 30 and another close. The oddball (55 IIRC) is repairing well, but it'll be some time before its finished. The other three R&D I have working I brought in a while later, and they've a way to go. I have the engine bonus to move things along, but... I'm thinking I'll get it the end of '43 beginning '44. Was looking for the George to carry me to that point. I know it may put a bit of a strain on my IJN fighter pilots, but to date I've kept them out of the fight as much as possible. I think I've only one front-line right now in the Solomon's. I've got the Army doing most of the job.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
As Whatley says in The Martian, just do the math. You should see the spreadsheets that materialized when I read that post.

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
As Whatley says in The Martian, just do the math. You should see the spreadsheets that materialized when I read that post.

You ever get out to the valley of the sun and we can swap spreadsheets.

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Ok, looking at end game engine factories and it ain't pretty. There are 20 factories total. With some 3500 high end fighter engines and maybe 2000 more for any Kamikaze planes you choose to build, that doesn't leave much for anything else. Say 6k engines total, that's an average of 300 per factory. My engine production total right now (op and R&D) is 2430, less than half. And a lot of them aren't needed for end game planes. Yikes!

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
As Whatley says in The Martian, just do the math. You should see the spreadsheets that materialized when I read that post.

You ever get out to the valley of the sun and we can swap spreadsheets.

Retirement in 2 years. A couple trips out west are in the pre-planning phase.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

So, producing 6k 1E plane equivalents costs 216k HI a month. Let's say we do that for a year. That's 2.6 million HI needed. Granted, some of that will be produced during that time, but we still need a chunk in the pool. I have 1.9 million in the pool right now so I'm on my way there. But I'm only stashing some 2-2.5k a day. Let's lowball that and say 2k (but it'll be going up soon). By the end of 44, I'll have about 2.8 million. And that's just planes...

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

So, producing 6k 1E plane equivalents costs 216k HI a month. Let's say we do that for a year. That's 2.6 million HI needed. Granted, some of that will be produced during that time, but we still need a chunk in the pool. I have 1.9 million in the pool right now so I'm on my way there. But I'm only stashing some 2-2.5k a day. Let's lowball that and say 2k (but it'll be going up soon). By the end of 44, I'll have about 2.8 million. And that's just planes...

Yep. See my earlier quick calcs above, the HI is there, but you can't squander it in the early/mid game. Many players do.
In saving your 2K/day, you have ARM/VEH running flat out which means those pools are building for the end game. That's what you want. Just plan to keep those going full bore and your your current HI plan will make it (I think, mainly because I use the same one … learned it from you )

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

So, producing 6k 1E plane equivalents costs 216k HI a month. Let's say we do that for a year. That's 2.6 million HI needed. Granted, some of that will be produced during that time, but we still need a chunk in the pool. I have 1.9 million in the pool right now so I'm on my way there. But I'm only stashing some 2-2.5k a day. Let's lowball that and say 2k (but it'll be going up soon). By the end of 44, I'll have about 2.8 million. And that's just planes...

Yep. See my earlier quick calcs above, the HI is there, but you can't squander it in the early/mid game. Many players do.
In saving your 2K/day, you have ARM/VEH running flat out which means those pools are building for the end game. That's what you want. Just plan to keep those going full bore and your your current HI plan will make it (I think, mainly because I use the same one … learned it from you )

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Ok, looking again, I have 2400 engine factories, but only 1320 are for late war fighters/Kamikazes. I need to look hard at whether to use the Ki-115/Toka combination, or what I'm producing now to supplement that. By using some models I'm producing (or will produce as the models progress), I can save supply by not having to retool engine/airframe factories. Yeah, that's what I'll do. My Ha-35 factories produce 540 a month. That will be my Ki-115/Toka monthly production (minus anything I'm still building using that engine).

Edit: I'm thinking of building only the Ki-115 because I'm "training" many more IJA Kamikaze pilots than IJN. I'll have to dig deeper into this later.

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ORIGINAL: ITAKLinus

A couple of random questions:

Is Tojo valuable as Kami? It might be a solution.

Same applies for the Helen.


If they are even remotely useful as kamikazes, I would keep production lines on, thus avoiding the terrible engine switch.



I feel that converting that factory is something you should avoid. It might be more rewarding to fly sub optimal stuff than to throw away huge amounts of supplies invested. Even if it is not producing, it's better to invest on another factory and save the potential production.

That's my ignorant point of view of course and probably I there are many shortcomings in this course of action, but it's what I will probably do

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Ok, looking at end game engine factories and it ain't pretty. There are 20 factories total. With some 3500 high end fighter engines and maybe 2000 more for any Kamikaze planes you choose to build, that doesn't leave much for anything else. Say 6k engines total, that's an average of 300 per factory. My engine production total right now (op and R&D) is 2430, less than half. And a lot of them aren't needed for end game planes. Yikes!

I know. My pregame planning forces me to 5 - 7 Ha-3x engine factories. 15-17 must be Ha-4x. And yes, that means ~300 size each at the end. At 1K supply each, I simply cannot afford to change engine factories. They are set 12/7/41 for the game.
Ha-32/33/35 get fairly large and early '42 is a struggle with engines. BUT the engine bonus on the Ha-4x is guaranteed and is a key supporting aspect of "all in" RnD plan.

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: ITAKLinus

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

So, producing 6k 1E plane equivalents costs 216k HI a month. Let's say we do that for a year. That's 2.6 million HI needed. Granted, some of that will be produced during that time, but we still need a chunk in the pool. I have 1.9 million in the pool right now so I'm on my way there. But I'm only stashing some 2-2.5k a day. Let's lowball that and say 2k (but it'll be going up soon). By the end of 44, I'll have about 2.8 million. And that's just planes...

Yep. See my earlier quick calcs above, the HI is there, but you can't squander it in the early/mid game. Many players do.
In saving your 2K/day, you have ARM/VEH running flat out which means those pools are building for the end game. That's what you want. Just plan to keep those going full bore and your your current HI plan will make it (I think, mainly because I use the same one … learned it from you )

Definitely possible to stock A LOT of HI.

1st of August 1942 (turn 238) I had 724.150: it is roughly 2.700 per-day net of the initial 80k.


Stopping MSY quite early on you can gather much more than that.



I hold a lot of India though. My net gain in HI production to 1st Aug 1942 has been +1.340

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Ok, looking again, I have 2400 engine factories, but only 1320 are for late war fighters/Kamikazes. I need to look hard at whether to use the Ki-115/Toka combination, or what I'm producing now to supplement that. By using some models I'm producing (or will produce as the models progress), I can save supply by not having to retool engine/airframe factories. Yeah, that's what I'll do. My Ha-35 factories produce 540 a month. That will be my Ki-115/Toka monthly production (minus anything I'm still building using that engine).

Edit: I'm thinking of building only the Ki-115 because I'm "training" many more IJA Kamikaze pilots than IJN. I'll have to dig deeper into this later.

Look carefully, my spreadsheets on this planning are enormous and redone many time, at your air groups. Figure out which ones you plan to convert to kami. I can't assign hardly any fighter groups as I need every single one to clear the CAP over the target OR train fighter pilots.
So, that leaves me with a much shorter list, and consequently a shorter list of aircraft models to worry about.
Next, it confirms what my split between IJA/IJN kami pilots has to be ….

Now for me, just me mind you, I don't build (well not many at least) dedicated IJN kami groups. Why? 2 reasons.
1. By '45 the percentage of random kami attacks is fairly high.
2. DB's do the same or better damage, have higher hit percentages, and the GRACE.

So, any IJN bomber group- that I can convert to DB, no matter the PP cost gets converted to DB so that I can use GRACE. Speed and range. I wish it carried 800kg, but not in a stock scenario.
Still, against CV's the 250kg does good damage. Speed and RANGE. Best value the IJ has across the board. If I could convert IJA bombers to GRACE I would.

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: ITAKLinus

For a problem in the database in my current PBEM (scen1), Tojo mounts Ha-35 instead of Ha-34 and that's a big deal since I will have to switch Tojo factories only, not caring much on Ha-34.

If I had to make a choice between spending hundreds of thousands of supplies on Tojo switch and trying to find an use for it, I would definitely go for the latter.

Broadly speaking, I would begin to increase other factories' production instead of switching. In the worst case scenario I would end up with a lot of unused production capacity with Ha-34 shut off for months. In the best case scenario, I have the possibility to use those stuff somehow even as a temporary/emergency solution.

Regarding Tojo kami: I still have to grasp the actual damage inflicted by the plane itself.

But, again, I am probably in a different industrial situation since I hold India, I have strongly expanded HIs in the DEI and MSY prod is shut off. I feel that this situation allows me to much more freedom in terms of industrial choices (f.ex. using also 2Es as kami)

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

My own thoughts, excuse the disordered nature of them but just working down the list.

Ki-115/Toka - you do need a lot of these. There's a lot of late war squadrons that arrive using really poor airframes like Stella/Willow and the orange IJN trainer as well as older airframes like the Ida and so on, but there's far more than you need for training purposes. These squadrons are locked in weird upgrade paths, and require a lot of VP's to move to anything other than Toka/115s. Japan isn't short of PP's in 1945, but you'll burn through them quick spending PP's to move all these squadrons to better planes. The number of Toka/115s lost daily will always be low until you actually use them en masse, but once you do they'll be used up quick.

Grace - Pax likes this, so do I (though maybe not as much). The two bombs seems to help more than one bigger one, as it seems to hit more often. As with Pax, I wouldn't use these as kami aircraft unless there was a massive abundance of them. Use the Jills phased out by the Graces instead.

Kamikaze pilot training - the earlier you start, the better. LowNav is easy to include in the training schedule for both IJA (secondary training for fighter pilots, excess floatplane squadrons for IJN, replacing ASW training when the IJA ASW cadres are trained). Assuming that kamis are activated on 1st Jan, '44, you want to have enough kami pilots to tide you over till the dedicated training squadrons arrive and then let them crank out the fodder.

IJA 2E kami's - The notion that 2 single engine planes in the kamikaze profile equates to twice the chance to hit isn't really correct. If a plane dies to CAP or flak, it's never going to hit. The Helen and other IJA 2Es have the best durability and armour (with bonus defensive guns as a side) and so stand the best chance of beating both CAP and flak. It's much harder to get them in bulk, but IMO the key to any successive kami strike seems to be to get the right mixture of expendible planes to act as ablative armour for the CAP and durabile planes to make it through to the final approach, escorted with a healthy seasoning of fighters. I'm not much convinced that the likes of a Helen will fare any better being being whacked by a USN 5in DP gun than any other aircraft, but I think it might do a bit better getting through the cloud of Bofors and Oerikon that surround late war Allied ships. Peggy T should be reserved for conventional attacks only, however.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli


...I don't think the Tojo would be a valuable Kamikaze because it doesn't carry a bomb...

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli


...I don't think the Tojo would be a valuable Kamikaze because it doesn't carry a bomb...

Not necessarily so.

Alfred

Created by the amazing Dixie