RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (Full Version)

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mogami -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 3:28:47 AM)

Hi, In WITP Japanese pilot training does not decline unless the Japanese player runs out of
1. Groups to train pilots in because he commits them all to combat
2. supply and can't fly.

There is nothing built into the game to produce less trained pilots in 1944 compared to 1942. In fact as the Japanese get compressed they should have more groups for training and as a result train more pilots in 1944 compared to 1942. (Forward airfields can only hold so many pilots the remaining groups will all be at home or in China/Korea/Manchuria were it is safe to train)

It is not the decline in pilot skill that hurts Japan the most. It is the introduction of certain allied fighters.



Mike Scholl -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 6:16:07 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Brady
This is largely unfair, Japan had a well built industrail base by the time WW2 came about, their ship building was world class, and had been for a long time, a lot of whats in some of thse comments while referanced is still ethnocentic at it core and just wrong.


Japan had built up certain narrow sectors of her economy and industrial base before WWII---but they did not have a "well built" and balanced base. Their shipbuilding was fairly up to date, though the yards were mostly small and not that effecient. Other areas lagged behind. The Yamato's were planned to be welded,
but lack of a strong base meant they wound up needing 3.5 million rivets each as well. The Machine Tool industry couldn't keep up with demand. The electronics industry was undersized and not up to date. Mass production techniques were almost unknown. Small arms were obsolete and in short supply. The motor vehicle industry was very small. Japan made a mighty effort to compete with the "big boys", but in the end their economy was too small, poor, and undeveloped to make the grade. They could beat up on the Chinese, and take advantage of Allied unpreparedness---but they weren't up to a stand-up brawl with a first-class poser. They should have learned this from the two bloody noses the Russians handed them (with one hand tied behind their back)



mogami -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 6:56:19 PM)

Hi, In hindsight we consider the Axis leadership to have been insane. I still find it amusing that when USA annoucned their plan for 1942 production the Axis just chuckled and didn't realize not only did USA meet the projection it exceeded it and increased for 1943. USA production by 1945 was simply beyond belief for any Axis leader to comprehend.
A Japanese division going into combat required a logistical tail amounting to something like 7 pounds per man. A USA division going into combat had a tail amounting to over 2000 pounds per man.



Brady -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 6:59:44 PM)


Mike Scholl-

It was a degree of scale, everything Japan did was smaller, I am not trying to give the impreshion that it was Uber efficient, clearly in many ways it was not, but their are notable exceptions, areas whear Japan was quiet proficient at what she was doing, it was not all backward, which is often the commom preception.

An example of Japanese Industrail Capacity being Molded to fit the Nead at the time:

Below is a passage from The Japanese Merchant Marine in WW2, in the Chapter "Rumbling Down the Way's"

p.164:

"In late 1942, therefore , the Navy General Staff ordered a magor reorganization of the industry. The Authorities first implemented an upgrading of the shipbuilding facilities inspection system. Coal steal and other related industries also received more carefull quality controle and study. The formost change howeaver was the navys assumption of Jurisdiction over all shipbuilding plans and scheduals (except for woden hull construction) from the ministery of communications. This authority passed to the technical buero of the Navy Ministery, which accordingly opened a special section for merchant ship management and expanding its powers to include materials allocations among shipyards. As in the past , the goverement held the real authority and left execution to a private agency, the industrial equipment corporation. But with the Navy directly involved, the harried communications ministrys administration of the shipbuilding program gave way to direction that was more streamlined, organised, and forcefull.
The impact was immediate and dratmatic. Most private idustries began to experance decreased allocations as the navy funneled more resources into merchant shipbuilding. At a glance the monthly yen input figures will readly confirm this. In the fifteen months up to and including October 1942, the average monthly input to shipbuilding was just under 25 Million yen. But for the Next 15 months the average was 82,385,000 yen, including the wartime pinicle of 162,278,000 yen reached in January 1944. Monthly input did not drop bellow the 150 million yen mark untill very late in the year."

Thier is an acomping chart and it indacates that not till November/Dec is thier an apricable drop.

"The navy used some of this mony and material to expand facilities in old yards and to build several new and efficient specilised shipyars, but the majority of resources went into merchant ship construction. This accounts in large meashure for the fine preformance of the shipbuilding industry in 1943 and 1944, when it grew from the 10th to third largest employer among all manufacturing types, behind only Aircraft and Ordance production. Power consumption withen the industry had nearly doubled by then too.
Their were howeaver some other factors worthy of of partial credit for the unexpectedly high wartime productivity of Japans shipyards. Heading the list was the standization of various merchant ship designs. With an eye toward the obvious advantages of componet interchangeability, simpler construction, and incerased efficiency through repetition, several yards had already developed their own standard specifications for various hip types before the war. Early in 1942 the ministry of Communications studied some of these designes and made minior modifactions, and accepted a dozen of them as national standards. When the Navy ministrys technical beauro assumed authority for the industry soon after, it eliminated five of the standard types, added two otehrs, and substantialy reworked the remaining designs to simplify construction.
The standard designs included five freighter types (A,B,C,D, and E) ranging from 530 to 6,400 tons, three tankers (TS,TM and TL) of from 1,000 to 10,000 tons, and a 5,400-ton ore carrier (Type K). All nine varities crused at 10 Knots or more (the TL could steam efficiently at over 16 Knots0 and had maximum speads of about 3 knots higher. A transport (Type M) and a railroad car fery (W), and another freighter (F) were among the original standard types but the Ministry of comunications never awarded any contracts for them.

"Their can be no question that standarization stimulated tonnage production beyond what would have otherwise been achieved. The standard 6,600 ton cargo vessel, for example , averaged ninety days from keel laying to outfitting in 1942. But during the course of the war, the Japanese yards turned out 121 of these vessels, and so the delevery times droped impresively, one yard even managed to finish one in 36 days. It is imposable to calculate how many extra merchant men that the standardization allowed the Japanese to turn out, but since standard ship types acoounted for three out of ever four wartime tons launched and all new tonnage after 1943, undoubtedly the gain was substantial."



Brady -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 7:02:02 PM)


Mogami, has just highlighted one of my bigest peaves about WiTP:

"7 pounds per man. A USA division going into combat had a tail amounting to over 2000 pounds per man. "


Everyone in Witp consumes suply at the same rate, it should cost the Japanese player less to suply his men.





ChezDaJez -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 9:16:12 PM)

Brady, youve actually just confirmed what I had been saying, that Japanese industry was inefficient before and during the was. The fact that their shipyards needed major reorganization and expansion in order to produce merchants in a timely manner proves the point.

One other point to consider. The rivalry between the Army and the Navy was immense and intense. It created extremely large inefficiencies. Both services procurement programs were boondoggles and neither service wanted to coordinate with the other on even the simplest items such as small arms for their respective troops. The army even went so far as to build their own submarines and merchants because they didn't want to let the Navy have any part of their operations. This huge duplication of effort had to have been extremely inefficient and a large drain on scarce resources.

Toyota is a good example. They were primarily a textile company until 1934 when they decided to get into automotive manufacturing. They produced their first car in 1937. Toyota then became a primary manufacturer of military trucks during the war. But their ability to mass produce vehicles was extremely poor as they had neither the experience nor infrastructure to mass produce vehicles. They had to simplify construction of military vehicles to an extreme degree. An example is the use of a single headlight on their trucks to simplify production and minimize build time. They did not meet a single monthly production quota until April of 1943. They met quotas only 4 times during the war. The primary reason behind this was their decision to not use an assembly line process.

You say that the Navy recognized the need to reorganize shipbuilding in late 1942. I would assume that this just didn't happen overnight and probably took a year or more to implement. This was undoubtably in response to the worsening situation at the front and was too little too late. It should have been undertaken before the war.

Chez



the potemkin -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 9:45:28 PM)

Since it is a well known "fact" that the Japanese production, planes, weapons, soldiers, logistics, leadership etc. all were crap, why did it take the allies 4 years to win?, or were this the fastest it could be done vs. a clearly inferior opponent?.




mogami -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 9:59:44 PM)

Hi, The Japanese set a "World" record for the fastest conquest of the most surface of the earth in the shortest period. (1931-1942)(but they captured it from various nations so they then set a world record for losing the most surface of the earth in the shortest period)(1942-1945)
It didn't take Japan 4 years to lose. Thay had lost long before they admitted it. They began losing just 6 months after they brought the Western Alliance into the war and had lost beyond redemption less then 18 months later. From the attack on Pearl harbor to Japanese surrender less then 4 years transpired.
If you simply remove all Japanese units and as Allied player remain inside aircover and build a base and then advance to next base and build it all the while transporting the units and supply moved historically you won't get to Japan much sooner then history.



Brady -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/11/2005 10:03:13 PM)


ChezDaJez- So did allied Shipbuilding, Pre war Japanese shipbuilders were cranking out the most modern and efficient ships being produced by far and large. The allies did not realy start cranking out more and doing it more efficiently untill the whole liberty ship thing started, the example above detaials the Japanese effort towards their Liberty ship programe.

Thier was duplication of effort but it was not exclusive to just Japan, The Allies did the same thing up to a point, and their were instances whear the Army and Navy (Japanese) used the same types, the Engine in the George and the Ki-84 for example were the same, the Army and Navy both used the Ki-67 in service, they did coradanate activaties/operations on ocashion as well. While they were at odds and in a way that made the Allied services seam like chums, their were exceptions. Nothing is always black and white.

A big problem with WiTP is the generalised idea of how things were, the Myth, promoted by the propaganda of the time, the racist views many have of the way the war went and why, the WiTP was a race war, more so than any other part of WW2 with the posable exception of the war in Russia, when it comes to modeling that war in a game, it is imporatnat to be as objective as posable and look to see that all the facts are truly at hand, inso much as posable to get a clear picture of things, WiTP suffers from a lot of compounding biases in the designe of various aspects of it, this largely do to preconcived misconceptions of how things were.



ChezDaJez -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/12/2005 1:48:18 AM)

quote:

Since it is a well known "fact" that the Japanese production, planes, weapons, soldiers, logistics, leadership etc. all were crap, why did it take the allies 4 years to win?, or were this the fastest it could be done vs. a clearly inferior opponent?.


Never said they were crap, I said they were inefficient when compared to the US. In fact I tend to be somewhat of a Jap fanboy. What I also said was that Japanese industry was not as developed, as advanced or as efficient as the US overall, both prewar and during. There were some exceptions. They had many excellent industries as Brady has noted: shipbuilding, textile, aircraft to name a few but their industries were much more manpower intensive. It took longer to produce the same item as in the US and there was more duplication of effort due to the rivalry between the army and the navy.

When you are the underdog, you need to produce more man for man than the enemy just to maintain the status quo and that they failed to do. And as I said, waiting until the second year of the war to increase efficiency is no way to win a war. The US began to increase armament production as early as 1939, 2 years before Pearl Harbor. Japan had no long range strategic plans so did not begin develop any sensible production goals until after they were at war. They thought the war would be over quickly.... it wasn't.

As far as taking 4 years to win, the US proceeded cautiously. It wasn't a game like WitP. These were real men's lives and there was no sense in wasting them in an early offensive when you can attrite the enemy to the point where he is unable to effectively counter your plans.

Chez





Mike Solli -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/12/2005 1:59:34 AM)

Keep in mind that the Allies strategy was Hitler first. The US (from what I have read) only sent 30% of their production to the PTO. Try tripling the US reinforcements and supply. Ouchie.



the potemkin -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/12/2005 3:29:24 AM)

I don't think anybody is disputing that the US had a very high, effective and modern production.

But IMO it was really the US that was ahead of the rest of the world, not Japan that was that much behind.



Mike Solli -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/13/2005 2:08:33 PM)

I read somewhere that the US Navy, at the end of the war, was larger than all of the other navies of the world, combined.



ChezDaJez -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/13/2005 11:41:17 PM)

quote:

But IMO it was really the US that was ahead of the rest of the world, not Japan that was that much behind.


I agree with the first part of your statement but not the second. Japan's textile industry, copied from Britain's, was one of the most efficient in the world as was a good deal of her commercial

Japan never envisioned a long, protracted war so did not create an industrial plan for one. They failed to increase production to any great degree before the Pacific war started. What war industry that was increased was geared mainly towards the war in China. Once the Pacific war started, it was too late to ensure a rapid yet controlled expansion of industrial capacity without introducing more inefficiency in the short term. The US began preparing for war beginning in 1939 with the production of military items for England and France. In April 1941, Lend-Lease kick started to conversion to a warfooting. Japan barely took the first steps.

Also don't confuse efficiency with quantity. The two are not always related. 100 factories producing 1 widget a month are far less efficient than 1 factory producing 100 widgets a month. The net effect is the same but the efficiency is not. I look at efficiency as the number of manhours required to produce a product.

Here is a blurb I found relating to US preparations for producing war materials.

quote:

The reconversion of the auto industry was mastermined by William S. Knudsen, a former GM president.

Most auto builders date their transformation to a memorable meeting in Detroit on Oct. 25, 1940. Everyone who had anything to do with the manufacture of automobiles attended -- from primary producers, parts and appliance fabricators to tool and die makers.

Mr. Knudsen outlined principles and practices for farming out subcontracts. And when America entered the war, these principles enormously streamlined the participation of thousands of small industries in the national defense program.

Mr. Knudsen announced that he intended to use the auto industry to back up the airplane industry. As a result, DeSoto, Chrysler, Hudson and Goodyear Rubber Co. were soon building a long line of parts for Glenn L. Martin Co. of Baltimore. Murray Corp. did the same for Boeing's B-17 Flying Fortress. and Fisher Body Div. of GM backstopped partsmaking for North American.

Within months, engineers and designers from GM, Ford and Chrysler and from hundreds of parts and subcontracting firms swarmed through the plants of the aircraft industry. They made rough sketches, took notes and soaked up airplane expertise and know-how.



Japan never thought of doing that before the war. Here are some examples of American efficiency, much of it prewar.

quote:



They turned their brains and hands to making arms and ammunition, military vehicles, artillery and airplanes and equipment ranging from the gyro-compasses and rangefinders to top-secret devices for atomic bombs.

Ford fabricated the biggest airplane plant in the world -- Willow Run, MI, which built four-engined B-24 Liberator bombers. A mile long, quarter-mile wide and costing $100 million, the plant was larger than the combined prewar plants of the major airplane manufacturers of the day -- Boeing, Douglas and Consolidated. The facility built in excess of 8,500 Liberators -- more than one every hour.

Chrysler constructed its tank arsenal in Warren, MI, in 10 months and began shipping units by September 1941. The arsenal built more than 25,000 tanks.

Mass production of the Browning .30-caliber machine gun went to GM's Brown-Lipe-Chapin, AC Spark Plug, Frigidaire and Saginaw Steering divisions. In mid-November 1940, Saginaw produced its first model -- seven months ahead of schedule. In March 1942, when the contract called for delivering 280 weapons, Saginaw shipped 28,728 -- and dropped the price per copy from $667 to $141.44.

In tackling production of the famous Swedish-designed Oerlikon cannon, Pontiac Div. engineers virtually redesigned the entire piece. Their simplified breech casing cut machine time from 240 hours to 90. The new design reduced total production time by 35 hours and trimmed $166 from the unit cost.

Packard engineers completely redrafted the blueprint for Britain's Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine. They did so in order to achieve the one-tenthousandths-of-an-inch tolerances demanded by Detroit's mass producers. Packard delivered the first nine Merlins at a cost of $6.25 million, with the company "reaping" a profit of $6,206 on the deal.


There are few examples of any similar efforts in Japan until late 1942, the most notable being merchant ship production and even that wasn't a stellar effort. It could be argued that their aircraft industry was effective in producing large numbers of aircraft but I'd be willing to bet that it did so with immense inefficiency in manpower.

Chez

Chez



the potemkin -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/14/2005 12:04:50 AM)

the "not Japan that was that much behind" refered to "the rest of the world" not the US.



mdiehl -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/14/2005 1:07:29 AM)

quote:

the "not Japan that was that much behind" refered to "the rest of the world" not the US.


Well, the USSR made more per ingot of steel than the Germans. As did the UK. I think the US was at one extreme but in general the Axis powers were exceedingly inefficient. German inefficiency was legendary, it just gets talked about less.



Mike Scholl -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/14/2005 6:00:51 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Brady


Mogami, has just highlighted one of my bigest peaves about WiTP:

"7 pounds per man. A USA division going into combat had a tail amounting to over 2000 pounds per man. "

Everyone in Witp consumes suply at the same rate, it should cost the Japanese player less to supply his men.


Absolutely correct! But there are some other reprecussions of this dichotomy as well. Allied troops also suffered far less "attrition" of their manpower (because a fair amount of that extra 1993 lbs was medical supplies and equipment); and Allied Firepower should be much greater per unit (because a lot of it was ammunition), and a huge advantage in construction (because a lot of it was construction equipment). Yes, the Allies (and especially the Americans) recieved quite a large amount of "extras" (like mail and ice cream and coffee and tea and beer and Morale Officers and USO shows) that the Japanese considered "frivolous" for combat troops. But a hell of a lot of that extra 1993 lbs per man was equipment and supply and ammunition that improved combat abilities. So if you increase the cost of supplying Allied units, you must also increase their capabilities.



ChezDaJez -> RE: Japanese pilot replacement at start pool (9/14/2005 6:09:25 AM)

quote:

Absolutely correct! But there are some other reprecussions of this dichotomy as well. Allied troops also suffered far less "attrition" of their manpower (because a fair amount of that extra 1993 lbs was medical supplies and equipment); and Allied Firepower should be much greater per unit (because a lot of it was ammunition), and a huge advantage in construction (because a lot of it was construction equipment). Yes, the Allies (and especially the Americans) recieved quite a large amount of "extras" (like mail and ice cream and coffee and tea and beer and Morale Officers and USO shows) that the Japanese considered "frivolous" for combat troops. But a hell of a lot of that extra 1993 lbs per man was equipment and supply and ammunition that improved combat abilities. So if you increase the cost of supplying Allied units, you must also increase their capabilities.


I would agree with that. I think that the game does reflect a difference in construction units. It seems to take twice as long for the Japanese to upgrade an airstrip or p[ort as the US for the same number of engineer squads.

Chez



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