Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Could we combine the two ideas of new views on the Decisive Battle and differing Treaty outcomes?

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ORIGINAL: FatR

And on the fleet plans: Ryujo was too small to serve as an effective carrier and extra carrier tonnage allocation by the more accomodating treaty will only allow for another ship of her size. Just build a bigger carrier, closer in dimensions to Soryu, instead. Treaties or not, funds are not endless anyway - this option will actually end up saving money on the rebuild, giving a much beter ship for approximately the same price.

Those new CLs you're talking about will be built past the London Treaty in early 30s, right? They most likely will be a development of Yubari. Will try to find some Japanese design alternatives. Well, if you mean CLs, not "CLs" they were building IRL at that time.

It is interesting who's going to cough up the money for all the extra construction, of course. The carrier side is covered if you accept my proposal above... the surface combatant side is more problematic. Maybe no modernization of Fuso/Yamashiro in 1930 (justified by the presence of newer battleships), with money going into new cruisers and so on? Unfortunately, this means lack of the uniform 25-knot battleline that was created by the 30s rebuilds of Japanese battleships in reality... But I don't think that so many extra ships can just come from nowhere.

To all those who made proposals about the Allied changes - I'm not missing them, hopefully we'll discuss them later.

Member: Treaty, Reluctant Admiral and Between the Storms Mod Team.

Reluctant Admiral Mod:
https://sites.google.com/site/reluctantadmiral/

quote:

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
1. I think you have to have Ryujo in the mix because both the US and Japanese screwed up by building the small Ranger and Ryujo; however, one could get away with adding a proto-Soryu (not Hiryu) to the Fleet as the final 'experimental' Flattop. The Japanese would be, in effect cheating the tonnage by about 20% as they did with the CAs.

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ORIGINAL: John 3rd
3. As to the modernization question wouldn't that be dependent on whether you add a pair of BC or a par of BB with the Washington changes? If new BC then perhaps Kongo's don't get their extensive modernization. If a new pair of Kaga BBs then don't rework a pair of older BBs. Certainly a trade-off. Remember though that these ships were well over 60-75% paid for when the Treaty kicks in so the monetary drain wouldn't be horrific. The real cost would come in the fitting out of the warships.

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ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Two Kaga's it is then. One could have the BatDivs along these lines:

BatDiv1: Nagato, Mutsu, Kii, and Owari
BatDiv2: Fuso, Yamashiro, Ise, and Hyuga
BatDiv3: Kongo, Hiei, Haruna, and Kirishima

CVs
Akagi and Kaga (figuring there is nothing to avoid the Earthquake!)

Two CVLs with an air group of...say...36 planes?

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
Force conservation means no China invasion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
Like more advanced fighters, bombers, Conversion CVEs and CVLs.

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ORIGINAL: guctony
Better landing craft and escort. Mines, Above all more advanced torps. Could Japan have homing torps in 1943-44 in their 61cm.

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ORIGINAL: guctony
Again very long range planes. To secure zone defence.

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ORIGINAL: House Stark

This discussion on how many new CVs Japan should build, and the potential pilot and game balance problems of that, got me thinking a little. I think that for sure, if the Japanese decide to plan for a longer war with no Decisive Battle, their real-life doctrine of skilled pilots flying effective but fragile planes off of effective but not particularly sturdy carriers would simply no longer fly.

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ORIGINAL: House Stark

-Japan adopts a pilot training program that can churn out more pilots due to being less focused on creating such purely elite pilots. After all, in a long war even the best of pilots might eventually die.

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ORIGINAL: John 3rd
2. Leave upgrades for BatDiv2 until the war approaches. Kaigun goes into some detail as to the details of these upgrades and how--seemingly--cheap they were. We start the war with BatDiv1 and BatDiv3 modernized and allow the player options for changes in the Fuso's and Ise's. How about that? Could provide some serious fun with conversion options...

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ORIGINAL: FatR

quote:

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Two Kaga's it is then. One could have the BatDivs along these lines:

BatDiv1: Nagato, Mutsu, Kii, and Owari
BatDiv2: Fuso, Yamashiro, Ise, and Hyuga
BatDiv3: Kongo, Hiei, Haruna, and Kirishima

CVs
Akagi and Kaga (figuring there is nothing to avoid the Earthquake!)

Two CVLs with an air group of...say...36 planes?

I still urge you to reconsider building two mini-CVLs. Sure, in the game I'll take two such ships instead of a decent-sized Ryujo that honestly can carry 48 planes (it can already in the game, but I don't think she ever actually operated more than 38, at least during WW II) any day of the week, but that's because for the game code a carrier is a carrier, and the only thing that really impacts air operations is airplane capacity. But IRL Ryujo suffered from, IIRC, being only able to move modern aircraft by its fore lift and too small deck area. I think she wouldn't have been able to carry late-war planes too. They tried to save money by building a small carrier, but thanks to the reconctruction it ended up expensive. And there was little reason to squeeze everything possible of the avialable carrier tonnage right now, with USN not rushing to fill its carrier quota, and combat role of a carrier still remaining vague.

From the game viewpoint, I think post-treaty carrier construction has enough potential for improvement, no need to frontload the mod too much.

On battleships: unfortunately, the two extra battleships of BatDiv 1 will need a reconstruction as well. Considering extra cruiser construction, I don't think there will be money to rebuild any of the older battleships of BatDiv 2 in pre-treaty period. Which might be a hidden blessing, as their early-to-mid-30s rebuilds prepared them for a different war than the one which outline started to form by late 30s (25 knots of speed was enough to maintain a favorable distance of engagement in a daylight artillery duel with the old American battleline, but not enough to run with the carriers and never BBs/BCs).

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
Force conservation means no China invasion.

Japan capable of not invading China won't be drawn into the world war at all. That said, as you can see, I'm already proposing a delayed beginning of the big war in China, and expectations of a longer war

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
Like more advanced fighters, bombers, Conversion CVEs and CVLs.

You can bet on better aircraft. I'm not a big fan of conversions, though. Converted passenger liners arguably were worth the effort (but most of them were escort carriers, not intended for use against the enemy battlefleet to begin with) but building and reconstruction of special-project shadow carriers saved little money (20-25%, saying optimistically) compared with just buidling a Hiryu-class carrier, occupied shipyards for longer and produced ships that were vastly inferior.

And besides, one of the biggest problems with alt_naval is expanding the Japanese carrier fleet far beyond Japan's ability to provide with planes and, most of all, pilots. True, in AE there is no such thing as too many carriers, as long as they come with airgroups, even if their pilots are untrained initially. IRL, not really. To avoid this trap and excessive front-loading of the scenario, I think it is preferable to give Japan at the start better carriers, than more carriers, compared to the stock. I think this will be discussed in detail once we go to the post-treaties period.

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
Better landing craft and escort. Mines, Above all more advanced torps. Could Japan have homing torps in 1943-44 in their 61cm.

No.
Well I agree no to torps. But landing craft is way too important then DE's etc

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
Again very long range planes. To secure zone defence.

Japan was ahead of everyone else in plane range already.

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ORIGINAL: FatR

It seems that resticting planning by time periods doesn't work that well between us, John. I find it hard to follow. Let's try to take separate look at classes, starting from the top.

quote:

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
2. Leave upgrades for BatDiv2 until the war approaches. Kaigun goes into some detail as to the details of these upgrades and how--seemingly--cheap they were. We start the war with BatDiv1 and BatDiv3 modernized and allow the player options for changes in the Fuso's and Ise's. How about that? Could provide some serious fun with conversion options...

I agree about that. We can provide options for either the pseudo-carrier upgrade as IRL, or the ever popular fast BB upgrade with turret removal, making both sufficiently long to make players think twice.

Anyway, let's tackle the key point right at once: post-treaty battleships. As by 1937 the idea of naval airpower domination can start taking root, there can be more solid arguments for building merely adequate fast BBs (27-29 knots, 40-50k displacement, 9-10x410 armament), instead of Yamatos, as a replacement for the four obsolete battlewagons of BatDiv2. To be honest, from IRL position, and even with hindsight, I'd still say that bigger is better when applied to battleships. Unfortunately, I don't think it is really possible to correctly model Yamato-class durability in AE without breaking some aspect of the game. So I'd vote for building four smaller battleships. Which accidentally will make finishing all of the relatively plausible using the same resources that were spent on Yamato/Musashi/Shinano, perhaps even considerably less resources, considering all the extra costs associated with super-battleships and Shinano rebuild (most will be completed during the war of course, but will enter it in sufficiently high state of completion to make carrier rebuilds or scrapping unlikely). These saving can be assumed to go into above-mentioned old BBs conversions. Do you have any alternative ideas, or, if you like this one, favored alternative designs, John?

EDIT: Assumption of a more radical shift towards a carrier-centric fleet, in combination with greater investment into other programs and fleet modernization, can be used to justify not laying down the second pair of BBs, but as their most expensive components can't be directly utilized on other ships, and the cost of continuing a ship series is less than the cost of starting it, savings won't be as big as they might seem.

You might note, that I've grown to dislike alternatives that involve axing the post-treaty battleships construction or building some weak ones. I think that realistically Japan can be better served by having a pool of capital ships for night action and escorting carriers (including serving as flak batteries), than more carriers which will be hard to provide with either planes, or pilots, ot both at all stages of the war. Sure, Japan can be even better served by cranking out more destroyers and heavy cruisers, but I'm not comfortable applying so much hindsight to the situation.

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
In terms of range they were but. It was only possible if the fly naked. I mean something like G8 bomber avaible with 32 range with all defence and gunnery at disposal. I feel 200 self sufficient heavy bomber group. Is more powerfull then 6 army division. And ıf I could bomb Sian why the hell I would try to invade by land.

quote:

ORIGINAL: FatR

quote:

ORIGINAL: guctony
In terms of range they were but. It was only possible if the fly naked. I mean something like G8 bomber avaible with 32 range with all defence and gunnery at disposal. I feel 200 self sufficient heavy bomber group. Is more powerfull then 6 army division. And ıf I could bomb Sian why the hell I would try to invade by land.

If you mean G8N, it won't be technically avaiable before late 1944 at the earliest. IRL production of the existing 4E long-range, well-protected plane (H8K) was not sufficient to cover even long-range search and recon needs, so it is safe to say that production of 4E bombers in any noticeable numbers is not viable until the industry expands by 1944. In the game, cost of a 4E plane increases linearly (double that of a 2E plane), and combat value (for stock models, at least) exponentially, not so IRL.

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Red Lancer did fine work with RA and I have emailed him without getting a response to this point.

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ORIGINAL: guctony
600 G8N is I guess equal in terms of 2 Yamato class BB.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mikemike


I see I've been seriously inattentive. Well, maybe I can derail this mod even coming late to the table

Anyway, here are some unstructured thoughts:

Putting the point of divergence back to the early 1920s is a good idea; it lets you make more extensive deviations from the Official Timeline (=OT) without getting too far into the realm of fantasy. I'd better not tell you details about my favourite flight of fancy where the divergence starts about 1908 (just this much: Kuomintang was eradicated in the bud; Tsingtao has been leased to Britain as a base in 1918; Manchuria seceded from China in 1922 and is now an official part of the Japanese Empire). OK. Now to the beef:

- The 1923 earthquake still happens, but it hits the north of Honshu, where the damage to the economy is limited. This should be worth some additional industrial capacity and more money for the defence budget.

- Amagi is unscathed, so the new-build lineup would be:
BB Kaga, Tosa
BC Akagi, Amagi
CV Atago, Takao (less advanced construction gives scope for more fundamental redesign)

- No or limited modernization for the turret farms is okay; these were awkward designs anyway. When the BBs were modernized in OT, one of the measures was to increase the max elevation of the guns to 43 degrees by lowering the gun platform into the hull. For the Ise class, this could be done only for the forward and amidships turrets, there was not enough space in the hull to do that for the aft turrets. When they took them out during the conversion to carrier hybrids, at least all main guns now had the same range. Conversion to oil firing, certainly; maybe torpedo bulges.

- Concerning the CLs, as Yubari and the Furutaka class were practically concurrent, the new CL class might be more of a combination of these classes, say 5000-5500 tons and armed with 140 mm guns all in twin turrets, similar in layout to the Agano class.

- Concerning the CAs, the Aoba class was laid down in 1924. With two more CAs possible, why not let Aoba, Kinugasa and two additional ships be built to the Nachi design, the Nachi class to a modified Maya design, and the Mayas to a further evolutionary step?

- It is not inconceivable that some senior designer might have taken his slide rule, calculated the stability margin of the new designs, and taken a serious fright, thus nipping some of the major excesses in the bud before the designs made it to the slips. So the Hatsuharu DD are either reduced to 2x2-127mm or the ships are bigger from the outset; in that case they might as well be a continuation of the Fubuki(III) type. If treaty limits mandate smaller DDs, go with a reduced Hatsuharu type.

- Using cruiser main guns in the AA role might have been just too extreme for the powers-that-be, so the Maya class (Takao is now a CV!) would have to have a different heavy AA suite from the start.

- One of the reasons why the Tone CAs had their heavy armament concentrated forwards was the inconveniently large dispersion occurring with earlier designs. One of the perceived reasons for that was misalignment between the forward and aft turret groups due to flex in the hull. Put the turrets close together and that effect is eliminated. That also gave a lot of free deck space for an extended aviation component. One might instead use that deck space for a significantly more numerous AA suite (this is one of my pet projects).

And now for something completely different: As the IJN bought the He100 program deemed surplus to requirements by the Luftwaffe lock, stock, and barrel, the Army might also purchase a German orphan, the FW187 in its original single-seater form; it could be powered by the Kawasaki inline engines used on the Ki-32, thus providing the Army with a fairly high-performance interceptor several years before the Ki-61 could be ready.

Member: Treaty, Reluctant Admiral and Between the Storms Mod Team.

Reluctant Admiral Mod:
https://sites.google.com/site/reluctantadmiral/

quote:

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

I want to share the sources I am working and basing my propositions from: Kaigun and Jentschura's Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Let us handle the Treaty Period First:

At the Washington Conference the Japanese choose to speak with a unified voice as the American read their coded messages back-and-forth to Tokyo. The Japanese will walk out if they do not gain a 70% ratio with the United States and Great Britain. Rather then risk a horrific arms race, Sec of State Charles Evans Hughes uses his ability of compromise and agrees to the modification (just as he did in allowing the Japanese to keep Mutsu in real life). Net effect:

1. The Japanese gain two capital ships which they elect to be the 10 16-Inch Gun BBs Kaga and Tosa.
2. Japanese CV alloted tonnage is increased from 75,000 to 91,000

The Kaga and Tosa are completed entering service in 1923/1924.

BC's Akagi and Amagi are selected to become large CVs, however, the earthquake destroys Amagi so BC Atago is selected to take her place. The 1923 earthquake destroys Amagi's hull as it did in real life and Atago's hull which wasn't scrapped until 1924 is then converted.

With 25,000T in available CV tonnage the Japanese elect to build a pair of CV officially displacing 12,500T (actually 14,000T) named Ryujo and ???. These ships are marginally successful and serve as a prototype for the Soryu. They carry 39 planes (21 Zero and 18 Kate) in 1941.

London Naval Conference (1930) follows the earlier Treaty and allows the Japanese to build her CAs and CLs at a 70% ratio. Result:

1. Japanese add 2 CAs. These CAs match the Takao-Class (Takao, Atago--name changed to Amagi, Maya, and Chokai) built during 1929-1932. The CAs are named Iwaki and Hikari.

2. Four more CLs are added to the fleet. The prototype of Yubari (1922) is continued with a Yubari-Kai class being built. The design of Yubari is dated from the 1917-1918 by Admiral Hiraga. We can assume the Japanese examine Yubari as it is built and improve on it somewhat. These ships have not been designed yet. Names: Ayase, Katori, Kashima, and Kashii.

This gets us to the 3rd Circle Plan of 1934 and Japanese leaving the Treaty System...