Topic: Coming soon: War in the Pacific, Struggle for Japan, an After Action report

[Vipre]

YOu just pick it up?

It's not a full version just sort of a demo. I got the manual from Replacementdocs. It's still very interesting though. The little bit of carrier action saw around 300 allied aircraft sink nearly every CV & CL in two Japanese task forces. Don't know what I set wrong on the Japanese side but they only launched about 20 fighters in defense, it was a massacre.

[AcePylut]

If memory serves, the demo has the tutorial, and you're prolly fighting around Siapan or such...  That's kinda setup for the allies to whip the Japs.

In general, from what I see and people say, for the US CV forces to defeat the Jap CV's before mid '43 is extremely rare.  As such, the real life historical combat model from the actual Midway battle must be borked.

I'm stealing this sort of, but this was a kinda of funny post about "real life" as it relates to the game


BS Man.  6Jap CV's march across the pacific without being detected and destroy my most heavily defended base and I don't even get any CAP up?

WTF, I just lost like 4 Carries out of 4 one day!  I have the Zero Bonus going against US CV's suffering a coordination penalty and that crap happens? Oh wait, whoop dee doo I shot down all the devestators in a squadron, but NOTHING on any of the other strikes?  what garbage.

The naval leadership aggression routine is broken.  My surface fleet of DD's, CA's and BB's commanded by a high aggression leader surprises 6 US CVE's and 6 DD's and MY... MY... forces break off? That's just bunk.

More UBER CAP.  Check out the combat log of this battle.  US Hellcats shoot down 330 of my planes and I only get 30 of them and my kami's only damage like 4 DD's?  The air-to-air routine is broken.  That wouldn't happen in real life.

(and my favorite):

%$#^@^% WTF bombing BUG WTF  major fricking bombing bombing bug. One of my cities just fricking disappeared and had all it's industry and manpower wiped out.  WTF.  STupid efffinn broken pos Game

[Vipre]

That's the one. The tutorial sets you up for a carrier confrontation just north of Siapan. The force made it one hex toward port when half the carriers went down, another hex and unanswered attack and the rest slipped below.

%$#^@^% WTF bombing BUG WTF... WTF.  STupid efffinn broken pos Game

  Man that's a player in need of a break.

[AcePylut]

That's what Hirihito said when Hiroshima and Nagasaki disappeared 

[Panzergranate]

The Japs were only just behind with the A-Bomb and secretly detonated a remote controlled speedboat A-Bomb against a rocky island off of the coast of Japan the day after Horoshoma. This proved that they intended the A-Bomb to be deployed against an invasion fleet and not as a terror weapons, as with the Allies and Nazis.

On occupying the Japanese homeland, US forces seized all 22 machines that the Japanese had used to enrich the Uranium and shiped them back to the US.

As for the 1941 US aircraft..... flog the F2 Buffaloes to the Fins and Commonwealth airforces as soon as possible.

My son is playing some WW2 Pacific wargame on the X-Box 360 and prefers the Jap cruisers as they carry torpedoes, which is what defines a cruiser. US ones, by some oversight, don't carry torpedoes and it is a big handicap.

Watching him trying to dogfight Zeroes with an F2 Buffalo, the world's worst and least maneuverable fighter ever built, was quite amusing. He did manage to take out a "Val" by sheer luck as even these outclass the F2 in a dogfight!! He managed to drop down on it vertically from above and catch it in maximum aspect.

I'm playing Blitz Kreig, on and off, at the moment as the Soviet forces.

[AcePylut]

The Japs were only just behind with the A-Bomb and secretly detonated a remote controlled speedboat A-Bomb against a rocky island off of the coast of Japan the day after Horoshoma. This proved that they intended the A-Bomb to be deployed against an invasion fleet and not as a terror weapons, as with the Allies and Nazis.

Japs never detonated an a-bomb at Konan.  That whole "story" came about due to some sensationalist reporting.

On occupying the Japanese homeland, US forces seized all 22 machines that the Japanese had used to enrich the Uranium and shiped them back to the US.

As for the 1941 US aircraft..... flog the F2 Buffaloes to the Fins and Commonwealth airforces as soon as possible.

My son is playing some WW2 Pacific wargame on the X-Box 360 and prefers the Jap cruisers as they carry torpedoes, which is what defines a cruiser. US ones, by some oversight, don't carry torpedoes and it is a big handicap.

Watching him trying to dogfight Zeroes with an F2 Buffalo, the world's worst and least maneuverable fighter ever built, was quite amusing. He did manage to take out a "Val" by sheer luck as even these outclass the F2 in a dogfight!! He managed to drop down on it vertically from above and catch it in maximum aspect.

I'm playing Blitz Kreig, on and off, at the moment as the Soviet forces.

Oh yeah I'm getting rid of the buffalo asap... but unfortunately, that isn't the worst fighter in the game.  Not by a long shot.  Worse yet are the P36 and P43 death traps, and that's not even getting into some of the "fighters" that the Chinese have. 

US also starts the game with the CV's at sea, and I have to get that CV and its Buff squadron back to PH to upgrade to F4F-3's.  Unfortunately, I need that CV to help out the beleagured defenders at Wake, so they're going to get stuck with da Buff until I get it back to base.  On top of that, I only get so many F4F-3's per month, and if I use them as replacements for existing squads, I might not have enough to upgrade this month.   Not to mention all those P36/43 squads that need upgrading.  A P40B never looked so good

I've decided upon this to upgrade... the Buffs on the CV have a high experience, so they are getting upgraded first.  The P43/36 squads all have low experience (which means even if they were in P51's they'd still get butchered by Zeros)... so they are going to stay in their crap planes while I train them up in experience, and sue the remaining F4F's as replacements (and to build stock).  Once they hit about "60" experience, then I'll upgrade their planes to Wildcats.  I see no reason to have these rookie pilots fresh out of flight school who don't know a broom from a control yoke flying the best plane I have.  Na, they're going to stay in their garbage aircraft until then can take off and land without ground looping.

[Panzergranate]

The Chinese were flying Spads and Brisfits, in some instances.

The Philipino Airforce was putting P26s up against Zeroes plus P35s with fixed under carts. The game sounds quite involved if it involves the efforts of other participants.

The Brits in Burma flew Gladiators which could hold their won against a Zero. They also used to rig spotlights accross the undercarriage legs and use them to strafe Jap nightime river crossings to great effect. Unfortunately they can't acrry bombs.

Have the French surrendered Indo-China to the Japanese yet, without a fight??

[AcePylut]

I have a number of P26's at Clark.  It's dec 10th and Clark is still shut down, will probably be shut down for quite a while.  I'm probably going to make my stand in Manila, not Bataan. 

Indo-China is a firm Japanese possession.  No french to be seen anywhere!  The game starts on December 7th, 41.

This game spans more than half the globe.  The oft forgotten (to westerners) China-Burma-India theater is fully represented.

Here's the map area... from East to West, you start at the US West cost (San Deigo, LA, San Fran)... travel west all the way to karachi.  All of India is represented.  From north to South, it goes from the artic circle to below Australia.

They made it a flat map though, so it looks kinda weird.  Here's the strategic map showing all the area covered.

http://www.matrixgames.com/games/screenshot.asp?gid=294&sid=14

Judging by my forces in the DEI, they are nothing more than a speed bump to the Jap expansion. 

In Malaya, I'm trying to setup a fighting withdrawal to get my brits to Singapore, but my boys are running to easily.  Hopefully, I can delay the Jap advance a little bit so I can upgrade my fortifications at Singapore a level before the nip lays siege. 

In the DEI, I have nothing of note to prevent the Japs from doing what they want, so I'm playing run-away and trying to get all my combat troops to Australia before they get surrounded. 

I've assembled my combat naval forces in the DEI at a base in the southern end of Sumatra.  They are going to slowly (to avoid detection) creep up close to singapore, and hopefully strike at any other invasion fleets that come close.  I hope I can get them into battle at night, and escape from Betty/Nell range by daybreak.

My boys at wake Island, however, are putting up a hell of a fight.  3 days of combat against the Japs, and I still hold the island.  I'm rushing some infantry troops asap to Wake to help out.  Maybe I can kick them out before their next assault.  What's good is that my 2 CV's (incl the buff laden CV) are 1 day away, and I've got a massive strike planned against the Jap SNLF.

In the Phillipines, again I'm withdrawing for Fortress Manila, and will fight it out from there.  these guys are going to be lost, eventually, but the longer I can tie up Jap forces in the PI, the longer it takes them to fight elsewhere.  I have no plans to try and rescue Dugout Doug.  He can fight and die or go to pow camp with the rest of his soldiers.

In the pacific, the US is still in shock.  Can't move anything out of PH yet.  Got all my air and ground forces on the West Coast training (cuz they are low low low exp).  Decided to do a few shakedown cruises by for ships on the West Coast to build up a little exp.  Loaded up a few engineer regiments to get them to PH to help repair the destruction.   Moved some forces forward in Aleutians to get my scout planes closer to the action.

In Australia, loaded up a bunch of supply ships and started moving war-making material to my forward bases. 

In the SWPAC, can't do anything yet.  only a few base forces (which build stuff like airfields, ports, forts) there, so I'm sending some ships to pick up these stranded base forces.  I'll relocate them to a few points that i'm going to designate as either fuel-depots, air bases, jump off points, what have you. 

[Panzergranate]

Singapore is defended well from the sea but the shore battery guns, even if turned inland, only have APHE anti-ship shells, which are useless for firing at land targets.

The idiot General Gordon Bennett, surrendered without a fight because he thought that the offiicers and troops would receive humane POW treatment.... wrong!!

At the appointed time of the surrender, he was hundreds of miles away escaping on a plane. That is why his name is used as a swear word in Australia, as a majority of the garrison were ANZACs. He was never given a command again and dismissed from the AIF shortly afterwards.

You'll probally find that a growing number of the RNZAF Buffaloes, based at Singapore, will suffer growing losses from undercarriage failures due to the rough grass aitstrip versus Buffalo weak undercarriage.

The Japs launched their only large tank assault on the Konami ridge against 3 x batteries of 18 and 25 Pounder guns with horrific armour casulties before succeeding. This ridge of hills covers Singapore. They lost 80% of their total tank pool in this attack and never launched tank attacks on this scale ever again.

Once they take this hill range then Singapore is pretty much in the bag as they will be able to shell the city, airfield and harbour from there. Hold it at all costs.

Singapore will give the Jap Navy a strategic supply and servicing base for the whole Pacific.

I've played Japs in WW2 wargames and find them a lot more flexible to use than western nations. Tree grenade snipers, lunge mines, human triggered boobytraps, etc.

I shocked a side in one game by taking out a couple of M4s with a Type 1 tank destroyer. Their tanks are quite well designed for purpose and the late Type 97 and Type 3 could take on a M4 head to head, unlike some of the others in the stable. Still, when fighting folks without tanks or anti-armour weaponry, any tank is an advantage, even it is a French NC 27 derived pop gun armed Type 87!!

Making a stand at Manila and not Battan might work though if you can provide air cover to fend off Jap bombers softening up your forces.

Don't forget that they also use paratroops, though not in large full scale assaults, more as a strategic part of a larger ground based attack. The Phillipnes was one of the instances where they used them, so be wary.

[AcePylut]

The detail level fo this game is individual ships, individual air squadrons, and ground units are regiment sized.  This is an operational/strategic level game, so you don't get to command troops in combat.  You just move them into a hex with the enemy and hit "defend, bombard, deliberate attack, or shock attack".  Airfields are abstracted, also.  A "level 1" airfield in the Gobi desert is the same as a "Level 1" airfield in Maui. 

Buildable Ports, Airfields, and Forts are all on a "0-9" scale.  0 = nothing.  level 1 - most basic (for airfield, think Wau).  Level 9 is a major major shipyard.  There are a few "level 10" ports and airfields, these are like San Francisco's shipyards and so on.

But the game doesn't make a distiction about specific conditions at specific bases.  Level 1 is level 1 is level 1. 

Your air squadrons will take "operational" losses in this game.  These are things like "got lost flying over the ocean", "crashed on landing", "bellyflopped on a dive bombing run".  I.e. losses that you take that aren't losses from combat.  Any air mission you fly can bring about Ops losses.  Factors that go into the "ops losses" die roll are, for a few examples but by no means is this list everything":  Weather, Morale, Experience, fatigue, Airfield rating, Airport damage, supply situation, Air Group leadership, distance, in/out of HQ command and so on. 

---

Yeah, the Japs pulled a major bluff job at Singapore there to get the Brits to surrender.

In this game, Singapore is a major industry center.  The Japs need this base to provide supplies to feed their war machine.  They have to have it, and they'll get it, eventually.  I need to make it's fall as bloody as possible.

[Panzergranate]

It isn't defendable from the land and will fall, but Aussie troops are the hardest fighters and don't mind close combat, being all hard drinking blokes, so will contest every inch.

If you can chew up as much of the Jap forces as you can to take Singapore, then they'll have to delay advancing south or try to keep the momentum of the advance going at consdierably reduced strength. Chances are, that you might be able to halt them before they even make it to New Guinea.

The also took Hong Kong at the same time as Singapore, another strategic naval installation.

Don't throw extra forces into Singapore as it is untenable but do try to plan to evacuate as much as you can, at some point.

 

[AcePylut]

This game has a "restricted command" feature.  All forces start the game under various commands, and you have to spend "political points" to change their command to something different.  For example, All the Brits in Malaya are assigned to the ABDA command, which is a restricted command.  Before I can move a British unit in the ABDA command by ship, I have to change it to another command (SE Asia).  Right now, I don't have the political points stockpiled to change any of their command. 

US forces in the Phillipines are also on a restricted command.  I can't pull them out until I get the political points stockpiled.  China forces can't leave China unless I spend the points.

If you happen to have a unit in a command  that is in a location outside of that command, it's ability suffers tremendously.  lets say I have an element of the 1st Marine Div under the SouthWest Pacific Command, but I transport it up to Attu for an attack on Kiska in the Alaskan Aleutians (which is the "north pacific command" sphere), it will fight at a greatly reduced ability.

Also, I can change TF leaders, Air Group leaders, Hq leaders, and such, but all that costs political points to do so.  So if I want Boyington commanding VMF-212, I have to spend political points else I might get some wet-behind the ears no exp no inspiration no leadership no administration no tactical ability type group leader.

The British will also call for me to withdraw ships from the theater from time to time, and if I refuse to do so and keep them in threater, that costs a crapload of political points.

Naturally, you don't have enough points to do 1/4 of what you want, so you have to decide where to spend the points.  Do I spend the points transferring the 1st Marine Div to SWPAC so I can assault Guadalcanal, or do I spend the points transferring the beleagured Brits at Singapore to a different command so I can save them?  Attacking Guaddy might pull forces from Singapore, but then they might not.  Pulling troops out of Singapore allows me to reconstitute them for an attack in a year, becasue that's how long it might take to build them up to full strength, but then I really can't begin a counter-attack in the Solomons.

So where I pull troops out - and what troops I pull out - depends on the strategic situation when it comes time to pull troops.  It also depends on if I CAN pull those troops out.  Tankers, Cargo ships, troop transports have a way of attracting enemy aircraft   Using DD's and CL's to "fast transport" (think Tokyo Express) those troops is great, but then I rack up operational damage (called system damage) on my warships.  So do I want an entire fleet in in drydock for a couple of months just to save those coupld hundred men that will take a year to reconstitute to full strength?  Maybe maybe not. It'll depend on the situation at the time.

The Nip has attacked Hong Kong.  Did that on the first day.  I'll probably play this game a month or so before starting over and getting an AAR on.  I'm also going to play 2 day turns when I restart, because I do want to nuke the nip before I die of old age.

As far as the game, if you're a WW2 buff and ever played an Avalon Hill game, and happen to have 70$ lying around, this game is for you.  It's "grog level" involvement, definitely not really for a casual gamer by any means.

Really, what other game allows you to give orders to a chinese air force squadron consisting of biplanes LOL commanded by a guy named Lop-Ting?

[Hexx]

How effective does the AI seem to be?

Honestly I'd (I think) have little interest in playing as the Yanks (mainly as it seems to be just a race to see how fast you win)
Playing as the Japanese might be fun though, if the game has decent American AI.
(I'm assuming it's set up to mainly play as the US, so figure the AI routines will be well written for Japan.. but dunno about the States)

[AcePylut]

Well, I've only made it a few days into the war, so can't really comment on the overall strategic quality of the AI.  Given the absolute power the Japs have at the start, wherever they want to go they can go no matter how great of a strategist one is at defending.  Where the allied skill comes into play is seeing how well they can prevent losses, and you won't really "know" that until the end of the game when the points are totaled up.  Decisions like this:  Maybe if I had pulled that division out of Singapore with a tokyo express type retreat and accepted having a fleet in port for a copule months, I wouldn't have lost that 300 victory points I lost from losing that Division to the japs, and since I got beat by 200 points, oops, bad decision on my part because I didn't use that fleet right to during that few months they "wouldn't" have been available had I withdrawn the troops at Singapore (if you can follow THAT rambling sentence, +1 to you ), .   

I'd really rather play a human, but then, typically from what I've read, lots of people quit games once the first CV duel is over, because that usually determines the general course of the game.  So I'm not really interested in playing a human that might quit after 1 year of time.  I would want to find a partner that carries through to the end.

The actual "game", when played as the allies, is a race to see how fast you win.  Flip side is that as the Japs, it's a race to see how long it takes to lose. 

Given that the Jap production model is a lot more involved than the Allied model, and that no matter how great you play as Japs the inevitable allied land-based air onslaught will destroy the Japs, I would tend to think it's easier for the AI to be the allies.  Typical game between humans, from what the pros say, is that the Japs run wild for about a 8-10 months, then dig in for about 6 months, then try and hold on as much as possible.  Most human allied players won't risk their carriers until 1943, so that tends to slow the allied counterattack slightly.... because they say that a Jap player that sinks the US CV's in '42 can then expand for another for another 3-4 months.  But again, most US players won't risk their CV's because the Jap players typically roll around wiht their fleet CV's in one TF.  Often, they'll tack in a couple more CV's to make it 8-10 CV's... and that's what's known as the Death Star, because it destroys everything around it until the Allied LBA overwhelms it.

[Vipre]

The actual "game", when played as the allies, is a race to see how fast you win.  Flip side is that as the Japs, it's a race to see how long it takes to lose. 

That's one of the things that bumps me out of the mindset to play "Hearts of Iron". No matter what you do if playing Germany the designers force certain events. Choose not to have anything at all to do with Japan and instead focus on diplomacy with the US and Russia it doesn't matter they still declare war on you.

A game is no fun if you don't really have a chance to change the outcome of history.

[AcePylut]

Well, some things are going to be inevitable, but it's playing within those parameters that's the "game". 

Inevitably, the Japs are going to run wild at the start.  Can you, as a Japanese player, better Yamamoto's 6 months worth of running wild?

Inevitably, the allied are going to overwhelm the Nipponese with Land Based Air.  Can you, as the Allied player, turn the tide and defeat the Japanese  player faster than Nimitz?

What strategies can you employ to accomplish those tasks?  What if the Japanese focused their assault through Australia, how far can you go and is bottling up all your troops in Auzzie leave you weak to a devestating counterattack from India that causes you to lose the war in '44?  China?  Dutch East Indies?  South West Pacific?  Central Pacific?  North Pacific?  What if they you their assault in China? Burma?  what if they spread around and not expand "far" in one place, but extend a multilayered defense perimeter around the Southern Resource Area and the homeland?

What if the Allies employ the "Northern Route" as one of their axis of attack, instead of an Island Hopping Campaign combined with a push up from Australia?

Me, I don't know what I'm doing yet, I need to wait and see what the Japs can do, and when withdrawing troops, try to place them in locations where they will benefit me the most.  If I withdraw them to a base, then have to move them again, then again, they get fatigued, disrupted, and lose cohesion, so then I have to spend MORE supplies to get them "back up to strength" than I would had I disembarked them on the "right" base the first time.


As is any decent strategic game, however, logistics are 3/4's of the battle.  Yes, the US basically has unlimited supplies.  In the US.  Problem is that the US is only one small portion of the far edge of the map.  US does NOT, however, have unlimited shipping to move those supplies.  Supplies prevent you from doing everything at once.  YOu have to plan ahead. 

However, this game is all based on a simple rock-paper-scissors concept.... called Airplanes, Ships, GI's.

GI's control airbases for Airplanes and ports for Ships.
Airplanes control airspace to protect your ships and GI's.
Ships control sea lanes to ship supplies so your forces can make war.

On defense:  GI's control the air bases that airplanes need to fly off of to provide cover for ships to deliver supplies to the GI's on air bases that airplanes need to fly to....

On offense:  Airplanes suppress enemy airfields which prevents their airplanes from destroying your shipping so you can supply your GI's fighting for control of the base from enemy GI's that are out of supply and will be easily destroyed because your airplanes destroyed their shipping after your airplanes suppressed the enemy airfield....

[Vipre]

Well, some things are going to be inevitable, but it's playing within those parameters that's the "game".

On that I have to disagree. There was nothing inevitable about WWII. A push in the wrong place, a decision to move troops or equipment to Base A instead of Base B, a better showing in a battle or two and the outcome could have been different. Game designers though too often seem to start at the "Allies Win" outcome and work backwards.

If I spend all my time maxing out my reputation rating with Russia (HOI) and avoid any actions that may antagonize them, then forcing them to suddenly go hostile for no reason other than "It's what historically happened" is imo bad designing.

What if the Allies had lost at Midway and Guadalcanal instead of won? What if it wasn't the Japanese carrier fleet wiped out but the American? What if the Japanese had worried less about fortifying islands that ended up being bypassed, instead using those troops and supplies elseware? Every war has bad decisions and paths not travelled, it's that chance to "fix" past mistakes that excites me not "I know it's a lost cause but...".

When you start on December 7th 1941 the only "inevitable" should be December 7th.

[Hexx]

Actually I've found HOI2 (well the Armageddon pack) to be nicely unpredictable. Stuff usually happens, but in ( as a rough estimate) 1/4-1/3 of the games, Russia doesn't declare war on Germany if Germany doesn't attack them etc.
Always gets me as I'm constantly saying" Well I can use just a few more divisions before attacking the Soviets" .. only to find that the Soviets have created some 300 extra divisions. (Had  fun game once where the Soviet AI had constructed some 700+ divisions by May/June of '41. I chose not to launch Barbarosa.. iirc they finally declard war on me sometime in late '44, took an Abomb hit or two from me but just steamrolled my army.)
Another game had China'a AI (somehow) defeating the Japanese, firing the Korea creation event as well as a peace treaty with Japan.
And games where the Comintern and Allies declare war on each other before the Axis are even close to being defeated are always a blast.

That's kinda why I'm hesitant about WitP, seems like alot o fun, but also seem tied into "historical" production numbers.
I have no problem with dealing with (for example) Japan's inferior industry, but I'd like to be able to have the choice to build (again for example) a smaller number of superior fighters, or to try building more battleships and fewer carriers.
It sounds like it's pretty easy to mod though, so might be possible to play around with it.

 

[Vipre]

Actually I've found HOI2 (well the Armageddon pack) to be nicely unpredictable. Stuff usually happens, but in ( as a rough estimate) 1/4-1/3 of the games, Russia doesn't declare war on Germany if Germany doesn't attack them etc.

Really...  I have the Armageddon pack now but I think the game I was talking about might have been just Doomsday. I played until April '42 I think being super nice to Russia as to not tick them off in any fashion, and for no reason with a 189/200 rep rating they declared war. Tried reloading repeatedly but always sometime between the 10th and 15th a second front. My opinion of the two biggest blunders in WWII were Germany's invasion of Russia and Pearl Harbor. The Pacific probably wouldn't have been interesting without Pearl but General Campaigns shouldn't force either one, unless of course like WitP that's the jumping point.

[AcePylut]

Well, some things are going to be inevitable, but it's playing within those parameters that's the "game".

On that I have to disagree. There was nothing inevitable about WWII. A push in the wrong place, a decision to move troops or equipment to Base A instead of Base B, a better showing in a battle or two and the outcome could have been different. Game designers though too often seem to start at the "Allies Win" outcome and work backwards.

If I spend all my time maxing out my reputation rating with Russia (HOI) and avoid any actions that may antagonize them, then forcing them to suddenly go hostile for no reason other than "It's what historically happened" is imo bad designing.

What if the Allies had lost at Midway and Guadalcanal instead of won? What if it wasn't the Japanese carrier fleet wiped out but the American? What if the Japanese had worried less about fortifying islands that ended up being bypassed, instead using those troops and supplies elseware? Every war has bad decisions and paths not travelled, it's that chance to "fix" past mistakes that excites me not "I know it's a lost cause but...".

When you start on December 7th 1941 the only "inevitable" should be December 7th.

I've thought about those very questions.

What if the Allies had lost at Midway?  IMHO, our victory would have been delayed about a year.  That's it. We built something like 100 carriers during the course of the war, compared to the Japs none (not counting a few ships that were converted to baby CV's& Shinano)

What if we had lost at Guadalcanal?  Same thing, victory delayed about a year.  We had too much LBA for the japs to stop. 

WITP doesn't play like HOI where you can set all sorts of "research" paths and control the "nation" as such  It's more for people that are interested in the war, and fantasizing "what you would do if you were Nimitz"... not "what would you do if you were in charge of the United states".

I never played much AI, but I, too, don't like scripted events that says no matter how much Stalin and Hitler get to be buddies, the Sovs will attack anyway.  NOthing like that is scripted into WITP (except the US get a nuke a month in the latter half of '45), except that the US will produce far more men ships and planes.