Guadalcanal Proposal

Mess Room
20

Like you said, assymetry is the key here -LVT-1 starts off weaker vs Ka Mi, M2A4 is much better than Ha Go, the M3 and Chi Ha Kai are on par, and the M8 and Chi Ha have some comparable HEAT capabilities, although in all these cases, the US vehicles are 25-48% at the top end faster, and have a faster acquisition time due to a faster turret traverse.

I think you underestimate maneouverability of tanks based on power to weight ratios, and this is where the US vehicles really shine. They are very agile and can both turn and climb very well. The same cannot be said for any of the Japanese vehicles, which are sluggish and very slow to accelerate.
The tanks speed in a straight line is only very situationally relevant on relatively flat ground, something that most Gaijin maps have in very very limited amounts.

EDIT, the LVT-1 has 6-12mm of armour vs the Ka Mi’s 10-12mm not including the turret mantlet. Both vehicles have the same top speed. The LVT has a power to weight ratio of 16.7 hp/t, whilst the Ka Mi has 12.63 hp/t - so less agile, the turret traverse on the LVT would be between 14-16 degrees per sec on manual traverse, arguably faster if powered compared to the 10 degrees per sec in the Ka Mi, the vertical guidance between elevation and depression would be very similar on both, and the ROF will be a big differentiator - the LVT is a HMG so can hose onto, suppress and overwhelm the Ka Mi with approx 576 rpm. The Ka Mi has a ROF of 11rpm, and so each is likely to kill each other with a solid hit, but if the Ka Mi misses its shot or the shot is somehow ineffectve/absorbed by the space/overpenetrates, its going to take another 5 or so sec to reload its next shot, whilst the LVT is hosing it with .50 cal.
Finally the pen of the .50 Cal AP round is approx 26mm at 500m and 30mm at around 100m so once close enough this thing can kill any of the Japanese tanks in game from the side and rear and the early ones from the front.

21

Firstly, those boat planes arn’t going to be good for balance or even be fun to play in game, and also I don’t want to include strategic bombers in the campaign because their payloads are too big to be fun for anyone. Secondly, the P-40 still gets stomped by the Zero as it is about as fast, but not nearly as maneuverable and would be a better match for the Ki-43. Also, I don’t get the hate towards the P-400 and the P-39, as both of those were very prominent during the early Solomon Islands campaign and would work perfectly in this game. Finally, the Buffalo and the A5M would be even worse for balance than the anything I proposed, with both getting completely stomped on by every plane with no chance of fighting back. The Ki-43 at least has a chance to beat the P-38 and the P-400 can reasonably fight against the Ki-44 or the Ki-61 if I decide to change them out, I’m still on the fence about that. The Buffalo and the A5M would not be able to do that in any way shape or form. Also, you have to keep in mind that these planes need to go into squads, and the squads need to make sense. A Marine squad can have an F4F and arguably a Corsair, but not a P-39 or a P-40 and vice versa for the army. The way you set up your proposals, there is no clean way to make the squads work well like that.

Top speed isn’t as important in this game as and the P-38 is a massive target. Sure the P-38 can accelerate and decelerate well and can outrun it, but the Zero can turn in on it and kill it that way. That is pretty much going to be the relationship between every US plane and Japanese plane, as that was the case IRL. Both sides have their strengths, and pilots must play to their side’s strengths to counter the other side’s.

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22

Trouble with the LVT-1 is that it’s not even playable in an infantry centric game like this, as the only weapon requires exposing a crew to snipers, machine guns and every other guy with a gun. It is a strict downgrade from the M2A4. Furthermore, The Chi Ha Kai is more on par with the M5A1, with the Chi Ha Kai having the better gun while the M5A1 having the better armor. Also, I would put the Chi Ha Kai at the end of the campaign and put the Chi Ha first as the Chi Ha was the historically accurate one, and is arguably weaker than the Chi Ha Kai due to the Chi Ha Kai having better armor. I think the way I structured it is perfectly fine for balance, with the only matchup being really unfair being the Ha Go against the M2A4, but that is just because it is impossible to balance the Ha Go, and the I Go should make up for it, as it is better in this game due to the larger caliber gun.

Yes, I know how power to weight ratios work, but in the jungles of Guadalcanal, the speed of every tank doing anything will be restricted to the point where that becomes less relevant.

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23

The Ki 44 is an excellent climbing machine, none of the American fighters that were present could be considered that, the wildcat was A notoriously bad climber, it’s not that I have any heat for the P 39 or the P 400, as you say they were prominent in 42, it’s just that pairing them up becomes challenging when you only have three or four Japanese fighter aircraft two of which are essentially identical, A6M2 and A6M3, the Ki 43, isn’t that different from the zero either apart from being a little bit better handling and having what could be considered a weaker gun package, it only has two 12,7’s in game.

I can see you wanting to stay away from the B-17 slashH6K/H8K, but they might include something like a PBY for a coloctor plane.

The A5M being supremely maneuverable would be able to survive I should think if somebody wanted to take the time and work it, Really any playing in a motivated individuals hands can be useful, I’m just trying to advocate for an earlier start on the timeline for the aircraft because again I am more drawn personally to the earlier more unusual aircraft than the later more iconic aircraft because with them I see problems with play balance especially with the P 38 and the F4U. Given all we can really expect is the Ki - 61 and even that’s kind of stretching it.

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And I’m saying that earlier start won’t work quite as well, as this is a mid war campaign set during the same time as Stalingrad and should thus have mid-war levels of equipment.

Yes, a lot of Japanese planes can be considered similar in terms of playstyle, but that argument can be given to American planes too. All of the American planes rely on the fact that they have a bigger engine than the other guy, and a lot of Japanese planes rely on the fact they can turn on a dime. There is nothing wrong with that dichotomy, as that is what asymmetrical balancing is all about and is what needs to be embraced for the game to even function.

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25

Just use Gaijin’s own WT comparison metrics.

The LVT 1A which they have in game with the Stuart turret is BR 1.0, same as the Ka Mi, but equally they also have the M2A2 with the .50 - .30 twin turret at that BR - so you can see the parity I’m proposing with the LVT-1 here. Failing that and nudging history aside for the moment they can just use the LVT with the Stuart turret if the issue of open turrets is that big a deal.

The Chi Ha Kai is BR2.3 in realistic, which better compares with the M3A1 at 2.3, rather than the M3 at 1.7, but in reality the main difference between the two Stuarts is the engine, and was done by WT to spread out the model across a wider range of BRs and many more other nations tanks. If we focus just on US vs Japan, even the 1.7 BR M3 is a “better” tank than the Chi Ha Kai…But if someone wanted to follow the BR system religiously, then the M3A1 could be subbed in for the M3.

Similarly both the M8 and the Chi Ha are BR 1.3 even through you can easily see that the M8 will outperform the Chi Ha because its far more agile and maneouverable. ie - you will get into position first and be able to apply combat power at a time and place of your choosing.

The M5A1 is BR 2.7, entered service later on, and so measurably better than anything the Japanese can field at the commensurate BRs without skewing history too much and introducing mainland tanks that did not take part in the Pacific Island Campaigns.

26

It might be mid war when you’re looking at Europe but we’re only you know eight or nine months into the war in the Pacific, and a lot of the American aircraft that were actually in use were very early war machines, until the Arrival of the P 38, the Zero was arguably the best performing fighter playing in the theater. The only real advantage the American fighter planes had was very robust construction and some thing about home-field advantage in the sense that they were defending and the Japanese had a long way to come and generally the Americans benefited from early warning.

If you start pairing up P 38’s and F4U’s against zeros you’re gonna have a problem.

One problem with the KI 43 of course is that it doesn’t have any bombs

Of course with their very liberal rules of inclusion they might add the Ki 43 II And that would definitely solve that problem, if that were the case then all of the Japanese and American fighters would have the ability to carry Relatively similar bombloads.

A6M2 - F4F
D3A - SBD
A6M3 - P39/P400
Ki 43 II - P 40
G4M - Hudson
ki 61 - P38

Ki 45, premium
TBF, premium
F1M, collector
B 26 premium
B5N2, Collector

The Kate would still be a fun plane to use for bombing.

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The issue with the LVT-1 is that it has no weapons that can be used without exposing a crew member, and the LVT(A) program only starts because of what was learned at Guadalcanal, making the LVT(A)(1) completely unavailable for Guadalcanal any way you cut it. The M5 Stuart and consequently the M8 Scott had begun production by the end of 1942 as well as the Chi Ha Kai.
Also you appear to be too focused on the tank to tank aspect of the game and not much about the infantry part, as the WT BR ratings don’t really matter as when your primary target is infantry, you care more about the diameter of your gun and amount of machine guns you have. Furthermore, all of that “get into position” and “applying combat power” changes when infantry is on the field, as they can destroy any tank mentioned with the Bazooka and the Type 97 with relative ease, and combined with det packs, the paradigm shifts dramatically. I think what is happening is I balanced those tanks with infantry in mind first, while you are looking at this from a vehicle first perspective and while there are merits to that, the majority of the players at all times have to be infantry and therefore balancing around them should take precedent.

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28

I am familiar enough with the the Pacific, and while your words do have a ring of truth especially when it comes to tanks, that was not the case for aircraft as Japan had some of the best aircraft at the time, and America was coming out with their own to compete. Also, you are incorrect as the American planes always had one advantage over the Japanese aircraft, that being the ability to out run them, as standard procedure for American pilots since mid 1942 was to dive away from Japanese aircraft and use their speed to get away, and then re-engage when in a more optimal position.
I personally se no reason why Zeros and Ki-43s should not fight P-38s and Corsairs, as both have strengths and weaknesses and you have not presented any real evidence that either would be OP. Again, sure the Americans may be faster, but the Japanese will turn better and thus the fight will be decided by who can make use of their advantage better.
For your proposed matchups, the SBD has a payload that is far to large to match with the D3A, so they cannot be matched and that is why I resorted to the D4Y1 and the OS2U. Also, the Hudson is not modeled in WT, so they cannot do that and the TBF should suffice anyways. For fighters, The P-400 is too weak to match the Zero and it’s only real match is the Ki-43 I, and while the P-39 might match the Zero, that would force the campaign down to 39 levels and something else would have to be added. While it is not perfect, the Corsair works because it is historically accurate enough, balanced enough against the Japanese planes for inclusion and is iconic enough to draw players in. Again, there arn’t any real problems with Zeros fighting early Corsairs because both planes have their pros and cons. the Corsair has speed, the Zero can maneuver. Furthermore, considering the P-39 has a top speed only 10km/h slower than the Corsair, it’s presence should be fine for balancing. However, if you still insist then we can downgrade the Corsair to the stock F4U-1A, which is even slower than the P-39.

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29

Shermans when

30

I’ve seen someone leak that the next map in the files is something like WhiteSeaMap?

Kudos for extensive research with spreadsheets though.
However, I would expect Type 11 to appear in campaign levels rather than gold order/premium selection, since the Japanese made ~30k of those.
And since we go into prototype/never adopted weapons land (which personally I am against, I’d rather have fewer levels than fantasy content), I don’t think I see Type 4 (reverse engineered Garand), which could be on the same level as the M1 Garand itself)?

In general, I think going for “War for the Pacific” would give greater freedom than restricting the accurate content by historical context of a single battle like Guadalcanal.

31

That’s the whole point. The M2A4 is vastly superior to the Type 97 Ha Go, I was looking to tone down the bias, and I’m happy to break down this down to vehicle characteristics, but I suspect its a moot point.

That’s simply not true, that’s balancing by gun caliber alone if you can call it balancing, but if you’re not sure as I indicated earlier rather than generalise just use what Gaijin implemented in WT for contrast - Chi Ha Kai is BR2.3 whilst the M5A1 is BR 2.7 - once again those are balancing decisions in the context of a broader more tank rich game, when you focus it down to the scale in Enlisted the performance characteristic discrepancies between the two tanks increase dramatically.

This is incorrect, both the tanks have the same hull and turret, the difference is in the gun, which the Japanese began developing following the lessons learnt at Khalkin Gol. Once again you can check both out in WT, and if you don’t have an account just let me know I can post screenies.

This is flawed logic or just lazy research, I’ll let you decide which. Neither the Ha Go, or I-Go Ko are a match for the M2A4, much less the M3 or M3A1…As per previous statements go compare platform characteristics between your proposed tanks either in WT or use other historical sources.
N.B. that as I stated previously Gaijin added a whole bunch of experimental HEAT rounds to the Japanese line up because it was so bad, and that was months after their initial Japanese tree release.

The reason I focused on tanks is to reiterate that your line up is biased towards the US, and by your own analogy, when you move to a combined arms scenario the situation only gets worse.

The Japanese tanks are slow in comparison to the US tanks and have weaker engines, which when combined with the anticipated steep terrain of the Pacific Islands and the incessant detpack spam that plagues all the other campaigns suggests to me that playing Japanese tanks will be a real challenge.

A good sense of what the Japanese tanks will be like are what is happening to the Italian tanks on Tunisia.
They are severely outclassed by British / US tanks and constant detpack fodder as they are unable to maneouvre in time, something the British armour has a lot less issue with, and Tunisia is super flat by Gaijin’s other maps standard. If they were combat effective then the devs will not have inserted the German line up at the higher campaign levels.

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The Type 11 is so comically underpowered that I figured it is better to make it not a campaign weapon, but instead make it a premium weapon, kind of like how they made the MP 18 a premium weapon too. Furthermore, they made ~40k Type 96 LMGs and ~50k Type 99 LMGs, so I think it is ok for historical accuracy if we just skip it. It is most definitly better for balance as well.

As for the Type 4, that only materializes in 1944, putting it just outside the time frame of Guadalcanal.

There are also issues if you want to do Pacific as a whole, namely aircraft improving at a rapid rate on both sides, meaning it will be difficult to fix a set of Aircraft that are balanced and are historically accurate enough. Although, if they segmented it into Pacific 1942-1943 and Pacific 1944-1945, it might be more doable.

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The issue is not that the M2a4 is superior to the Ha Go, I get that but at least the Ha Go can fight infantry on it’s own. The LVT-1 cannot do that because to use it’s only weapon, you have to expose a crew member and that is an easy way to get the entire crew killed. At least with the Ha Go, you can shoot with your weapons without having to worry about a random bot sniping out the one person makes half the tank work.

You are forgetting about the fact that the jungle will restrict movement on both sides rendering the manoverability advantage of the Allied tanks mostly moot and when it it is not moot, the Infantry has the Type 97 automatic cannon which can pen every American tank from the side and most of them through the front. Mobility isn’t as big of a concern as tanks are encouraged to stick with their infantry so they can stop the enemy infantry from throwing det packs or using anti-tank weapons. Just look at the Puma players in Normandy.

That is incorrect, at least partially. Yes, both tanks use the same hull, but the point of the Chi Ha Kai was to take the turret of a Chi He and put it on the hull of the Chi Ha. That turret has two variations, one where the armour is as thick as the one on the Chi Ha, and one where the armour is upped. There are records of Chi Ha Kais using the up armoured turret as the program began, as it was intended as a stop gap for the Chi He to finally take form and the Chi He was always supposed to use the up armoured turret.

Again, the tanks should be balanced around infantry, and the infantry are mostly ment to deal with tanks in this case. In the jungles of Guadalcanal, that mobility will matter a whole lot less than you think, especially with infantry. No amount of mobility is going to save you from getting flanked or swarmed by enemy infantry. Yes, Japanese tanks will be difficult to play, but so will the American ones as you are just as susceptible to the AT weapon as the Japanese ones. Sure, the Italian tank in Tunisia can be considered underpowered, but the problem with Tunisia is that is is too open, not giving infantry enough cover to get to a position where they can kill the tank before they get spotted. That won’t be the case in Guadalcanal.

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34

the progression idea is perfect, indeed a great job seems so good that maybe it will be like this in reality

35

I think we’re simply going to have to agree to disagree, I’ve simply played to many of these games before when you have P 38 And corsairs fighting Zeros, as long as you have a competent player in the Allied planes they’re going to zoom and boom the zeros all day long Because they can dictate the engagement, and it becomes very tedious for the Japanese player.

You don’t have to hang the 1000 bomb underneath of the SBD, They also could carry 500 pound bombs on the Centerline.

I get that your favour personally the mid warplane set and that you’re trying to rationalise that decision-making and I as I have stated above personally prefer that the game stay more to the early war period because I think it will play better and I am rationalising my choice.

It’s just really hard to not appreciate the significant difference between the P 38 and the F4U, in speed and durability and guns over the Zero and Oscar

36

The 500lb for the SBD bomb isn’t modeled in WT and since that is where models are stolen from, that can’t be added. As for the F4U and the P-38, they get matched against Zeros in WT all the time and while it is tedious to fight one piloted by a competent player, it is also just as tedious to fight a competent Zero or Ki-43 in those planes as they will just turn away from your gunsights as you try to line up your shot as you dive. slowly draining your energy forcing you to either retreat to try to line up another run again, or make the mistake of trying to stay and turn fight them. Again, both sides have their advantages and disadvantages and it is up to the pilot to use them. If an American pilot gets behind a Japanese plane, the Japanese pilot can just throw his plane all over the sky and bleed the energy of the American plane before looping back and finishing him while if a Japanese plane gets behind an American plane, the American plane can just dive away and try to get back into a position where it can engage from a position with an upper hand. Both sides have strengths that are so insanely different from the other that it will always be tedious for two competent players to fight with those planes. Also, don’t mock the Japanese 20mms and the Japanese .50 cals, they are very good at setting things on fire in WT and with the size of American engines or in the case of the P-38 and it having 2 engines, getting a hit on them should not be that hard.

37

Very trivial matter. , but in that time Type 2 Pistol was not exist. First prototype was completed in 1943 and adopted in October 1943. (Battle of Guadalcanal ended in February 1943)

Also, MP28 should be labeled as SIG-Bergmann M1920 because specification is quite different to in-game one (7.63mm, 50 ammo magazine etc)

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38

Ok, I’ll correct the Type 2, but not so sure I can change the MP 28 as I already have the SIG M1920 further down in the tree. It’s actually kinda difficult to do an early war campaign in the pacific because all sides don’t have enough of something (Japan lack SMGs, the US lacks LMGs and Britain lacks a lot of the secondary the weapons like anti’tank weapons and flamethrowers)

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39

Sure, but IJN’s sub machine gun is only SIG M1920 and S1-100, and both IJN and IJA never used MP28 so it should be replaced to anything. (Sometimes IJN’s SIG M1920 labeled as MP28 so I misunderstood it…)

Now I think the best solution of that problem is implement “Pacific campaign “, not Guadalcanal campaign and implement Guadalcanal map as a part of campaign like this suggestion.
In the first place, Guadalcanal map is not enough to make battles for one campaign, and map file name is “pacific_guadalcanal_minimap” so I hope devs choose that solution.

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