HBG's Japanese Sets

Coach,

jUst ordered 10 sets of OOB Orange, looking forward to getting them so I can paint in Japanese WWII colors.
Keep up the excellent work.  Looking forward to the new sets coming later year.

WARRIOR888 :-D :-D :-D

With all due respect , I understand you guys wanting a heavy carrier but please, please, please have a really good carrier sculpt in the final Japanese set if you absolutely MUST put that clunker in this one.  One that saw action and made history instead of one that saw zero action and was sunk within a month of being commissioned.  If you look at the figures, both the Shokaku and the Zuikaku carried more aircraft and were faster than Shinano and they played a pivotal role in the war.  They truly WERE heavy carriers.  Even the  Unryu carried more aircraft than the Shinano.  Please get rid of that dinosaur and give us a real carrier or, at the very least, consider them for your final set.  These will quite possibly be the last great Japanese pieces made for A&A and ya just gotta do em’ right.  That twelve year old boy in me is begging you guys!  :-(

@Variable:

MORE UPDATES!!!

I have edited the description of the Japanese Expansion Set (Set 2) to include a few updates.

First is the reduction of light tanks planned from 4 per set to 2. Don’t freak out. This was necessary in order to fit in more awesomeness. We have bumped the planned (not confirmed) Unryu to the 3rd set as it suits it better and will be including a Shinano of our own in it’s place. It will look as good as the other HBG Japanese pieces you have seen and, more importantly, will be the right size! It will represent heavy fleet carriers and will therefore be sized larger than oob Shinanos to fit the HBG naval sizing convention. It will be easy to tell the regular HBG Kagas from the heavy Shinanos this way.

Lastly, we are looking at doing that heavy infantry piece still. Coach is getting a bit creative with it and I think you’ll like what you see. When we have the final model I will post it up on our site.

Which brings me to the last thing. I put all of the set’s 3d model pics on our site. Be sure to click on the image gallery to see them all.

Thanks guys! We’re getting close to making this set. About half way now on needed funding to push forward. Keep on those Set 1 pre-orders.

http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/HBG-Battle-Pieces–WW2-Japan-Expansion-Set_p_812.html

AWESOME! Yamato looks wonderful.

@Pacific:

With all due respect , I understand you guys wanting a heavy carrier but please, please, please have a really good carrier sculpt in the final Japanese set if you absolutely MUST put that clunker in this one.  One that saw action and made history instead of one that saw zero action and was sunk within a month of being commissioned.  If you look at the figures, both the Shokaku and the Zuikaku carried more aircraft and were faster than Shinano and they played a pivotal role in the war.  They truly WERE heavy carriers.  Even the  Unryu carried more aircraft than the Shinano.  Please get rid of that dinosaur and give us a real carrier or, at the very least, consider them for your final set.  These will quite possibly be the last great Japanese pieces made for A&A and ya just gotta do em’ right.  That twelve year old boy in me is begging you guys!   :-(

I understand the want and the place for a heavy carrier. I think there should be one. However, for what it is worth, I too would LOVE to have a Shokaku/Zuikaku type carrier as well… particularly because these two were so important in the war. I guess if there were one Japanese sculpt I could ask for it would be a Shokaku class carrier… or even Hiryu. But yeah…

@Pacific:

With all due respect , I understand you guys wanting a heavy carrier but please, please, please have a really good carrier sculpt in the final Japanese set if you absolutely MUST put that clunker in this one.  One that saw action and made history instead of one that saw zero action and was sunk within a month of being commissioned.  If you look at the figures, both the Shokaku and the Zuikaku carried more aircraft and were faster than Shinano and they played a pivotal role in the war.  They truly WERE heavy carriers.  Even the  Unryu carried more aircraft than the Shinano.  Please get rid of that dinosaur and give us a real carrier or, at the very least, consider them for your final set.  These will quite possibly be the last great Japanese pieces made for A&A and ya just gotta do em’ right.  That twelve year old boy in me is begging you guys!   :-(

The U.S. carriers carried more aircraft than the Japanese carriers and really the Akagi and Shokaku carried the most for the Japanese. The two carriers Zuikaku was only 30,000 tons (hardly a heavy carrier) and Akagi and Kaga both around 42,000 tons more in line with the Essex Class for the U.S.  Technically the Japanese did no compare with the U.S. Essex or Midway carriers, even the Essex carried 120 aircraft. The Shinano was 68,000 tons, same hull as Shinano. If we base the carrier size off of aircraft storage, Lexington and Saratoga have to be Heavy’s and most of the UK carriers will be downsized. It is really hard to figure out the correct way. This will not be our last set, I assure you we are working on more Japanese carriers as well as some U.S. ones. I am not convinced but was going to use the Taiho as the heavy but also changed. The information I have shows Akagi carrying 91 aircraft, Kaga…90, and Shokaku & Zuikaku as 84, rest of them are in the 60’s and 70’s. I can be swayed to change our minds if I have good reasons. We will do more carriers at regular size and I only want to make one Japanese heavy carrier. Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

@LHoffman:

AWESOME! Yamato looks wonderful.

I don’t see its picture in the link Coach posted.  There’s a photo of a Nagato-class battleship, but I can’t find the Yamato one.

@CWO:

@LHoffman:

AWESOME! Yamato looks wonderful.

I don’t see its picture in the link Coach posted.  There’s a photo of a Nagato-class battleship, but I can’t find the Yamato one.

click on “Image Gallery” to see additional pictures

@coachofmany:

click on “Image Gallery” to see additional pictures

Ah, I see it now.  Very nice.  It’s the early-war configuration of the Yamato class (the one I like best): all four of the 6-inch triple-gun secondary batteries are in place, and the decks are uncluttered.  Later in the war, the decks got covered with additional anti-aircraft gun mounts, and two of the secondary batteries were deleted in compensation.

If you’re using combinedfleet.com, then you’re using an excellent site.  I think that aircraft compliment, speed and survivability (armor and fire control) in that order are the main factors to be considered when describing what constitutes a heavy carrier.  IMO, sheer size does not matter.  What does matter the absolute most is the ability to project power and aircraft capacity is the key factor here.  If, as you hint at, you plan on making various Japanese carriers at regular size then, by all means, have at it with the Shinano as your heavy.  But I think that there are a fair amount of A&A gamers that are like me who really want to see carriers produced that actually participated in the war and made history.  Yes, the Shinano was big….huge in fact, but there are other large (ability to project power) Japanese CV’s that are far more relevant.  Again, if you plan on making a bunch of carrier sculpts have fun with the Shinano.  But if there are going to be sculpting just a couple or few, make ones that mattered and leave it up to the gamer to mark them as “heavy” if the rules call for it.  This will provide us with the greatest compromise between historical accuracy, historical relevance and game mechanics.  Thanks for taking the time to respond Coach and, perhaps more importantly, thanks for providing us with such great products and services.  Without you this hobby would be a lot more bland!

Really it might be better to make another carrier, forget the Shinano, everybody has 50 of them already. Akagi was done in 1941 game, we are doing Kaga as a fleet carrier (same size as OOB), maybe we should do another fleet carrier for second set and then people can decide to use them however. Thoughts?

You just encapsulated my thoughts exactly.  Relevant fleet carriers at regular size are the way to go.  If some rules call for a heavy carrier,  players can either mark a fleet carrier or use a different color.

Generally speaking, WWII carriers fell into four types: fleet carriers, light fleet carriers, escort carriers and seaplane carriers.  The term “heavy carrier” wasn’t really used, as I recall.  The differences between the four types were basically as follows.  Fleet carriers were fast, and they operated the full range of carrier plane types; both these characteristics also applied to light fleet carriers, but they were smaller and thus they carried a smaller numbers of planes than full-scale fleet carriers.  Both types were suited for offensive action against enemy fleets.  Escort carriers were slower, and they operated a more restricted range of plane types; they had primarily a support function rather than an attack function.  Seaplane carriers were the least capable of all; I’m not even sure that deck landings could be performed on them.

As I recall, Japan used a total of seven full-scale fleet carriers in combat during the war: the “original six” which attacked Pearl Harbor (Kaga and Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu, and Zuikaku and Shokaku), plus the heavily-armoured Taiho which became operational later in the war.  I’m excluding Shinano from this list because, as Pacific War mentioned, she never reached a fully operational status and was sunk without seeing combat.  So in my opinion, those are the seven carriers from which HBG ought to be choosing when deciding which one to produce as a first-rate carrier unit for Japan.  I’d be fine with any of them as HBG’s selection.

By the way, here’s a useful resource:

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/ijn_cv.htm

@CWO:

As I recall, Japan used a total of seven full-scale fleet carriers in combat during the war: the “original six” which attacked Pearl Harbor (Kaga and Akagi, Hiryu and Soryu, and Zuikaku and Shokaku), plus the heavily-armoured Taiho which became operational later in the war.    So in my opinion, those are the seven carriers from which HBG ought to be choosing when deciding which one to produce as a first-rate carrier unit for Japan.  I’d be fine with any of them as HBG’s selection.

I’m right there with you on this.

I would also like to point out that I think there is a difference between number of aircraft carried and actual number ready for flight operations.  I believe that there were extra aircraft onboard but they were partially stowed to replace losses.  Just because a carrier carries “x” number of aircraft, that doesn’t mean that that number can be hurled at the enemy at a moments notice.  So, taking the Akagi as an example, it may have carried 91 aircraft but the number ready for combat that could be put up at any given time was somewhat less.  There is also the issue of deck space available to be factored in so it should be noted that a carrier never had all of it’s available aircraft in the air at one time.  The same applies to US carriers.  So when we research numbers, we have to keep these things in the back of our minds.  Focusing on the Shinano again, part of its envisioned duty was as an aircraft ferry because, by that point in the war, Japan knew that it could not oppose the US navy on the open seas.  You will find some sources listing it as carrying a very large number of aircraft but it could never operate such a large number nor was it intended to.

@Pacific:

I would also like to point out that I think there is a difference between number of aircraft carried and actual number ready for flight operations.  I believe that there were extra aircraft onboard but they were partially stowed to replace losses.  Just because a carrier carries “x” number of aircraft, that doesn’t mean that that number can be hurled at the enemy at a moments notice.  So, taking the Akagi as an example, it may have carried 91 aircraft but the number ready for combat that could be put up at any given time was somewhat less.  There is also the issue of deck space available to be factored in so it should be noted that a carrier never had all of it’s available aircraft in the air at one time.  The same applies to US carriers.Â

And apart from the space capabilities inherent to the ship designs themselves, I think there were also differences arising from operational practices.  As I recall, the US Navy liked to operate with full carrier decks as much as possible, in addition to the planes stowed in the hangars.  The US Navy practice had the advantage of maximizing the number of planes on each carrier, and my guess is that the trade-offs were: a) greater vulnerability of on-deck planes to storms, and b) more complicated coordination required of the movements of planes between the deck and the hangars.  The USN could afford to replace lost planes (especially in the second half of the war), so the first trade-off wouldn’t have been much of a problem.  As for the second trade-off, the famous wartime colour docu-drama “The Fighting Lady” includes footage showing how good the USN’s deck crews were at “re-spoting the deck” (repositioning planes for take-off after each set of landings).

That is an excellent movie.