WesWorld

This was discussed somewhat at the design-board, but no conclusion was reached. Basically this was a proposal by me for rules for how to simulate a country sending its industry into overdrive in wartime, converting civilian industry to military output, and mobilising the young and the elderly, and the women not normally emplyed in the workforce, to increase industrial output.

Draft of rules:

Quoted

A nation which is engaged in a war may go to war-economy, putting its industry on war-footing. The immediate effect is to increase by 50% the output of all factories, both as regards war-materials and infrastructure-points. This represents the temporary conversion of civilian industry into war-industry, as well as the heightened tempo at existing war-industry. Putting the industry on war-footing affects all factories, it cannot be partial.

When a player decides to put the industry of his country on warfooting, he makes the announcement in its quarterly report; the economy will be on a war-footing two quarters after the quarter the report was made. Scaling down is immediate, and announced in the same quarter the economy is back at peacetime levels.

If war-economy is maintained for more than two quarters running, OR if if the industry is placed on war-footing several times successive without interval between each instance of at least twice the length of the instance of war-economy preceding each interval, the industry will be worn when the economy scales down to peace-time levels. Example: the Kingdom of Nordmark returns its economy to peacetime-levels after having spent the first two quarters of 1930 on warfooting. At the beginning of the fourth quarter of 1930, Nordmark announces it again will go to war-economy, which happens at the beginning of second quarter of 1931. At the beginning of the fourth quarter 1931, Nordmark again returns to peace-economy, but this time with its factories working only at 90% efficiency - while each period of war-economy was short enough to not incur a penalty, the interval between the two periods of war-economy was not at least twice the length of the first period of war-economy.

Worn factories operate at 90% of normal output, until necessary repairs are carried out. If worn factories are put on warfooting again, the increased industrial output will be calculated from the worn factories' efficiency, not the normal efficience, and any penalty for further wear and tear are cumulative with earlier penalties. Example: In the third quarter of 1918, Nordmark requires 4984 tons of material. Normally this would require 5 factories to produces, but at 90% efficiency, 5 factories produce 4500 tons, and so a sixth factory must be brought in. Thus, instead of 1.3 points, Nordmark gets points from one factory less, and only 0.09 points from each factory: 1.08 points

Reparairing factories costs less than building new ones - it costs 0.5 infrastructure-point to repair a factory which is at 90% efficiency. Example: After having spent two year on war-footing in World War 1, Nordmark returns to peace-footing. Its 18 factories now only can produce 0.09 infrastructure-points per quarter, until they have been repaired. This will cost Nordmark 9 infrastructure-points. Factories can be repaired one at a time, so that instead of applying a fractional value per quarter, one can repair as many factories fully up as is possible, before moving on to the next. As such, Nordmark in the last quarter of 1918, in between some other projects, manages to repair 3 factories, then in the next six quarters manages to repair 2, 3, 2, 4, 2 and 2 factories respectively, thus having all 18 factories back up to working condition in time for the third quarter of 1920.

I will have no problems with adopting those two rules.

I assume that every time the penalty is applied, the current efficiency is applied. So if the factories are already at 90%, that would mean they drop to 81%, and when at 81% they would drop to 72.9% etc.

Walter

That is the intention - and repairing from 72% will cost nearly 1.5 points per factory.

I think we should apply this to the sim. I'm not sure what the rest think but as long as no one objects to it, we should include this in the rules.

One thing is for sure, the efficiency of the factory will never reach 0 (only come close to it).

Walter

Maybe somewhat should put things together first. I support this proposal on war-time production for example but I´m still not sure how a rule regarding building ships faster should look like.

Quoted

Maybe somewhat should put things together first. I support this proposal on war-time production for example but I´m still not sure how a rule regarding building ships faster should look like.

I agree with Hooman here. This looks like a good 1st half of rules. How are we going to force the output of shipyards? do we need to? IMHO the increased factor output could be used to increase the number of slips etc. I am not sure that it is possible to hurry the construction of waships. History does not seem to indicate that it is.

cheers

Bernhard

Perhaps a ship build faster than most would come out at a rating of 95 to simulate the teething troubles with a hastily built ship? A ship rushed on the slip would have some form of poor or hurried workmanship.

I think the war economy rules might be improved if there was some degradation for maintaining a war economy over a long time. Perhaps including a 5-10% output degradation for each year the war econmy is maintained, in addition to the 10% reduction on resuming a peacetime economy would reflect the debilitating nature of modern warfare if it is excessively prolonged. Repairs should also be possible during wartime, if the factory is taken off-line during the quarter it is being repaired. I will take the liberty of copying Pengolodh's draft rule and incorporating the additions I propose, indicating additions/changes to Pengolodh's draft in red:

Draft of rules:


Zitat:
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A nation which is engaged in a war may go to war-economy, putting its industry on war-footing. The immediate effect is to increase by 50% the output of all factories, both as regards war-materials and infrastructure-points. This represents the temporary conversion of civilian industry into war-industry, as well as the heightened tempo at existing war-industry. Putting the industry on war-footing affects all factories, it cannot be partial.

When a player decides to put the industry of his country on warfooting, he makes the announcement in its quarterly report; the economy will be on a war-footing two quarters after the quarter the report was made. Scaling down is immediate, and announced in the same quarter the economy is back at peacetime levels.

If war-economy is maintained for more than two quarters running, OR if if the industry is placed on war-footing several times successive without interval between each instance of at least twice the length of the instance of war-economy preceding each interval, the industry will be worn when the economy scales down to peace-time levels. Example: the Kingdom of Nordmark returns its economy to peacetime-levels after having spent the first two quarters of 1930 on warfooting. At the beginning of the fourth quarter of 1930, Nordmark announces it again will go to war-economy, which happens at the beginning of second quarter of 1931. At the beginning of the fourth quarter 1931, Nordmark again returns to peace-economy, but this time with its factories working only at 90% efficiency - while each period of war-economy was short enough to not incur a penalty, the interval between the two periods of war-economy was not at least twice the length of the first period of war-economy.

Beginning on the fifth quarter of a war economy status, all of a player's factories suffer a 5% reduction in efficiency. Further 5% efficiency reductions are suffered on the 9th quarter, the 13th quarter, and every fourth quarter that follows.

Worn factories operate at 90% of their output at the conclusion of the wartime status , until necessary repairs are carried out. If worn factories are put on warfooting again, the increased industrial output will be calculated from the worn factories' efficiency, not the normal efficience, and any penalty for further wear and tear are cumulative with earlier penalties. Example: In the third quarter of 1918, Nordmark requires 4984 tons of material. Normally this would require 5 factories to produces, but at 90% efficiency, 5 factories produce 4500 tons, and so a sixth factory must be brought in. Thus, instead of 1.3 points, Nordmark gets points from one factory less, and only 0.09 points from each factory: 1.08 points

Repairing factories costs less than building new ones - it costs 0.5 infrastructure-point to repair a factory which is at 90% efficiency. Example: After having spent two year on war-footing in World War 1, Nordmark returns to peace-footing. Its 18 factories now only can produce 0.081 infrastructure-points per quarter, until they have been repaired. This will cost Nordmark 17.1 infrastructure-points. Factories can be repaired one at a time, so that instead of applying a fractional value per quarter, one can repair as many factories fully up as is possible, before moving on to the next. As such, Nordmark in the last quarter of 1918, in between some other projects, manages to repair 3 factories, then in the next six quarters manages to repair 2, 3, 2, 4, 2 and 2 factories respectively, thus having all 18 factories back up to working condition in time for the third quarter of 1920.

Factories suffering efficiency reduction in wartime may also be repaired in a single quarter, with each 5% reduction requiring 0.25 infrastructure-point to repair. While under repair, a factory produces neither infrastructure points nor warship construction materials .

I like your changes...

If everybody agrees I´ll copy this into the infrastructure rules.

Unfortunately, I do not - try having a look at the maths you will have to do in a prolonged war, it is enough to make my head spin.

This is really beginning to look like we might need a joint effort at spreadhseet programming. Volunteers?

cheers

Bernhard

Though I should bring this forward (thanks Rocky) in light of Chile about to go to war with Bolivia.

Also a different thread mentioned a quickening of warship production by adjusting the ship's construction time calculation by dividing by 1,200 rather than 1,000 (+9) to get the time to competion (thus a 30,000 ton battleship that would usually take 1,170 days to build would only need 1,020 days to complete, but the same amount of materials. Though as seen in this thread, material production would be increased by 50% during wartime, but result in factory ware by war's end (90% effective until repaired).

There does seem to be a slight hanging on the last point on factory ware over time during war.

I don't think factories should suffer efficiency down-trends during a war. It has to be assumed that a wartime economy would include enough materials to keep factories running at full speed. The US, after all, never suffered any down trends once it hit its stride. Here's my proposal:


1) At the declaration of a war economy, the production output increases by 25% every quarter until production reaches 200% after the quarter that a war-time economy is announced. Thus, if a war economy was announced in Q1 1932, it will take until Q1 1933 for the economy to increase production by 100%.

2) For everyquarter that an economy is in a war-time footing, the efficiency of factories will drop 5% once a peace-time footing is established.

3) Factories in occupied territory will not produce any IP for the duration of the war and factories in conquered territory will incur a 10% efficiency penlty per quarter once returned to a peace-time footing.

Quoted

The US, after all, never suffered any down trends once it hit its stride.

It wasn't bombed/sabotaged/lack of money/lack of persons growing food etc. Considering that your factories are meant to represent industry across the board I think Peng's proposal is sound.

Pengs proposal has been worked in practice, as peng actually simmed Nordmarks economy recovering from WW1, throughout 1919/20

I think the 50% increase suggested originally is adequate but should be interpreted as a "best case" scenario. Players should consider applying some penalty to their output based on damage sustained as a result of the war (those of us dealing with El Derretir should consider this as well).

I agree with Stuart's modification to the wartime degradation - a focus on production will come at a cost in maintenance, and there will also be an ongoing loss of workers being mobilized for combat.

I would suggest that the nation's peacetime efficiency be the same as whatever the wartime efficiency was when the conflict ended. The exception would be for a war four quarters or less, where there isn't time for a war-time degrataion - in that case the peacetime efficiency is 95% (because there should be some effect even from a short war).

I'd also suggest that a peacetime economy naturally recover at the same rate that a wartime economy degrades - as demobilized troops re-integrate into the economy, etc. The repairs rules continue to apply if a player wishes to accelerate the process.

On building times, Ithekro's suggestion is fine with me; the revised building times remain well short of the exceptional times the Americans managed, so it should prevent too much trouble from that.

Exceptional? Try near-miraculous. I think at one point the yards were managing a destroyer a day. I honestly don't think anybody could come up with a proposal that could imitate such a build rate.

As for Ithekro's suggestion, it's fine by me so long as we're talking less-than-total wars.

Well with the wars of the early 1930s starting to come to an end, a decision as to what happens to our war economies should be addressed.

Chile stated it would go on a war footing in Q1/1932 and started its war economy two quarters later in Q3/1932. It is now Q4/1933 and the war economy of Chile will likely end by or before Q2/1934 (if things go according to plan). Will this mean Chile will have been on a war economy since Q1/1932 or Q3/1932? This could be eight quarters or as many as eleven quarters.

Which system fits the situations? I was going to follow the simpler 90% for all factories (save the new factory once it is completed since it wasn't used in the war) until repaired, or would the damage actually be higher than this?