I am honored to be selected as AAR of the week. My wife is not so happy. I am a 46 year old male from Phoenix, Arizona. My outside landscaping and honey do list has suffer because of the Hearts of Iron 2 and the AAR. I am an avid reader of world history, especially military history. I also like business non-fiction, such as airline history & railroad history.
I picked Japan as the AAR because I was very familar with Pacific War. I played an old computer game called Pacific War back in 1994. I had a Japanese AAR before under the name Thunderbolts but my login & password got screw up and I lost the ability to sign back in. I got a new login name, Spade-Tiger and started a second Japan AAR after version 1.3 was released for HOI2. I first download all the Japanese & Pacific WW2 photos I could find on the web. I got mostly Naval & airplane photos. It was rare to find any land combat photos. I found some amazing photos from WW2 at the National Archives in Washington DC. These are the big super-size photos on my AAR.
I am not a great writer. I attempted to blend history with photos into my AAR. Japan is a exciting nation to play because you must use your navy to project power across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. You have limited resources and many choices. Do I go to war with China? When do I take on the United States? Should I go after the Dutch colonies? You are always on a tight budget and never have enought resources to do everything.
I used my naval bombers and their 1000 kilometers range as a secondary role as scout planes to see where the enemy was and their strength. I group my transports inside my carrier strike forces to protect them on amphibious assaults. My carrier task foces always had 3 or 4 carriers together. I destroyed the British Navy and now have the US Navy down to 3 carriers in 1942.
You guys are putting alot of pressure on me to finish my AAR in grand style, now that I was voted AAR of the week. I hope I can live up to the challenge.
Thank You.