The Setting Sun - Gotterdammerung, Japan 1944.

[Mangudai]

A little annoying to see Alexander von Falkenhausen hasn't been forced to resign his advisor role in China, but Paradox couldn't get everything right, now could they?

Mangudai - Thank you. The United States forces in general are likely to be a small problem.

Being sarcastic, right?

[Maximilliano]

another remble '44 AAR? Count me in, Good luck!

[Remble]

son of fire - Such is the way of World Conquest AAR's. Retaining interest in a situation where victory is certain is not easy.

Inner Circle, Simon-1979 - The opening shots will have to wait for the political process to conclude. Reports are important after all

Lord Strange - I don't think the IJN will be dominating much for a while. The USN is considerably bigger and more modern. I expect my aircraft to alter the odds a little though.

stnylan - Thank you. I guess I made the mistake of looking at the general HoI board and it saying that certain mods monitor this forum, or at least thats how it looked to me Of course it makes perfect sense to just look at the bottom of the page but scrolling can be a little hard at times.

OneArmed - Thank you and welcome

Sokraates - I actually have no idea if I can win this. My experience with Japan is very limited and the odds are fairly bad. Living on an island is a big bonus though.

Mangudai - Sarcasm it is indeed. The lowest and therefore best type of whit which I shall be using from time to time. China's leaders will hopefully become irrelevant soon enough.

Maximilliano - Thank you and welcome

Time for some more briefings. I will try and get through these a little quicker than one post a day so we can get to the action.

[Remble]

Initial Reports

Security and Production

0000 June 20th 1944.
Imperial Palace. Tokyo, Japan.

"Continuing with our briefings, we shall move on to the current Security situation." Prime Minister Hideki stated.

"Good morning all. Your Majesty. Security is of no major concern at this time with the majority of our territory free of any type of resistance activity." began Kato Hakujiro the Minister of Security.

"China is the only area with some partisan problem but it contains several garrison divisions which are suppressing any hostile activity. The level of unrest will rise as we expand in China and additional divisions may be required to keep this under control. Our population is holding up well under the current strain and is working furiously to assist the War effort in any way possible. Nothing to add." concluded Hakujiro.

"Production next please."

"Your Majesty. Gentlemen. Our industry is working at full capacity for the time being." Armaments Minister Fujiwara Ginjiro began. "We are facing several problems which do need to be addressed and fairly quickly."

"We have shortfalls in many raw materials which will reduce our capacity to produce new forces as well as supplies if we cannot find alternative sources. Energy is the biggest problem as far as industry is concerned. We have rougly fifteen days before our energy reserves are exhausted at the current level of usage. This situation needs to be addressed urgently or building projects will suffer delays as a result.

Similarly we have a metal shortage, although not as extreme as our energy shortage. I am hopeful that our Siamese ally may be able to help us with metal as they have a surplus. Rare materials show a deficit but this is a variable brought about by our convoy system. We actually have a healthy surplus of this commodity and can use it for trade if required.

Oil is another serious problem. The number shown here is high as many outlying areas have been sent oil that will last them for several days. Daily consumption is still high and our stockpile is low. We will most definately need to trade for this commodity to enable our armed forces to function at full capacity. Reducing the time our ships are at sea and limiting air use will reduce the daily drain, but even then we shall need a lot more than we currently produce.

The supply situation is also not accurate with many convoys currently running. I shall monitor this level for a few days before adjusting production to an appropriate level. Virtually all of our outlying forces will be short of the resources needed for them to function effectively for twenty four hours while the convoys distribute the necessary supplies. Once this initial supply has been achieved things should calm down noticably and a more accurate picture of day to day needs will emerge.

Our industry is currently producing large quantities of consumer goods to appease the populace after the various Cabinet changes of the last few hours. This will need to continue for a few weeks before this production can be switched to repairs and upgrades. Our forces need few replacements although several upgrades are needed to bring our forces up to our current level of technology.

Our manpower situation is fairly good but the amount of new manpower becoming available is low and will need to be carefully monitored.

We have over 1200 convoy vessels, of which, roughly 800 are supplying our outlying interests. This number changes daily but I will ensure we have enough to keep all of our Armed Forces supplied. Major anti-convoy activity by our enemies could result in serious losses to our convoy fleet and we should take some steps to prevent this type of loss."

"I have made very few changes to our current production runs, although I did halt the two Submarines under construction as they were older types. We are producing four Aircraft Carriers, only one of which is modern. The Combat Air Groups for these vessels can be upgraded to newer models effectively making even old Carriers useful. The only real problem with using outdated vessels of this type is their speed. All of these Carriers are due fairly soon."

"We are also producing one Light Cruiser and Destroyer which I will also allow to complete production. The Imperial Japanese Navy is short of escort type vessels and these are needed. More may need to be produced but there are other priorities at the moment.

I have ordered an additional thirty infantry divisions to be raised to both protect our mainland from invasion and to strengthen our remaining territory. This amount of extra troops should also allow us to conduct offensive operations without weakening critical areas. Some extra garrison divisions will be produced when we need them, depending on the situation in China.

I do not wish to expand our current building program until we have secured additional raw materials to guarantee our industrial supply. More aircraft and ships are required by those parts of our military but they have fairly lengthy construction times, for which we may not have the long term materials available to produce them. If no action is taken to remedy our stocks we will be running at approximately 50% industrial capacity within weeks. Needless to say our enemies do not have this problem. Nothing further." concluded Ginjiro.

[Inner Circle]

are you a Rammstein fan?

yes!

[trekaddict]

yes!

Good. So am I.

[SoulStealer]

I'm rather excited to see how this goes. May fortune smile upon you. Because we know nothing else will.

[Murmurandus]

Right, we're getting into gear...

[Kurt_Steiner]

I'm rather excited to see how this goes. May fortune smile upon you. Because we know nothing else will.

If fortune doesn't smile to Remble, Remble will force fortune to smile to him

[Sokraates]

So I take it that China will be the first target of Japanese agr... anti-communist efforts.

I'm itching to see some maps, especially how your troops are dispersed and how many are currently protecting the home islands.

Speaking of islands: do you plan to help the US-AI if it should opt for the famous "drop 100 divisions on an island and wait"-strategy?

I'm rather excited to see how this goes. May fortune smile upon you. Because we know nothing else will.

I'm sure the Chinese will smile at the Japanese, while they sharpen their bayonets.

[Black Sun]

Give an useless VP provience in china to germany.
I tried it.

[Simon-1979]

make sure to protect port arthur - dalian and korea or you will have invasions there more often than you have hairs on your head (i noticed the north was fairly unprotected - great spot to cut off your forces in china - same goes for indochina......a real pain in....well you now what i mean....the AI, what can you do?...but as long as you dont end up with stacks of say 50 allied divisions on saipan or so you cant complain.....

[Mangudai]

I find your lack of resources disturbing.

About the partisans: As far as I know, Mao's guerilla warfare in the occupied areas wasn't any great success in itself, but it gave the Chinese there an image of them as omnipresent and relentless, which in turn increased their standing with them, and helped them win the war with Chiang in 1949.

[stnylan]

It will be tough with those resources no doubt about it.

[germanpeon]

Wowzers. Thats a really, really terrible resource situation.

[Maj. von Mauser]

Wow, it's nice to see another Remble AAR. I really enjoyed your last one even though I joined when it was already a forgone conclusion.

And yeah, you supply situation sucks, to say the least.

Anyways, consider me subscribed.

[Nabendu]

Good stuff so far. What is the mighty empire looking like?

[Remble]

SoulStealer - Thank you. It could go anywhere as I really am a complete novice with Japan. Makes it fun for me though

Murmurandus - More of the briefings before we actually dare to unpause and do anything destructive

Kurt_Steiner - Some luck will be involved as it always is with random combat results but I will do all I can to force things to go the way I want them to.

Sokraates - China is a logical choice even though it has nothing much to add resources wise, except for its stockpiles. Superstacks are a possible problem but some things can be done to limit them. v1.3a is not quite as bad as earlier versions as far as these stacks go.

Black Sun - Nice idea but that definately falls under my no gaminess rules.

Simon-1979 - Thank for the advice. Beach defences are the ideal job for puppets and allies and they will be doing this job.

Mangudai - Pieces of information like that are always most welcome, as I have already said I am no expert on Japan or the far East.

stnylan, germanpeon - The resource situation borders on horrendous and is not going to be easy to solve. This is easily the worst resource position I have ever been in and will require my trading skills to be tested considerably. That little 100% trade rule is going to hurt I think. Being unable to trade with my Allies is a very big part of the trouble as nothing will get through.

Maj. von Mauser - Thank you and welcome to my new offering

Nabendu - All will be revealed in the two posts to follow that will conclude the briefings

[Manziel]

hmm...do you get full trade efficiency when trading with the soviets? you have a border with them, but i am not sure wether the border counts or your capital

[Remble]

hmm...do you get full trade efficiency when trading with the soviets? you have a border with them, but i am not sure wether the border counts or your capital

All trades are from capital to capital so it goes by sea.