Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

Most Steadfast Generals and Seaworthy Admirals.

The Emperor has handed down his wishes and we must react.

In the news

Now the Naval treaty is signed, the Navy should look for any excuse to tear it up when the research is hindered (see below), if failing to find any useful international event, use the Italian none-signing. Apparently the tearing up of treaties are less costly than not signing them ...

Now we have embargoed the ComChi, should we not continue with embargoes on the rest of the Commies, ie. the Soviets!

The Italians took their time defeating a nation even weaker than the Chinese, at least most of the Chinese guns are breach loaders and not muzzle-loaded!
Reports have come back that some of the reasons of the slow advance was lack of supplies, in this case fresh meat and the Italians solved this by dropping goats with parachutes!!! A rather wasteful method, we should lay new rails if we need to fight far inside continents.
The fall of the Ethiopian Empire also marks the one of the last None-European, none-American independent countries. In Africa now only Liberia, which is in all effect an US puppet, and South Africa, a Commonwealth country, are left independent.
In Asia only China and Siam is independent to any degree from Us or the Europeans.


I'm proud we got 6 gold medals at the Olympics, 4 silver and 8 bronze, we will surely do better in 1940.

The abdication of the Decadent English Emperor really shows that they are politically weak at the moment, even if they hold a 1/3 of the world in their possessions.

Regarding the Spanish civil war, we should support the Anti-communist forces with "Volunteers" if needed and consider an embargo on the communists.

The US economy recovering is bad news for us as they would want to use more resources themselves now.


CHINA

As predicted the ComChi's and Nationalists made peace, this is the 2nd worst outcome of the conflict, best would have been the ComChi's defeat and worst continued war until we engage.
The ComChi's effective defence of their enclave seems to stem from their fortresses and foremost their fortress city and the mountainous terrain. The large number of troops certainly helped the re-enslavement of the land districts too.
As you can see from the intelligence reports, the ComChis have nearly as many potential recruits as we do and as the NatChis does.

The intelligence reports are not accurate, far from it we can hope, more spies should give us better evaluation of the enemy. If the NatChi got 18 LS we would have a problem but I guess they would definitely have 7 less than we do, and their education and ministers would also be worse.

That the NatChi waste LS on a fleet that only will be Target Practice(TM) for our navy is very gratifying! I just hope they will be building some ships too.
The Nat-/Com-Chi production is worrying if its true, I would have guessed 9 and 70 respective with maybe 10% extra for good ministers. Lets hope they mobilise to eat a lot of this production, with upgrades, supplies and consumer goods they might only have 20IC free for real production then.

It is clear we are winning the intelligence battle, when we got 5 free spie we should cut down on the intelligence LS, to 1 LS then at 10 free spies to 0.4.

Army research status

The infantry is slowly getting up in gear we will need a lot more of those.
The garrisons are doing nicely, when we conquer China we will need 11x2 Gar divisions more for all the ports and until then they can fill the Soviet border.
We will soon reach a new level of excellence with 300 brigades we should hold a big parade to celebrate this!

Production

Now here is the greatest challenge, we must decide when we go to war! this makes the planning of the production much easier.
The decisions should be based on when we can ally with Guangxi and Yunnan as soon as we ally with them we should mobilize. I don't expect this to happen before 1st July. When the mobilization is about to finish, we could consider creating Menkukuo to provoke a Chinese DOW or failing that just attack under some pretext.

OK, now we have decided that we will attack at the time X, then we should decide to do before that. The army's is currently not up to date, each land upgrades takes roughly 1.5 months costing 4-5IC, to complete and we have researched (or will soon finish) 2 levels since start of '36, lets assume that all upgrades to date has been on pre-36 updates. That would mean we need to upgrade 2 times or for 3 month with a full budget of 16-20IC, considering the backlog from the Airforce(2-5IC) and the Navy (20-25IC) we would need something like 40IC for 2 months to be sure to increase the the army fighting capability. (check the upgrade need after turning off on all ships, CAG and Nav and be afraid).

This is clearly too much and if the estimate of 6 months to start of hostilities holds we can spread the updates more to lower the pressure of the production more.

So its a dilemma, if we go with less than 25IC (of these will be 5-7IC NAV/CAG upgrades) on upgrades we risk that only the Navy+planes gets upgrades. Also the navy should consider what they want, upgrades or new builds, no upgrade means no AAA nor Radar on older ships which is bad and it takes up to 1.5 years to finish one level, no new ships is also bad.
So I suppose the Navy wants to upgrade somewhat and turn off upgrades on all they don't currently wish to upgrade, remember this is around 25IC on the Navy budget. The upgrades of the CAG should be given first Navy priority though as they are needed against China.
Now to finance this, I propose to cut the Supplies production to 10IC until it starts to reach 10K, at that time we hopefully can free them up again. Also the current production production of 2 Art seems too much, lets cut the first that finishes and start a inf instead, the surplus goes to upgrades. This should add 6IC to the upgrades, also the 5 new IC and any IC freed up by increased practise from the next 5 factories should go here, for a total of about 30IC.
Any excess from the upgrade budget goes into the supplies to act as an buffer for the next phase.

Reinforcements should be increased to 1IC to keep up with the need.

Next step is after we ally with Guangxi and Yunnan alliance is not really possible after we are at war as they will be reluctant to join any warring nation also mobilizing causes threat to mount so shouldn't be done before.

Then we need to mobilize, this will cost around 30 IC for reinforcements for nearly a month, this is finances by slashing supply production to zero and production as much as needed, hopefully we have so many excess supplies we don't need to produce any new for a month.

If we keep the following production running concurrently in the first half year.
1 x Art/AA/AT (120+ days)
5 x Inf(x2) (~90 days)
1 x Gar(x2) (~60 days)
We should by 1st July have gained around 12 infantry divisions, 3 art, 4 Gar more than now, that is much under what I hoped for but I don't see how it can be different.
After the needs for Gar need, 8 Standard armies are filled, upgrade and mobilization has been met, we might consider building a plane for the Army, I suppose Yamamoto wants a heavy fighter since his insistence on researching it? This will be in 2nd half '37/early '38.

This leaves Zero IC for any nice to have units, like Arm, Mar, planes and escorts in the first half year.

As soon as upgrades have fallen and mobilization is complete the Navy should start a new CAG along with a bonus CAG after this one finished for letting the army have more upgrades (as appreciation for to the Navy).
I suppose the Navy want to start a new CA/CL after the current CA is finished.

As I earlier suggested and the Emperor now worries about, the Navy should produce some convoys, if we don't we can't trade and if we can't trade we can't produce.
To remedy this the navy will have to produce some convoys immediately and then make a steady production of convoys. Any excess Navy budget should be used on transports until the current crisis is over or the CA put on hold and 3 convoys build parallel instead, each takes 75 days for 1 convoy (5 ships), knowing that it takes 16 ships to Dover and some routes are even longer, we would need at least 2x3 new convoys (30 new ship) to be sure we are not hampered by convoys. After this the Navy should keep building 1 convoy as our expanding economy and Empire will use steadily more. Building escorts for every 5 convoys might also be a good idea, but can be kept of to a bit later.

Now I would propose the Navy that we simply share the reinforcement, upgrade and supply costs 50/50 as the Navy's toys are much more expensive and would require permanent upgrades for a long time.
Where the Army's backlog should be gone by the end of '37 even with the current budget leaving 100% at the navy's part and the navy got 100 ships to upgrade for long times.
Supply consumption should at this time be 75/25% with the army taking the largest part which is countered by the Navy's higher upgrade costs.
Reinforcements are beyond the immediately cost of mobilization not that high, a 1IC investment should more than keep up with the current needs and lower the current backlog. After a war starts we don't expect more than 2IC need as average, this might be off depending on combat intensity but not by too much a damaged fleet would cost 5-10IC / fleet to repair for months, so in the long run I guess it would even out.
This would also simplify the Emperors clerks task of keeping the budget (see production slider AI hax in comment tread).


Resources, trades and Taxes.
We can hope to see an improvement in 75 days if the navy puts a major effort into convoy building.
The reason for any money problem is that we import supplies and we can't export as the same time we import. (Yes I know we can't influence trade AI, I just think its actions are questionable )
With the current governments unpopularity I don't think a tax increase is the right instrument to improve the stability, just remember the 2-2-36 incident. Any tax increase must wait until we are at war and the population will accept it.


Current research

Not much to say other than its all needed.

I will try to make a complete research list of all techs that anyone might research with marking if Navy, Army or Imperial should be interested and if they are only interesting after we get to Greater power or Superpower status.

For this purpose I'd like to have a comment on some of the Navy techs which are gonna be researched and which not. * is Imperial techs, some prerequisites might need researching too. I'm sure I forgot some, but when I make a print it will show up and we can coordinate any differences.

These are to be researched fully
BC (incl. Capital Main Arm and AAA) and CV are to be fully researched, upon insistence from each mini-faction.
CL are to be fully research as they are common escort for both.
Maritime Attack ordinance
Radar, Large and small ship Radar
scout planes
Construction mats
ASW
All Naval trainings - except sub training, DD training as they have to hunt subs.
All Sealane control (ASW is important which the latter 2 gives)
Carrier task force and cruiser escort. (last 2 are somewhat marginal)
Marines
Light techs, salt-water and amphibious Warfare Equipment (Marine techs if Army decides against Mnt).
*Proximity fuse.
*Fighter improvements, except escorts
*Industry techs, except combat radio (as its too marginal for the navy).
*Medical evacuation(+15% trickle back)
*Special forces training - will be needed if we get lots of Marines.
*supply trans & org + repairs.
*Night fighting Equipment ('44)

This leaves the question on the following
DD design and AAA, as their AAA counts for all surface ships.
Sub Sonar - increase longevity of the current subs, I don't suppose we build any more soon?

Upon greater power status
CA - AAA
*Radar guided bomb
*Rocket techs needed for rocket interceptor(+10% interception)


Upon Super power status
Force projection - last 2 if we got enough subs and DD left.
sub training. (if we have any left).
*Escort Fighter -> the range penalty is not acceptable currently, need to be ready for escort drop tanks, prereq drop tanks.
*Nuke techs. - absolute top priority if we do it, ie. chain research

To be ignored
CAG focus is to be ignored.
I take it that CA is out (except maybe CA-AAA in '42).


Decisions decisions ...

As mentioned earlier the Navy should find a proper excuse for leaving the treaties when absolutely needed.
Now I wonder if the Navy will research the Light AAA from the destroyer techs as it applies to all surface combat shibs including all the old types that are not being researched any more and is one of the few upgrades that can be retrofitted.

We could consider the Mengkukuo as a preamble for the attack on China, as it includes a couple of Chinese provinces I'm sure we can expect some kind of reaction. Though this should be delayed until our Intelligence project has born fruit.

We should of course show our potential allies that we will help them in any fight against Communism, sign the treaty!

We should of course focus on fighter targeting, if we shoot down the fighter the bomber will be very lonely after that, if we did the opposite, the enemy fighters would be in the way of ours shooting down the bombers and we would have more casualties in the air overall.

Regarding Attack plans
to be done!!!


General Surt
Army HQ

Generals, Admiralty. My Emperor.

With the expansion of the armed forces we are now set on a solid course, that shall collect the fruit on in the near future. My suggestion is that we aim for fighter targeting focus. Non of other nations in our sphere of influence tend to have large dedicated air superiority wings, therefore making it a priority to destroy what little air forces they do have shall leave our own bombers full assurance that the skies are Japanese.

To that aim forging closer alliances against the Bolsheviks is most defiantly a course we should follow. If the skies are to be Japanese, so will the land that it floats over! Both the Russians and Mao must recognise this. The Chinese must learn that it is not China that we seek to supplant, but this notion of militant socialism.

It is a somewhat sorry blow that the Chinese have chosen unification, but not one that warrents undue concern.

Soon (if not already) we should be able to envoy our Warlord allies in China for a greater Asian unification. It may take several attempts, but with repeated argument and perhaps some subtle gifts they may be persuaded.

This allows us to begin the case for war in China.

With alliances signed, we form Mengkukuo. We watch the Chinese reaction, should they feel suitably pressured into war, we have saved our face as defenders in the realm. Should that not be enough to spark the Chinese into action, we may have to create a suitable cause and 'teach them a lesson'.

However non of this should take place before we are ready.

Chinese modernisation should be of little concern so long as we keep our field edge. The longer we build ourselves up the stronger we are. We need not rush into war. We might want to seek to find ourselves in that position late 1937, if not spring 1938, with allies ready to embark on this endeavour.

I would second the proposal to shift industrial capacity to somewhere near 40 new merchant fleet vessels, then switching focus, to retrofitting around 10 escort class vessels. This can take be undertaken over a length of time, and need not be a priority, serial builds should suffice.

I don't suggest heavy fighter production as of this immediate coming year as a priority, rather seeking to use Japanese factories for this only after we can shift supplies production to Chinese factories where we can have the Chinese produce cheap consumer goods for the home markets.

Rather we need to continue with infantry division build up. It looks like we have 6 divisions in the pipeline, that is only a 1/3rd of expected needs for China, and will be needed to be run at least twice more before we are in a strong enough position to be confident of success in the south.

That makes new (high priority) production requirements;
36xINF Brigades (12 in production)
12xART Brigades (4 in production, assuming one line is for garrisons)

At 'Serial' 4, Parallel 6 that will take 16 months 16.41 IC and 72MP for the infantry (1/3rd in production)
At 'Serial' 3, Parallel 4 that will also take 16 months 15 IC and 6MP for the guns. (1/3rds in production)

This would bring our number of brigades in the region to 78 to build the 'line army'. Serial being here, produced one after another.

At current rates, these forces should be completed as we finalise our political work in China. This is a good sign that we are on track to reach our goals.

This is also a good point at which the oldest outdated elements of the navy can be refitted. Such refits will take time and even if they are not completed in time for a conflict the most modern fleets should be easily capable of shutting down the Chinese navy.

With about ~30IC currently dedicated to ship construction, we may be able to get as many as 6 ship refits done during the 1937 time-scale. But after all that is for the navy to decide. Additional CAG production may be in their interests...

It is this generals opinion, that during a warfare period we should begin garrison recruitment for China, with two training camps, training Chinese nationals sympathetic to our cause, we could raise the needed brigades within 1 year (lowest projected time to complete an invasion of China) at a cost of ~4IC, a nominal cost. Using Japanese soldiers will not only generate animosity against Japan as we shall be seen as occupying forces, it also makes sense to use locals who know the urban/port regions. [OOC: Just fluff on solider nationality, not talking about puppets or anything here ]


Lucky I forsee a slightly longer time frame than 6 months before hostilities, and it might be worth having completed needed recruitment, like the navy we seek strong modernisation. I might also suggest the prioritising of our 'tough' divisions, so that they always will be at top fighting strength. The 'line divisions' can wait their turns respectively.

I think that the current production plan with 2 factories producing guns should be kept as they shall greatly increase the firepower of our line divisions, and after all you did want additional guns for garrison divisions, let's not change our focus. If a compromise needs to be made, let one of the factories be the IC soak, at the lowest priority.

Further review on attack plans for China will follow soon after I have consulted my officers and the results of their wargames...

Army organization *DRAFT*
For combat units, Garrisons and Cavalry is not shown.

The standard divisions of the Imperial army

The filler divisions are 8 Engineer, 2 IST, 1 Kamikaze Armour, 2 Motorized.
19&20 Hoheishidan are kept unchanged at 5 regiments in case there are some well defended positions were we need a higher troop concentration. They are filled into the normal structure as a Line and a Support division.

Much discussion about if we wanted to make a Armour corps along the line of Germany with 1 Kamikaze, 2 Mot and maybe the IST or we followed the French line of thought and spread the armoured and mobile units out among the infantry.
The discussion ended last time with that we would follow the French line of thought for the Chinese Pacification Campaign.

An example Ichigun with 2 Homengun.

Each Homengun has 2 Gundan(corps), here 1st & 5th.
Each Gundan consist of 2 Line, 1 Support and 1 Filler Shidan (division).
When we run out of fillers put an extra Line or Support in instead.

General Yamamoto,

I also first read that we were producing this

That makes new (high priority) production requirements;
36xINF Brigades (12 in production)
12xART Brigades (4 in production, assuming one line is for garrisons)

At 'Serial' 4, Parallel 6 that will take 16 months 16.41 IC and 72MP for the infantry (1/3rd in production)
At 'Serial' 3, Parallel 4 that will also take 16 months 15 IC and 6MP for the guns. (1/3rds in production)

Click to expand...

But the Imperial Clerk has the top 4 Army units shown twice, once in the queue and once in the insertion, you can see it by comparing the unit names and ending dates :/
So we only have 8 inf brigades and 2 art in parallel production, and 2 Gar brigades.

Also Your 36xINF Brigades + 12xART Brigades has confused me, why these exact number, maybe I skipped some sub-total you made earlier.

China Pacification Campaign Nationalist *DRAFT*
Plan CPCN - Knockout blow to the nationalists.

A plan needing 7 Offensive Homenguns divided among 3 Ichigun.

The last continental Ichigun will cover our back against Soviet with 2 Homenguns, a Cav against Mongolia and a Gar Hoemngun against Vladivostok, this is not shown.
- It is strongly advised to add another none-reserve Homengun here as a defeat in any Soviet probe would embarrass the Empire to no end, to be in place early '38.
- Air asset 1 Ftr in P'ungsan covering Vladivostok, protecting against all flights from there.

Daihon Ichigun
- 3 Gar Homengun
- any unassigned CAG in Tokyo, covers Japan.

Pacific Ichiguns
- as is.

Any partial offensive Homengun to keep in reserve for unforeseen resistance.

Assumptions and prerequisites.
Each Homengun can hold max. 6 provinces leaving 2 in reserve for counter attacks or rest.
Any attack demands that Guangxi is allied with Japan and that all units are upgraded and fully mobilized.
According to advice from the Emperor each Ichigun will be in a new theatre but detached from the theatre for improved AI performance.
AI will use Armies as its control level.
The Ichigun HQ's will move and lead the most difficult combats (non-AI).
We will stop at the marked provinces until we know if we need to take more Vital Provinces(VP).
We can very fast reinforce our landings with port garrisons to secure our supplies, a partisan on our supply dump would be disastrous.
All Ftr will be set to intercept at max range where they are stationed.
All planes are split into singles so we can get the most air generals trained, start with the ones with most traits in the LB as those will get most experience, including people with the naval traits, replace them when they get to skill 4.
All invasion fleet will need generous escorts and initial shore bombardment.
Several sub fleets could find entertainment hunting convoys in the Taiwan Straight as the 3 harbours there are not taken.
We don't want to start off in any Guangxi territory as that would give too many provinces to them.
Our allies should be called in asap so they don't get 2nd thoughts.

RISKS
We fail to make a knock-out blow, that could be failing to take Nanjing.
The AI starts to move inland despite setting to defensive or withdraw, thereby overburdening the supply net.
Our allies break the alliance!?! In which case we need another Homengun in Canton.


Kita-Shina Ichigun
1 Ftr, first in Dalian then in Beiping
2 Str, bombing Yan'an & Zichang in communist china, this is important for the warlord pacification campaign, we don't want them to be able to reinforce when we attack their forts.

Hohhot Homengun

Start 4 northerly boarder provinces.
Advance in straight line south to the holding line.

Boading Homengun

Start in the 4 provinces from just north of Beiping to the coast.
Attack direction south.
Link up with Qingdao around Jinan and swing inland to final position.

Shanghai Ichigun
- 1 Ftr, 3 LB first in Dalian then in Jinan, LB's are individual and set to interdiction.
- ATR, stays in Dalian, supplies any Homengun in trouble down to Shanghai. Might need to change to Canton Ichigun and fly from Haikuo.
- will need a CV group to provide Ftr cover at all times around Shanghai as there are no airports within easy range.

Qingdao Homengun

Named after its final position as it starts on the Chihli bay coast.
Landing in Penglai and the 7 provinces to its west.
Attack direction south west toward Jinan and then to final position.
Note depends on supply from either Qingdao or Boading Homengun soon.

Nanjing Homengun

Lands around Qingdao from Haizhou bay, starting from the northern most province and the next 7 south.
Initial target Qingdao and Yantai, remove each when obtained.
After supplies from Qingdao is secured targets are the final + Nanjing.

Shanghai Homengun

Initial landing at both sides of Shanghai with target Shanghai and the provinces around it.
Then add Nanjing for linkup, then change the Shanghai ones to the final (the southern grey).
This is the most uncertain of the operations, the AI is likely to mess it up.
Most likely place needing reinforcements.

Canton Ichigun
- 1 ftr
- 1 MB, interdiction.
- Will need a CV group to provide ftr. cover the initial landing at least until we get an airport on the mainland.

Shantou Homengun

Landing in all provinces from Shantou to Jingmen.
Primary target the harbours, then final as those are archived.
A VP is laying just beyond the final line and will be the first target if we are missing any after all the other operations.

Haikao Homengun

Landing from Dongping and and the next 7 coastal provinces over Anpu to Tonggu Zui.
This operations goal is two fold, get the harbour at Haikuo and cut off our ally Guangxi from gaining too much land.
Target are Haikou and final line.
Hopefully the northern Shidan's will quickly move north and aquire as much land as possible before Quangxi takes it, we want the 50+ rares there and they don't really need them!!!


I'd like to hear your thoughts on this plan!

Honored Emperor, fellow Admirals, dear Generals,
We are deeply upset about the signing of the second treaty of London. While we of course will obey the will of the emperor, this will mean a potentially catastrophic lack of freedom of research and production for the battleship arm. While we do see that politics are important factors, it seems unhonorable to demand that the battleship arm should be the only branch to have to pay the price for this.
Having this in mind, it does seem useless to suggest to leave the treaty right after we signed it.
While Germany appears to be strong, it is not clear where they are going just yet. They may provide a useful distraction for the colonial powers if and when we decide to enlarge the Japanese sphere of influence. We should also consider that if we sign this pact, the Russians will be aware of it and will take steps to counter our diplomatic move. We can still sign the pact later on, when it is more advantageous to do so.

Our opinion is still the same; the intelligence operations abroad are a waste of good men better spent for other purposes. We could research more or recruit more officers instead of sending spies to weak and meaningless countries. Worst of all, we’ll lose these men once those countries are conquered, which we without any doubt will accomplish soon. Our intelligence gained by these operations is next to worthless as it doesn’t affect our plans.

First of all, we need to have a look at what routes can be discontinued and what we assume we will need in ships to supply potential landings. We also need to consider building provisional ports to get more supplies into any area where this is possible and necessary.

The lack of boots on the ground is concerning, especially when we know that our enemies has lots of men under arms already. We therefore suggest divert production capabilities to the army once the heavy cruiser IJN Suzuya is finished. We furthermore suggest to use these capacities for upgrades. Having the supply situation in mind, we offer to, yet again, postpone the construction of the BC IJN Ibuki for another 6 month to further the upgrading of our forces. We sincerely hope that the army will return the favor when the time comes. If the upgrades should not demand that much IC any more, we would strongly suggest to start the serial construction of several convoy ships.

Another CAG may not be needed just yet, as the coming conflicts will barely be a matter of naval capabilities, instead we need to enlarge the army. I am sure the Generals will agree with that. May be the carrier arm will also agree to postpone the construction of their carrier for a few months, so the army is upgraded and ready for combat and we hopefully have some convoys to spare once operations start.

BCs are secondary priority, we would prefer doctrines for our BBs over these, capital ship main armament being our biggest concern. If there is still room for projects, we would suggest to use these for Radar techs. ASW duties will be performed by CL only, hence we don’t need to research anything for DD or CA.


Have been provided already vis a vis Russia and China respectively. Since we do not have any dedicated infantry forces for the navy yet, I assume that naval landing planning is in army hands. We assume that the plans already provided do cover the navy plans as detailed as reasonably possible. If there is still a need for clarification or for other eventualities, please let us know.

The promised Tech pictures, next an example of a filled out tech sheet.

Colour code:
Black - army
Blue - Navy
Purple - Imperial, benefit both major factions or need to agree on.
Gold - potential war winner also imperial.
red - not researched.

I hope this correspond to what we agreed on earlier, else please write your protests.
I'll repeat some of my arguments from page 1.
As we will have average of around 1 research team on each sub-technology page, we have to limit us to the bare necessities.
That is why strategic is not researched along with 4 engine.
Ground attack is not research along with twin engine.
The army goes for interdiction, leaving out installation (hope the other army generals agree).
I presume the Navy has no or little interest in Independent Airforce tech and the Navy is interested in improving the Air interdiction of its CAG.
The focus techs doesn't give any real benefits afaik.



I'm unsure if the Navy wanted to research port strike.

I share much of the same sentiment with admiral baltasar, while I regret the signing of the second naval treaty, we will nonetheless move on. I also applaud the hard work of General Surt, and agree that the naval priority (as far as airforce) is to increase the potency of our CAGs.

Organization
As commander in chief of the air force, and strike south, I support the presented organizational arrangement General Surt. We shall need however the forces in production to reach the required number of artillery and infantry brigades needed for the Chinese campaign (78 Infantry and 30 Artillery; ~42 and ~18 already in theatre).
With 3 Ichigun, and 7 Homengun to fill it, 3:3:2 makes the best ratio to split, in this general’s opinion, the cavalry units, with their attached AC units should not be posted too far north. The additional line divisions above the full corps can be retained in reserve along the Russian border.

Although I propose the Chinese Ichigun to have a further army group commander, one who perhaps is skilled in attack tactics or logistics, and that this be the operational level of command. More on this will follow.

Operations
Having played out a couple of wargames (admittedly not with your scenario General Surt as of yet), it is clear that we cannot over stretch ourselves, as by weakening our overall singular division strength, a frontline-reserve mix is the only appropriate course of action as we cannot ‘steam roll’ fronts by brute impact of larger divisions vs lesser ones.

Because of this it is unrealistic to expect we can accommodate multiple landings at multiple ports. Beiping, Shanaxi, Xi’an, Jinan, Qingdao etc. shall have to be ones groups focus, Shanghai and Nanjing the others. Given Guangxi’s support that presents three fronts for the Chinese to deploy along. Given that the Chinese need to make numerical superiority to win, this should suitably spread their forces thin enough, that our forces are on comparable, if not stronger, terms of arms.

If, and only if Shanghai and Nanjing fall without large resistance, do we pull back a corps to land at Qingdao. If Guangxi have taken Qingdong(sp?) in the south, that should be almost enough to break the camel’s back, assuming some of the other lesser cities have been taken. To aid in this goal, swapping our operatives mission to disrupting the national unity of the Chinese people would be wise.

Alternatively we can opt for a southern and northern strike, but forgoing the centre, making Qingdong the initial focus, and push on towards Chendge from the start, aiming to present a limit to Guangxi expansionism, forcing them inland, or to support our line as we push towards the coast. This scenario came out to be somewhat successful in test; however it did result in a much longer overall war, as key centres were not taken early on.

The final war game ran, looked at a singular Beiping-Qingdao front, that would roll across China, while the longest of the three scenarios, and the one giving Guangxi the most land, in the opening weeks it took large amounts of territory and proceeded at a fair pace with little risk of involved. The result was somewhat…inevitable.
Hence these plans have been ranked in order of risk involved.

Having looked at your plan in principle General Surt a landing at Shantou and moving inland could be a nice mix between the first and second war-games, as the Shantou group, could then connect up with the Shanghai forces, as Guangxi moves up from central China. However this war game has yet to be ran.

I will evaluate this scenario, and the one you have presented in the near future to make up my mind fully on where I think we should progress. I do feel trying to take on two landings at once is a big gamble, if we want to use them to push out and expand the Chinese forces to the point where their line breaks.

Then follow it up with a detailed (approximately dated) plan for how forces should be deployed, and how I believe the war should progress.

The Naval Aspect
Here the navy need to take on a massive roll, with the complete annihilation and dominance of the waters of China, submarines in merchant shipping attacks, and most if not all of our naval craft patrolling the coast in order to insure that we fully control the seas and need not worry about our transport fleets.

There is good reason for this, like the splitting up of aircraft into individual wings, the more admirals and captains we can give valuable experience too, the better our fleet moral and combat effectiveness. Carriers however should follow the armies; we need their ability to be a naval airbase, as china has few. Setting them to ground attack or interdiction or similar roles in the immediate area of the axis of advance, and concentrating our air power, will give us superiority there.

Likewise, our light bombers should be pressed into a similar missions, the carrier based aircraft, may then be able to act in an air superiority role, should any Chinese aircraft present themselves.

I reject the notion of needing more ports on the Chinese coast, except in the case Qingdao is not an initial focus, more ports mean more post-conflict garrisons, and thus supply convoys and related infrastructure. It is the ‘inland’ supply issues that we need worry about, not along the coast. Hence Admiral Baltasar I do not ‘in general principle’ support new basings.

I do not think that we need stop work on the IJN Ibuki, at least not for as long as 6 months, perhaps in the mobilization phase we can lay off some of our workers to help on other arms and armaments. But 6 months is a little excessive in my opinion, a couple of months may be more suitable.
During this conflict we should seek the recruitment of our first marine corps, this need not be done wholesale, but we could perhaps take some 4IC or so on that task…?

Strategic Air Power: 1938-1941
For the moment, until 1939, our light aircraft shall be up-to-date, or better than many others. This is an advantage we need to maintain. By 1939, we should be looking to place 2 research groups on air technologies prioritising engine, then armament, and by the start of the year looking to build a heavy Ftr wing or 3!

While we don’t need them at the moment, they can both act in air attack, and ground attack rolls, which would make them able to compensate for a lack of heavy bombers. In order to build experience, come the start of 1939, we need to place a wing into production, then by the time it’s done, then another two, then possibly another 3 (bring the total to 6) by ~1941.

This will take a sustaintail amount of IC to commit to this plan, but given the soviets, given colonial air assets, would be needed to retain a large flexible air attack wing. After this, keeping our air assets up-to-date should be all that we need for the 1942-1946 window, unless we should like to explore advanced aircraft designs. Given that this should be the era that the navy will be our key to global status, I am sure that they would be happy with this motion leaving IC available to them.

General Yamamoto,
We must look at what we want from this war, and that is primarily Beiping with many factories and Quangdon(Canton) with 10 factories and the 50+ rares just north of that, Nanjing is only interesting because its the site of government and storage of resources, the other 2 are the main advantage.

Any plan that leaves Canton and the 50 rares to the Guangxi I would consider a failure, if they get 1/3 of them we could barely live with it and would have to buy them from them, but these would solves our problems in rares for a long time (at least if we garrison them well).

I don't doubt we would take the north, but its the south that counts and fast, I would like to hear how your southern invasion went and how you did it.
My idea was to get as far up the Guangxi border as possible asap, thereby letting their soldier strike north into territory we have worse supplies in. Keeping all our forces within 3-5 provinces of the border/coast (unless needed for resources or VP) to prevent overextending our supply net, then when the Nationalist crumple quickly defeat Shanxi and move in on the ChiCom's who should be reasonable weakened by the constant strategic bombing of their factories. At this point in time we can withdraw 3-4 Homengun to ease supplies while defeating the rest of the warlords far inland.

The landing at Qingdao might be delayed but should go on with full force once Nanjing falls to get the VP's around Jinan which should be enough then.

I've also spoken to Admiral Baltasar and advised not to stop the BC too much, but starting much new might not be a good idea, we would want around 25 IC on upgrades most of the year, if we pass September I hope all army units will have finished (the waste majority at least) upgrading and only navy upgrade remains.

ps. if you could upload a pre-war save I could experiment with I would much appreciate it.

Cybvep said:

*Technical note


No. There will be no experiments on the save-game. I can clarify some information given in my posts if necessary, but the game is supposed to be challenging and lack of save-games is part of the challenge factor

*

Click to expand...

(I meant Yamamoto's, if that is allowed?)

Emperor, the navy is ready. The plan posted earlier covers navy options. If further details are required, we will of course provide them.

To General Yamamoto, I'd like to suggest we put a -0.01 neutrality minister in Foreign office and in Security to help with the alignment of the Warlords, unless there is a reason to keep the neutrality high.

Final Plan of the Imperial Japanese Army
[DRAFT PENDING FULL APPROVAL]

slightly changed by General Surt 19/11. II.1a

Status:
Gensui Yamamoto [SS] – Pending Approved
General Veteran Lurker [SS] - Pending Approval* (ABSENT)
General Surt [SN] – Approved
General Comm Cody [SN] – Pending Approved

Admiralty Stamp of Approval On Homeland Affairs and Naval Research - Pending Additions, Pending Approval

* Don't know if your still taking part???

I.
Our general major strategy should be to seek 'Great Power' status (200+ IC) over the next few years via actions in China and factory construction, then onto ‘super Power’ (350 IC) status.

Let us remember our focus and overall strategy.

II. Diplomacy
1.a Continue to support the Warlord cliques (Yunnan and Guangxi) in western China
1.a Lower the Warlord cliques (Yunnan and Guangxi) neutrality in western China
1.b Seek to, and repeatedly envoy Guangxi/Yunnan to sign a military alliance as they become threatened by the Kuomintang, and come to the axis corner if at “maybe” status.
2.Break the Naval Treaties, if the navy desires.
3. When our 4 targets are up to 10, and we have 5 free splies, cut down spies LS to 0.4, put 1 in officers and the rest in research.
5. Keep 0.1 LS in diplomacy for trade and embargoes.


III. Production
1.a Continue the current factory constructions, Replace as and when they are finished by new ones. Navy has Approved.
2.a Repeat build of 2/3xGar as reserve until all the following are properly garrisoned;

-Any port in mainland Japan, ie. where you can walk to from Tokyo, should have 3xGar(+Art)*.
-Any port on the Asian mainland should have 2xGar, including incompetent puppets ports.
-Any other pacific port should get 2xGar
-Any size 10 port should get 3xGar+(art)*, (that should be Truk and Kaohsiung on Taiwan).
-Any additional Garrisons to be formed to placed along the Soviet border

*2.b.I Build the pure garrisons first. Artillery should be constructed separately as a new stream to speed up garrison training. Artillery can be sited later, and individual garrisons can train with their guns while on site.

CLAUSE 2.b
We may need to start artillery builds at the beginning of 1938 in order that they will be ready come the end of the same period of garrison construction. Should all pure garrisons become finished during this time, then start on the Artillery brigades.

3. Build of as many 2xINF reserve divisions as the budget allows in parallel, and continue production as and when each are finished.

4a. Increase upgrade budget.
4b. Take 5 IC from supplies as long as they are over 10K
4c. After finishing the current factories and starting 5 new, move any surplus to upgrade, including the 5 new.
4d. When the CA finishes, move the IC to upgrade as part of the navys payment for upgrade.
4e. The navy's offer of halting the BC is only needed during an eventual Mobilization, else the practice from it when finished is worth much more.
4f. When the upgrade falls below the budget, keep it fully funded if the Navy agrees, by September they will stand for 90% of the upgrades. Balance with supplies.
4g. Return the surplus to the build budget when supplies is up to 15IC again.
4h. The navy should then be able to start a CL in the 2nd half of '37 and a CAG.

5. Increase reinforcement to 0.75 to keep up with attrition. Balance with supplies.


IV.
The IJA propose a 'research priority list'. I will separate it into three sections; Army, Naval and Homeland Affairs. Technologies at the top of each list are the highest priority.
"&" represents alternate between both programs.

This list will need to be updated every cabinet meeting, changing year, techs or processes. The list will be intended to require slightly more research programs than we can truly fund, such that as some projects are completed others can be started on.

Techs should be allocated by one from each sector, until total research capacity is filled. ---> research projects still retain tenure in the list until date is met. This means that we have recognised them as a long term investment than a single cycle tech now.

No ahead of time except:
*If a tech is before the year by less then a month (e.g. it is Dec '36, but the tech is a '37 tech (ie. 1 month before time), still begin research for competitive advantage)
Techs marked with + are new relative to the last half year, 2 doctrines.

Note: Homeland Affairs will need Navy ratification.

Homeland Affairs
Industrial Efficiency*
Industrial Production *
Supplies Production
Repair Workshops
Fighter Defence doctrine & Interception Tactics & Central Fighter Command Structure

Supply throughput*
Supply Cost*
Rare Materials*
Combat radios
Education*
Radar*(only first *)

IJA
Heavy Fighters*
Manportable AT
Officers & Infantry Training & Artillery Training
Small Arms*
Artillery Barrel & Artillery Sights

Offensive Support Weapons
Timed artillery+
Independent tank units+
Arctic Warfare Equipment
AT Barrel & AT Sights & AA Barrel & AA Sights
Defensive Support Weapons
Ftr Ground Crew Training & Ftr Pilot Training (either as as good as either)
AC armour & Gun
CAS Ground Crew Training & Ftr Pilot Training
Central Air Command Structure & Communication Line Interdiction.

Should there be any left over slots after all the above is up to date:
L.Arm Gun 2 & Reliability 2 & Engine 2 & Truck Engine.
- Level 2 to open for medium armour and thereby for TD.


IJN
Marines*

Admiralty might want to specify some for your list, or you can allow the Emperor to dictate along the lines of your proposals. See also the posted Air Tech responsibility division by the Army.

V.
Fill Homengun as described in the organization post.

If there are missing support units take them from the cavalry, should be enough AC to supplement the art and eng.


2.c Army groups can now be flexible filled with 1-4 of these. With surplus armies waiting to be filled.

3. The 7 Cav divisions of 2xCav should receive a AC to beef them up a little until we got Inf divisions that needs them. Organized in 2 corps.
4. The cavs in Moukogo Homengun should be placed just a little north of the border, guarding against Soviet aggression in Khalkin Gol.
5. We don't expect any possibility to ally with the warlords in 1st half year, so unless Yamamoto post a better plan than my draft plan we should go with that in the unlikely case of an conflict.
6. Any plan of attack that doesn't secure us the 50 rares in south China is not a very good plan.

VI.
1. Replace foreign and security ministers with ministers with -0.01 neutrality. NEEDS NAVY APPROVAL. (I would really like Yamamoto's opinion on this as I think our neut is too high for align, but if they wont align if we go low Neut this is self defeating).

Note to Generals and Admirals, not much changed from 2nd '36, but better read it through to catch any mistakes.
Especially the political proposal in VI needs comment, the rest of the changes are not fatal imho.