Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

To the Imperial council,

Its a day of shame to have to admit defeat to the communists, we can only cleans this by taking revenge on them at the earliest possibility, following the inevitable defeat of the Chinese.
Our preparations are already ongoing with the construction of west China rail from Shanghai to the western most reaches of the former Chinese Empire. Just beyond the last warlord in west china lies the riches of Soviet Siberia, rich coal, rare minerals and iron deposits.

Politics
Our European anti-commintern partners are making progress in fulfilling our plans, the German occupation of the Czech remnant was a pleasant surprise after the Czech had joined the allies.
The German armies defeating the Danes was no surprise, and that the Germans attacked the Poles was also expected, even the allies defensive declaration of war in Poland's favour was not that surprising. What was surprising was that the Germans was able to defeat the Polish in so short a time, a closer examination of the campaign will have to be conducted at the highest military circles.

My contacts tells me the strength comparisons was something like this, German troops at the French border and elsewhere not counted.
Germany had 11 tank divisions compared to Poland’s 1; We got 3 brigades of various forms of armour, around 1.5 divisions worth
Germany had 40 infantry divisions compared to Poland’s 30; we got around 100 infantry divisions, but the men in them represent 70 German division, we got a huge advantage in support brigades.
Germany four motorised divisions compared to none in Poland; we got 2.
Germany had one cavalry brigade compared to Poland’s eleven; we got 15(?)

55 divisions against around 35 where the defender should have had the advantage and certainly should have held longer. But we know from our campaign in China that our armour and armoured cars are having a huge advantage against the Chinese as they got few weapons to oppose them. So it is this HQ's opinion that the rapidity of the defeat of the Polish was an inability to defeat the German armour divisions due to few armours of their own and bad AT ability.
From our encounters with the Soviets we know that they have huge amounts of light armour, current estimates goes into the 1000's alone against us, our forces consist of around 300 light/ISA and some 1000 AC, the AC are at a disadvantage to the light armour due to the armours greater ability to destroy our AC.
Our encounter with the Soviets also showed it was still suffering from the large officer purge and hence low fighting ability, hence we were able to push them back despite them having on paper more and better weapons.
The consequence of this is we should improve our AT ability before we next incident with the Soviets, adding a TD to our motorized divisions and some heavy armour might be prudent as well as our current increased production of AT guns for our infantry.

The soviets are taking their time to crush the Baltics, it is disorganisation rather than military ability that keeps them back, even the Soviets can't be defeated by 3 million balts.

The political consequence of the Polish defeat is that huge areas of Poland that the Soviets claims are now part of Germany, increasing their tensions and makes it inevitable that they will go to war with each other in the near future. Both nations aggressions and their leaders personality lowers their threshold for when it will ignite.

China
The army's hope that the NatChi could be defeated without calling in more warlords has been in vain and has gone over to damage control. The involvement of more warlords means our threat toward the USA will go up and lead to worse trade deals with them and an earlier intervention.

Northern Ichigun has started an all out attack, their troops should stand right before the ChiCom capital around the time of the KMT collapse, Shangxi should implode within days. The troop density of both sides is the greatest here and any battle will be costly for both sides. Looking at the strength comparison between the Ichiguns it is over strengths compared to the Shanghai Ichigun, we should consider transpering one Homengun to Shanghai, leaving north with 3.5.

Shanghai Ichigun has more difficulties having only 2 Homengun will do this, but the other two Ichigun's success will help its progression. They should keep up the pressure but not advance so fast, we will eventually link up as Canton I reaches its targets.
The reserves committed to save our troops should be pulled out of the front again so they are ready for the next emergency.

The Guangxi had considerable more success than we had hoped, the bribes to the Yunnan officers to leave chungking open seems to have worked and thanks to Japanese troops still operating within Guangxi they also succeded in reaching the central lake. The western border is in a bit of confusion but eventually reserves from the Guangxi interior will make a solid front against the Yunnan who seem to have few troops present.

Canton I Ichigun seem to be missing some troops operating in Guangxi but has otherwise made good progress, the Chinese are pushed in front of them.

The marines landing in the 2 remaining ports was successful but bad judgement led them to attack too far inland, this clearly shows they need more training before being committed against serious opponents. The chinese still doesn't have substantial troops here so the bridgehead should be safe, especially with the help of some 14" BB cannons.

Canton II Ichigun has failed to link up with the marines, but they are also punishing the Chinese which seems less numerous than against the Shanghai Ichigun. Also with only one Homengun at its disposal its doing well, the 2nd Homengun, Chuo command, seems to have missed the order to rejoin it.

Now some officers might question if the KMT will fall as this HQ predicts, even with the addition of some Yunnan territory they wont hold out much longer, Chungking has already fallen to our allies. Their central cities are threatened and even if Shanghai Ichigun wont make any progress. There is a gaping hole in the Chinese front north of Chungking which could cause more trouble for the beleaguered Nationalists.

When the nationalists fall some of their troops will go on fighting for whichever warlord can convince them to support their cause, most likely the ChiCom's. Their troops will now have a problem as the commies wont be able to supply all troops from their bombed cities and the few inherited factories from the nationalists. We should use this opportunity to give our lesser experienced generals a chance to be bloodied (replace all skill 3 generals without traits with generals from the reserve and low skilled generals from the Manchurian theatre). Also the performance of the generals of each Ichigun should be evaluated (promote any skill 5 general to command the Ichiguns, best where there is most troops attached).

An reorganisation of the Nippon homenguns is also needed now, a new Nippon Ichigun must be created, under the Nippon theatre, that takes command of all Homengun in Nippon, this is to be commanded by the best field-marshal that is left when the fighting Ichiguns are served. This should increase the effectiveness of the supply distribution in Nippon.

General note about partisans, we will now see a period of increased partisan activity, the MP's should take their positions on the largest resources and factory sites and the garrisons should be in place in our ports, any surplus garrison can help the MP's.

Budget
The occupation of the final ports has markedly increased our financial position, in the near future we should lower the tax to increase the support for the ruling party.
Our rare material situation is now so that we could soon start selling, we should cancel all imports of rares so that we got the chance to sell. The UK might cancel our trades themselves soon, but our production will only go up (and we will get storage problems soon).

We should keep the sum of upgrades and reinforcements at 40IC to keep a steady production, this would mean we would reduce the upgrade when casualties increase.
The 15IC on supplies should be good enough now as we got 37K supplies, in the long term we will need around 2/3 of the requested IC as supplies. (the amount of supplies in Shanghai goes up to around 50K then stops all transports then falls over time to roughly 25K then starts to move a huge amount out, the demand is the same but the distribution varies, this error is corrected in FtM).
The production seems fin for now.

Research
Mechanical/electronic computing should be added to Imperial techs if it isn't already and with a very high priority. This will increase our effective research and might lead to more interesting options. Maybe we can even place one in a BB to improve the hit chance (no direct in game effect here).
Technology rare materials should be removed from the research list.

Fellow Admerials and Generals,

I submit to your approval a possible deciesive battleplan designed to swifty end this Chinese conflict once and for all;



There are several phases.

Red:
We must search through the reserves in the region so that we can mass an infantry/cav based assualt along the axis of advance indercated to the respective Yangtze River. Here they will hold the advantagous possition on the southern bank, thus allowing the front to spread using this advantage.

Simmilarly we need to push with strenght at our pocket even if at the concession of allowing the soon to be created Chinese pockets to widen.

Orange:
While these advances are being put into effect, our orange assult needs to be mobilised so that the moment we reach the Yangtze and out pocket, we can follow the Yangtze river into the interior creating two seperate Chinese grand encirlments.

Of these it is likely only the northern pocket will be eliminated in the near future. The southern one will take longer.


It is my advice that my carrier forces support with ground attack and interdiction missions along these axis of advance, simmilarly the army airforces strive to do the same. Winning battles quickly, and overrunning the Chinese millita without letting them get a chance to reorganise and make a stand should allow our infantry to make the gains needed by, focused. Mass. Assult.

We have seen how the Germans in Europe used this concept of 'Blitzkrieg' while we do not have the mechanised forces they had in Europe, what we do have is a strong airforce with a lot of combat experience.

We should reserve our heavy fighters for interdiction roles, CAGs for mixed interdiction and ground attack, light and medium bombers for ground attack, and heavy to act in bombing supply dumps within the areas to soon be encircled. Note: Heavy bombers should avoid bombing supply dumps near the current front, and only attack those in the center of the pockets. This should insure that once the Chinese Nationalists do fall back, they will quickly find themselves out of supply, rather than trying to eliminate supply depots over a much wider area.

Blue:
Having focused on the Northern Encirclment for a swift victory, we should find the Chinese in the Southern Pocket somewhat still at large. Yet again we take our bombers to destroy their supplies, and without the capacity to resupply. Again we should be able to cripple them.

Somewhat unknown is to how much effect Guangxi will have at drawing Yunnan armies to their doom.

I would predict a stalemate, if not minor retreat on behalf of unsupported Gunangxi divisions. If anything, this should be encouraged. The more Yunnan troops that can be kept fighting in the west, will mean the fewer who could break our encirlcments. Afterall, we do not have unrestricted mobility in China, and once we commit to encirlement it has to be seen through to the end. Strategic revision of this stratergy will result in a much longer war.


If possible we should try and form a border resolution along the lines given, in the latter stages of this war. Remember once the Northern pocket has fallen, there will be far fewer troops south of Shanxi, and hence gains there should be likely to be steady and slow once a large part of the Chinese army is taken out.



The Resultant Peace
Once China has fallen, we shall be at peace. Pacification of China will become a major issue. It is this admerials opinion, that we shall need to invest in sercurity training for our troops, and possibly the establishment of a Milltary Police force to be attached to Millita or Garrison divisions based out of all major population centers. In addition, we shall need caverly divisions to 'dragoon' the areas between population centers.

This might be a count of 14 seperate units (Police force divisions)*.

This might be a count of 6 seperate units (Caverly divisions).
(Some of these caverly should be able to be taken from current armies.)


My proposal is that Imperial Japanese Asia/China should be ours to own and govern. We should not support an independent regime in Nanjing, nor in the North around Beijing.

We shall need garrisons on Chinese ports.

We should also seek to form a new theater command to be responsible for IJA/C, to this we can attach the sercurity forces and a corps or two of Japanese forces in order to back up local police units.


The less trouble that China will give us, the better poised we are to develop overarching stratergy to stike back at the Russians for our humilating defeat, and also to prepare against the Americans who will surely see our victory in China as a stepping stone to the Invasion of the Philipines and the rest of the Pacific.


* Police units will take more trained and experienced men, thus take longer to train than garrison/millita forces. Hence we should train each seperatly such that we make best use of our time in consolodating our gains.



A Long Term View
A war with the Americans without the Allies of Great Britian and France could possibly be won by initial decisive enagement, and a follow up of strategic aquisition of pacific bases. If however the Americans join the European great powers fighting both the Royal Navy, and Armies in India/Burma at the same time as the Russians (who are unlikely to capitualate quickly given the vast expanses of Siberia). Will surely overtax our armed forces.

Yet if we can avoid war with France and Great Britian, then our land gains in China should be assured, thus our ground armies can amass in Manchuria, and our Naval forces and Marrines can prepare to dominate the pacific. For that we shall need better knowledge in escorting our capitals, particularly our carriers. And probally need to use the interim to build another light carrier or two, or a single large one.

In Manchuria, the interim will need to see anti-tank guns developed and more heavy fighters be produced. The Russian airforce is strong with many bombers, however our 'tanks of the sky' once they have dealt with a Russian airforce will be free to provide the support tanks might give our armies in the poor infrastructure of Siberia.


Might I suggest though, that we decide to pursue a policy of not seeking milltary allience with the Germans until we are on course to dominate our regional area, and they themselves have done so simmilarly. Let us not be too threatening, too quickly...

I myself think that if we move to Facisim, we stand to be doomed.

So China has no more ports, that is nice.

We lost to the USSR.... >:[ (though, did the USSR take the M-R pact?)

Cybvep said:

*Request from the Emperor

In regard to this, the Emperor would like to hear your opinions about fascism. Fascism seems to be a popular ideology with a clear anti-communist stance and it seems that the Imperial Administration is heavily biased in favour of fascism, but the Administration does not rule this Nation.

Click to expand...

In regards to this, there are two points to take into consideration:

1. Just because two nations share similar ideology, does not mean that they should pursue strategic union.

A case in point for this would be China and its warlords. While each of our nations shares the same dynastic ideologies, non of us would seek to find general common ground. The Chinese are under us and therefore while we might seek to govern with similar methods, that does not mean that we should seek to make an 'alliance by government'.

2. There are very real differences between Mussolini's fascism, Adolph Hitler’s National Socialism and our own Imperial Dynasty.

Hirohito your people serve you because you are the nation embodied and you give us sprit and cause as the Japanese people! Through the Meiji restoration and since, it is the place of Japan to steer itself through your unity. Remember your childhood...



You will be with us no matter how politics changes.

The national socialism of Germany seeks domination by group propaganda and mass participation. It also seeks to corporatism industry, and has an unhealthy predisposition to 'book burning' and not supporting intellectual, or movements directed at the liberty of its people.

Again Mussolini fascism invokes corperatisation, and is embodied by a clear religious motivation in recent years. Not withstanding that it is based around their historic domination of the Mediterranean sea, just like Hitler’s appeals to Gothic culture.




That said, you are our paternal autocrat
Mussolini is the leader of the Fascist movement
Hitler is the champion of National Socialism

Each of these is a different concept from the last and so there is little actual unity in ideology. Japan’s method is a 3rd way, combination of authoritarianism and cultural heritage. We should not let our people get whipped up into some kind of 'revolutionist method' but instead keep a healthy remembrance for conservatism.

The people is best guided by their elders, so paternal autocrats are us.

Both fascists and NS's basically saying they are popular movements but in reality they are just extensions of the leaders will. But they have no honour as they got no Emperor.

Admiral Yamamoto,
That is a real nice plan they you present there, sadly it is not executable as the Shanghai Ichigun is sadly understrength with only 2 Homengun. As I already mentioned in 1936, without sufficient numbers our fronts will have trouble keeping their cohesion.

The red part of the plan seems to partly follow my previous plan, with Canton I attacking northward but takes all the cities around the lake, but you presume the Chuo detachment stays in Guangxi, where I want it should rejoin Canton II to protect our flank against the east, alternative Chuo joins Canton I and Canton I gives one of its Homengun to II instead, which would be less movement.

Also the relive of the surrounded troops should go before any encirclement, but again Shanghai needs one of Norths Homengun to do anything.

After the end of plan red, we need to know how many important cities there are left and how the Chinese moral is, if they imperial clerk could brief us on that as it has changed after Yunnan's betrayal.

At the end of the red phase if the Chinese hasn't surrended by then Canton I will attack northwest as the last Chinese strongholds are there, Canton II should link up with the reinforced Shanghai Ichigun around Wuhan, splitting the Chinese in two.

When the nationalists falls we just need to attack everything with special focus on the communists.

Politics
The conclusion of the Khalin Gol skirmishes is unfortunate, but if the Soviets think that they have the upper hand, they'll be even more surprised when we come back. In the meantime, the Soviets are clearly pre-occupied in Europe, failing miserably against petty countries like Finland and Lithunia. Stalin seems to speculate for a greater war in Europe and he clearly wants to be part of it. The non-aggression pact, however, works both ways.

Yunnan joining the Nationalist Chinese is not that surprising, but it is unfortunate that they do so this early. The additional forces from Yunnan will strengthen the Chinese front, especially vis a vis I. Canton AG, and will hamper our efforts in the center. On the other hand, the Yunnan homelands are under threat themselves, so unless they commit against Guanxi, their forces will be spread thin and only add so much actual combat value to the Chinese efforts.

In Europe, it seems that Germany thought so lowly of Britain and France that Hitler decided to finally test his new army. Having annexed several smaller countries already, this new army threw aside the Polish forces while simultaneously fighting off the French in the west. Not only that, they also managed to secure a good part of their own coast by blocking the Danish strait. I don't know about our own Generals, but I am at least a bit impressed about the speed and decisiveness with which the German army managed to do all this simultaneously.

Since Communists and Facists are opposed to each other, I wonder how long it'll take until Germany and Russia are at war. Our own army might want to have a word with the Russians as well in that particular situation.

China
The northern front seems to do reasonably well, although it is frustrating to see our own forces being cut off on two occasions already.

The southern front clearly needs substantial backup. With Yunnan in the war and with so many Chinese forces around, we need to stabilize the front before we can push further into that blasted country.


Message to imperial Clerk
Can we please have information about the political picture in Europe? It will be important for the Axis themselves and more so for us to see where the European countries are moving. If Germany manages to gain some support, they would have to care less about their rear areas. Most important would be Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, possibly Turkey.

The only reasonable approach seems to be to strengthen II. Canton AG with forces we still have in Manguko. These forces are currently not needed since the Soviets are occupied in Europe. It is safe to assume that we do have a window of opportunity of 4-6 months.

I doubt that it will be possible to cut off a sizable chunk of Chinese forces. If we do, it'll be great, but we can't put all our hopes on this, especially since the army has failed to deliver such encirclements up to now. Instead, we need to push the Chinese back with pure numbers. Their forces are considerably worse equipped and led than ours. In a one-on-one situation, our forces will win any battle, but we need to make the most of this. We need to keep pushing the Chinese on every front. This will result in a gigantic lack of supplies on the Chinese side and means that the number of their troops will work against them. It will also mean that either their dissent rises, thanks to their dimishing industrial capabilities, or that their troops will lack supplies, replacements and upgrades, not to mention the impossibility to raise more troops.

I would also suggest to transport the armored and motorized units back to Japan once they are not needed any more in China. This will in itself ease the supply situation for the remaining forces, who should be able to drive the Chinese back on their own.

Naval assets are to return to harbor with the exception of both CTFs and two older SAGs. These are to provide air support where needed and offer shore bombardments where needed.

The old guard of the navy strongly supports the partnal autocratic ways of our empire. It has lead us through difficult times successfully and will continue to do so. We might or might not join the Axis later on, but at a time of the Emperors choosing.

Cybvep said:

*Technical note

I already moved all subs and patrol fleets to ports when the last Chinese port fell in order to save fuel. Recently the enemy managed to retake one of their ports in the South, but I don't know for how long, so subs and patrol fleets are docked in ports ATM.

Click to expand...

It should be sufficient to have one of the SAGs sit outside that port and I doubt it'll interfere with the general idea of saving fuel and giving the ships time to process upgrades.

Regarding where to reinforce

The Canton area can only supply 4 Homengun with the extra harbour at Fuzhou, so only one more can go there and that should be the one currently in Guangxi. Any reinforcement should go to Shanghai which are having the greatest problems right now.

If the army thinks so, it's their call. I suppose the harbors can handle more supply than that, though.



Regrading research, I would recommend:

- Mechanical Computing Machine
- Encryption Machine
- Scout planes
- BC design principle
- BC engine
- Large warship radar
- CL AA Armament
- Fire Control System Training
- Commander Decision Making
- Radar Training
- Small warship radar (if applicable to CL as well)
- DD engine / DD multipurpose guns / DD design principle / Light AA Armament (if nothing else of importance can be researched without penalty)
- Underway replenishment / Base operations (if nothing else of importance can be researched without penalty)

Surt said:

Admiral Yamamoto,
That is a real nice plan they you present there, sadly it is not executable as the Shanghai Ichigun is sadly understrength with only 2 Homengun. As I already mentioned in 1936, without sufficient numbers our fronts will have trouble keeping their cohesion.

...

After the end of plan red, we need to know how many important cities there are left and how the Chinese moral is, if they imperial clerk could brief us on that as it has changed after Yunnan's betrayal.

At the end of the red phase if the Chinese hasn't surrended by then Canton I will attack northwest as the last Chinese strongholds are there, Canton II should link up with the reinforced Shanghai Ichigun around Wuhan, splitting the Chinese in two.

When the nationalists falls we just need to attack everything with special focus on the communists.

Click to expand...

Rough map of major Chinese population centres of strategic importance, with various fronts and positions marked. Note: there is an additional centre not on this map in Golmud (Xibei San Ma)

I am afraid that the Chinese will not surrender as easily as we wish now. 'Shock and Awe' has failed, and instead we must rip the guts out of the Chinese or find ourselves stagnating through the mountains and hills of central China. Here we cannot supply a larger armed forces even with our improved infrastructure. Therefore we must take out the core of the Chinese militia on our own ground before it is too late and they can amass in the hills.

Even if we force the ROC to collapse the Ma Warlords, then Long Yun in Yunnan will take over the mantle of command of Chinese forces, finally with the Communists (unless dealt with earlier). This will force us to march fully in the mountains of central China and take Golmud and the rest to secure total victory. It is no longer a question of fighting China, it is one of fighting China AND the warlords.

If we don't take the initive then there will be sustained war for a year to come at least! if not a couple!


We cannot 'hope for the collapse of will' now since the warlords will not capitulate with the nationalists, we have to force the collapse of will in the method all authority is derived from. Naked force.

If the Chinese do not have an army left, we can employ our cavalry and mobile units to march on these final centres and demand their surrender. I repeat the notion that we cannot sustain a rolling front deep into central china.


In plan Red I call for looking through our reserves, and given the recent signing of the Non-aggression pact with Russia we probably will be able to move some assets to the south to create the punching attacks that will cripple our foes, even if at the concession of allowing the soon to be created Chinese pockets to widen!

Of particular note to Admerial Baltasar:- Milita are not completly inferior to standard infantry. On the defense they can be as stubborn as standard infantry, particularly in favourable terrain. Therefore the assumption that on a 1-to-1 basis, line infantry will always win is flawed. Given the direction of a long term war in Central China that shall become far more apparent to our loss...

The Chinese militia will only have comparable strength on the defence, as it lacks field artillery and the other weapons that an industrial army wields. On the offensive they only have weight of numbers to filter through any gaps we allow, or when cornered in a hole to present a formidable mass of numbers that requires a mass of our own to deal with.

Looking tactically, that means that if we allow the front to expand, their numbers thin along the lines, meaning we do not need to present equal masses of numbers. So long as this doesn't thin so much as to present gaps, the Chinese millita will be unlikely to breach our lines. After all large numbers of Chinese are stuck around Fuzhou and the mountains south of Shanghai, these will be unable to rapidly redeploy.


There is a fear at a communist stab in our flank, particularly in the summer months. I do not know if we own any of the forts along those lines, but keeping a static force there would do well to preventing such a stab, particularly if we stay along the rivers.

With our air force concentrated in a single area of advance, we shall have a great force multiplier (than should we allow them to roam at will about China). This concentration of airpower should give us the support for our advance corridors protecting our flanks and preventing the regroup of the Chinese in our axis of advance. This will be how we make our rapid advances to close the margins...



The only question is really how many troops can be sacrificed from the Manchurian border to act as reserves and to bolster the Shanghai-Nanjing region?

Memorandum:

I don't want to imply that I believe redeployment of Manchurian assets is a requisite of my forwarded plan. It was just that other generals voiced opinion to there being a lack of assets in the Chinese theater, and hence if they want their fears calmed that is a question for them to answer.

Taisho Yamamoto