Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

Influence Levels

Air assets

IJA

12 H-FTRs
3 LBs

IJN
15 CAGs
1 NAV
1 MB

Common
4 L-FTRs
2 HBs
1 TRAN

IJN Land Troops

1 SNLF Corps - 5 MAR divisions (15 brigades) - all are fighting on Sumatra
27 GAR divs - we lost the equivalent of six 2xGAR divs during the fighting in the Central Pacific, but we also built some GARs.

IJA Reserve

We have no troops in the reserve. Mountaineers were transported to China, other troops were transported to the South Pacific.

Pacific Defence Perimeter

Japan - ten 3xGAR divs (8 have support brigades - either ARTs or AAs)
The Philippines - 5 GAR divs
Kwajalein, Hana, Wake Island - one 4xGAR div on each
Phoenix Island - none
Other islands - one 2xGAR div per island


Decision making

I prioritised the South Pacific Campaign over coming to the rescue of the Hawaiian defenders for several reasons. Firstly, I believed that there was no way of reaching Hawaii in time, at least not with our full strength and I certainly did not want to engage the American task forces with our CTFs alone, as it would be too risky. Secondly, I was afraid that the Americans would conquer Honolulu quickly and we would have to fight without land-based air cover and the Americans already had many CAGs in the area. Thirdly, there was a real possibility of missing the American task forces altogether, as they didn't have to stay and fight as long as they captured Honolulu. Moreover, I did not want to give the Commonwealth forces more time to regain their strength and bring reinforcements to the South Pacific. I admit that I didn't expect that the Americans would be able to perform more amphibious invasions so soon.

I supported the invasion of Sumatra combined with the blockade of the Sunda Strait, followed by the invasion of Java. However, I want to occupy the islands, not just raid them, as I see no reason in leaving resource- and VP-rich areas unless they become indefensible. I believe that by taking Sumatra first it will be easier to prevent the Allied reinforcements from reaching Java and concentrate our forces. In the end it took more time to reach Oosthaven than I believed, but at least we secured the bulk of the island.

At first I removed focus from the ComChi and added focus to Malaya in order to support our party there and change our occupation policy to collaboration government in the future, but as soon as I noticed how much resources were flowing in from Borneo, the Malaya and Sumatra, I undid that action. We can deal with RR.

I shifted some IC from production to upgrades and deprioritised Musashi, as we really needed to get rid of that upgrade backlog. When IC required for upgrades became more manageable (~15), work on Musashi could be resumed. I also put 2 rocket test sites into production when our first rocket test site was constructed - they cost less that I anticipated (~13,5 IC) thanks to practical gain and rocketry is important for the future of Japan. As soon as some IC was freed, I added another CL into production, as we will need to replace our losses and they are slowly mounting... I reduced the number of MTNs in production to 3 after the second batch was completed and prioritised GARs and MPs over INFs, although I made sure that some INFs were always in production. ATM I don't plan to send anything besides MTNs to China, as there are many low-infra provinces deeper inland and I'm afraid that our supply network may collapse and we will be pushed back again. More troops won't solve our problems in China, better infra and techs MAY solve them, though. It would be great to have a nice infantry reserve, but we have other priorities ATM. Maybe when more rocket test sites are constructed, we will be able to form more infantry divs.

Other
We lost 12 convoys and 5 convoy escorts. Our subs managed to sink 20 Allied convoys and 1 convoy escort.

Chapter Five, Part Four: Sino-Japanese War / War with the Allies
Mar 1943 - Jun 1943

Previously in the Influence Wars...


Malaya was conquered and the Japanese fleets scored several victories. Progress in China was steady and the Chinese made a peace proposal, although the conditions were outrageous.

The Allies advanced vigorously in Africa, but were pushed back in Spain. The Axis also made progress in the East. The Allied invasion of German-occupied France has been started.

The American task forces have been spotted near Hawaii...


And now, the conclusion...


The Pacific Theatre





The Emperor personally gave the order not to intervene at Hawaii. The discussion surrounding the issue was chaotic and no consensus was reached, but there was not much time for further deliberation. The Emperor believed that it was impossible to save our soldiers fighting on Hawaii and that it was better to strike the enemy where he was weak and we knew the Allied forces in the South Pacific were still recovering from their losses. Unfortunately, it was not possible to defeat the enemy both at Hawaii and in the South Pacific at the same time.

The Americans overwhelmed the defenders of Honolulu within a week. As soon as it became apparent that Honolulu would fall, our aircraft were evacuated from the island.





What caught us by surprise were the invasions following the attacks on Hawaii. The Americans ignored Hana and went for Midway, Palmyra and Jarvis instead, while our forces were still engaged in the South Pacific. We did not believe that they would be ready to conduct other major invasions so soon.

As a result, our defence perimeter in the Central Pacific is now a bit disorganised. We managed to evacuate our soldiers from the Phoenix Island before any of the follow-up invasions took place (they bolstered the defences on Kwajalein and Wake), but we still have troops on other islands, which are now de facto outside of our sphere of influence. We do not know where the Americans will strike next or when they plan to do that, but they have access to many ports now, which gives them many opportunities, including Truk, Wake Island or Kwajalein.

It is increasingly difficult to gather intelligence by using submarines in the areas that are patrolled by Allied aircraft or ships, as the enemy has become much more proficient at finding our submarines. Moreover, we now have to use naval bases which are located farther away from the areas of interest, because the Allied aircraft conduct port strikes on bases which are within range of their aircraft.






The invasion of Sumatra began on 14th of March. The landings went unopposed, as the Allies had almost no troops in the western part of the island. In order to prevent the enemy's ships from escaping, the Sunda Strait was blockaded. It did not last long before the Allies tried to move out of their ports, but they failed to repulse us and lost several ships by the 1st of April, including two battleships.

Many air battles took place in the region, as neither side wanted to let the enemy gain air supremacy and bomb ships of the opposing side mercilessly. However, most of the air battles that took place in March were indecisive.






The blockade took a heavy toll on the Allied fleets. There was hardly a day without a battle, as the enemy was futilely trying to defeat or sneak past our fleets. Nevertheless, we suffered significant losses ourselves. On one occasion the enemy tried to relieve the blockade with a new task force coming from Europe, but was intercepted twice and took massive losses, including the light carriers HMS Argus and HMS Eagle, which were destroyed by the battlecruiser IJN Ibuki and the battleship IJN Yamato, respectively. However, two Japanese cruisers were sunk by British warships and many of our ships were heavily damaged, which forced us to reduce the scope of the blockade. The biggest tragedy happened on 14th of May. Supported by aircraft, an Allied task force with two battleships was trying to escape from Batavia and was intercepted by our fleets. It was almost totally annihilated, but for a moment the enemy managed to take advantage of superior coordination and focused fire on the IJN Yamato, our most modern battleship and the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy. British bombers damaged our battleship, but it was HMS Malaya, the British battleship from the Great War, which delivered the final blow and sent the IJN Yamato to the bottom of the ocean.

Despite the fact that the results of the blockade were greatly in our favour in terms of tonnage of sunk ships, the loss of the IJN Yamato quickly swept the whole Empire and made the taste of victory bittersweet at best. The carrier IJN Soryu was named the next pride of the Navy.






Battles raged on land, in the air and at sea and our troops were getting closer and closer to Oosthaven. When the city was finally reached, the Dutch and British defenders fought stubbornly and have repulsed our every assault so far. Oosthaven is now the only obstacle that prevents us from establishing control over the island.

On Borneo, only one pocket of Allied resistance remains. Conditions are harsh, as the environment on this island is very unforgiving, but it seems that it is only a question of time before the remaining enemy troops surrender.





Objectively, the invasion of Borneo and Sumatra can be described as nothing less than a resounding strategic victory. We destroyed many more naval vessels than we lost and we managed to secure vast amount of resources. The remaining enemies should be forced to surrender soon enough and the Royal Navy will have a hard time replacing their losses, as even with the American support the British do not possess the industrial capabilities of the USA. The main drawback of the operation is that it prevented us from focusing on the Central Pacific, which allowed the Americans to regain some ground.

Still, our losses should not be disregarded. Most of our CAGs are depleted and it will be very expensive to bring them back to full condition. Moreover, numerically the IJN is but a shadow of itself - the harsh reality is that our losses are mounting quickly and the end of the war is nowhere near in sight.

The full list of sunk ships is available here. It includes all vessels which have been sunk since January 1936 and the list has been updated with the recent information provided by the Axis.





Japanese supply lines are more exposed to attack than ever, so it is not surprising that the Allied submarines are very active. However, our destroyer groups are now more efficient at hunting the enemy submarines and it shows, as we manage to locate them more frequently.


War in China





As usual, the bulk of the fighting took place in the South. Bose and Gullin saw the heaviest fighting and changed hands repeatedly. As of 2nd of June, we control Bose, but the Chinese control Gullin. After the battle of Cao Bang we managed to secure almost all of the Pearl River, which should make it easier to defend this area against the Chinese counter-attacks.





The performance of our troops in Central China was disappointing - their supply situation is the best in months (which does not mean that it is good, but it is still relatively the best) and the Central HQ received reinforcements from the South, but very little progress was made. Fighting for provinces like Wanxian convinced many of the Japanese soldiers of the futility of this war and high losses suffered for no gain are bad for morale.

On the other hand, the North-Eastern HQ made significant progress and even managed to secure more ground that it has ever controlled before. Ironically, the commander of the North-Eastern HQ received no reinforcements - he simply made better use of the forces at his disposal and took advantage of the fact that the Chinese are hard pressed everywhere.

The situation in the far North changed little and the frontline remained stationary. The communists are hiding in their mountain fortresses and are not doing much else.





The insulting Chinese peace offer was unanimously rejected, as it gained little favour from the IGHQ. It is not in Japan's best interest to keep the current nationalist clique strong. Interestingly, our strategic situation in China is strikingly similar to the one we have once faced, before the Chinese started their counter-offensive, reconquered much of lost territory and annexed the Guangxi Clique. At a glance it appears that the enemy is on the brink of defeat - the problem is that it appeared that the nationalists were on the brink of collapse several times before, but so far it has never resulted in their total defeat. Therefore, our main goal should be to keep ourselves in a position of strength and ensure that the eventual Chinese counter-attacks will not result in the collapse of the frontline. It should be mentioned that the recent months have been among the most bloody ones to date.


*Logistical and strategic maps are available here and here.


Other matters


Diplomacy and politics





We are monitoring the domestic situation in Thailand and Indochina closely and it appears that they have no interest in joining any of the major alliance blocs at the moment. However, it is well-known that the Thais lay claims to the several areas in south-eastern Asia which are currently not under their control and now that Indochina lacks the protection of a major power, anything is possible...

In May, Yugoslavia formally announced that it would become a part of the Allied alliance. This caught the already overstretched Axis forces off-guard and must be regarded as a diplomatic Allied victory.


Europe and Africa






War in Africa is de facto concluded, but war in Europe continues. In France, the Axis forces managed to push the first wave of the Allied forces back to the sea, but just as it appeared that the invading forces were totally defeated, the second wave struck hard and secured Cherbourg and its surroundings. In Spain, the pressure on the Allied forces decreased due to the landings in France, which allowed them to regain the initiative.


However, the most worrying news came from the East. Yugoslavian forces surprised the Axis troops defending the border areas and managed to advance as far as Budapest, which is currently under siege. This diversion, coupled with the Allied threat in France and Spain, allowed the Soviets to regain momentum and reconquer Leningrad and Minsk, among other areas. The Administration believes that the potential collapse of the Axis forces in the East is by far the biggest threat that the Axis faces.


The economy and the state of the Japanese military





The construction of the first Japanese rocket test site was finished and the construction of two additional test sites are now ongoing. Rocketry remains a top priority for the Japanese industrialists and scientists.

The part of the budget reserved for modernisation was increased, which allowed us to equip our soldiers with modern equipment much sooner. The construction of a new warship has been started, which means that we now have five warships (1 battleship and 4 cruisers) in production.

The conquest of resource-rich areas in the South Pacific has greatly improved our resource situation. As long as we can keep our supply lines safe, our resource situation should be stable. We are also using our reserves of gold to buy food and supplies from various Asian nations.

While the IJA is bigger than ever, the IJN struggles to keep its numbers reasonably high. Unfortunately, the construction of warships takes much time and the first new vessel will become available only in September.

List of researched techs: Naval Air Command Structure, Coal to Oil Conversion, Combat Medicine, ASW Tactics, Naval Air Control, Rocket Science Research, Artillery Training, Carrier Escort Role Doctrine, Mechanical Computing Machine, Electronic Computing Machine, Fighter Ground Training, Radar Training, Carrier Task Force Doctrine, Small Navigation Radar.

Click to expand...

*Tech screens are available here.


Intelligence





---------

*BTW folks - if you like this AAR, then feel free to vote for it in the AARland Choice AwAARds 2012 (Round 2). Even if you don't want to vote for the Influence Wars, at least vote for other AARs! You have up to four votes in the HOI(2-3) category - make sure that you use them!

Have we remembered to promote airmen to lead the huge airbattles?
Promote any level 5 pilot to 3 stars, any 4 to 2 stars and insure that all CV groups has a leader that can control the groups own planes + at least 3 more.

The army generals could also need a review, promote the best one step if possible and demote the worst of the higher giving their posts to the former, keep a few Gundan commanders unassigned for use in new Gundans.

Click to expand...

We do not have problems with air leaders, but we have a severe shortage of ground leaders. The Administration mentioned that several times, but you were not very concerned, General. We definitely do not have any spare ground leaders.

We should start to fortify all major harbours now, both from sea and land, there is no reason to give the US any easy victories at all, and especially not fast ones. Starting with Truk, Iwo Jima and Singapore.

Click to expand...

What do you mean by that, General? AA guns? Coastal forts? Land forts? Land forts are not needed on small islands, only on bigger ones and maybe in Japan itself.

The top priority targets are Midway and Honolulu, are there any other major ports that would be used as staging points for the US Army before launching another invasion on our islands?

Click to expand...

Rabaul, Admiralty Island, Guadalcanal. They could even use ports in Australia and they would still be able to reach some of our islands.

Holy.Death said:

Did the Administration considered the size of these ports? The larger they are, the more likely it will be to hold major USN force. I consider ports currently held by the USA as the ones to be most likely used as staging grounds for US Marines rather than ports of the Commonwealth. We plan to recapture what we lost, so we have to strike at points where the enemy might try to concentrate their manpower and naval assets.

Click to expand...

We do not know the exact size of these ports, but they were quite significant even before the war, which means that now they are either the same or even bigger.

*Since 1944-1945 is getting nearer, I will introduce a new rule with the aim of removing some potential gamey exploits of VCs:

Any non-Chinese enemy VP will count towards our victory only partially if it has been taken during the last 6 months of gameplay (July-December 1945). The closer the date is to the end date, the lower the value, e.g. when 3 months to the end date remains, the VP's value will be divided by half. If we lose the VP and recapture it later, only the date of the recapture will count.

Note that the other rules still apply, i.e. we will lose the game no matter what if we do not control Manchuria, Korea or Japanese core territory. Naturally, we will also lose if Japan surrenders earlier.


EDIT: Note that the rule is not final yet and may be changed in the near future.

Do we have any reaction upon the losses the Royal Navy suffered? Allied? Axis? Neutrals?

Click to expand...

Too early too tell. Everyone is still analysing the situation, but the Allies seem to regard Europe as the primary theatre. Especially the British seem surprised how much it cost them in terms of lost ships to intervene in Asia, but it remains to be seen how this will affect the Allied strategy. Pretty much nobody believes that the war will end anytime soon.

Baltasar said:

I rather meant the reaction of their populations, their will to fight and immediate political reactions. The British joined the US war against us so that the latter would help them out in Europe. Now it seems that this scheme has backfired quite drastically. And they can hardly hide it when that many vessels are unaccounted for.

Click to expand...

It is obvious that they cannot hide these losses and will probably try to find a scapegoat which they can blame for this defeat. We know that the loss of Singapore and Hong Kong shook the British the most, at least the common people, as for them it means that the British Empire is losing its grip on Asia. The British leadership is more concerned with ship losses, because they are afraid that it will greatly hamper their ability to project power. Churchill defends his decision to enter the war stubbornly and emphasises the importance of the British-American cooperation. Interestingly, there is some resentment against the Dutch, as the British suffered high losses during the defence of Sumatra, which was Dutch territory.

The situation in the USA is a bit different. The USA's influence is increasing rapidly, as they are both conducting offensives in the Pacific and are aiding the British with supplies and men in Europe. Some believe that the USA will replace the British Empire as the dominant world power, but this is not something that is discussed openly, as the isolationist sentiment is still quite strong. The recapture of Hawaii was a morale boost for the Americans and it fuelled the myth of the Aleutian Campaign being the turning point of war, but the government itself is actually less aggressive with its propaganda, because the preparations for December 1944 elections are already ongoing.

Do we know the approximate maximum range of the enemy heavy bombers? Can they reach Japan from their currently held airfields? If yes, which ones, if no, which ones do we suspect to be within range?

Click to expand...

We do not know the maximum range of enemy's heavy bombers, but we are pretty certain that there is no possibility that they can reach our industry in Japan from the islands that the Allies currently control.

What enemy forces are left on Sumatra (ie are defending the harbor)? What is the estimate of our commander in charge, can he overwhelm them or does he need more assistance?

Click to expand...

The enemy has at least 3 divisions in Oosthaven. They seem to be relatively well-trained. We should be able to overwhelm them, but it may take time. We could use some of our CAGs to support our soldiers fighting there.