* High command meeting
While it is true that the south front sees a temporary supply shortage, this HQ does not see the long term need of improved infrastructure in the south, so any investment there would be wasted.
While it is true that the army right now doesn't see the big need for huge numbers or extra troops (unless we get involved in an additional war while fighting in China), we will need some garrisons and military police to secure our gains, we estimate that we get an uprising every week if we don't, and getting one on our supply source would mean 50000 tons of supplies up in smoke.
Lets first see the short term strategy, while the northern armies nearly has reached their target, the 3 remaining southern Homengun will need around 3 month more to get to the central cities which should lead to the collapse of the KMT. However if the KMT loses too much territory without important cities they will call help from their remaining warlords. This is to be avoided if possible by minimizing the worthless countryside we occupy.
Our surplus Homengun will once wholly in Guangxi set target at Chongqing and Kunming, if the Guangxi are able to supply them they can support their attack on Changde.
If the KMT grows desperate and calls its remaining allies, ie. foremost Yunnan, our surplus Homengun will be in position to attack Yunnan from Guangxi and thereby cover their back which they would have left open.
Medium to Long term plans
Once China is subdued we are faced with 3 possibilities,
A) The USA is so pissed with us they declare war shortly after the fall of the Dragon.
B) War in Europe, either Germany attack the Czeck or Poland or UK attacks Germany. We can safely ignore it until Germany and the Soviet go to war.
C) All is quiet and we can continue our buildup.
Plan A - war with the USA, only marines and large amounts of garrisons are needed. A modern fleet 4CV+4BB+12CL just to hold their fleet from our shores, an emergency transport fleet to reinforce our holdings in case of invasions. Double that to defeat them.
Revised estimates for Plan B - attack on the Bolsheviks, we will need 8 Homengun to go any where and maybe 10 to complete any of the envisioned encirclements, 8 after that.
Plan D - Attack on the Dutch and British, 2 Homengun + marines + prodigious amounts of garrisons can finish them off in stages. Old CV's+BB's to keep the British at bay.
Plan I - Attack on India, 3 Homengun are needed to make any progress, add one if Guangxi is not with us.
Plan X(except a pure Plan B) - all DD, CVL and old CL on ASW duty or we bleed to death, this also requires all tech with the ASW in them to be researched.
The army had hoped to make a 13th inf attack Homengun, ie. excluding cav, gar and mar, for these contingencies but the current guess at our resources would not allow this. After finishing the gar+mp the remaining divisions that are missing a support unit will get that then we stop any army expansion for now.
However we will still need to build a H.Ftr at all times, the army estimates we will need 12 fighters total in late '41, 3 against each of USA, Soviets, British and 3 reserve/repairing. These only gives air cover against enemy actions any bombing will have to be done by the LB's, as the HB, MB and Nav will have low effect at that time. We are faced with an option of rebuilding the MB, HB and Nav to LB or keep them around until we get to not just Greater power but Superpower status if that ever happens.
It was the army's thought that the navy would keep a reserve of CaG to replace heavy loses on their carriers and which also doubled as ASW and other support operations when not needed by the navy.
Now to infrastructure projects, ignoring Plan B+C for now, the only useful new build we can make in preparation for Plan A+D is an emergency airport at North Palau, which covers is the only part of the pacific we can't reach from any other airport. Plan I would require 2 extra levels of infrastructure in the province just north of Rangoon.
Plan C will need some improvements of rails from Shanghai north and west to support operations, the same improvements are also needed by Plan B. The first part of the route is the same for the north and west rail west from Shanghai to Nanjing should be improved to level 7 all the way, the next part is the northwest rail to Peking where it at first need to be improved to level 6 all the way.
Plan B will require lots of infra structure improvements in addition to the ones needed for Plan C before start of hostilities, we will need to extend the westward rails to the western Chinese border, level 6 the first half way, then level 5. A further rail will be needed as a branch from the Nanjing-Peking one, through the former commie provinces to the Mongol border, this one should be at least level 4 and the trunk need to be 7 till this point. In addition the Toyohara harbour will have to be improved to maximum level to supply the northern troops.
That is around 60 provinces that needs to be improved an average of 2 times or 120 times of 3 months of 1.75IC, 630IC months, luckily we have 3+12+6=21 month to finish it so we only need 30IC per month for that project *runs off to pray for good weather at the nearest Shinto Temple* the side effect is we need less supplies as we can transport more cheaper.
After start of hostilities Ulya will need to be improved to level 5 (any combination of 20 port levels in the north should do if Toyohara isn't at max level). A lot of Mongul provinces will need to be improved, sadly the vaunted trans-sibirian railway wont help us before we pass Irkutsk and then the west China rail will take more and more pressure and will need a running upgrade.
When building rail its important that we don't get misled by the apparent high need near the supply source as we get a lot of false need due to the none fulfilment of requirements at the far end. Instead find the weakest links and improve the one of those that is nearest the source. So it doesn't help that Shanghai is level 10 if there is a level 2 on the way to the front. if a supply line split the trunk before that need to be 1 better generally, but the true formula for supply throughput seems to be level*level*10 for occupied, double that if its home country.
The level 3 provinces in Manchuria can therefore transport 3*3*10*2 or around 180 per province in a 3 wide column that is around 500 supplies that max. can pass Manchuria so a level 6 from Shanghai should be more than enough as Manchuria also can be fed by many harbours.
Raillines of Japanese China.
Requires no puppets created.
So in the ideal case the army would need around 45 IC for construction, 32IC for infra(30IC for rail+2 for Toyohara) and 13IC for a H.Frt. until mid '41. Which is a bit problematic as the total construction budget is 40IC for army+navy last month. On the other hand most of our construction sites are still Chinese occupied so its not so pressing.
Proposed budget:
Current budget but
7th art and 1 Rikusenshidan postponed to more prosperous times.
Priorities
BB Yamato 11IC
CVL XXX 7IC (at half the total IC to a CV, this looks like an viable alternative, even if it cost double the supply).
4 Sentou H.Ftr 13IC
3rd AT (no restart) 2.5IC
8th art, restarted with different arts until all units have support. 2.5IC
5 x 2 garx2 when finished 4xMPx2 then replaced with infra 7.5IC
CL 8IC - navy need at least one of these per capital to avoid penalty. (trivia, if simultaneous building 2BB(21IC) and 3CVL(21IC) the navy would need 3 2/3 CL(30IC) and 1 CAG(10IC) just to keep up)
infrastructure in China + Toyohara (up to 32IC)
If the impossible should happen and we get more IC than the projected we can prepare for the different Plans
5 Garx2 for Soviet ports, 2xMPx2 for soviet oil,very roughly 20 garsx2 for Dutch ports, 4xMPx2 for Dutch/British oil that is not on ports, 1xMPx2 for Kuala Lumpurs metal, we wont bother with the rares!!! (before we go in deficit with them), very roughly 10xgarx2 for USA harbours in the pacific.
5 Garx2 for Philippines (if we don't puppet them)
Supplies and convoys, could the clerk in charge of supplies stop the convoy to our mainland supply source port when it exceed 20K supplies, Qingdao might not do anything useful at that point either, he can leave the others on. This will hopefully average out the supply need a little.
Politics, once we have raised our national unity to over 70% we need to strengthen the organisation of our ruling party so we can make collaborative governments in occupied areas, in the moment we can chose between get many partisans and get nothing, which is about the same for resouces, collaboratory should give us around 30% of the resources.
Remove any minister with +resources, we wont need them from now on.
Research
remove rares from research list, we will drown in them now.
Army orders:
Shanghai Ichigun, once Nanjing falls take the 2 adjacent VPs.
Canton II hold the line, remember to keep a continuous line to the coast. reduce to 1 Homengun
Canton I attack direction Changsha, take over 1 Homengun from Canton II, remove one to Guangxi.
Peking HQ, attack from Jinan toward Baofeng, but hold the line in the north, do
not take Shanxi.
beyond the horizon of short term memory!!!