Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

To Admiral Yamamoto, why do you think mnt would be useful? they only really have an advantage in mountain/hill and are MUCH more expensive both in leadership, man power and research, this General will not approve mnt.

Specialists missions is encouraged anyway.

I also agree that we need more industry the knowledge that the increased base will give us increases our leadership. As I already said in '36 we wont be able to conquer us to the superpower status in any easy way (and apparently not in anyway).

I'd really like the mechs, the more so if we have MP trouble, the MP situation should improve dramatically once we can get more Chinese peasants to move in the first ranks.
Also TD's should prove useful against the mechanised legions of the colonial powers and communists.
The reason I've not pressed so hard for these yet is our sorry IC state, which leads us the the main quest.

In all scenarios I presume Germany defeats France and that we pressure the weakened French to hand over Indo-China, this will be a puppet and should be maintained as such. With Paris already fallen French defeat shouldn't be that far away.

Scenario I - All out war with with all our neighbours
The sequence of events Mobilization, demand French colonies and Axis should lead us to war, not just with USA but soon with all western powers within months, already the appointment of Konoe Fumimaro makes this a certainty. We jump the Soviets in ~April.

Scenario II - We try to avoid it as long as possible
We don't mobilize, We finish off China and attack the Soviets (for free) in ~April.

Scenario III - We play possum.
No nothing after China.


For the greedy we get 25% more IC (of our base) by mobilizing, which should give us around 30 IC more, but gives the USA 150IC more for half a year earlier.
The risk is that the USA DoWs us earlier than that anyway as we gain 5 threat for each warlord and 10?/15? for the nationalists.

So what do we do?

Note to the imperial Clerk,
So the administration don't think they will fold when we get those 3 cities (back)?

I have no doubt the rest of the warlords will fight on, but at a diminished strength, it was only the question of when the KMT would fold I was wondering.

Deluding the training will sadly affect our already deployed units so I'm not sure that is good.

Surt said:

To Admiral Yamamoto, why do you think mnt would be useful? they only really have an advantage in mountain/hill and are MUCH more expensive both in leadership, man power and research...

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It is said that "armies perfect the art of fighting the last war just in time for the next one", and that; "one should not fight the last war" and "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."

We win by knowing our enemy. Knowing the ground that will be fought over, and we plan to take his advantages away, while we capitalise on our own.

In terms of research we are but only the concept of a mountain division away. Our special forces knowledge is already good from investment in the Marrines Corps. Although maybe a little more training could be in order for organisational benifit. Actions in Central China, Mongolia or Manchuria and Russia all take place over mountainous hilly terrain (see strategic map last post), and that we have many men avalible to train, and many more officers in recent months.

That is why I think they would be useful.



I fear that we would have to be at a state of war with france and the allies in order to make demards on Indochina, unless this General is actually advocating a massive conflict with the Colonial Powers which has a very high chance of bringing us into conflict with the Americans. A double war?

In that case we would almost certainly need mountain troops to fight Indian and Burmese forces in south-west China. This shall be a long way from out supply lines in the north.

It is this generals opinion that it will be very difficult to fight the allies over land, and the Pacific assets will require substiant garrisons and a strong navy to maintain supply lines to these islands. Without the investment in martime aircraft and radar positions yet built we would be at a major disadvantage to be fighting such a war as of yet. Even if we are in the process of building a modern fleet.

The important point to remember here is that the Russians have actted hastally, but there is no reason for us to act the same! You catch fish not by wading in, and splashing about in the pond, but by waiting for the float on your line to bob. Patience.


I estimate that with a War Economy we may fund about 190IC as things stand. We gain threat and a boost, but it does not put us in an advantagous position! BUT if we wait for the fall of China, for those last factories, and then integrate we shall have ~208IC units. Enough to claim a Great Power status! Enough to fund better levels of research and all with a just cause against the Soviets.

We shall have acheived a great political standing in the world. To simply hold our territorial aquistions at this point would be sufficent to have built the Japanese Empire and a influence Sphere on the Mainland. History would see our glory!

But if instead we become warmongers, history will look down on us. We could incur the wrath of powers that we might not wish to be at war with yet. But worst of all is if we defeat the Chinese before we are ready for the soviets, we shall have mass unrest at home, we shall incur war weariness as we do not have a true propaganda press in the interim.

If we want to prevent the unrest (but not war weariness) we have to either prolong the war in China or attack the Soviets.

But we are not ready to take on the bear! We need to let it blunder about in Europe, let Stalins attension focus there. Still we shall be at war for several year with the bear. The people are tired of this Chinese Campaign. They want to see profits from it, not more sons fatherless and wives widdowed as the army just 'eats people'.

We pause. We regroup. We unite. We plan, prepare. We avenge ourselves.

Taisho Yamamoto

Memorandum: That minister is not suitable. I propose no changes of the cabinat. We should inform the Germans that this war is theirs, we support their cause, but not for Asian blood to be spilt fighting the Colonial Powers in their name. We should also inform them that the Japanese Emperor does not submit to the will of the facists, he will do what it right for the Empire in his own time, and that if Japan enters the Axis allience it shall be at its head with Russia already defeated!

We will then be in a possition to delieve ultimatums to the Colonial Powers requesting our Asian territories if we wish. We shall have the oil to back up our wings and fleets, and we shall have already taken out one of the Great Land powers freeing up most of our troops, bar peacekeepers for other deployments. They will not wish to incur our wrath then!

*General Cody spits out his rice*

WHAT?!

This could turn ugly...

I myself advocate that we remand neutral until the situation can turn in our favor.
Conquer China, then turtle/fortify.

Now we must produce more infantry with an engineer brigade attached, that alone will help us. Tanks are not needed until we can get pass the jungles in southeast Asia. As for deployments, Garrison the borders until we strike, whihc in that case we will move the armies to the region of concern.

If the U.S attacks, We must Island hop and take island with airbases only. We should have land support for our Navy.

I see nothing else to say.

To Admiral Yamamoto, while mnt have a slight advantage in mountains and hills it doesn't justify the extra 30% officers and 30(?)% extra production cost. And yes its right that some areas of the boarder regions are mountain, but that is only a few regions, behind it is the large expanses of jungle, deserts and plains, in which the mnts has no advantage.

There is also no urgent need to transfer the eng north, once 4-5 Homengun concentrate on the commie strongholds they will be overwhelmed. The time used to move them around is not worth it.

To the High Command
The reason I haven't commented on production is that I see no reason for it to change unless more IC's comes the army way in which case we need more inf, gar and h-ftr AND foremost that the west china (and Mongolian) railway be finished fast, the northern rail is nearly fine as it is, the 2 former should upgrade to level 4 and the north to level 5 connection, level 6 up to where it split the Mongolian rail.
This is conditioned on that the Emperor will continue to recall supplies so that the convoys works as intended, else not even a level 10 to the north will be enough. (guess the imperial clerk will have to check other multiport supply areas for this too, but it shouldn't be as gross as China).

As for the distribution of IC, the current looks OK given the amount of supplies currently available, on the long run around half the requested IC for supplies is needed, 50 on average for upgrades and reinforcements and zero on consumer goods if we keep our neutrality low.

To the high command
Suggest further plans after the defeat of the KMT and Ma.

While Admiral Yamamoto is right that there is not much of worth between Vladivostok and Irkutsk, the real treasure trove lies just behind the western most warlord, an area with around 500 resources of various arts, among them a coal field containing some of the riches sources in the world, even outstripping the German coal fields with a daily production of 197 units.

These provinces in the border region will have a crippling effect on the Soviet war economy.

Message to Gen Cody,

I believe it'd be prudent if you could come up with a more in depth analysis of the situation and your point of view. I seem to remember that you advocated a different route entirely but it seems to me that we'd be giving up a once in a lifetime chance if we didn't take advantage of the fact that the Russians are busy in the west.

To the high command
Now various generals and admirals have spoken about the how to conduct a war against the USA, while that is all fine none of the current plans leaves me feeling secure.

General Cody wants to only capture Islands with airports, while they have a high priority we must secure the internal lines by making it difficult for our enemies to invade and attack our convoys, hence all harbours should be secure or at least occupied in an ever widening ring around the sea of Japan.

Therefore is Admiral Baltasars plan (form '37?) to leave Guam as a trap for the enemy navies not something that fills me with joy, I would prefer something much further away (and it may not be Pearl Harbour) or we risk constant sub attacks.

This Admerial has changed his policy regarding Japans long term ambitions and capabilities;

We should avoid agrivating the US and Colonial Powers, we should instead seek to avenge ourselves against Russia

1a. Japan should prosercute the war in China to its enevitable conclusion.
1b. Japan should NOT enact a war economy at the cusp of victory [Clause 1c]
1c. With 1a. complete, we shall be at peace. Enacting a War Economy will be highly criticised both at home (in terms of war weariness and dissent), and internationally (increased threat). Therefore justifing 1b. [Clause 1d]
1d. IF we find ourselves in a future war, such as with the Soveits, or an unintended war with the Americans. Then we have the Casus belli for total war. Then is when we should enact a War Economy.

2. With the Sino-Japanese conflict over, we should seek a mass recruiment of garrison and police forces to be spread out across China. This then frees up our battlehardened and experienced armies for deploments elsewhere, as well as giving us substiall numerical reserves.

3. Our long term position will need us to avenge ourselves in Manchuria. The Soviet attack on Germany will pre-occupy them enough that we can plan and put inplace the mechanisms to enable decisive action here.

With point 2. We should look to expanding our rail roads into a strategic positon at the western Mongolian border (See 5.)


4a. Pacific theater defense. The Home Islands defense force as voiced by Commander Surt sounds reasonable in my opinion. For the rest of the islands I believe offense and light defense to be the better stratergy to large garrisons.

An island is like a castle, once cut off it can only last as long as there is food in the larder. The more troops we station, the more food is needed. The more food, the more convoys, the more convoys, the more we are spread out across the entire Pacific. We become larger targets.

To reduce our vunerability the best way to combat the Americans is to deny them the opertunities to attack. We take every last one of their pacific naval bases, if we come to war with them. Preferably we need to take them in as short a time period as possible. Three weeks! The shock of such a rapid attack will surely bite deep into their psyche and give us the opertunity to prepare the 'Big Fight'

With our high milltary construction knowledge we should consider the placing of naval guns to defend every one of our pacific ports. I estimate there is something like 9 pacific ports? In any immidate war however this might not be the most prudent course of action. Therefore we should rely on attack as our form of defense.

4b. There are 8 american held islands not including Guam or the Philippines. We need a marrine corps that can attack, take, re-board, ship in a garrison force, ship out the Marrines, and move onto the next target. ASAP. We have the specialist landing equipment for this, but what we don't have is the training of our forces, or enough marrines to make these attacks while also taking Guam or the Philippines.

As such we are as of yet unprepared to take the Americans by storm.

Plans would need to be co-ordinated and timed to the very day to insure a smooth transition and rolling attack.

5. Intel map:

As I will repeat, If we attack Russia, We get grazing grounds.

If we attack the colonial powers and the U.S we get resources.

What do we need more of?

Message to administrative clerk:

Regarding the summarized research list, I want Battleline Cruiser Doctrine swapped with Battleship Taskforce Doctrine. Except for that I'm fine.

Message to Adm. Gensui Yamamoto:

Your strategy, while not without merit from a purely militaristic point of view, will allow the enemy to take our soil. This is unacceptable and unhonorable. Also, in the current situation I do not see how we could possibly enrage the worlds public opinion if we would enact war economy while being at war and with the growing threat of Soviet agressiveness right at our doorstep. We have to do this simply to prepare ourselves for eventualities.

Attack directions of the 4 Ichiguns in China.


South China HQ
Currently consist of 2 Homengun, steal one from Central China HQ.
The route will take care of Chungking, Yunnan and hopefully cut Japanese China off from Burma so we don't get any supply chaos there later. (ultimate failure is that the supply centre at Rangoon also must supply china and Russia).

Central China HQ
Attack along the northern edge of the central lake with 3 Homengun, cutting off the Guangxi from moving further north.

North-east China HQ
Turns over one Homengun to North china HQ upon the surrender of the KMT.
Attacks the bulge of Chinese troops in the central provinces.

North China HQ
Attacks the Communists, no real progress is to be expected until the KMT surrenders, at which point it gets reinforced by troops from North-east China HQ.


Upon the surrender of the communists all real opposition is expected to cease, Yunnan and Xibei San Ma might offer token resistance at this point, South and North HQ will deal with those respectively with 3 Homengun each.

The remaining 6 Homengun will move to Manchuria, one of them to the port south of Vladivostok, 2 to the Mongol border and the remaining 3 in the north east border region, the troops already there should guard the rest of the border.
Once Yunnan is defeated South will give 1 Homengun to North HQ and 1 Homengun will return to Toyohara, the Marines should return to Japan.
The last Homengun will constitute the South China reaction force with targets on Hanoi, Hongkong and the French concession.
The cavs will garrison China against insurgents.

Now a revised plan B: In case of war with the Soviets
Studies have shown the Big plan B is not feasible, the supply situation in the pacific coast is not good enough and the lesser generals are simply not good enough to control their armies.

The Medium plan B - cutting off the Vladivostok pocket between Sakhalin and NE-Manchuria will be the preferred plan of action.
This is a plan for 12 Homengun, the previous estimates of 9 Homengun has been increase due to the experience from China. Extra forces can be employed as noted.

Sakhalin HQ - 2H+marines
The Marines and one Homengun attacks the 2 harbours at the north tip of Sakhalin while the 2nd Homengun attacks from Toyohara.

Manchurian HQ - 3H
The 3 Homengun in NE-Manchuria must attack toward the NE to connect to the marine landing, thereby cutting off the whole Vladivostok region east of Blagoviechinsk. This will hopefully encircle some 20 soviet divisions and give us all of worth in the east, once the area is cleared the marines and 2 Homengun that took place in the landings should be free for other tasks.

Mongol HQ - 3H
The 2 Homengun in Manchuria along the Manchurian border will attack in the direction of Irkutsk not going north of the Transsibirian rail, once the Vladivostok clean-up is done one of the Homengun from there could join them.
One Homengun from taken from North HQ will support their attack on Mongolia from gab in the desert near the former communists areas.

West HQ (former north HQ) - 3H
With 3 Homengun at the western gab in the Gobi desert. Here we will have supply troubles if we don't have been working on the west china rail.
Attack around Singkiang toward the west and the rich resources that is the main goal of this campaign.
Alternatively we might DoW Singkiang and shorten our route considerable, this must be considered carefully as it might push the USA to war.
This part of the attack should be reinforced if possible.


Which leads to the army build requests.
In order:

1 repeat build H-Ftr.
Lots of rails going west along the planed route, most is still in the hand of the Chinese but the rest can be started already.

(ignore the levels shown here, concentrate on the lines.)
Level 5 rail toward the north, 6 until the Mongol rail splits off.
Level 4 rail to the Mongol border.
Level 4 rail to Mongol/Singiang border, level 5 the first 5 provinces west of Nanjing.
Build up the lowest first on the routes.

Serie of 5 Garx2 to garrison Soviet ports.

2 extra Homengun with mixed art-types and eng support, as we got excellent MP, to be finished at the end of '41. (not all at once )

If we mobilize we want also
more rail
2x2x2 gar repeat build in advance for any southern adventurism, total 20 garx2 total for starters.
if we still got more ic and have developed mech repeat build
Medium arm+mechx2+sp.art (combined arms)
mechx2+TD (combined arms)
buy sp.art&TD if we haven't finished researching them yet.
in the very unlikely case we got more IC
H-Ftr

Research
Add the following
the 2 common tech the navy suggested, radar and computer.
high prio Mech.
low prio tech to get TD and Sp.Art.

For doctrine go for spear-head.

Comm Cody said:

As I will repeat, If we attack Russia, We get grazing grounds.

If we attack the colonial powers and the U.S we get resources.

What do we need more of?

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To administrative clerk:
Do we really need more resources right now? Could we get an update on the needs of the Empire?