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*You see Kempeitai officers who are dragging former General Comm Cody out of the room. A new general appears.
Gentlemen,

Let me introduce myself. I am General Cybvep and I will replace General Cody for the time being. He has been found guilty of treason and can no longer serve as the General of the Army.

Now, let me comment on our current situation. In principle I agree with Admiral Yamamoto's position when it comes to the actions in the Pacific. No bravado, just careful planning and ruthless execution. General Tojo is naturally right about the Philippines - as the biggest island under US control in close proximity to China, it should be considered our primary target. The sooner this is done, the sooner we can turn our attention to other US possessions. I believe that the island can be taken with 1 Homegun and 1 SNLF Corps, as long as proper naval and air support is provided. We can use our reserves stationed in Japan and transfer one corps from Northeast China for invasion of the Philippines. Unlike Admiral Yamamoto, I am of the opinion that after the diversionary attack in northern Philippines is made, a direct strike on Manila should be performed. Manila is the heart of the Philippines - if we take the heart out, then the whole organism dies. A lenient occupation policy should be adopted in order to appease the locals - the less problems with rebellious subjects we have, the better.

Unfortunately, our current situation prevents us from helping the Germans, as we cannot hope to take two behemoths - the USA and the SU - at once. However, given the friendly relations between the USA and the UK, I believe that it is only a matter of time before the British Empire supports the USA in the Pacific. The British will probably support the Americans in exchange for the US help in Europe.

Therefore, we focus focus on securing our position in Southern China. Central China HQ should focus on Chongqing, while Southern China HQ should advance westwards. We should start the recruitment of additional garrison troops (2 parallel lines of 5 2xGARs) that will guard the most important ports and airfields in China and in the Phillippines.

As soon as the Philippines are under our control, 2 Homegun and at least 2 marine divisions should prepare for the invasion of Indochina. The French authority is gone there - nobody will care if we assume control over this former French colony and if we do this, we will be able to support the Southern China HQ from Indochina with additional troops and we will secure additional air and naval bases that will be useful when the British Empire supports the Americans. Two birds with one stone.

Another reason for the invasion of Indochina and focusing on Southern China is that as soon as the British support the Americans and consider us our enemy, they may try to develop friendlier relations with China and they will be able to send resources and men from India to China unless we cut off all possible southern routes. Therefore, we need to be ready to advance in Southeast Asia as soon as possible.

The Navy should develop more modern amphibious warfare equipment, which will be needed now. Also, at least one additional corps of marines should be formed - given the harsh terrain in Southeast Asia and on many Pacific islands, it is obvious that more marines will be needed. We should also put more effort into improving the training of our special forces - this concerns both the marines and the assault engineers.

I agree that more efficient refining methods will be needed now, when we no longer have access to foreign oil. In the long-term, our strategic objective should be to secure the oil fields in Indonesia.

We should create a small but efficient mechanised force (2xMEC+1xTD), which will provide additional firepower in places where it is most needed. For this purpose, we should ensure that the quality of training of our tank crewmen and IFV personnel is high (Tank Crew Training) - this should increase the efficiency of both our future mechanised formations and our armoured cars. However, we should not go overboard, as poor infrastructure and harsh terrain in most of Asia put natural limits on the size of our mechanised formations.
 
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South Priority needs to be conducted swiftly, a show of direct force. The Philippines needs to be taken. Pending Admiral Baltersars approval and a full account of the current strength of our Marine Corps (I can't appear to see their unit icons for their numbers/location).

Admiral, I agree that we should take the Philippines, but I suggest that we knock out the US holdings between the Japanese home isles right up to Hawaii. The whole operation should not take very long and considering that the Philippines are at the end of a very long supply chain, we might give the US time to send more ships there in the hope that we will overwhelm them.
 
Here is the illustration of my attack plan:



As soon as the corps from Northeast China HQ is ready to embark, it should be moved to PHI and later to Indochina. Support from the sea will be needed in PHI and in Guam and we should use our best fleets to provide it. In case of Indochina, we can use our obsolete ships, as Indochina has no navy and anything that can shoot should be enough to break their obsolete coastal defences and disorganise their infantry.

Obviously, GARs should not attack directly, but be unloaded only when the coastline is cleared from the enemy troops.
 
Message to administrative clerk:
How many generals do we have left to lead our forces? As Gen Cybvep showed, some of the garrisons do not have proper leaders. Isn't there someone suitable to send there? Of course, the front line units do need to be properly staffed, but as long as we have sufficient spare commanders, we could as well send them out to command garrison forces.


Message to Gen Cybvep:
Your thrust through Indochina seems logical, but is the local infrastructure up to it? Also, what are the political consequences of a strike through a western puppet state? Also, while a strike south might be interesting, we have to consider that the Soviets might be at an all time low soon. If we pass up that chance, they might recover sufficiently to throw the Germans back. Not that this in itself would be a worry for us, but we might lose a once in a lifetime chance to defeat them en-detail.
 
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Message to administrative clerk:
How many generals do we have left to lead our forces? As Gen Cybvep showed, some of the garrisons do not have proper leaders. Isn't there someone suitable to send there? Of course, the front line units do need to be properly staffed, but as long as we have sufficient spare commanders, we could as well send them out to command garrison forces.
These GARs do not have leaders, because this has been part of our doctrine, i.e. do not use skilled leaders for garrison troops unless they are deployed on the frontline. In 1941 many new leaders became available and now most if not all our units in China and in Manchuria have properly trained leaders to command them.
 
To the various Generals, Admirals and clerks

This day of infamy shall long be remembered, for no reason at all the USA has attacked despite us having taken care not to provoke them too much.

Now let us not panic, our defences are in place in the Pacific as we discussed already in '36, there is no immediate front that need to be covered as there was as the Soviets unprovoked attacked us.

China
The war is progressing slowly but we are nearing the end and despite the recent takeover of Yunnan and bringing in the last of the Warlords we are closer than ever before of defeating China.

As we progress further we can use fewer and fewer Homengun on that front due to supply issues, until the Hirohito line can connect the farthest western Chinese provinces.

HQ North
Attack and destroy the commies.
Then guard the Mongolian borders in China and Manchuria.
Remove the Cav from north and attach it to the China occupation army.


HQ West A+B
Attack direction Golmun, destroy the Ma's.
Support the attack on Chongging from the north and commies from the south respectively when the troops get there.
Then continue on to the Soviet border in the west through the western warlords.
It is uncertain if the current state of the can supply all 6 Homengun of these Ichigun's, so HQ West will continue west with 4 Homengun after the defeat of the Chinese and keep 2 in reserve.

HQ Guangxi
Attack west into the former Yunnan territory, don't attack Chongqing again before further forces are able to attack from the north.

Philippines
The army estimates the need for 2 Homengun, marines might be useful in the initial landings, to take out the islands. There should have been build enough garrisons now to guard all ports after conquest.
Puppet or conquer is the big question here, my preliminary opinion is that the only reason to take them out is the threat a US fleet based here poses, neither their industry nor resources are impressive.

Pacific islands
With all due haste take out all US bases in the pacific, and Guam and Hawaii as to priority as their main repair and supply facilities are there.
The attack on Pearl Harbour needs some preliminary occupation of islands closer to the home land first.
An attack on Guam removes the last close enemy harbour to the homeland.

The islands closed to the homeland should get a minimal coastal fortress (level 1) Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Saipan, Guam. These should also all have a single AAA build if they haven't already.

This is a plan for 2 marines and X Gar, as our fleet can't protect more than 1 invasion fleet.

If the US invades any Island we should sail reinforcements to that Island, landing from the non-invasion side of the island.

Soviets
If we decide that the Soviets should be our main land target to help out the Germans, the following preparations have to be made.
The Hirohito West China rail must be upgraded/upgrading to level 4 at least on the whole line with level 5 in the eastern parts.
The Mongolian side rail must be level 4 from where it divert from the north line.
On the last report on infrastructure the north line seems nearly complete with level 6 up to the Mongolian line an level 5 from there to the Manchurian border.

Soviet attack plan B '41
sovietattackplanb41.jpg


Initial attacks
Followup attacks
Destruction of the Vladivostok pocket.
Stop line. The northern harbour should be taken too, but who exactly we should hold it is a question.
...
Profit.

The area west of the Xinjiang in the soviet union contains among others
Matay 192 energy.
Zhambryl 40 rares.
18 factories.
Various other resources.

The eastern targets contain foremost 8 oil and little else.

The next profitable part is around Novosibirsk, with another 15+ factories (+moved factories) and around 200 extra resources including 4 oil. This is north of Matay also in the Lake Balkhash area.

This is a plan for 12 Homengun approximately.
To not make the attack on the Soviets is to doom Germany and then ultimately our self.

Air force
The utter failure of the air commanders to safeguard the CAG's that was on loan from the navy is a course for deep concern.
I'll restate that no air wing may take to the air with anything but passive setting, whether for bombing or air combat. All air groups must only contain one wing.

The front in china now doesn't require so many interceptors to cover it all, my calculations would suggest that 3 H-Ftr can cover the entire front if set to intercept on maximum range, the Chinese airforce shouldn't be a problem at this time. The bombers also stay in China, first concentrating on the commies, then on Chongqing. After the fall of the commies and KMT the short range bombers could participate at Guam and/or Philippines as they don't have the range to do anything useful in China. If we get a new front against the colonial powers they will go the instead.

This should leave 3(4?) interceptors these should go to Saipan and intercept at max range, if we got 3 H-Ftr in surplus they should also be set to intercept there, just use max range if placed west of Guam.

Note, any US CV fleet will rip these apart due to superior sea training of CAG's ((4+ CAG's can only be defeated by other CAG's on CAG duty, they got so many boni (no stacking penalty!!!) when fighting land based, only small groups of CAG's can be defeated by land based))

Army
To not concentrate all our best and most experienced leaders in a few Homengun, promote and replace any division leader having reach skill 5 one level, then replace every 4th leader with a lower skilled one from the leader pool, this way new divisions gets some relatively experienced leaders to compensate for their own inexperience.

Navy
Our biggest concern now is that when the naval treaties where signed we had around the number of ships that it allowed us, ie. 35% of either the British and US fleets, considering we probably build the same number of ships as the British build we should be at around 50% of the British fleet, equal in CV's lagging in all other. But the USA will have build slightly more and that brings us at around 40% of the US fleet. Totally this brings us to have around 22% ((50%+40%)/2) of the combined fleet of the US and British.

It is this Generals believe that the naval war will progress in this way, first there will be some fleet activity while the enemy probes our positions, this is an option of jump smaller enemy fleets with concentrations of ours, this will only last 3-6 months.

This is also the time frame for an invasion of the Philippines and Guam.
The navy must provide adequate protection for any invasion fleet, at least a SAG or CVG must provide close escort in hostile waters and the other must provide far protection, if the navy can't provide this we will lose too many divisions to surprise visits from enemy fleets. ((just look at Slan's AAR where he lost an armour army to German WWI battleships)).

Next phase will start when the USA has gathered enough transports and divisions to go on the attack, an invasion fleet will contain 3-4 CV 3-6 BB + 20 escort and some transports. To defeat this the half the Japanese fleet must engage it, including all heavy units, else we will suffer defeat. It doesn't matter if we receive grievous damage as long as we don't lose too many ships ((remember if we fall below 100 ships we lose the Great Navy bonus)). ((Do we want to be totally gamy and pursue retreating enemy fleets? depending on the bonus that the AI gets we will have to do this or lose)).

The navy should recall all CAG's from China so they are ready for use in any naval action, and they will surely come.

Diplomacy
We should not sign the axis agreement with Germany before we are at war with the Commonwealth, if we do it will in short order mean that we get into war with them and that the USA will join the Allies. Not that there isn't the risk of the USA joining the allies anyway at which point we should be ready to attack the colonies.

Puppets, conquests and occupation policies
Actions to be taken regardless of any other, now that we are not restricted by any limits on threat toward the USA we can pressure the French to give us Fr. Indo-China as a puppet, and Siam to let us station troops there. We don't want to take patrol Indo-China ourself.

Depending on other possible dows and attacks, I give you here a list of who we should take as puppets and who we should directly control.
Puppets
Malaysia - gives lots of resources, low industry, but most likely GIE.
Philippines - low everything except ports, best guard them themselves, so don't destroy their army under the invasion.
Fr. Indo-China. - too many partisans for little industrial gain.
Burma - ditto.

Occupation
Australia & New Zeeland - GIE and they have factories, press them hard as no supplies go through but prepare for anti-partisan.
China - we need the rails that we can build, and their factories.
India+himalaya - hopefully they got factories. After we fully occupy them press them hard. We will need to leave a Gundan for anti-partisan operations here.

General diplomacy
Never attack Tibet, unless they are the last free state in the world.

My proposal for the continuation of the wars are that we engage the US fleets and trade some islands, we can in no way engage the US on their home soil until their fleet is eliminated, which will take years.

While this happens our armies are free after mobbing up in China, my proposal is to attack the Soviets while they are busy in the west, the alternative is to attack the colonial powers or do nothing.

If we attack the colonial powers we also have to deal with the 2nd largest fleet in the world, ours is the 3rd and the US 1st. This will not end happily. The primary reason to attack the colonials is to get their oil, of which we have a reasonable amount ftm. The colonies contain approximately 35 oil where the Soviet far east only contains 8, but oil is not the primary target against the Soviets, it is their economy and long term survival as they lose around 25 factories and 250 resources.

A German victory over the Soviets would enable them to take a more active role against the colonial powers which en the end would help us, especially a German invasion of GB.

Intelligence
Support national unity, too keep the very nice bonus we just got.
Counter intelligence in all our puppets, rank 1 support, this should build up level 10 counter intelligence fast and will after that not drain our resources. But support ruling party in new puppets until the situation is stabilized and the new regime is safe.
No intelligence operations against enemy powers, this will just drain our resources.

Economy
Also now we are free to enact any war economy we like so enact Total Economic Mobilization if possible.
So we either get 30IC or 60IC more depending on what we can do.

Regardless of what we do we need to fully fund upgrades and reinforcements up to 25IC each and supplies to 2/3 of the demand (which is the real demand), this will in the current situation mean 5 IC more to reinforcements and 10 IC more to supplies, if we get under 10K supplies increase supplies to demanded, take from upgrades and reinforcements. So we use around 75IC on none-production maximum, currently we could get away with only 65IC but we use only 50IC, this should be increase accordingly.

This leaves us with 100IC for production, 130 if we can upgrade the production once, 160 if we can get Total Economic Mobilization

Note on building, the production clerk should find free to build the infx2+art/eng as one unit if he doesn't do it now, the difference in production time should be negligible ((and total IC-day is also the same)).

Let me first give a general out-line of the army's needs.

I believe we would need 12 Homengun against the Soviets, increasing with 2-4 if available and supplyable.
20 Garx2 for occupying Philippines and all other US possessions in the Pacific + another 3-5 for the Aleuts island chain up to Dutch Harbour.
5 Garx2 for Soviet ports.
2 Homengun temporarily against the Philippines, these can be reused in all southern expeditions until India.
The current 7 cav divisions is enough partisan hunters for the moment. 2 Stays in china, 1 to Vladivostok area, 2 to Australia, 1 Borneo, 1 Indonesia.

If we get to the point where we are at war with the Colonial powers we will need 4-6 Homengun against India after cleaning up the south pacific. Some of these need to be in place before hostilities breaks out as defensive placements.
West China - 1 Homengun to cover our rear
North Burma + Fr. Indo-China - one Homengun to stop the gaps there
Siam-Burma border - one Homengun to stop the UK from overrunning our coming allies.
Siam-Malasia border.

This would mean we need 6-10 additional Homengun in excess to the 12 active in China now (96 divisions). We have an unknown number already build though.

The army would also like to invest in a mechanised force for use against the industrial powers.
A mechanised Homengun would look like this
Homengun
- Standard infantry Gundan
- Mech Gundan

A Mech Gundan will consist of 4 divisions
1x M.Arm+2xMech+TD ~45IC
3x MechX2+TD ~3x37IC
This will be based mostly on tried German designs if we can buy them as we suspect the German Arms, Mechs and TD are slightly more advanced than our current.
This will also be very expensive at start with 30% extra cost due to low(no?) practical in mobile units.

I'd like my fellow General to comment on this!
Alternatively we should drown the world in inf, and build another 150 inf divisions(at 7MP each).

If we get TEC we should build the following: (* currently building)
Common currently using 62IC - would increase to 70? with the below budget.
5 Factories*
15 IC infra*
1 convoy* (increase to 2?)
1 escort* (close to zero in reserve?!? but ok atm.)
3 radar parallel repeat* (currently specifically placed, replace with pre-build when finished)
0-3 coastal fortresses on islands (+1 on Guam when we get it) - only one time.
0-3 provincial AAA on islands depending on the current amount present.

convoys/escorts will change much in the coming weeks as we cancel US convoys and even more if we get other DoW's.

With an estimated increase in production by 60IC - 15 IC on maintenance - 8 extra on common = 33IC extra to ad to the production or around 16IC extra for each branch, giving each 26+16=42IC to produce with.

Army
4 parallel lines of Garx2 until we have 12 in surplus, but minimum 30 Garx2 we will need them for other adventures later. (4x2IC=8)
4 parallel inf divisions incl. art/eng (4x4.5IC=18) (including whats currently building)
1 H-Ftr (12C)
1 AAA repeat build for garrisons with need for some art. (2IC) I think AAA might be better than Art as they also protect against air attacks.
1 TD (modest start on our mech dreams!) (8IC?)
1 mechx2 if we can afford it (30IC!!!)


Navy
(currently building)
1 BC (10IC)*
1 CVL (6IC)*
2 CL(14IC)*
1 CAG(3IC?)
leaving 13IC
1 BB+1CL
or
1 CV+1CAG+1CL
either of which exceed the allocation just like the army.

Research
It is this Generals opinion that the Navy's CAG-land focus is suicide ((though I never played with it, it looks baaaad, like all the other specializations, the others at least have the option on being able to get land air support for sea-focus or land air-to-sea support for air-focus)) the army doesn't need the land-focus.
 
To General Cybvep,
I do not agree that we can't take on 2 powers at the same time, the reason is we use 2 different resources. We can practically only use the Navy and a very limited number of marines and Garrisons against the USA. And against the Soviets we only use the army with very little use of the navy.
Even if we get attacked by the colonial powers we might not have a problem as there is very limited frontage for either to attack, and again the limiting factor is the navy, which until the enemy fleets are destroyed can't protect major expansions. Everything short of India can be fought by 3 Homengun and only if the allies put all their troops into India would we have a problem there.
 
To the Imperial General Headquaters

Greeting,

It seems we got 4 different ideas of how to prosecute the the early phase of the war, while I agree that Guam must be taken fast I'm worried that the navy wont be able to protect 2 landings at the same time or that one of them will be weakly protected.

The Guam landing will have to be protected by 2/3 of the battlefleets(BB/CV) and the Philippines by the rest. Attacking Guam immediately seems like the best plan, then the Philippines as soon as sufficient troops are gathered.

The Guam attack should sail immediately under cover of the Grand Fleet, this will also provoke an US fleet attack on our invasion where we might have the advantage. I trust all transport fleets has adequate escorts already in form of CA's.

Regarding the attack on the Philippines, I would prefer a landing in the 2 northern harbours first and then either just push south or make an additional landing at Manila. Landing in the north has the advantage that we only need to land once and then can transport further troops in, I would have guessed we needed 2 Homengun to flatten the place.
 
To General Cybvep,

I'd like you to elaborate on that invasion you foresee in Fr. Indo-china, why not simply blackmail them into giving us them.
 
To General Cybvep,

Greetings,

I see we also differ in our approach to the commies, where I think now is the time to destroy them you want to wait?

And it is for the same reason we want to do different things! You want to spare them because they fight the KMT, I want to destroy them for the same reason!!!

My reasoning is that they will have another front so their forces around their capital will be diluted and they would have lost many troops that previously were fighting in KMT areas.
 
I agree with General Surt that PHI and Guam have to be taken within the first months. Then and ONLY then we should start conquering the US bases one by one, without exposing ourselves too much. Remember that the USA can accept ship losses, because they are the most industrialised nation on the planet. We, on the other hand, must limit our losses to the minimum. We have a window of opportunity of several months, before the USA will be able to mount a big offensive on their own. We should most definitely pursue broken fleets, but only when we are certain that it's not a trap and there is a big fish to fry, i.e. not just a couple of destroyers.

Indochina must be taken by force - they will not become our puppet willingly (*we cannot gain Indochina by diplomacy, because we are not in the Axis!!!). It should be a very easy operation and it will allow us to expand our frontline against the Chinese and improve our position in Southeast Asia, in preparation for a strike on the Commonwealth and the Dutch East Indies.

I see absolutely no reason to attack the SU in 1941 - we do not know how the British will respond to the US action yet and we definitely do not want to engage the Americans, the British and the Soviets at the same time. Besides, effective action against the Soviets will only be possible after China falls and conquering China completely will probably take months. I think that we have been overly optimistic about China so far - let us not repeat the same mistake.

As long as communist strongholds exist, they tie up the nationalists' divisions. If we conquer the commies now, we will de facto make the enemy stronger. Remember that the commies no longer fight alongside the nationalists.

I will only approve of the strike against the Soviets under the following conditions:
1) China (excluding Tibet, which is a non-important backwater) is fully conquered and our infrastructure projects in China are completed,
2) our defensive perimeter in the Pacific is secured, that means that the most important islands are under our control,
3) when it becomes clear that the British Empire will either not attack us OR after we secure the oil fields in the Southeast Asia and we are sure that we can hold the British off in Southeast Asia,
4) when it appears that Germany has a real chance to win the war OR when it becomes clear that without our help, they will collapse.

In regard to our production, I agree that we need mechanised formations, but we should start more modestly by trying to create our first corps and check its effectiveness. Also, while I believe that infrastructure projects and the fortifications are important, we should establish a rule that they should consume no more than 25-30% of the Army budget, as we will need the rest for the army and airforce expansion.

I also believe that it is a mistake to underestimate the Chinese airforce. Remember that their pilots have been trained by the Soviets and many of their planes have been bought from the Allies.

EDIT: *We cannot enact Total Economic Mobilisation yet, only War Economy.
 
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To General Cybvep, Have you thought the war with French Indo-China through? We wont get into any trouble, like they align with Germany and Germany DoWs us or they align with the Allies and they DoW us?
 
To General Cybvep, Have you thought the war with French Indo-China through? We wont get into any trouble, like they align with Germany and Germany DoWs us or they align with the Allies and they DoW us?
Indochina aligned with the French State (not the French Republic) and they may respond, yes. Whether this is worrisome is another matter, though, as they cannot possibly harm us in any way.

To be honest the French State seems like a rump state, so alternatively we can simply wait for their regime to collapse and then just walk into Indochina without opposition.
 
I'd prefer the latter option.

Is the unit density so large now that its a problem? I saw that some areas had the infra totally destroyed in the middle of the front.
 
Yes, but the Administration believes that these are temporary problems. Infrastructure in several provinces has yet to be repaired, that's it. However, general infrastructure level in western and central China is poor, so we should expect more supply problems in the following months. It might be prudent to expand our infrastructure development program westwards sooner than later.
 
Do we need to expand the current Hirohito line into a network? It would seem prudent to have another supply line in the south and one crossing the two. This would enable us to keep the supplies flowing even if one of these lines should be compromised. It would also give us a logistical bridgehead towards India / central Asia.
 
At the moment the plan seem to be expand the line westwards and northwards, but as far as we know the British attack is more likely than the Soviet attack, so I would also support the idea of expanding the line southwards. It will take months before we gain access to the land controlled by the Ma Clique and Xinjiang and the northern line is already quite developed, anyway. We can start by improving the infrastructure in central and southern China to "level 6". However, I want to stress the importance of not overemphasising the importance of our infrastructure development program. We need infantry, engineers, artillery, garrison troops, mechanised formations and aircraft - that's why infrastructure projects shouldn't consume more than 25-30% of the Army budget in my opinion.

The problem with one central railway is that even limited actions by partisans can be troublesome if they manage to cut off our forces from our supply network. As a countermeasure, we could station garrison troops and Kempeitai on major railway stations and dispatch 2-3 cavalry units to serve in counterinsurgency operations. In the Pacific Theatre partisans shouldn't be a problem except in the Philippines. If the British help the Americans and we capture the Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, then partisans most likely WILL be a problem.

*BTW Kempeitai cannot fight partisans, as they are composed of support brigades only - such units retreat immediately. Therefore, it might be prudent to add at least one GAR to each Kempeitai unit.

Also, since the Pacific Theatre will be dominated by naval action, the Navy should be responsible for building fortifications and potential new airfields in that Theatre. Unless, of course, our Admirals can assure us that the enemy will not land on our shores.

EDIT: I will quote the rules for clarity.

- the IJA is tasked with conducting major offensives, including the ones planned by the IJN. However, the IJN must rely mostly on its own forces for defence, unless battles with major enemy forces are involved
- infrastructure, naval bases, AAs etc. are part of the IJN's or IJA's budget, depending on the place they are built in; both factions must agree to construct those improvements on Japanese home islands

Lack of modern bombers is a bit worrying, but I am not sure whether we can do much about it at the moment.
 
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At the moment the plan seem to be expand the line westwards and northwards, but as far as we know the British attack is more likely than the Soviet attack, so I would also support the idea of expanding the line southwards. It will take months before we gain access to the land controlled by the Ma Clique and Xinjiang and the northern line is already quite developed, anyway.
We can start by improving the infrastructure in central and southern China to "level 6". However, I want to stress the importance of not overemphasising the importance of our infrastructure development program. We need infantry, engineers, artillery, garrison troops, mechanised formations and aircraft - that's why infrastructure projects shouldn't consume more than 25-30% of the Army budget in my opinion.

If the original plan succeed we will not be in the very bad situation that we get a connected supply net, ie. the Guangxi will boarder Tibet and thereby cut India off, this of course demands that the Guangxi Ichigun moves faster forward than the middle one.
Therefore no infra should be build to the south at all.

The problem with one central railway is that even limited actions by partisans can be troublesome if they manage to cut off our forces from our supply network. As a countermeasure, we could station garrison troops and Kempeitai on major railway stations and dispatch 2-3 cavalry units to serve in counterinsurgency operations. In the Pacific Theatre partisans shouldn't be a problem except in the Philippines. If the British help the Americans and we capture the Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, then partisans most likely WILL be a problem.
Borneo is a problem, so will Australia be.
*BTW Kempeitai cannot fight partisans, as they are composed of support brigades only - such units retreat immediately. Therefore, it might be prudent to add at least one GAR to each Kempeitai unit.
Kempeitai can't fight them so if they spawn under one it will retreat, but no partisan will ever attack them either.
Also, since the Pacific Theatre will be dominated by naval action, the Navy should be responsible for building fortifications and potential new airfields in that Theatre. Unless, of course, our Admirals can assure us that the enemy will not land on our shores.
EDIT: I will quote the rules for clarity.
From this I take it that the army is therefore responsible for inland infrastructure and need no naval approval for that?
Lack of modern bombers is a bit worrying, but I am not sure whether we can do much about it at the moment.

We need more fighters than bombers and H-Ftr can do some bombing if really needed.
I'd like to build 2 H-Ftr at a time but the budget just doesn't hold water.
 
From this I take it that the army is therefore responsible for inland infrastructure and need no naval approval for that?
*Infrastructure/AA/air bases/whatever in China, Mongolia etc. is funded by the Army, so no need for the Navy's approval. The Navy is responsible for the Pacific islands and also doesn't need the Army's approval.

GARs stationed on Pacific islands are Navy-controlled. I will create a list of them and post it in the next update. The Navy is also expected to defend the Pacific islands, while the Army is responsible for mainland Asia. Naturally, major offensives and major defensive operations will be conducted by the Army, while transport and naval support will be provided by the Navy.

FTRs are Army-controlled, because the Army built them. CAGs are Navy-controlled. 3 light bombers are Army-controlled and 1 Naval Patrol Bomber and 1 Medium Bomber are Navy-controlled. 1 Transport aircraft, 2 strategic bombers and 4 light fighters are common assets. Anyone can request air support and the request can only be denied if a proper explanation is provided.

Obviously, anyone can make suggestions, but the Navy/Army will have a final word in a given matter.
 
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