Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

Cybvep said:

1. Continue infrastructure developement in China, focusing on the lowest-lvl provinces first. The final goal should be 5-6 lvl railways, at least in 1941. Currently infrastructure developement program costs ~14 IC. The investment cost should not exceed ~15 IC, because there are more important matters.
3. Replace IJA GAR orders with MPs.
4. Stop IC construction in Aug. The reasons were already given.
8. If enough IC is available, upgrade our MOTs into MECHs and start serial production of 1 TD.

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I'll note those I have a problem with.
Production
1. Infrastructure, the limit of 15IC is reasonable.
The northern route is needed as it will be a link to the transsibirian railway, all other supply routes will be useless because of transport problems in Manchuria.
The Mongol line is the only one that can go through the gab in the mountains and deserts near the ComChi.
The West china rail is needed after the fall of China as the western warlord not only boarders the Soviets but also India.
The proposed rail to India will be stunted by the Guangxi provinces and will not add anything useful, but build it if you give up the other useless lines.

3. We don't need that many MP, shall we limit it to a series of 5xMPx2, while we build Garx2 also, then 2xGarx2, we will need lots of these if the navy has any success.

4. We should insist the Navy starts a BB and CV for this, its the last chance to build anything that will have any effect later on. And they can repay us with interest later.

8. We should not upgrade, but build new.

To Adm. Yamamoto,

If I ever mentioned Sea of Japan as the prime target for enemy subs, I was clearly deluded!!! it is of course the East China Sea (I meant ...), all US and UK subs will go there, with the occasional attack én route.

Admiral Yamamoto,

if you re-read my proposal carefully, you'll find the following regarding ASW groups:

The ASW groups, named after the ships leading them, will go out hunting for US submarines. We need to confront them, thus these fleets are quite sizable. If the need arises, we can detach more ships from the imperial reserve with destroyers only. If they happen to be near targets of opportunity, they can engage weak enemy groups, ie transport fleets. However, given their relative weakness, they are meant to operate where the enemy capital ships are unlikely to reach them.

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To think that you assume I am foolish enough to send weak fleets right into the guns of the enemy with nothing to gain for us, is an insult by itself.

Phase 1.
With north Philippines pocket taken, redeploy our marines units to Marcus island along with the transport fleets / 5th fleet, leaving one unit of marines in the Philippines for southern island hopping. Prioritise these special forces divisions for reinforcement and upgrade. Organise a wing of tactical bombers to Kwajalein or Saipan if they are within bombing range of Wake, if not we shall have to use the heavy bomber wings.

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I have to disagree here. We need to take the Philippines out as quickly as possible, to free up forces for other theatres. Hence we do have to use the Marines to speed up the fall of the Philippines by letting them attack where the enemy has his cultural and economic centers. Only once this has been achieved, we can embark the SNLF, as well as the involved army formations, for other operations.
Also, when attacking the Marcus islands, I strongly advise to not only use one of the weaker fleets but also send either 1st or 3rd fleet along.

Phase 2a.
If the Americans bring in support, engage like we did at Guam. As we take damage rotate in the other fleets in the area. This time we should have the fleets on standby for a more decisive course of events. We won the last battle with good odds but didn't have the force to prosecute it further. By using a larger grouping of fleetsw we should have this tactical power.

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I would suggest to not only have 1st to 5th fleet included in this operation, but also 4th to 7th submarine divisions as forward scouting elements and possibly two of the ASW groups nearby to escort damaged ships back to port and function as on the spot replacement sources.

hat Admiral Baltesar is failing to take into account is that the Americans have a MASSIVE economic advantage over us, truly they do!

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I am not failing to take it into account, I just did not forward my plans for the occupation of the US isles yet again, as I thought I had made my point clear. However, I disagree that we should throw badly damaged ships into battle. As you say yourself, the US will outproduce us easily, so we do have to save what we have and lure the US into battles on our terms. This will hopefully happen when we invade their islands, but we have to consider after each battle if we have the strength to push on or if we should wait a little while to replace damaged ships with ones who are fully operational and avoid ship losses.

Strategically, if we win the Pacific War then we shan't need any more capitals really since we shall be fielding the home advantage in air cover all the time and decisive engagement is no longer a priority. The time for the build up is over and in the future we shall dominate the Pacific not by the warship but from the air, from island bases, from home ports.

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Unless we take into account the very real possibility of war with the Allies, which would mean war with the United Kingdom and her as of yet underemployed fleets. Hence we do need to lay down more capital ships so we have the most modern ones before others have them and in somewhat sufficient numbers.

Nor has Baltersars requests for;

Small warship ASW
Radar
Fire Control System Training
Commander Decision Making

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In fact, I did, #644

About 8 months from now when the IJN Shoho and IJN Kurama come out of dock, and we have 15IC to play around with can we consider a modern capital replacement. But that is still some time away

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I disagree. The factories will end production very soon, giving us additional 15 IC. The capitals have to be started now, since they do take quite long to build.

Cybvep said:

What useless lines are you referring to? My plan generally follows the previously established routes and finishes some lines which are at lvl 5, but could be lvl 6. The major addition is the proposed southern route which will be important if we expand into Southeast Asia.

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There are some drawing on the map that indicate your lines or are they idle scribbles from the cartographers?
The previous Chinese made lines are useless to us as they don't follow the supply flow.
As we plan to give Yunnan to Guangxi, they will help us by cutting our net in two so we don't get the problem of having to supply Delhi from Shanghai, an major improvement.

The IJN should form their own GARs. I was referring IJA's GARs.

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They should but they won't have enough for a long time an in the mean time we should take over garrison of the Philippines until they can catch up.
Btw. if we decide we only want a collaborator government there we might as well make them puppet instead so they can garrison themselves?

Last chance for what? Does the world end in 1943 and I do not know about it?

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No it doesn't, that doesn't happen before 2012, but later and we will either have won or lost the pacific war.
But anyway I like Adm. Yamamoto's plan of building a rocket site better.

There is no reason not upgrade our MOTs into MECHs.

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We don't get more units by upgrading and we need more.

Cybvep said:

IJA's Plan for 1941

Operational planning

Focus on Central and Southern China. 2 Homegun from the Philippines should be transported back to China ASAP. Our transport planes should help supplying our troops fighting in Southern China. Fighter cover is unnecessary in the North, our airforce should focus on the Chinese provinces with airfields (air superiority mission) and provide fighter cover in Central and Southern China (air intercept mission). When the Chinese Airforce is beaten, H-FTRs should be used on interdiction missions, while L-FTRs can be transferred to the Pacific. Medium bombers should be kept on ground attack mission.

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Agree, We need some troops to guard the two allied enclaves in China.

The extra Homengun at the front is a good question that can't be answered without a detailed look at the supply situation.

How big is the Chinese airforce really? that seems like a lot of effort for 2 bombers and 3 fighters???
But anyway we should be able to win against the Chinese by attrition them now.

Now for the major bone of contention.
We should attack the ChiCom too, as the Ichigun that attacks just south of them will soon use a large part of its forces along their souther boarder, freeing up NatChi forces and binding our forces as border guards.

Beloved Emperor, honored Generals, fellow Admirals. For about two years now, we are fighting. Mostly in China and sometimes in Manchuria and most recently, in the Pacific. We are fighting on land, at sea and in the air, using both our bodies and our minds to achieve victory in the best traditions of our ancestors. Even when we do not agree upon each decision, once a decision is reached, everybody does his duty and sees these decisions followed through, turning plans into reality. Even when we suffer setbacks, we are not to be deviating from our goal. However, to achieve victory, we must keep in mind these goals.

In China, the goal is pretty clear. Together with our Allies, the Guanxi Clique, we aim to control China. This vast country offers riches we dearly need if we ever hope to achieve a parity with the colonial powers and be one of the big players, being able to defend what is rightfully ours. Though the colonial powers are currently fighting in Europe, we should assume that this focus of their attention will last forever. Once the war in Europe is settled, they will return to Asia and in force, making sure these parts of their empires are firmly in their hands. This forces us to make the decision whether or not we want to use this chance to dispute their rulership in Asia and thus propell ourselves into the ranks of major powers.

However, we do need to take other factors into account as well. The Soviets are also occupied in Europe but their attention will not remain there forever. While we do not have much to gain from them, they have a lot to win if they wage war on us, most prominently China, Manchuko and Korea. A strike at Stalin's Soviet Russia would move the potential from far away from the area we need to protect, making our grip on the continent much firmer.

The most immediate and most dangerous threat to our ambitions, howerver, are the United States of America. Their declaration of war against us, though not totally unexpected, did catch us by surprise. Their immediate actions where uncoordinated, helping us in our retalatory invasion of Guam. This should not lead us to the assumption that the war can be won easily. Quite the contrary. Their political leadership will use every last bit of false information to whip their population into a fury against us. Moreover, their much larger industrial base enables them to build ships a lot faster than we can. How can we win a war against such a nation?

Politically, we are isolated. Our rightful intervention in China has upset the western powers, bringing the USA to wage war against us while simultaneously seeking alliance with the European colonial powers. The Axis powers are waging war against the Communists and Western Allies simultaneously, making it unwise to join them right now. They do not have the means to assist us right now anyway. This leaves us without strong allies, alone against a country which does have a larger population and a much larger industry. Invading the USA is out of the question. Their country is large and far fledged, it'd be like invading China all over again, with a much longer supply line behind it, making any such attempt folly. Beating the Americans decisively by purely military means is not possible for us.

Having ruled out the impossibilites, what can we do? We can inflict losses on them. We can take their Pacific holdings, we can seek and sink their fleets, we may even dare and set foot on their soil in Alaska or the Panama channel. Having inflicted sufficient loss of live and assets, being deprived of their Pacific holdings and facing the blockade of their single most important sea lane might force them to negotiate a peace.

Only then can we dare to turn our eyes on the liberation of further Asian populations, bringing them under the influence of our benevolent Emperor. Only then, without the immediate threat in the east, can we continue with to walk down the road, onwards to our destiny.

If we fail against China, if we fail against the USA, then we will be nothing. Our fleets, armies and our empire would be destroyed. Our culture, our religion, our heritage would be subject to the whims of those who defeated us. We do not fight for land, for riches, for prestige. We fight for the survival of Japan as a nation.

Addendum to the plan I posted earlier:

Air power: Land based aircraft should be used in China as long as they are useful. This is meant to concentrate our efforts there while the Chinese continue to resist. Their detailed use should be commanded by the army, since they know better where the planes will be most useful. The navy will do with CAGs and whatever else is left over for the time being. Concluding the war in China and the Philippines is more important right now, if we have to split our air assets.

My Admiral Baltasar,

I apologise if I insult you, my reading of your proposals was that you would see us hunt US submersibles, and given that those are currently are out in the Pacific mostly, that would be where you'd have had to send the Subhunter fleets. However if we are agreed that the subhunters shall stay in the relative safe green waters around Japan I have little argument to make. Just I don't want to see said fleets out around the pacific islands since that would most likely be their downfall.

With regards to the Philippines once the northern pocket is taken, the bulk of resistance here will have been captured, from then onwards there is only really one route to the southern port in the Philippines, a single divisions of marines should suffice for this operation with the backup from the other infantry corps on the island. We shall not need a large force for this final capture. Hence why I believe that once the pocket is taken we can move onwards swiftly.

Marcus doesn't need to be attacked, we already own it. It is Wake and Midway that are controlled by hostile forces, although perhaps we should send a battlefleet as additional escort when we rebase the marines to Marcus; it would be prudent. Furthermore I believe we can reach agreement on using our submarine forces as passive scouts around the islands, that will give us good intelligence. We should pursue this course to battle.


I am concerned that the Allies will enter the war with us, however I believe the best course of action we can take is thus to act swiftly to win the Battle of the Pacific against the Americans as soon as we can possibly do so, such that if the Allies do enter the war, we have pushed the Americans far away enough from our home islands that the threat from America can be countered out, away from our more vulnerable holdings.

The RN and French fleet therefore will be seperated from the American elements preventing them from strong mutual support of each other for a time. This time could be exploited to take some of Indonesia and the main British ports. This would force the Colonial powers to have to use Commonwealth bases, which in turn leaves battles in the Java sea and similar. Again away from our vulnerable supply lines.

This overall gives us, in this contingency, two main engagement areas where we can focus naval and support air assets, rather than have to patrol the entire Pacific. In an ideal world we would add additional capitals to our fleets, however new capitals, while powerful are not the most efficient use of valuable ICdays. It would be far more prudent to put more ships in the water rather than less since while some of our escorts are modern, most are not, and escorts are far more likely to be sunk than our capitals.

Consider as well the fact that any IC freed up is only roughly capable to put one, or at most two, ships in the water after 3 years! The Battle of the Pacific will have either been won or lost by then, the time for planning is over, we can't prepare for this war. That is probably one of the reasons the Americans attacked us now, seeing us mired in China and thinking that we couldn't cope with a two front war, but they didn't want to wait for us to build new capitals since we weren't following the naval treaties and wait for us to become superpowerful.

No, we need modern escorts. They can be produced in time to help in this conflict.

If we were to follow capital construction we would have to wait for the appropriate future techs to be researched first, adding even more time to their build time. While we could have waited we can put at least another two cruisers in the water.

Depending on our achievements once we reach Hawaii then let us debate capital construction. However I do feel now is definatly not the time. We need at least another two CAGs anyhow, and in the meantime let's grab the opportunity to construct one of them!

Afterall the US will out produce us, but that's the long run. If we play the waiting game then we know in the future we shall be outnumbered whatever the case. Now however we are at the most equal we shall ever be, and using our fleets together we shall have the local superiority and the battles will be on our terms, even thought we are putting our vulnerable invasion fleets. In this way the invasion fleet is the bait to bring the Americans in, while we have the numbers and focus to hopefully inflict critical losses upon them.

It's 'Blitzkriegsmarine' as a German might say...

In the long run we will likely loose the economic war, however in the meantime we need to press it as much as possible to through back that date, and take the ground in the meantime to give us flexibility as it might beckon. Producing capitals shall have us stand still while the Americans bring that date even closer.

Nay, we need to put ships in the water as soon as possible!



Waiting 8 months (20% extra build time, hardly a massive delay) allows us long enough to modernise the following;

Battleship Engine

Aircraft Carrier Design Principle
Aircraft Carrier Deck Armour

Cruisers Design
Cruisers Armament
Cruisers Engine

(Note to the Administration: Not a Tech request list, just discussing)

While Battleship design is currently of a higher quality than Aircraft carrier design, in the regions where it matters for the modernisation, i.e. the Hull and Armament, they are too far ahead in the future to be worth waiting for modernisation of those elements. So we go head and build now with a current year, or wait years to modernise.

The Carrier on the other hand would require two technologies, but would be of modern year and give us a generally more flexible naval unit.

I'd argue we need one of each, given that the Battlefleets engage and pin, while the carrier fleets provide the support and cover.

However of a more pressing need is the Cruiser Design and Armament, since we have embarked in 1940 a scheme that allows us for naval mobilisation, it would be a shame to waste that endeavour now with the practical on the increase, and shorter turn around means we can get 6 ships for three techs in the same period, rather than 2 for two.


But the point is simple, we should no matter what put the cruiser and doctrine techs at the front of our priorities, only then can we consider design. Given that most of those technologies will be completed within 4 months, that gives us time within the 8 month period to choose a capital hull (or two), but that will be at the expense of something else, air power, infra, tanks, or rocketry.

That is the choice we are talking about.

In the next couple months we shall know how the Battle of the Pacific is going, thus we can plan accordingly when it matters. If we succeed spectacularly then yes we can afford capitals with reduced escort priority. If we are struggling, escorts will be needed to take the hits of the fleet instead.

Either way now is not the time to decide capitals. Let's watch the engagements.

While I agree that modern escorts would be nice, I feel that we need capitals to really beat the Americans and any other opponent we face at sea. The escorts can be replaced much faster than capitals, thus we need to start building the latter right now. If we do not have the most modern technologies in each and every area, I can life with it. The point is that we will lose capital ships sooner or later. Some of our ships are just modernized World War I ships while the USA started to construct a large number of vessels in the last few years. Even the most modern escorts will not be able to stop their capitals from sinking our capitals and this will inevitably result in the sinking of the escorts as well.

No gentlemen. We do need capital ships and we need them right now. Since we do not have the IC to build everything we want, we have to make compromises. Once China has been pacified, the army will need much fewer resources for their staring contest with the Soviets, meaning that more if not most IC will be freed up for the navy and the aviation arm. That is where we will start to invest into modern escorts. But since capitals do need so much more time to be finished, we do need to invest what we have there.

What is the status of the ships already in the repair yards?

What fighter aicraft can we redeploy to within range of Saipan quickly?

Where are the ASW groups? They'll be needed in the area to escort damaged ships home.

Where are the submarines? Have them rebase to a port nearby and start operations in packs of three flotillas against that fleet. Leave the last submarine flotilla to arrive as reserve just outside that port.

Do we have reports on the friendly fire incidents among the US fleet?
USS Augusta (CA) sunk Peter Stuyvesant Flotilla (TP)
USS Canberra (CA) sunk Clara Barton Flotilla (TP)
US 12th Destroyer Division (DD) sunk William B Travis Flotilla (TP)

What is the status of the remaining US CAGs? They must be depleted by now, so how much fight is left in them?

What is the status of the remaining US capitals in the area? Surely they must have suffered.