Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

Building 2 capital ships and planes and escorts and an marine army is still very expensive in my book.
But then you don't have to convince me, only the other Admirals ... and the Emperor.

I did not ask for escorts or planes, just two ships and the marines plus the garrisons when they can be squeezed in. However, all of this is meant to be produced not neccessarily right now but later on. This means that the units I suggest would take up a lot less IC because of serial building. I did state that I do see neccessity to substantially increase the army.

I already posted a plan. Take that with the amendments made later on and the explainations.. then you've got a plan from the battlewagon faction. It looks like the IJN is unable to come up with a plan everybody can agree upon.

My immediate reaction would be to just continue, as long as the mini factions internally are somewhat in agreement, the 2nd player for his mini-faction could take over until he's back.
If they are not in agreement within their mini-faction it is a problem.

Actually, I came here to compose a resignation post myself. I find it difficult to get into this, since I cannot look at things myself in HPP to come up with detailed plans or react to others' details. So, if others are interested or you simply want to contract down to four, I will resign.

I say just carry on without them. Or alternatley, create 2 new mini factions and have a player per mini faction. Perhaps a sub/convoy raider faction for the IJN and something else for the IJA?

Cybvep said:

I'm also thinking about giving the Navy more incentives to cooperate by introducing cooperation modifiers.

I want to hear your comments on these issues.

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My Emperor, Japan is in no crisis, should it find one of its military staff going on extended leave. Simply let his counterpart take control in his stead. In fact the larger numbers of players does well for this, as should one faction loose one of its leaders for some time, the other can take command.

This in some ways would speed up decision making.

However, I do not feel that the IJN needs any 'provisions to cooperate' any more than the military armed forces, both just need to learn to get along with each other and cooperate, rather than seek to out do the other by snubbing each other.

After all prestige is not generated by 'cooperation' but by tangible results!

My advice to the navy is not to treat your doctrine differences as a 'war' but rather seek to build a combined navy of both aspects. If national prestige was to be granted by fleet effectiveness in combat (i.e. prestige for kills) then of course the navy as a whole shall wish to be effective!

Fleets with only capitals aren't effective. Therefore you have your limitations to only building capital classes. Let 'medium warships' Cruisers+ contribute a small amount of VP too to both factions.


It saddens my that you wish to step down VeteranLurker, downloading/installing the mod isn't a big issue since you have a drop down selector on the launcher. Furthermore, I said that should you wish me to try anything I would do so for you and PM you said results.

After the initial plan, I doubt I'll be in a position to test anything much either, since I'll be reliant on our Emperors intelligence service to tell me the state of affairs. However it is your decision.


It is my thoughts that as time marches on, we can only do the same.

We of the IJN have come to an agreement on the following issues.

General Plan​

We of the IJN agree that a strike must be made as soon as possible against the European colonies. This must be a strong strike from which they cannot recover, and any plan must also account for decadent US involvement. Furthermore, we advocate a campaign against China, so long as enough power is left free to stage a succesful strike against the European colonies.

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Intelligence, Research and Diplomacy​

General:
Assuming that the Emperor decides that Japan is going to expand our influence on the world, we suggest the following steps:

- Cancel intelligence missions abroad
- Create ten intelligence circles on our soil and have them lower our neutrality
- Maintain a modest investment in officer recruitment
- Only invest into diplomats if there is an actual need for them

We should try and set up trade with resource rich nations, particularly the US. This may keep them from interupting our glorious conquest for some time.

When neccessary, we do agree to temporarily change our investments, ie substantially increase officer recruitement if neccessary.

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Research:

Our research should focus in 3 key areas.

We should firstly increase the effectiveness of our fighting formations, this will include developments such as new weapons, doctinres and a focus on specialised amphibious equipment.

We should also invest heavily in the development of light, single engine, airframes. These will be far more cost effective than heavier ones, and will benefit our carriers also.

We should invest in Light Cruiser research. These ships are essentially capable of any duty given them, and a force of them with cutting edge technology will be useful in any situation.

Secondary consideration should be shown to developing our educational and industrial effeciency, but they should not be forgotten.

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Production​

We believe we should take the following measures in regards to production:

Construction of 1 Carrier
Construction of 2 CAG (In Serial)
Construction of 1 Battlecruiser
Construction of 10 Marine Divisions (2 Serial runs of 5)
Increase of IC to 100

Any spare may be used by the army. Please note that not all of these need occur simultaneosly.

This will give us a strong industrial base, keep our naval researchers and producers up to date, and provide potent forces for future campaigns.

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Politics​

We suggest replacing ministers with those that will provide benfits to IC, Leadership and decrease our neutrality.

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hey nightraid3r here, I would be happy to help fill the void that Rommel left, I will read up on the thread and please let me know if there is anything I should be aware of or if I am just responsible for giving my opinions where I see fit.

Form Inner Mongolia, Don't sign the treaty, and screw the Chinese response!

My Emperor, if we sign such a treaty we show ourselves as weak women, bowing before decadent westerners.

Note to all Imperial Generals:

Immediate response to the Approved Plans and the Emperors demands for clarifications.

Politics
The fallout from the Deplorable incident in the capital will stain our honour for a long time to come, the mislead officers with known connections to the Imperial Rule Assistance Party, couldn't even manage a proper coup, how would they rule the country if they can't even manage that. I'm glad to say that no General apparently was involved in this misguided incident.

The loss of the government of Okada, is not a loss to our plans, he was a liberal amateur who never should have had that position.
Resistance to our plans should now lessen within the government. Though we would have to examine the new government as well as possible replacements and check if we needed to make any changes. We should advice the Emperor to make changes similar to the ones done in the previous government.


Budget
With regard to the budget, some Navy paid clerk must have misinformed the Emperor regarding the upgrade costs, we must immediately order our agents in the capital to find the perpetrator, have him sign a confession and show him the honourable way out of his shame.
I have here prepared an estimate of our need for upgrades, ie. everything except ships, CAG's and Navs.



As you can see we only stand for 60% of the current upgrades and that is with us funding the upgrades on all other land-based air units, even though the Navy would want to use at least some of the interceptors in case of a war with the colonial powers or the USA. With this upgrade rate the army will never be ready.
The reason that its so costly for the Navy is that it takes 1,5 years (500 days) to upgrade even an light anti-air on a battlecruiser, so this will drag on for nearly 5 years for some units just with the current technology, and during that time a further 2 upgrades might be needed. For the units we have now some of the upgrades need to be run multiple times, as do some army units and air units.
But the Emperor has spoken and the production stands now, we only need to be sure we remove that pesky clerk that is misinforming his Imperial Majesty and discreetly make him aware of it.

Now the industrial expansion should continue using the same (or more IC) just building more IC's for the cheaper cost, if we just continue with building 5 we would need at least 7 more rounds, estimated 5 years to get all the estimated needed 40 factories, just to get to Major power. The navy was silent on any other infrastructure expansion, maybe we didn't make it clear enough that those were for early practice so that the industry would finish faster.

It is unfortunately that the Navy got through with its build plan to build obsolete ships, and even the much deplored Heavy Cruiser
The reason I think is that we didn't come with any estimates of the needed forces for each of the potential opponents. I will set my staff to produce some contingency plans for your perusal for the most obvious operations we might encounter and the needed forces for each.
Preliminary estimates suggest 80 divisions* would be needed to defeat China including GuangXi and a ComChi fighting both sides, including 5 rear echelon Gar divisions to keep supplies running and harbours occupied. Having GuangXi on our side would lessen that to around 60, 70 if they stay neutral.
In addition we would need 30 divisions to keep the Soviets and their Mongol lakajs passive while we do the Chinese pacification campaign.
At the start of '36 we needed about 15 extra Garrison divisions just to cover ports and free up divisions for a Homeland reserve.
At the moment we have 14 divisions guarding the Chinese and Mongolian border, and 20 against the Soviets, including garrisons.
This leaves us with a need for around 85 divisions, 65 if GuangXi joins us before war with China can be contemplated.
So we should suggest starting to build 65-85 reserve dual divisions, reserve to get them ready as fast we need them. That they are only dual brigade divisions makes them more flexible against the Chinese where numbers counts more than strength**, also they can be combined with some excessive art*** or AC from other divisions and garrisons, units with engineers should be max size anyway.
After building the needed Garrisons to cover our immediate needs, we need to build infantry division. With an estimated cost of 2.25IC and time of 90 days after some practice and the current allotment we can build 4 infantry division 4 times a year, meaning it would take 5 years to be ready, at which point we would need more, we need to get the Emperor's attention on this point.

* Remember this is with AI controlled armies.
** The AI functions best if it has excessive division rather than stronger in areas with low units density.
*** Some current division have inf, 2xart, eng, which correspond to Japanese doctrine of that day.


Diplomacy
The Chinese embargo is clearly an attempt to provoke us, which we should publicly denounce but in reality ignore until we need to name a reason to stage an incident with them.
The thoothlessness of the Western powers response to the gross violation of the Versailles treaty is a foreshadowing of things to come, those who say Versailles is dead would be right at this point after this 4th transgression of the treaty.

In case we get GuangXi/Yunnan with us, we don't need to make any further puppets in China, but we need more military police though. The formation of an further Chinese puppet north of the Great Wall, lets call it Mengkukuo, should be possible, but I'm uncertain if we need it, or if we need it right now, in the proposed area there is nothing of worth, only if we expand it in case of war with China would we lose 1 energy and one factory. China might even declare war on the new puppet and thereby throwing us out in a conflict where we are not really ready.

The setback of Guangxi should not stop us from pursuing this path now we have started, they are weakened from this loss but it will be our advantage if it means we can capture Guangzhou and its rich factories for our self. But this also means our first landings would have to be in the south instead of the east to support the GuangXi and get the vital port for ourself also the 50 rare resources north of it would be nice to have for ourself.

The Chinese communists would do the world a favour to die fast, that would mean the Nationalists would go down from warfooting and so lessen the amount of troops they build.
But I don't think we will be so lucky, the Communists are numerous, very well entrenched, have the support of the misguided population and their Generals are good compared to the Nationalists.
Many foreign generals fight on both sides, as a curiosity one of the ChiComs Generals is an Vietnamese who has recently begun to call himself "Hô Chí Minh", which can be translated "Bringer of light" or "Shining path", he is rumoured to have huge potential*.
This has the potential to drag on for years, which would be the worst case for us, much better if they made peace soon. Many Kuomintang supports are campaigning for a peace so they can present a Second United Front against foreigners, that is Us, these supporters are delusional, the Communists wont stop their agitation just because peace comes and like among our workers they will spread until they eat them and us from within.
Should the war continue until we decide to intervene both sides will only grow stronger as the Nationalists wont be able to defeat the communists soon.

Now for the biggest bone of disagreement with the Navy, our diplomacy requires us to sign the treaty, the Navy can then dig up any reason they want to repudiate it afterwards, this should give us some more time with good relations to the US. The Navy doesn't need to break it immediately, and they can't, but at some time in '37 they would have to so they can continue their research.


*Was a 5+ general in my previous game.

Seeing General Surt plan, I would like to add my guess in how the Northern campaign should be conducted AFTER the Chinese Surrender.

I would guess 3-4 infantry armies to secure Siberia, and 2-3 Calvary corps for Tannu Tuva and Mongolia. (They don't have an intimating army, Tannu Tuva has like 1 legion styled divison, and Mongolia is just Tannu Tuva times 5 in terms of military. It's the Soviet we need to worry about.)

Our Line should go to Novobrisk-Banul , seeing that this is where we should stop before we get overextended. Also we should follow the Tran-Siberian Railroad in order to stay connected to our supplies, and to steal any supplies the Soviet have.

For deliberation:

My Emperor,
I graciously accept my position as chief of the air force, many victories I shall preside over in your name. I am glad that the Coup was crushed, it would have done poorly for Japan to appear weak on the international stage. We should push towards even more repressive social order policies to prevent this in the future.

Imperial Generals
The succession of Guangxi lands to China may have spurred the Warlords there to be in a more 'regretful mood' towards China as they loose some of their power, land and place in history. We should review our diplomacy at this stage and see if they have a 'maybe' feeling towards a greater partnership.

Of course, this being the early days of working towards this greater Asian Unity Program, they might not see the light as of yet. Still we should have envoys enough to send a diplomatic party. Afterall, nothing ventured is nothing gained.

In this goal to greater unity the formation of a puppet state of Mengkukuo would be in our best interests to keep civil order in the North. However this need not be done now and can be reserved for when we are the dominant power in the region. Therefore I suggest that we resist the notion of forming Mengkukuo as much as possible for the moment.

Similarly, we need to be the crouching tiger, the hidden dragon (). Build up our power, but keep our prey placated with soft words, and wait and watch.

To this effect it would do us well to sign the Second London conference treaty, I understand Admirals you might take this as some outrage to national sovereignty, it is not. We have ships in the dry docks, and little can be done to upgrade them till they are finished anyhow, futhermore I don't believe any of our current research projects were thus inclined to be prevented by the treaties requirements.

Thus the only thing rejecting the treaties would gain us is the contempt of the world for being irrational and militaristic.

On the other hand, signing the treaty shows that we are wise and proud nation, who will co-operate at the international stage, thus granting us good leverage with the other world powers which we can trade in now and later.

Given that a treaty is nothing more than a piece of paper, should the time come that we feel that it is restrictive we just revoke the treaty burn the paper and continue as we wish.



On the Armed Forces in China
Having spoken with subordinates, I might have some disagreements with General Surt on requirements for China. We do need substantial assets, but duel brigade divisions are as strong as a paper wall, ready to be pushed aside by the wind. Having said that, let us reorganise along that route, but only if we follow certain provisos.

I propose instead a duel army concept, on the one hand China is infrastructure poor, defended by a rabble and our own troops are dedicated and good. Yet, there are regions of strong defence, trained soldiers and physical obsercals. Hence we both need light and heavy divisions for both rolls.

I think 90 divisions might be more appropriate, given that not only shall they see actions in China, but are quite likely to find themselves elsewhere deployed.

Of these 20 could be made of cheap militia, rapidly produced when at/just before a war and left to follow on the flanks and play garrison to some degree. In addition a light cavalry force should definatly be produced, duel squadrons of cavalrymen should be good enough for this, in fact I might propose 6x 2xCAV since they can be used to dragoon vast territories at low cost compared to having to build garrisons. In fact in many ways they would remove the need for dedicated military police brigades...

Then we build a core of ~40 line formations, stock them with the additional artillery, but don't waste our armoured cars on them, they are more to hold the line and push, then to do 'serious fighting'. Furthermore this keeps our fuel supplies cost much lower.

This then leaves ~20 or so to become the 'heavy' divisions, we have some motorised units, these should be stacked with the armoured cars and any light tanks. Then it would do well to appoint our best offensive commanders and engineers with some solid 4xINF or 3xINF 1xART etc. and deploy them as a single tough corps within the armed forces.

Wherever they arrive at the front, their larger size should provide the 'tipping point' in battle since the Chinese will match their line strength to our own, when all of a sudden it increases by a sizeable amount, local victories will be won. Over the course of the entire front that should result in a rolling wave.

Anyhow I plan too much in advance with too little detail.

For my fellow generals
If I am correct here is the IJAs current OOB disposition for the West Asia Armed forces;

Kanto Shiatagun
x2: 3xINF CAV/ART
x1: 1xMOT 2xAC 1xL-ARM
x1: 3xGAR

3 Homengun
x2: 3xINF CAV/ART
x1: 1xINF 2xART 1xEng

4 Homengun
x1: 3xINF 1xART
x2: 3xGAR 1xAC

5 Homengun
x2: 3xGAR 1xAC
x3: 1xCAV 2xAC

6 Homengun
x2: 3xGAR 1xAC
x3: 1xCAV 2xAC

20 Homengun
x2: 3xINF 1xART
x1: 1xGAR 1xAC
x1: 1xINF 1xART 1xEng

22 Infantry Brigades
9 Artillery Regiments
13 Armoured Car Squadrons
3 Engineer Companies
18 Garrisons
3 Cavalry Squadrons(??)

Kita-shina Ichigun

1 Gun
4xAC 2xART 3xENG 9xINF 2xIST

13 Homengun
4xART 1xENG 7xINF

Moukago Gun
5xAC 3xART 10xCAV 1xENG 4xINF

An additional;
20 Infantry Brigades
9 Artillery Regiments
9 Armoured Car Squadrons
5 Engineer Companies
2 Infantry Tanks


In total;
42 Infantry Brigades
18 Artillery Regiments
22 Armoured Car Squadrons
8 Engineer Companies
18 Garrisons
2 Infantry Tanks
1 Light Armour
1 Motorised
13 Cavalry Squadrons

If we define a 'Line Division' as;
2xINF 1xART

We can reorganise 18 'Line Divisions', produce an extra 6 to bring us to 24 over the next few years.

If we define an 'Asian Garrison' as;
2xGAR

We can get 9 of them, which should be enough for the moment, but will need some more in the future. Given their fairly rapidity of training, we could place them as a low priority IC soak for the next few years...

I suggest that we reorganise our 'Cavalry Squadrons' as;
6x: 2xCAV

For mobile actions, sure they don't pack a huge punch, but they should be enough and mobile enough to exploit the bad terrain of Xibei.

Combine the last squadron with our motorised assets, light armour and car squadron for an experimental 'mobile fire-power' division. (1xMOT 1xLARM 1xAC 1xCAV)

Then make two 'infantry armour' divisions;
2xINF 1xIST 1xENG

Then make as many Infantry brigades as needed to fill up a set of 'Supported Infantry' 2xINF 1xAC from the remainder of the forces. (12, new 24xINF)

That might leave some Engineer Companies remaining, perhaps we should splash out for some 3xINF 1xENG brigades for those...(not included in proposed budget)


That makes new (high priority) production requirements;
36xINF Brigades
12xART Brigades

At Serial 4, Parallel 6 that will take 16 months 16.41 IC and 72MP for the infantry
Then if built separately as brigades to attach to;
At Serial 3, Parallel 4 that will also take 16 months 15 IC and 6MP for the guns.

This would bring our number of brigades in the region to 78 to build the 'line army'. On its own I think this would be a good push and shove, particularly with all air assets being utilised (used in rotation to keep continual bombing as wings loose organisation).

However it leaves us with a general army without any real 'hard hitter units'**. For this I suggest that we aim to keep our light armour competitive, and aim to produce 3 'armoured divisions' by mid1938 early 1939, built in stages (serial, but staggered for keeping up-to-date) the nominal 12IC for 2xLARM 1xMOT 1xAC (although we could take AC from other units to scrimp on construction costs as well as stagger tank/motorised production) isn't great to produce very tough units which may be required to deal with hardpoints, or well equip Chinese infantry.

Such units would be ready to finish up trouble spots in China and show the world Japan’s modern military*. A 'Peace Parade' through Tokyo when we have brought about an end to the Chinese Civil war would show greatly on Japans international prestige...

Given that there are other military assets on the homeland, including armoured cars and infantry, we can take some of those to standby on the Manchurian border.

Likewise if we can build the Marine corps, then we can open up multiple fronts in China, this will hugely speed up and simplify the war, as well as assigning a 'Chinese theatre command'.

My main proviso however is insuring that the three core infantry weapons sectors; Small Arms, Offensive and Defensive AS WELL AS Infantry training are prioritised, since our forces will be changing doctrine from the traditional human waves to one of far more regimented professionalism. Without plentiful reinforcements, every death and minor skirmish will sap our men of number and resolve disproportionally from the past under the new organisation.

The good news is that phasing in this production and reorganisation should be fairly simple.


A detailed plan for utilisation of such assets shall wait till a time where we would be in a possition to legitimise our actions.



* If we do this, focus on reliability and gun, speed and armour are less important than good continued shock here.

** Or air units, however once we have heavy fighter design, we might want to do an inventory and deliberation them. Currently we have a sizable airforce.


On the Armed Forces in Outer Manchuria
These of course are more General Surts worries, however he, and the Admirals might be interested in the following intelligence report;

Dal'nevostochnyi Tyeatr
1x Gamizon Diviziya: 3xGAR 1xART

Tikhookeanskiy Flot: 2xDD 1xTRN
CCCP 10ya Flot: 3xSUB
Transbaikal VI.AD: 4xSB
Kamchatski VII.AD: 3xSB 1xFTR
Kamchatski II: 3xNAV

Okrug
1ya Armiya
59ya Korpus – x5: 2xINF 2xART
26ya Korpus – x3: 2xINF 2xART
x2: 1xINF 2xART 1xIST

30ya Korpus – x3: MOT
x2: 2xINF 2xART

x1 MTN Division

2ya Armiya
x3: 2xINF 2xART
x2: 2xINF 1xAC 1xAC

25ya Armiya
39ya Korpus (appears to be the same as 2ya Armiya)

54 Infantry Brigades
40 Artillery Regiments

I also suggest key targets to be looked at;
Ulaanbaatar (mongolia)
Chita
Imeni Poliny Osipento
Okha
Ulya
Jakutsk
Tyndinskiy

My opinion might be for an encirclement and winter offensive to leave the Russians isolated around the Vladivostok region, while taking out the air bases, supplies, and pushing fairly deep into Siberia. If the main Russian forces fold after a couple of months due to lack of supplies, then everything else is a crawl through the snow making sure the corpses are dead while planting flags of the rising sun.

Given the Russians appear to be, and are likely to stay millitarally dominant in the region, we shall need an edge, and indirect assault on them.