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.