Influence Wars - Japan 1936 HPP Interactive AAR - GAMEPLAY THREAD

To the IGHQ,

Regarding the situation in south China.

Our Generals in south China have with their selfishness bought us close to another supply collapse, doesn't help much if they took some provinces if we lose them again to do supply trouble elsewhere.
The fact is not enough troops were moved from the south to the central front where there is shorter to our supplies and the infrastructure just behind the front is better.

The Imperial clerk reports 120 infantry + 12 mountain + an armoured regiment in the area along with roughly 50 support brigades or around 64 divisions. (its difficult to see the real unit density from the provided pictures)
The front covers around 12-15 provinces which means we got 4-5 divisions per province, this can not go well as most provinces at the front line has only a level 3 infrastructure.
We need to reduce this to roughly 3 divisions per province so I propose to move two Homengun to the central front. Any excess divisions in the area should attack the bulge at Changsha so we get better supply roads to the western most provinces.

Memo to the army

Can we afford a substantial infrastructure project in China so we can increase infra levels dramatically? A lot of troops will finish tranining soon, the army might want to consider this possibility.



Memo to the administration:
Can we get a map showing us the range of our radar installations and their respective sizes?

To Admiral Baltasar,

I don't know what you consider considerable, but to be sure you need to upgrade every red-hatched province from Shanghai to the furthest one on the Pearl river as any one of them could do the trick,estimated 25 provinces, which might have to be upgraded twice. In the middle we only need to upgrade around 10 provinces at a time to keep up with the demand, if the rail follows my original plan.
When we then advance 1 row of provinces we need to upgrade 10-15 again.
Its this bad because the supply runs along the front along low infra areas.

And I'm not convinced we can stop building units yet, of course if Germany crushes the D-Day and the UK in Spain we might not need alot right now, anyway we need more Gars/MP to secure our new resources in the south too.

Memorandum:

Looking at the supply maps one might be getting the impression that its not that supply is piling up in the ports and cannot get to the front, more that the port might be the bottleneck. I mean, we've got green running all the way to the front. I mean critically, the red hatching is showing infrastructure limitations, therefore these are the areas that need infrastructure improvement, not the fronts. What might be concerning me, is that the region at Shanghai itself is having limitations, since any bottleneck at the supply source will have knock on effects for the entire rest of the network, surely it is these provinces that really require the upgrades. Futhermore, supply decreases exponetialy, that means the earylier the supply is reduced, the more this will have a knock on affect.

Look here;



Crtically while we have the best infrastructure along the Shanghai line, perhaps its not wide enough to accomodate all the traffic flow. I mean if we got trains running at top speed and delivering great! but if that's the best we've got, then that is definatly the bottleneck! The key point is that Shanghai itself (or just outside it) is running an infra problem. Is it Lv.10 infra? Is is Lv.10 port? If not on any of those issues, then we cannot improve the situation with more infra at the front. What we need to do is get the suppy out of the port, and into the countryside.

Given that this would be the same as running generally a parrell rail line again to what we already have, it might be worth crunching the numbers on an air trasport instead. Or getting our air transport to drop supplies into the deficit area, so that it is not pulling supply off the main line.


EDIT:
8 provinces in the central area? + 5 for a wideding between there and Shanghai?

China

It is the opinion of this Admiral that the Chinese „offer“ is nothing but a feint. The IJA has them bottled up in the wilderness of China, they're cut off from sizable industrial and urban areas for quite a while now and losses are mouting for them, too. Dissent among the Chinese forces and leadership will be high and this poorly disguised insult of an offer is their way to try to survive and keep control on what little they have left.

We can not accept such a deal. Even if they made a lot more concessions to us, it will still mean that we were, ultimately, defeated by rabble. How can we hope to be recognized as a power to be repected if we agree to such an dishonorable treaty?

Instead, we must renew our efforts to pacify China. If we have to, we must invest heavily into infrastructure there so our troops will recieve the supplies they need. I'd be willing to build dual railway lines and large motorways (=level 10 infra) to finally win this affair.


Europe

While the Euro-Axis are being thrown out of Africa, they seem to be able to hold their own in continental Europe relatively well. That US bridgehead could easily result in a sizable portion of the US army being destroyed. This is a mixed blessing for us as it will weaken the USA, but it will also mean that the USA will need time to replenish their army. This in turn means that their navy won't have any transporting to do and we must keep our eyes open and try to gather intelligence about their fleet dispositions regularily.

Having Finland join the Allies is really a surprise and much more so to Stalin I imagine. While this does nothing to help the Euro-Axis, it's a sign towards the Russians. The Allies now have a direct land route to Russia. We should see if and how we can exploit this.



Unsurpringly, the fleets will be reorganised.

1st fleet, battle group Yamashiro: 3x BB, 2x CA, 2x CL, 2x DD
2nd fleet, battle group Yamato: 2x BB, 2x CA, 4x DD
3rd fleet, carrier group Akagi: 1x CV, 4x CVL, 3x CL, 4x DD
4th fleet, fast division: 2x BC, 2x CA, 2x CL, 2x DD
5th fleet, carrier group Soryu: 2x CV, 4x CL, 4x DD

Operational plan against the Dutch East Indies:
1st, 3rd and 4th fleets will continue operations against the British by supporting landing operations on Sumatra initally and Java later on. These landings will be made by the SNLF corps. Malaya and Singapore will be secured by the infantry which has been landed there already. The goal is to occupy the whole of Sumatra. Targets of opportunity may be persued, such as engaging the RN forces currently in Batavia / Java. Submarines should keep our admirals updated on what is going on in the enemy ports in the vincinity as well as the street of Malaca.

Once achieved, the SNLF will move to Java, preferably landing at the south-western edge of the island.

If available, air missions should be conducted from captured airfields, ie Kunching. Air attacks against enemy fleets are encouraged, whether or not they are in port. These missions must be aborted if losses are mounting too high.

Simultaneously, the forces on Borneo will continue to occupy the island.

2nd fleet will act as heavy backup for these operations, being short on large escorts. 5th Fleet will assemble in Singapore and stay there until needed. This will enable our engineers to get these ships into working condition.

Other naval assets will assist where needed. The administration might consider sending out ASW groups when the enemy is operation near our own lines. If possible, the units on Phoenix Island should be ferried elsewhere. We feel they are exposed out there and we are unlikely to come to their aid in time if the US should attack.

Submarines should continue to scout along the US coast and ports. We need to know where the enemy is and what his strenghts are.

The air units in Kunching will remain in the area as long as they can support the operations here. They may redeploy to other airfields closer to the action if the commanders think it's save to do so.

The garrison divisions on Hawaii will be merged into a single division. Since they are stationary anyway, there is no reason to have two commanding officers.


The army will finish the training of another four (4) mountaineer divisions, two (2) infantry divisions, one (1) garrison division and a (1) brigade of tank destroyers. This will free up 32,78 IC since the training of more garrison men will continue while the other training schedules have reached the end of their plannings. The question is how to continue.
It seems that we have reached the maximum threshold of forces in China already, at least as long as our supply lines are unable to cope with the demand. However, with more ground to cover, we might want another two or three (2 – 3) infantry corps in seriell training to cover the ground our forces are currently conquering. On the other hand, the army might opt to raise another mechanised division right away and spend the majority of the remaining budget for infrastructure upgrades. I firmly believe that we need to do this in order to win over the Chinese.
The only concession I would like to ask is another production run of merchant ships. With more islands in our care, we have to run more transports everywhere and the enemy won't let us do it without having a word in this. We need to replace our losses and have a sufficient reserve to ferry our resources home.

The rocket test site should be continued once it's current upgrade has been completed.

Construction of the IJN Musashi should be put on hold until the next meeting. Upgrading our equipment should be increased in turn for this. There is no point in having researched advanced equipment if we do not use it.



Projects should continue along the lines we already agreed upon in January '43. This does need to be changed as we have made up our collective minds already.



No more men should be sent into Communist or Nationalist China. We need them at home, as officers, diplomats or lab staff, but we must stop wasting them in folly operations against meaningless enemies. Compared to our own forces, the Chinese are still in the stone age. Their advantage is the poor terrain, not their equipment or strategy.

On the other hand, intelligence operations against the USA must continue. The administration might consider switching their target to military or politicial intelligence gathering.

If the Germans are still interested in money, we should ask them for offers (likewise the other Axis nations).

Gensui Yamamoto said:

Memorandum:

Look here;

Click to expand...

Admiral, for an sailor you nearly got it right, just totally backward!

When Shanghai is red hatched we can't get anymore out there in any way, form or fashion, its harbour is maximum size, but that doesn't matter as it got 10K+ of supplies in its depot already.
And its rail is also maxed out which matters a lot, this gives the maximum amount that can be moved out (afaik its 10*10*6 in HPP minus some for partisans). 600 tons of supplies should be enough for 150 divisions give or take a few, subtract some for distribution cost. Luckily the ports in south China contribute to the supplies down there, the blue lines going into the big red hatched area, else we would have repeated the same collapse as previously already.
Therefore no parallel line will help here, once the max. rail level is reached at the depot.

The area in the north where you write "Demand > what can be supplied" is only partially right, as it could have been supplied if most supplies were send to the south. Our supply officers have a tendency to send supplies to the furthest divisions from the depot first, which means the close wont always get enough.

Therefore the problem is not at the source but much nearer to the destination of the supplies, look at the westernmost province along the Pearl river which has red hatches on green.
This province wants to transport more than it can to the divisions on the west side of it, so improving this province should help the total network as supplies then don't need to be send a detour to reach the final recipient, which in itself incurs extra cost for transporting it, which also must be transported.
Now there are a lot of detours for the supplies in south China, but in reality there is only one real supply chain, namely the one from the furthest division along the front, moving to the neighbouring province that is at them moment the closest the depot, and then repeat the this nearest neighbour until you get to the depot.
To improve the situation we must improve these provinces on the supply chain, now improving the most western is of course not the final truth, consider the below level seen from the red hatched province on the supply path that is the furthest from depot.

3-3-3-2-3-3-4-5-6-7

Here the level 2 will cause a lot of detours for the supplies, so that need to be improved first.
Then we have 6 different level 3s which might need improving. Improving the one nearest the destination will most likely solve the problem for that province and maybe more, improving the level 3 that is closed to the supply depot may solve the problem for more or all as it might be on may more paths. Which gives the following improvement plan.

3-3-3-(2)-3-(3)-4-5-6-7

Original rail plan (the levels shown here are not correct, only the purple lines are given as guides).

Compared with the actual build rails its nearly done, except the last parts of the central line which is build one province to far south. Also the line up to Manchuria might be slightly different as we haven't selected to make Mengkukuo(?), but that will only affect the northernmost provinces.
But there are extra tracks build branching off which should not have been needed if the buildup and execution had been good.

Memorandum:

I might just be a Sailor who doesn't understand the land logistics, but I am seeing these maps, with a stockpile sitting there and the reports telling us that maximum supply throughput has been met. And modifiers* from our research and occupation policies not withstanding, only 400 supply units can travel along the main Shanghai line. We can also clearly see that south west of Nanjing that not enough supply is moving into that area.

While I understand that the commanders at the front are the ones requesting supply from depots all the way back to Shanghai, we can see in the North and Center, that the infrastructure there is enough at the front, and it is only as we go back towards Shanghai we appear to get some troubles where everything branches off. The case in the south is rather more complex as supplies enter there, some get used directly, others return to central depots, and I would agree lines to the front there might be more appropriate.

Maybe I just want to check that we are thinking about the situation in the right way**.

*[OOC: Which Cybvep might have changed]
**[OOC: I'm not an expert on HoI3 supply, but as far as I am aware red/yellow to me means no supply reaching there. Hatching means bottleneck and upgrading/air-bridging over these bottlenecks works. Whether or not troops are in or out of supply isn't the problem, they can be allowed to fluctuate, but the major issues that halt peoples Barbarossas or other campaigns is not out running supply (you can always send some troops back if you are/can) but when not enough supply can get into the general area. The first case occurs when a corps or couple of divisions suddenly OOSs and reds out, the latter when some units are OOS'ed, then some more, then some more as more troops enter the area, or infrastructure gets worse. Since we are seing green at the front, but still having issues, I'm not convinced its the frontal infrastructure that is the issue here.... Although I do agree with line spacing, and upgrading the dips in the overrall line where they are weakest due to the squared nature of how infra works. If you've done the math and know exactly fine. This is the first time I've taken a serious look at the logistics maps and tried to figure out what’s going on...Even in my Siberian games I've not known issues like this to keep coming back around (but maybe its a skewed sense of perspective from the length of this game that's throwing me off.)]


Adm.Baltersar I seriously question placing the IJN Musashi production on hold, we already know it will take a long time to complete, and we don't want him and his Samurai spirit to be late for the war, remember Musashi is one of, if not the, greatest Samurai, and he came from nothing and built his way to the top. The very embodiment of Imperial Japan! If nothing else, the moral booster of this great ship will inspire the sailors and frighten the Americans since does he not have 18" guns and a displacement of over 70,000 tonnes? The Iowa class ships will have nothing on him. I would greatly bemoan the loss of all the manhours of research you requested to build him, and the ICdays already spent on him if the project was put on hold or cancelled. We build him, and not let it become a white elephant.

Similarly production budgets were approved last meeting, with respect to the IC that would be freed up. There should be no changes to it. Although the administration has given the army a bit more than their fair share given the circumstance in this adms opinion.

Memorandum regarding Admiral Baltasars proposal for the next months http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...LAY-THREAD&p=14033886&viewfull=1#post14033886

Politics

China
I agree we should decline the offer presented by the Chinese, the only acceptable offer would be to leave to us all of China except Yunnan (as after they gave Chungking to Nat. Chi.) which we would give to Chang as a personal Fief. All other warlords must surrender to us including the 2 western ones so that we get access to central Siberia.
As I said in my original proposal for build up of rail ways we would need major upgrades (see note 322), I would approve a full force buildup of the central west China rail line only, every province from Shanghai along the purple line toward Siberia should start an upgrade if possible, even the front line one(s).

Europe
The moment of decision in Europe is nearing, if the attack by the USA is serious and not just 3 farmers with pitch forks the fate of Germany will be decided there. Should the USA be able to dig in it will doom any effort in Spain as they will get cut off and the outlook for the Germans would be bleak. On the other hand if a substantial US army forces are defeated and captured any western allied strategy will suffer a setback of at least one year and a possible defeat in Spain will cost the British dearly.

Naval
Seems good, but I'd suggest we use Singapore as primary air field and send one of the scout subs up between Singapore and Rangoon to cover that approch.

Our ASW Must definitively be use actively, but to avoid unnecessary patrols, we could try to set up interception groups in the inner area, were it is unlikely we will meet enemy battle fleets.

I think the navy would want to start another CL (the 4th I think) as we can expect high losses in escorts also in the future. In addition to the extra convoy production we must also remember to research all ASW techs or we will be grind down to only building convoys after a time.

Production
Increase infrastructure construction on the Siberian line to a maximum of 10 projects.
The army will not raise another Mech div in the next 3 month as the current will at earliest finish Jan. '44, after that we might start another to take advantage of any practical gains from the first, and then another 2 when the first finishes.
As we still got large amounts of manpower we can afford to build more divisions, but we should free up as many infantry divisions as possible by replacing them with Garrisons for Garrison duty, starting with 8 Gar for Malayal, Singapore and Borneo (6 parallel Gar(x2 brigades, the one for Singapore needs to be a x3+1 art) as other units finish (is this Navy or army for those garrisons?) repeat until all needs are fulfilled), in addition one Military police brigade for each oil province with rebels, 2MP for each 30+ resource province in Malaya (4 parallel single brigade builds as other finishes frees up the production, until all needs are fulfilled). No more TD will be started after the current finishes.
In priority build
Move 10IC to upgrades from production, if reinforcements falls move them first to upgrades then to production.
Rocket(common)
Up to 10 infra-structure along the China to Siberian line. (army) [11.7]
2 radar projects (common)
Mech [17.7]
1 H.Ftr. [12.2]
Up to 6 Garx2 (first one should be x3+art for Singapore) (are these army or navy for Borneo etc?) [1.75*6=10.5]
Up to 4 MP (single brigades) [common?6IC?)
4 standard infantry. [4*4=16]

Research
The research plan should hold for another 3 month as we had more projects than slots.

Intelligence
I agree we should slash the operations against the Chinese as they are a waste of good leadership. I would also slash the US operation as that is pointless too and and if we decide to keep the operation it should be counter or tech espionage.

Trading
We should definitively try to trade for any plans they have in exchange for gold or rares, also give them basing rights in case they want to raid from our bases. If we got anything they haven't like our old plans for post-WWI CVL/CV try to exchange it for something that is even remotely useful. As long as we got more rares than metals we can also offer to trade 2 metal for 1 rare but I doubt the amount traded this way will help us much as metals are too heavy for significant sub transport.

Army plans
Move 2 Homengun from the south to central to lessen the demand in the south.
Eliminate the bulge west of Changsha.
The central front should move to cut the Chinese in half at the Tibetan border, yes it is far away but we need some kind of plan other than just pushing everywhere.

Admiral Yamamoto:
Temporarily stopping the work on Musashi is a neccessity, not something I deliberately want to do. We've a rather large backlog of upgrades on our existing ships already and I don't see us catching up with it anytime soon. Hence we need to spend more on said upgrading process. We only have so many options, I took the one which I hope will hurt us the least.

General Surt:
The administration declined our suggestion to start another light cruiser.

I disagree that we should replace the forces in Malaya and Singapore with garrisons. This will be the outermost perimeter of our lines and the British can only attack there. Garrisons won't stand a chance against regular forces and we won't want to have to fight for Malaya all over again if we can help it. Instead, install level 10 Radar in Singapore and prepare more Radar sites for deployment, ie in China.

You don't want to start more TD brigades, but how do you intend to stop USSR armor or any other armor?

Army plans: The new mountaineer corps should be added to the southern Chinese front then?

Keep in mind that they are decreasing the NU of the Chinese factions.

Click to expand...

If the administration thinks that such operations are worth the effort, the same administration might want to share a bit of how much of an impact these operations have on the Chinese will to fight?

In regard to radars, our radar site in Honolulu is at level 8, other radar sites are mostly at level 5-6.

Click to expand...

And what areas do these installtions cover? We need to know how much use these sites are and their range will be the single most important factor here.

Can the IGHQ be more specific in its request for blueprints? We must know what to ask for and what can we offer the Germans, otherwise it will be a waste of time.

Click to expand...

Basically, anything regarding army troops and tactics would be interesting while we could offer naval techs and tactics. We should ask them to share industrial techniques as well, though, and might offer to compare our aviation techniques.

Whether or not they are interested remains to be seen. Italy had a sizable fleet prior to the war, may be they are interested.

OOC: Radar should enable to "see" into adjactend provinces. Can you give a screenshot for these visible areas?

To administration:

I'd like a report about enemy dispositions we are aware of, save the Chinese and Soviets. US and UK vessels, planes and men, please.

I have to agree with General Surt's appraisal of our logistic situation in China. There are two ways into China now: through improving our supply lines and through Indochina which can be very lightly guarded if it's guarded at all. If we indeed reach overall supply limit in China then I'd suggest withdrawing some men for invasion on Indochina. Not only will it grant us access to Chinese borders from another direction - spreading Chinese armies even further, perhaps to their breaking point - but we'll be able to overwhelm Thailand later on, ensuring our dominion in the region. If we want China to be dealt with quickly then the way is clear...

Memorandum:

This admiral is seriously concerned at the lack of a shipbuilding policy, not only have members of the high command vetoed a sensible medium priority plan, and deferred the navy to a low priority plan that will only likely cover our losses till the end of the war, they would also waste years of research into the capital vessels, as well as IC already spent!

We are in very real danger, that if we are to loose an engagement or two our naval power will be utterly broken, at which point we cannot be confident in maintaining the PDP. Remember all those islands are liabilities to us, bar resource rich Malaya-Borneo, Hawaii and Truk, yet strategically we must hold them or avoid loss of face, and a weakening of our international reputation as a Great Power.

If we loose the naval war, we loose the entire war, China at its worst will be a grind for the next few months or years until the Chinese eventually capitulate. Our spies behind the front are continuously tieing up the limited Chinese leadership in counter espionage and shutting down the rumour mills and propaganda we are sowing. We hold the lions share of their country, and barring an invasion from the Soviets China will eventually be ours. Therefore the critical battle for us is at sea to hold off the Allies such that China may be taken.

What's more is that ships have to be build for 2-5 years time, not for what is happening today. Already we are spread so thin, that we cannot be in Tokyo, Hawaii and Singapore all at the same time. Our future navy needs to cover at least two out of those three bases if we are to have a credible navy during the closing stages of the war, and in the post war world.

What the high commanders are failing to appreciate, is that it only will take a couple of bad engagements and the entire pacific war will change. Maybe not immediately, but 2, 3, 4 years down the line it will. If the Americans get us battered, they can outproduce us at least 5 to 1, no sweat and we won't be in any position to challenge them again, ever. Given a fall of the Euro-Axis, that might be an even greater ratio. Therefore if you want to win this war commanders, and not let Japan fall in the future, you must realise that maintaining Japans naval prominence is the pivotal and key aspect of everything here*.

The most obscene aspect of this all is that we were producing more ships back in the 1930s when we weren't at war than now when we are at war! This is utter ludicrous in my mind.

We might have the far better naval commanders, and strong doctrine. This might double our effective numerical strength, but in the heat of battle ship-on-ship action is decided by hard metal, not by tactical instruction.



I might not be the admiral in direct favour of the battleship, due to its vulnerability to the air, but at the same time it angers me a fair deal as to all the research squandered on improved designs if we don't see such projects to their completion. Furthermore given that we need to retain a long term naval production plan, just 'putting off' new capitals cannot be done. After all, we are not launching any new capitals but this one in the next few years.

I do not promote new aircraft carriers due to our relative neglect of the research field, and I feel new carriers at this date may be too little too late. After all, with the Jet and island base air power we shall have much the same flexibility, but with the ability to launch from an airstrip with heavier ordinance and extended range compared to similar aircraft from a flight deck. The carriers days may likely be numbered with improvements in missile and aircraft technology that will eventually result in during the closing stages of this war and the post-war era being dominated by force projection from aircraft, rather than from the sea.

Radar Coverage:
We need something like 17 Lv.10 radar stations to get coverage of the pacific to a level that would be considered 'good'. As it stands Lv.5 radar stations might cover 1 local sea regions, and at maximum we might only get to see out some 2 or 3 regions at most.

Therefore, the following map shows one of the better positioning of radar across the general region. However it must be understood that this would cost prohibitively. There is little point upgrading to Lv.10 unless radar sites are strategically located like this. Otherwise Lv.3-5 will be good enough for the singular island and intimidate local area;




In general I do not envisage any coverage like this can be built for the end of the war. We might get part way to building it, but upgrading to Lv.10 is not all 'that worth it'. Of course with homeland Japan and Korea we have to add another 10 lots of radar sites (I didn't have a map handy to put ranges up).

All in all, the cost to install radar around the entire PDP for intelligence purposes will be a general folly, instead we should only concentrate sites around where there is likely to be air combat. Namely our key ports of Saipan, Truk, Hawaii, Kuching or Singapore (although Singapore in the long run is a bad Lv.10 site compared to others.) On the Island of Hanan and wherever is appropriate in China (Wuhan?).

A trickle of radar sites is better for us than a massive upgrade plan, we do not need large scale investments as the pay-off will be fairly minimal compared to so long as there is at least a couple sites present at each strategic location.**

Indochina:
I cannot condone an invasion of Indochina, the terrain in the north of the country is just as bad as the terrain we are currently fighting on, there will be more rebels, more ports to defend, we shall appear even more threatening possibly sparking the Soviets into war with us, or frightening Thailand into the Allies.

It would be a complete disaster if something like that happened. Therefore no, the army needs to reign itself in and focus on its current battle rather than seeking other 'easy conquests'.

Transit rights too, would be a mistake. I do not believe we can supply our troops out of Indochina, as they may wish to stay neutral. While it allows us to attack from their border, we would be unable to push out from it, until Bose and that region is taken...which may already be happening, which is all Indochina would really achieve anyway.



*[OOC: Historically, the Japanese really had no chance to beat the Americans, they got the American blood-lust up with Pearl Harbour, and their gamble failed. Yet in HoI, and this game we do have an opportunity to effect a radical change of history. We can play the historical game, go do Guadalcanal, over extend, loose our navy with a Midway or similar engagement, then eventually loose the war by being in an ever weaker position in the pacific, thus setting ourselves up for an 'inevitable defeat' in the epilogue. Even if the AI is poor at actually effecting invasions 'in play'.

Or we can have a bash at effecting a stalemate for the end of the war. We might not come out with the highest VP 'win', but at the same time it would be a lasting 'win' with a sweet sense of overall victory...rather than a fleeting one.]

**The entire region can be covered by the end of the war with a fairly medium production plan from the beginning of the game in HPP mod. But rushing it to completion is not really worth it. You get the most payoff in a handful of naval encounters and its difficult to tell if its worth it or not in real terms. I think on balance it is...so long as you realise its not a case of 'OMG MUST HAVE' and that other things can be more useful than prioritising Lv.10 radar everywhere.

Note to Admiral Yamamoto's latest memorandum.

I also see no advantage in involving Indochina in the war, any increase in front and supply in the local area will be far outweighed by the extra concern of garrisoning the whole country.

Note 2 to Admiral Yamamoto's memorandum.

I didn't realise the coverage would be so small by each radar, maybe there is some difference in what we consider coverage, imperial intelligence told us that they could register an enemy HQ at Rabaul from our base at Truk, which would suggest a much larger area of detection?