The Final Outcome [An HoI3 FtM AAR featuring the Empire of Japan]

Gensui Yamamoto said:

Not really, while they had a doctrine that led to small support units in aircraft and artillery, it wasn't the same as the 'CAS' aircraft in HoI3. The most historic route is to have tactical bombers employed equally across the entire chinese front. While yes there were large numbers of the Ki-32 (854) and Ki-48 (~2,000) made during the early years of the war ('38 '39), that was preaty much it until the P1Y (1,100) in '43, and both those latter two aircraft were twin engined bombers...not single engined light bombers.

Really, you shouldn't build any CAS units bar perhaps 1 more wing from what you start with. All the rest should be TACs.

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Japan doesn't start with any CAS units, that I can see (unless you're referring to the "naval" bombers). Instead they start out with 5 TAC bomber wings (Mitsubishi Ki-21), two wings of naval bombers (Mitsubishi G3M), and 4 wings of interceptors (Kawasaki Ki-10). This is at the start of the game, before the auto-upgrades kick in. I've built two wings of CAS Mitsubishi Ki-30s, and was considering two more, based on the statistic of around 700 or so Ki-30s that saw action during the war.

That said . . . I'll probably just limit it to the two wings I have now (4 wings does seem a bit much). However, consider this issue:

From what I can research, the war in the Pacific was an island war which meant that often any CAS was provided by CAGs. I agree, they didn't use the coordinated CAS like Germany and the US (I'm thinking North Africa for US and, of course, Normandy, etc.). CAGs can be a great source of air support you're fighting on islands or if you park your carriers next to the shore. But they're not going to reach into the Iraq, Persia, Turkey regions, or reach deep into mainland US. So at that point, I'd have to switch to TACs, because by that late date, developing a new doctrine would be foolish.

Edit: I found a website that indicated the Japanese built over 2000 Mitsubishi Ki-51s as ground attack aircraft during the war. I don't know how accurate that number is or how that type of aircraft is represented in-game.

Gensui Yamamoto said:

Furthermore, that Japanese did have a fair number of tanks in China. However because the Chinese had no tanks, and hardly any anti-tank weaponry, just the sight of a tank was often enough to cause Chinese millita units to fall back. Thus the Japanese never had to organise their tanks into full brigades like in Europe.

I lack the book I want at the moment, but there were at least 2,300 of one kind of tank produced*, and given that in HoI I've estimated a tank brigade at about 250 tanks, then you sould have several brigades of tanks to be historic, but non of them designed for combined arms divisions, and just as an additional 'support brigade' since many of the tanks were organised at regimental level sizes.

Anyhow, I digress .

[PS: Most people only comment when they disagree or have a comment to make, that doesn't mean they aren't reading what is written]

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Right now I producing 6 regiments (brigades) of light tanks to be used with motorized troops in 1 x ARM, 3 x MOT divisions. That will probably be the core until the end of 1939. I suspecting I'll need armor if I wish to invade the USA and that is certainly still on the table. Of course, the deeper into the game, the more I feel free to change history, depending upon what I can build, etc.

Thanks for the comments.