The Imperial Japanese Navy is quite high-tech

[I had a bad name 99]

I took Siam first, for rubber. Then Iran for oil. And in the end of 38 China gives me reason to attack, after event Chinese provocation. So there's no Marco Polo Bridge debuf. It allows me to conquer and divide China without being in war with Allies.

Just feel like joking. OIL: Operation Iraqi Liberation.

 

[KRonn]

@EliteWehrmacht

Major,
Instead of wasting valuable ships, especially CV and slow BBs on Patrol and burning tons of fuel, I like to build scouting frigates - which are DDs with engine, max sonar and radar, leave the battery on it and add AA. It can be built fast, is fast and can outrun most everything it encounters except planes (don't patrol along coast or in shallows), put 5 of those with a mine sweeping frigate (dd with engine and mine sweeping gear, and a AA DD and set it up to "never engage:" and send it out to patrol with your big boys set for "strike force".

When not doing a naval invasion look for natural chokepoint zones that the US and AUS will need to come through and patrol those heavily, with your strike force in a nearby port waiting.

Playing as Japan I do similar. I get better radar as soon as possible, then upgrade or build cheap DDs as scout ships. I set those on "do not engage" orders and use them and scout aircraft to patrol naval regions with Carrier fleets in nearby ports on strike force mission. Convoy raiding subs, convoy escorts and naval bomber aircraft also give Intel for strike forces.

I use existing DD mine layers and maybe a couple CL mine layers to set up mine fields. Then instead of building more of those type ships I usually convert some or many of the least effective early sub types as mine layers.

 

[Neal Mac]

I took Siam first, for rubber. Then Iran for oil. And in the end of 38 China gives me reason to attack, after event Chinese provocation. So there's no Marco Polo Bridge debuf. It allows me to conquer and divide China without being in war with Allies.

I might have to try that.

 

[Adolf - Finite War]

What? Please show pic.

It's just the superheavy tech version - a special variant of the tier II (1936) battleship that any nation can research - you get that tech unlocked by the focus and if you have a naval designer the Yamato class will even have it's effects applied. Downside is that Japan has no raiding fleet designer so it's slower than what Germany, France or the US can produce - with 2 batteries in the designer like the Yamato layout has you can reach ~31 knots with a tier III engine (1940 batttleship) and 34 with a tier IV one (1944 BS) if you have the raiding designer and put only AA in the slots besides that one secondary battery were you have no other options. Refitting an engine on one of these big boys takes a year though. The focus's Yamatos come with tier II engines and are ~27 knots fast maybe if you do the tier III battleship tech first (you get 100% bonus research from the focus before) the ones getting tossed into the build queue will get updated?

I've got no Japan game at hand but here's one from a game with France - Japan's version from memory had 2 more secondary batteries and floatplanes instead of the AA.: