robou, germanpeon, rampagingmouse, Jon Young - Australia would be a fairly good guess despite the TC problems it will cause
stnylan - New Guinea is irritating as you say and I will be glad when its all captured. Just because I take it all doesn't mean the AI won't continue to find it fascinating of course.
thatguy, Maj. von Mauser - Panzer6 is right about the IJN. It may be old but it does still work and there are higher priorities for builds. Ships are already being built to help a little with both Destroyers and CVL's in the production queue. Manpower will force me to use my IC on large ships soon enough. Improved doctrines will increase its performance as well. It should only take me about another two years to research those
Fgorginator - Maybe I should borrow the 1918 infantry from Mengkukuo to make a fight between Japan and New Zealand even
alan_le_cowboy - Thank you. Upgrades will hopefully be almost complete by Spring 1946 which should allow me spare IC for ship building as I won't have manpower for anything else.
Panzer6, Sokraates - IJN Shinano would be the answer I was after as she is indeed the only Level VI ship in the IJN. Technically the Level V U-Boats are also ahead of the BC V as they are 1944 tech, although Japan cannot make them as it is not that advanced. So Panzer6 gets the next operation and you get a runners up prize of the second operation to come along Sokraates. Well found and the first operation is already under way.
Thurak - The Emperor will probably not like losing a big ship correct.
Reado - I think I shall play chase Spruance quite a bit if the AI continues to use him, as it undoubtedly will.
safferli - Carrier Aviation (1943) is next in the Carrier Doctrine path. Sokraates gave you the answers for Yamamoto
UncleAlias - Japanese researchers are already hard at work on the next Carrier tech.
rampagingmouse - Despite my general preference for BB's I will probably go with Japan's Naval Doctrine and go for the less useful Carriers for authenticities sake. Doesn't mean I won't build BB's though, just preference to Carriers.
Jon Young, alan_le_cowboy - The defeat of Japan is a pre-requisite for WW3 I think so I will have to allow them to kill me if they wish to fight eachother.
Elias Tarfarius - Very realistic interpretation. Political spin followed by the real point of view. Thank you
Nathan Madien - They still have to find Spruance first before they can allow him to get more ships sunk. Maybe I can turn his name into a curse in American before long
(AAR speaking of course, everyone knows he was a decent commander in real life)
Ruodnane - I think New Zealand and Australia come under the terms of 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' catagory.
Update to conclude December coming up and then we should have the annual update tomorrow ...