Forces Organised, Time for a New Game?
I mentioned in my last update that I was spending leadership points on espionage. Well after three months I have found the Soviet military presence in the east to be quite minimal. It has therefore been decided that our spies will now attempt to make the USSR more threatening to the world thus justifying any military action we might take in the future. A general plan has been drawn up on a potential offensive to be done once the IJA feels confident they would be able to meet its objectives.
The idea would be to focus the majority of the land forces against the area north of Vladivostok while sending any mobile forces to the west to take up positions on the Angara and Selenge rivers around Lake Baikal. Some forces will initially head towards the Okhotsk Sea before pushing east in order to cut the supply lines of any Soviet forces around Vladivostok. Once the enemy is defeated the mobile forces will be reinforced before deciding upon the next step we should take.
The plans for the south are fairly simple and I'll produce some images for them when I am about to execute said plans.
On the production front in early May I was given the option to rebuild the Hiei as a battleship. As a slow, old battlecruiser it really would have no part in my future plans but now it will have a chance to make its mark in future battles. I did however come across a problem. Initially the rebuild program was only using 1.5IC but this is now more like 9.7IC. I think this might be due to the change in battleship practical which caused it to recalculate it's IC cost. It might however be working as intended.
In July the battleship Kirishima was completed. The Kirishima, like the Hiei was a WW1 battlecruiser that was rebuilt as a battleship. This process increased her speed and armour.
The Kirishima was followed in October by the carrier Akagi. Originally laid down as an Amagi-class battlecruiser, the Akagi was chosen for conversion to a carrier after the Washington Naval Treaty prevented the signatories from producing a carrier displacing more than 27,000 tons. The treaty however did allow for the hull of a capital ship under construction to be converted into a carrier as long as it did not displace more than 33,000 tons.
The rebuild program required a lot of work, partly down to the large air wing size of 60 aircraft which demanded a double hangar. In order to reduce weight and lower the centre of gravity the side belt was brought down and reduced from a thickness of 9.8" to 6". The deck also saw a reduction in thickness from 3.8" to 3.15".
In her final form the Akagi had a speed of 31.5 knots and an operational range of 8,200 nm @ 16 knots.
note: The Akagi was redesigned between 1936-38 where she lost her six 8" guns in order that the flight deck and hangars be extended for larger aircraft hence why she was completed now. This is just a reproduction of an old photo.
With the majority of the production line being filled with ships for most of 1936, further additions to the IJA were limited. One corps received the new support-brigades that will increase the firepower of our infantry divisions but little else was completed. A set of mountain infantry divisions are under production as are reinforcements to under-strength divisions. Aside from these reinforcements all the other divisions are being built as reserves.
With only a small number of 'easy' techs being available for penalty-free research I quickly found myself by the middle of year with plenty of free leadership points. My research into Small Warship AA unlocked the next Destroyer class and I unlocked the mountain infantry too. Heading straight for the any naval tech with a 1937 start date was tempting but I chose to spend some points in a rather inefficient manner on land and air doctrines. They would give me an extra edge against China but I would probably be far better off waiting until I have some combat experience under my belt and some strategic effects boosting my research efficiency.
On the subject of technology I said I would post some pictures of the tech tree and I'll start with the naval stuff. I'll skip the doctrines as despite being different from TFH (or so I think), it is still recognisable.
We can see for each page that the headers are simple and describe what each tech does. As I have mentioned before, upgrading to a new tech level, for example cruiser armour, will not just simply mean any new cruiser will now have better armour. No, you must wait until you have the right tech levels to unlock the next unit. I am currently researching Aircraft Carrier Frame 3 and this, with the completed Large Warship AA will unlock the Hiryu-class carrier.
Some things will upgrade as normal, like the radar and fire control systems (there some stuff about hidden and invisible techs that went over my head
)but for the most part upgrading your techs won't produce a benefit until you have researched the right combination. This is important to remember as in my last RPM2 game I forgot to upgrade my torpedoes (who needs subs right?) so was stuck with older destroyers and cruisers.
RPM2 also removed Destroyer practical and combined it with Cruiser practical. This means you won't be punished for wanting to build a little bit of everything. The doctrines also are changed with the positioning bonuses being slightly reduced (or so I think) and the capital ships being placed under one tree, the carriers under another and the final tree being given over mostly to convoy raiding bonuses.
I will finish up this update with my order of battle. After spending an evening trying to decode Japanese in order to get, what I hope to be, correct or plausible unit names I could not be bothered with decoding every unit call-sign so I just nabbed them from the HPP mod (thanks guys
). I'll probably follow the same organisational pattern shown here with future additions. It will leave me spread thin in a few areas potentially but in order to hold onto my conquests it must be done.
I expect the North Japan Army to be deployed on the border between Manchukuo and the USSR once it's brought up to strength. I'll also probably rename the garrisons to area garrisons or something along those lines to indicate that they don't just sit in a port. I am also a little undecided what to do with my MP brigades. I would ideally have them stationed in conquered areas but I may leave a couple in the mainland for flavour.
Thanks once again for reading. I'll probably follow this up soon with the preamble to the Second Sino-Japanese War, a look at the air techs and potentially a little bit of fighting if I don't press F11 too often.
note: The coloured photos were taken from the livedoor.jp blog of irootoko_jr
