Japan National Advantages

Japan National Advantages

1. Tokyo Express
The Japanese High Command used destroyer convoys to ferry infantry. Allied forces at Guadalcanal dubbed this the “Tokyo Express”. Each of your destroyers may act as a transport for one infantry. These destroyers follow the same rules for loading and offloading units as transports do.

2. Kamikaze Attacks (revised)
A terrifying development was the Japanese suicide tactics. The Japanese used pilots who only knew how to take off and dive into their target with an aircraft full of explosives.
Your fighters may execute kamikaze attacks to target enemy capital ships. Such fighters may make a combat move without having to land in a friendly space afterward. Kamikaze attacks must be declared during combat movement turn. They attack on a 4 during the opening fire step of the first cycle of combat, and the defender must chose aircraft carriers or battleships as casualties. The enemy may chose any other ship as a casualty if no capital ship is present. Kamikaze fighters may not be taken as casualties, as they are destroyed when they make their attack.

3. Floatplane Fighters (replace Kaiten Torpedoes)
With an empire stretching across thousands of kilometers of the Pacific, the Japanese specialized in good floatplane fighters.
Your fighters may treat islands you control and adjacent sea zones as one. Therefore your fighters can travel in and out from an island group you control at no cost of movement.

4. Dreadnoughts (replace Lightning Assaults)
Dreadnoughts or leviathans like Yamato and Musashi were the largest and most powerful battleships the world has ever seen.
Your battleships attack and defend on 5.

5. Fanatic Resistance (replace Dug-In Defenders)
The fanatic willingness to die for the Emperor was a terrifying feature of Japanese fighting men in all theatres.
All your infantry defend on a 3 during the first cycle of combat.

6. Fugo Raid (replace Banzai Attacks)
Japan used balloon bombs, supposed to set fire to and drop antipersonnel bombs randomly on the U.S. There was even a plan to use balloons in order to attack the enemy with plague.
Once during the game you can launch a Fugo Raid to reduce enemy industrial production. A Fugo raid must be launched during your mobilize new units phase and from an antiaircraft gun, which may attack an industrial complex within 4 spaces. There is no defense against this attack. The Fugo Raid causes both an economic and a military setback. The opponent must surrender the territory’s income value in IPCs to the bank (or as many as the player has), and no units can be built in this territory on your enemy’s next turn.

A Little History

Fugos: Japanese Balloon Bombs of WWII
The Japanese have been using balloons in war since the 1800s. At Port Arthur they were used for observation of troop movements. The Japanese air force come out of the balloon society and little is mentioned of it during the war. Offically; in the waning days of the Pacific War (WWII) Japan tried a last ditch ploy to hit the United States with a terror weapon. That weapon was the Balloon Bomb. It was supposted to set fire to the West Coast and drop anti-personel bombs randomly on the U.S. In research after the war it was found that the Japanese built 15,000 of them but only launched 9,300. A little over 300 Balloon Bomb incedents occured in the U.S. and Canada.

The balloon bombs were released from Japan in the winter months when the jet stream is the strongest. They popped up to altitude (20,000 to 40,000 ft.) and if they were lucky into the stream. They traveled along in an easterly direction crossing the Pacific at around 200 mph in the jet stream. In daytime they would ride at the maximum altitude but as time wore on they would sink. At night they would collect dew and become heavy. Below a set height the altimeter would cause a set of blow plugs (charges that released the ballast) to fire releasing the sand bag ballast. The lost of weight would cause the balloon to pop back up to altitude. This continued till all the sand bags were gone. The last ballast was the armament. Thermite bombs were armed and dropped in the last positions on the ring. Anti-personnel bombs were also used. After all the ballast was gone a picric acid block blew up destroying the gondola. A fuse was lit that was connected to a charge on the balloon itself. The hydrogen and air mixture burned the balloon envelope up as a large orange fireball.

Were the Fugos a joke?
Of the over 300 incidence recorded about the Fugos during the end of WWII (1944-1945) none caused stoppage of war related activity, except for one case where a balloon landed on a power line at Cold Creek in Washington state. It caused the first SCRAM in history, taking down the first reactor used to make plutonium. The reports of all balloon bombs were censored so as not to give anything away to Japan. Eventually, after six people were killed in Oregon, the story did come out. Over Washington at least 50 were seen on one day. In a oral history of Hanford at least 40 were seen over the reservation. Offically no forest fires or other damage ocurred.

There were other plans for the Fugos. The Japanese infamous Unit 731 of the WW2 was a secret government biological-warfare organization that operated in Manchuria. The organization, under the direction of one physician who had become interested in the possibilities of germ warfare in the 1920’s, conducted intensive experiments (mainly centering on plague and anthrax). After tests had been performed on thousands of unwilling human subjects, in 1942, the Unit commenced large-scale germ warfare on Chinese soldiers and civilians; the deaths numbered in the tens of thousands. During the last stage of the war there was a plan of attacking US population with bacteriological warfare, by using Fugos. These Fugos were to be released from Japan in the winter months when the jet stream is the strongest. Fortunately for the Allies the war ended before the plan become a reality. The head of Unit 731 ordered the remaining human subjects murdered in order to destroy evidence of the Unit’s secret operations.

@Kaladesh:

back to the NA ;-)

fugo sounds interesting indeed ;-) a good oportunitiy to harass us and prepare for an invasion into us ;-)

however i still do not like the kamikaze version.
hitting a capitalship for sure does inbalance the start in my view. now japan could surely destroy the ac in pearl harbour in j1 with a single plane. us would be forced to have their ac and bb together (which would not be the problem) but since japan has its first round before us the attack on pearl harbour would be “standard” … after that this kamikaze would probably become useless since the us would hold its capitalships together. even 2 planes (20 ipc) can destroy the bb (24 ipc). thats a bit too strong to me. at least the enemy fighters may have a chance of hunting down this kamikaze right before they hit the ship. but then kamikaze would be useless as well.
i could not figure out a rule how this kamikaze might become useful but not too strong :-/

and to the dreadnoughts … i already stated it that i belive 5/5 to be to strong as well. 3hit bb or opening fire first round only (due to the larger range of their guns before entering the actual battle) may be a bit more ballanced (and i still believe that japan does not have the ipc to produce a bb early on and if they have enough later, than they might be on the winning run anyways).
the rest goes fine with me :-)

btw. i like to play japan but in my view those two things are a bit overpowered.

The chance to sink a BB with two kamikazes is 44% (0,66*0,66)! And that is if The BB is alone, otherwise one can always pick a hit on a second BB!

About the AC in Pearl Harbor in J1, the fighter on board can land on Hawaii! That means a cost of 16 IPCs (AC) at a chance of 66% compared to the sure cost of 10 IPCs. That is some 10,7 IPCs in damage on average, compared to the cost of 10 IPCs for Japan! Not to tempting I guess, but worth a try I guess!

I still think the BB variant with opening fire first round only is stronger than the 5/5 variant! About the 3 hit BB I am not sure, however it could compensate for the U.S. cheap cannon fodder, namely Liberty Ship Program! Lets see how the poll will come out! The poll will be my law in this case!

One might think that the kamikazes should be used to keep U.S. at bay at all costs, to buy time for the Asian campaign! When that is done Japan have made some extra IPCs that can compensate for the lost fighters and maybe Japan stands a good chance of giving the Russians a hard match! If Japan also have New Zealand and Australia, there is an even bigger incentive to keep U.S. at bay with kamikazes! :wink:

@Kaladesh:

sure … i forgot about the dice :-)
somehow that does make it even more useless to me, as i stated above …
somehow i cant think of a rule which makes kamikaze usefull (even as it should be a national advantage) ……

Well Kaladesh, let me ask you a question?

If U.S. need to spend some extra IPCs on its navy to protect any ACs with BBs. And if U.S. can be kept at bay for just one or two turns longer, just to buy time for Japan to hunt the Allies in Asia (including Russia) down with support from Germany. Would not that extra time be worth something, since the Axis hardly need to delay the effect of the Allies economic power? And tell me then, would not you call that an advantage for the Japan (Axis)? :wink:

If U.S. reach East Indies with a fleet of BB/AC/DD and some cannon fodder with Marines, then the Japanese onslaught in Asia will stop dead!

However if you don’t like my kamikaze variant I use here, maybe you should take a look at my bomber variant (no suicide), No2 in the thread for Kamikazes. :D

@frimmel:

The fugo raid seems a little unrealistic as according to the history you have supplied they did not stop any war production. So 10 and a turn of mobilizing is seriously out of line. Particularly since you get to choose its use, say the turn before a move towards LA? It seems overpowered both in game terms and historical terms. Perhaps if that were changed to some form of SBR? Can’t get shot down and roll a dice minus one (one min) of loss?  Maybe in some other form but the no mobilization is certainly too much.

Wow, this was an old one! You are right! The Fugo Raid is over powered as is, but I skipped it in my revised NAs!