Hirohito's Honor

[RangerJoe]

Reading further in the article, apparently some VT fuzes for some British guns were being shipped in September 1943. The 3.7" AA guns did eventually get them but I don't know if they were used against the V-1s. The problem for the British and to a certain extent the Americans was shrinking the size of the fuze so it could be used on smaller guns than the 5 incher. I can now understand why the 3 inch gun ended up being preferred over the 40mm for some applications.

I wonder if this miniaturization helped with the invention of the transistor. Think if the transistor had already been invented instead of making vacuum tubes that could handle being fired from artillery shells and just how much faster things like the VT fuze could have been used in combat. Combine the VT fuze with a heat seeking missile back then . . .

[PaxMondo]

Reading further in the article, apparently some VT fuzes for some British guns were being shipped in September 1943. The 3.7" AA guns did eventually get them but I don't know if they were used against the V-1s. The problem for the British and to a certain extent the Americans was shrinking the size of the fuze so it could be used on smaller guns than the 5 incher. I can now understand why the 3 inch gun ended up being preferred over the 40mm for some applications.

I wonder if this miniaturization helped with the invention of the transistor. Think if the transistor had already been invented instead of making vacuum tubes that could handle being fired from artillery shells and just how much faster things like the VT fuze could have been used in combat. Combine the VT fuze with a heat seeking missile back then . . .

That sounds about right for the British. Again, just think about the production ramp-up just to support the USN, then the US army. It still amazes me going from production start in Sept 42 to first kill in Jan 43. That speaks volumes about the US war economy.

[RangerJoe]

Reading further in the article, apparently some VT fuzes for some British guns were being shipped in September 1943. The 3.7" AA guns did eventually get them but I don't know if they were used against the V-1s. The problem for the British and to a certain extent the Americans was shrinking the size of the fuze so it could be used on smaller guns than the 5 incher. I can now understand why the 3 inch gun ended up being preferred over the 40mm for some applications.

I wonder if this miniaturization helped with the invention of the transistor. Think if the transistor had already been invented instead of making vacuum tubes that could handle being fired from artillery shells and just how much faster things like the VT fuze could have been used in combat. Combine the VT fuze with a heat seeking missile back then . . .

That sounds about right for the British. Again, just think about the production ramp-up just to support the USN, then the US army. It still amazes me going from production start in Sept 42 to first kill in Jan 43. That speaks volumes about the US war economy.

I also think that it speaks volumes of cutting through the BS red tape as well.

I was told of a maintenance building that was built at Dutch Harbor during the war before the plans were even drawn up. The civilian construction workers knew what kind of building it was supposed to be, they knew what it would look like, so they just built it when they were not working on other jobs. If someone needed a carpenter or whomever, they would just go to that building. Sometimes everyone would be working on it, sometimes no one. When it was finished, the person who was supposed to draw up the plans saw the building, then just drew up the plans from that.

[BBfanboy]

Reading further in the article, apparently some VT fuzes for some British guns were being shipped in September 1943. The 3.7" AA guns did eventually get them but I don't know if they were used against the V-1s. The problem for the British and to a certain extent the Americans was shrinking the size of the fuze so it could be used on smaller guns than the 5 incher. I can now understand why the 3 inch gun ended up being preferred over the 40mm for some applications.

I wonder if this miniaturization helped with the invention of the transistor. Think if the transistor had already been invented instead of making vacuum tubes that could handle being fired from artillery shells and just how much faster things like the VT fuze could have been used in combat. Combine the VT fuze with a heat seeking missile back then . . .

That sounds about right for the British. Again, just think about the production ramp-up just to support the USN, then the US army. It still amazes me going from production start in Sept 42 to first kill in Jan 43. That speaks volumes about the US war economy.

I also think that it speaks volumes of cutting through the BS red tape as well.

I was told of a maintenance building that was built at Dutch Harbor during the war before the plans were even drawn up. The civilian construction workers knew what kind of building it was supposed to be, they knew what it would look like, so they just built it when they were not working on other jobs. If someone needed a carpenter or whomever, they would just go to that building. Sometimes everyone would be working on it, sometimes no one. When it was finished, the person who was supposed to draw up the plans saw the building, then just drew up the plans from that.

That generation grew up having to build and repair most of the things in their life. That made them especially versatile and knowledgeable about construction.

[PaxMondo]

That sounds about right for the British. Again, just think about the production ramp-up just to support the USN, then the US army. It still amazes me going from production start in Sept 42 to first kill in Jan 43. That speaks volumes about the US war economy.

I also think that it speaks volumes of cutting through the BS red tape as well.

I was told of a maintenance building that was built at Dutch Harbor during the war before the plans were even drawn up. The civilian construction workers knew what kind of building it was supposed to be, they knew what it would look like, so they just built it when they were not working on other jobs. If someone needed a carpenter or whomever, they would just go to that building. Sometimes everyone would be working on it, sometimes no one. When it was finished, the person who was supposed to draw up the plans saw the building, then just drew up the plans from that.

That generation grew up having to build and repair most of the things in their life. That made them especially versatile and knowledgeable about construction.

Totally believable.

[PaxMondo]

11Dec41 afternoon - Saburo Ushiroku - Economics Ministry
One thing that Saburo had been pulled into was the Resource Stockpile Analyses. Basically, all of the elements needed in an advanced economy for everything to run. The current sources, as well as the near term plan of expansion, of those elements was contained in the attached document.

411211 IJ Resource Needs.jpg (66.33 KiB) Viewed 492 times

While it looked like IJ had all of its bases covered, the reality was that many of the elements were in very low production and the rate of usage already was fast draining the imperial reserves. The original attack plan had NOT included Sian, but when Saburo had pointed out that the area around Sian was full of a number of critical resources, the plan had necessarily been changed. IJ needed those resources. In fact, many of the upgrade plans being developed by several ministries could NOT be done without those resources. So, a 3rd axis of attack had been added to Gen Hata’s list of targets.

411211 Axis 1.jpg (185.55 KiB) Viewed 492 times

The original plan had the main thrust going through Changsha and then up through Kweiyang to secure Chungking. This would also open up the overland LOS to west asia.

411211 Axis 2.jpg (62.82 KiB) Viewed 492 times

A 2nd attack axis was north from Kweisui to Lanchow to secure those oil fields.

411211 Axis 3.jpg (34.33 KiB) Viewed 492 times

Now another, 3rd, axis was added to go from Taiyuan west to Sian and capture all of the resource laden bases along that RR line leading to Sian.

[RangerJoe]

I read something one time that stated that Japan did not use all of the resources that it could have gotten from China. That could have been part of their industrial quality issues such as the lack of quality steel alloy materials, among other issues.

Also, Nauru had a lot of phosphorus due to the fossilized bird feces. I don't know if Ocean Island had the same resource.

China was a source of tungsten for the Allies, especially the USA. But maybe the tungsten was not where the Japanese were occupying China, the tungsten was flown over the hump to India on the returning transports.

[PaxMondo]

I read something one time that stated that Japan did not use all of the resources that it could have gotten from China. That could have been part of their industrial quality issues such as the lack of quality steel alloy materials, among other issues.

Also, Nauru had a lot of phosphorus due to the fossilized bird feces. I don't know if Ocean Island had the same resource.

China was a source of tungsten for the Allies, especially the USA. But maybe the tungsten was not where the Japanese were occupying China, the tungsten was flown over the hump to India on the returning transports.

I'll be exploring many of the things you bring up related to resources and their use (or lack thereof), so thank you for the segue ....

Nauru/Ocean(Banaba) Islands: I got them on the wrong line ... for both of them it is Phosphates, not Nitrates. Nitrate mining by the 1930's was pretty much obsolete as the process for making them from ammonia (NH3) was prevalent and more cost effective. Thailand still had a small active mine, but it wasn't a major item. The catch is that ammonia production comes from OIL which was an issue for IJ. Hence, they still bought nitrates from the Thai mine.

[RangerJoe]

I read something one time that stated that Japan did not use all of the resources that it could have gotten from China. That could have been part of their industrial quality issues such as the lack of quality steel alloy materials, among other issues.

Also, Nauru had a lot of phosphorus due to the fossilized bird feces. I don't know if Ocean Island had the same resource.

China was a source of tungsten for the Allies, especially the USA. But maybe the tungsten was not where the Japanese were occupying China, the tungsten was flown over the hump to India on the returning transports.

I'll be exploring many of the things you bring up related to resources and their use (or lack thereof), so thank you for the segue ....

Nauru/Ocean(Banaba) Islands: I got them on the wrong line ... for both of them it is Phosphates, not Nitrates. Nitrate mining by the 1930's was pretty much obsolete as the process for making them from ammonia (NH3) was prevalent and more cost effective. Thailand still had a small active mine, but it wasn't a major item. The catch is that ammonia production comes from OIL which was an issue for IJ. Hence, they still bought nitrates from the Thai mine.

I thought that ammonia production primarily used methane which is the primary ingredient in natural gas if another source of hydrogen was not available such having excess electricity available to break down water. I think that the TVA was developed in part for this purpose. Since northern Korea had a lot of dam potential to make electricity, could some of that ammonia production have been done there? I believe that one of the Japanese nuclear weapon development programs were moved there. Or a person could make a biogas generator to make it, then convert it into electricity. There are many methods but I do believe that the Haber process was mostly used during that time frame. But if Japan did not have the natural gas and since it wasn't moved as LNG during that time (could you imagine the blast if one of those ships were hit by a torpedo, or even a burst of machine cannon and/or machine gun fire?) then oil and/or coal could have been used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee ... _Authority

[PaxMondo]

So, oil and gas production in the 30's differed considerably from what it is today, over 90 years later.

Back then, well gas was just flared as there was "no use" for it and/or building the pipelines needed was simply too expensive. Some towns did pipe it and use it for lighting and cooking locally, Pennsylvania localities flourished with gas lighting in the early 1900's because of this. But still, Natural gas was not a target for drillers, oil was. Lighter oils were NOT favored, but heavy crudes were. Why? simple, the majority of oil use was in firing large boilers for steam either on ships or for electricity. Gasoline was still a "leftover" derivative. WWII changed all that.

So, yes, ammonia is made from Methane today, but then it was made directly from hydrogen produced at the refinery as well as from Methane. Hydrogen is a by-product of the coking operation. Coke, as you may recall is essential for ALL steels; it is what distinguishes iron from steel. Add carbon to iron and now you have a steel. Add other trace elements (Va, S, W, etc.) and you get variations of that steel from rod steel to tool steel.

Pre-WWII there were several other processes that generated Methane, or other light hydrocarbons. Thermo-Cracking and Platforming were 2 other common processes in a 1930's refinery, just realize that they were quite small compared to the overall refinery size. Meaning, a large refinery at that time was 50,000 BBD (barrels of oil per day run rate). The TCC unit would have been maybe 5000 BBD or smaller. The Platformer roughly the same. The gases that these generated along with that from Coking, were sent first to a H2 stripper (just think of it as a wide place in the line where the H2 is gaseous and all the others are liquid due to pressure) and then to tall, tall (100m or taller) distillation towers where the Methane came off the top, and the Ethane, Propane, and Butane came off at lower stages. Methane would go to make ammonia primarily then. The others would either be bottled and sold as is OR sent to an Alkylation unit to make Av Gas.

WWII changed a lot of things in both the oil fields and refineries, but we'll cover that later in our story.

[PaxMondo]

Hydro-electric power generation.

These projects are measured not in years, but in decades. Many decades. You can go here to read about dam history in Arizona: https://www.srpnet.com/about/history/hi ... l-timeline

So while there have been a number of hydroelectric projects completed in Korea, thinking that you would get one done during the 4 war years is not likely.

But the real unlikely part is using water as your hydrogen source. Theoretically, the chemistry is there. Financially, the cost is appalling. you're talking about 10x the cost or more to make ammonia from water as opposed to oil. I've never seen or heard of a commercial water-based hydrogen plant. Oil based ones are common now, in the 30's you got enough hydrogen from the Coking unit to satisfy the Ammonia needs. Now, that demand of course spiked in WWII ...

[PaxMondo]

Haber-Bosch Process

Yes, this process, well actually now it would be one of the many derivatives from it, is how ammonia has been produced for decades now and what eventually shutdown the nitrate mining industry. The simple explanation is you take Methane and Air and get ammonia. Air is ~70% nitrogen. Trick is to purify this to high purity N2 and then add your H2 from Methane CH4 to get your Ammonia NH3. Yep takes a lot of power to do this, but once you get it going it is gloriously stable and simple to operate. And you get very high purity ammonia from it.

I've never actually operated/built an ammonia plant, but I have been involved with several H2 plants, all of which fed at least a portion (if not all) of their H2 product to an ammonia plant. I was able to "walk" through a couple of the ammonia plants during that time ...

[RangerJoe]

Haber-Bosch Process

Yes, this process, well actually now it would be one of the many derivatives from it, is how ammonia has been produced for decades now and what eventually shutdown the nitrate mining industry. The simple explanation is you take Methane and Air and get ammonia. Air is ~70% nitrogen. Trick is to purify this to high purity N2 and then add your H2 from Methane CH4 to get your Ammonia NH3. Yep takes a lot of power to do this, but once you get it going it is gloriously stable and simple to operate. And you get very high purity ammonia from it.

I've never actually operated/built an ammonia plant, but I have been involved with several H2 plants, all of which fed at least a portion (if not all) of their H2 product to an ammonia plant. I was able to "walk" through a couple of the ammonia plants during that time ...

~78% N2 actually. I never have been through an ammonia plant but I have smelled the results of an ammonia refrigeration plant explosion at a plant that frenched the potatoes and then fried them a little before freezing them before they were shipped to the Golden Arches!

But the electrical power used would either be the excess during the lower demand time for electrical usage from the hydroelectrical dams.

[RangerJoe]

Hydro-electric power generation.

These projects are measured not in years, but in decades. Many decades. You can go here to read about dam history in Arizona: https://www.srpnet.com/about/history/hi ... l-timeline

So while there have been a number of hydroelectric projects completed in Korea, thinking that you would get one done during the 4 war years is not likely.

But the real unlikely part is using water as your hydrogen source. Theoretically, the chemistry is there. Financially, the cost is appalling. you're talking about 10x the cost or more to make ammonia from water as opposed to oil. I've never seen or heard of a commercial water-based hydrogen plant. Oil based ones are common now, in the 30's you got enough hydrogen from the Coking unit to satisfy the Ammonia needs. Now, that demand of course spiked in WWII ...

Yes, they are measured in decades. Which in Norway had been done. Telemark didn't just produce D2O but was also instrumental for this:

Unlike in Germany, where coal was used for the production of hydrogen, hydrogen electrolysis was chosen in Norway where there was almost unlimited access to both water and electricity. The actual ammonia production process was otherwise identical to the one used in Germany.

https://www.wildtelemark.com/post/in-a- ... ii-and-iii

Here is a pdf about the industrialization of Korea under Japan. It has useful information about the resources in the various parts of the Korean peninsula. Electricity from hydroelectric power was also used to make ammonia there.

https://www.jiia-jic.jp/en/japanreview/ ... Kimura.pdf

Anthracite is baked into coke for steel, lignite is a lower quality coal used for electrical plants. Coal oil/tar is from baking coal. Both can be used for home heating and steam locomotives but there is a difference in the firebox for the engines depending upon the type of fuel. Anthracite coal didn't need as large a firebox as lignite coal did. Germany tended to use lignite coal while the USSR tended to use Anthracite coal. In the USA, Anthracite coal is usually in the East while the western states usually have lignite coal from when the area was a tropical jungle. Charcoal actually makes better steel than coke since it has fewer impurities. The Kingsford company which started in Michigan by Henry Ford used sawdust and other scrap wood to make charcoal which was then formed into briquets. It was later sold but those people who hate Ford vehicles but love their Kingsford charcoal . . .

Iron pyrite is called "fool's gold" and it is a valuable resource for sulphur. I am sure that the iron would also be usable to a certain extent as well.

[PaxMondo]

Yes, they are measured in decades. Which in Norway had been done. Telemark didn't just produce D2O but was also instrumental for this:

Unlike in Germany, where coal was used for the production of hydrogen, hydrogen electrolysis was chosen in Norway where there was almost unlimited access to both water and electricity. The actual ammonia production process was otherwise identical to the one used in Germany.

https://www.wildtelemark.com/post/in-a- ... ii-and-iii

Wow, I would never have thought someone would do it. but in the 20's, they didn't have power grids yet, so I guess I can see it. You can see that as they talk about how much to make DC vs AC. Post wwii this wouldn't be done. You would sell the power used to disassociate water to the national grid, buy the methane, convert it to H2, and have a ton of $$$$ left over.

BUT, in the 20's, no power grids, so you have all that power and nothing else to do with it. IJ's issue would be the expense to build the power plant just to make ammonia .vs. taking oil fields and using methane. they pretty much chose the latter. building an ammonia plant is normally say 12 - 18 months; war time you could shrink that to 6 - 8 months; US prolly did them in 4 - 6 months due to better infrastructure. Hydroelectric dam is years for sure to build it, and then you have to fill it .... And the resources to commit to it ...

[PaxMondo]

Anthracite is baked into coke for steel, lignite is a lower quality coal used for electrical plants. Coal oil/tar is from baking coal. Both can be used for home heating and steam locomotives but there is a difference in the firebox for the engines depending upon the type of fuel. Anthracite coal didn't need as large a firebox as lignite coal did. Germany tended to use lignite coal while the USSR tended to use Anthracite coal. In the USA, Anthracite coal is usually in the East while the western states usually have lignite coal from when the area was a tropical jungle. Charcoal actually makes better steel than coke since it has fewer impurities. The Kingsford company which started in Michigan by Henry Ford used sawdust and other scrap wood to make charcoal which was then formed into briquets. It was later sold but those people who hate Ford vehicles but love their Kingsford charcoal . . .

Coal is used, even today. But the highest quality coke comes from refineries. They can treat the oil before sending it to the coker unit so that it is even cleaner than Anthracite resulting in really good coke. Then there is the bonus: the catalyst that is used to treat the oil to remove the impurities (S, VA, etc) can then be run through a re-charge process where all of those rare earths can be reclaimed, purified, and then used in steel production.

Coal cokers have also improved. They will make a slurry of the coal, treat that to remove the impurities (S, Va, etc) and then send it to the Coker oven. The slurry isn't as easy to treat as oil, so the result generally isn't quite as good. However, I know that there are some coal cokers that can match refinery cokers ... it is however more expensive and requires government subsidies.

[RangerJoe]

Yes, they are measured in decades. Which in Norway had been done. Telemark didn't just produce D2O but was also instrumental for this:

Unlike in Germany, where coal was used for the production of hydrogen, hydrogen electrolysis was chosen in Norway where there was almost unlimited access to both water and electricity. The actual ammonia production process was otherwise identical to the one used in Germany.

https://www.wildtelemark.com/post/in-a- ... ii-and-iii

Wow, I would never have thought someone would do it. but in the 20's, they didn't have power grids yet, so I guess I can see it. You can see that as they talk about how much to make DC vs AC. Post wwii this wouldn't be done. You would sell the power used to disassociate water to the national grid, buy the methane, convert it to H2, and have a ton of $$$$ left over.

BUT, in the 20's, no power grids, so you have all that power and nothing else to do with it. IJ's issue would be the expense to build the power plant just to make ammonia .vs. taking oil fields and using methane. they pretty much chose the latter. building an ammonia plant is normally say 12 - 18 months; war time you could shrink that to 6 - 8 months; US prolly did them in 4 - 6 months due to better infrastructure. Hydroelectric dam is years for sure to build it, and then you have to fill it .... And the resources to commit to it ...

The process used DC and not AC so the plant also had to be close to the power generation as well. It was done even before the 1920s. There is still discussion about doing it today in Norway.

https://www.industriarven.no/en/the_history/

https://www.hydro.com/us/global/about-h ... -lifeline/

The company also abuses its employees . . .

https://www.hydro.com/us/global/about-h ... mountains/

As far as Japan building such a large hydroelectric power plant for the war, they really didn't need to do so. They already had one:

Nicchitsu began constructing the Pujon River Hydropower Plant during the 1920s. This facility boasted an electric power output of 200,000 kW which was far greater than that of any other such plant in Japan. This was the company’s first step in colonial Korea. The Pujon River Hydropower Plant was so influential that it transformed the state of hydropower on the Korean Peninsula and determined Nicchitsu’s later business developments in the northern areas. The plant was proposed by electrical engineer Kazuo Morita (1872 – 1966)

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jo ... /7_91/_pdf

Yes, the power grids then were nowhere near like they are today. So I guess that the American pilots using their machine guns to shoot up the power lines in Germany also helped with the production problems just a little bit.

[PaxMondo]

Disassociation of water to Hydrogen and Oxygen is a "DC" process. If your power supply is AC, you convert it to DC and then run it. The Norway hydroelectric dam could produce either, so for the Nitrate plant, DC was (is?) provided directly.

I have to add a comment here: it is quite interesting that the Norway dam can produce either DC or AC. That is NOT normal. Most modern dams use alternators to generate the electricity which is AC. You use generators for DC generation. While they are similar, they are not the same (basically the rotors and stators are reversed). So the Norway plant must have BOTH in place and can divert the water to either. Again, doable, but really expensive as you double your capital investment for the same capacity.

With respect to the Pujon dam, since Nicchitsu was (is) a fertilizer company, I would think it safe to say that (some of) the electricity from the Pujon dam was used for nitrate manufacturing. I can't find any specific data that it was, but it would strange if a fertilizer company built a dam in the 20's and didn't manufacture fertilizer from it. Since this is now North Korea, I would also be stunned if the plant wasn't still operating for that same use. (Journal of JSCE, Vol 7, 91-99, 2019).

RJ, reading back on your thread here, I think you were under the impression that Japan lacked nitrate production capacity in the 20's and 30's. I think a bit of history will help here along with some demographics.

Japan Agrarian Society
Japan was, and remains, one of the most densely populated countries in the world. China has a larger population, but Japan's density far exceeds it. Further, this has been a fact of Japanese life for many centuries. Compounding this is that arable land in Japan is quite rare and finite. Mountains are a key feature of much of the country, and while beautiful and providing good water supply, they do tend to limit agriculture. Historically, due to the limitations of arable land, livestock has not been a major part of the farm because of the direct competition with the population. This means that fertilizer historically was not animal, but human, feces. Two points here about this: first by using human feces they recycled an otherwise difficult waste. Second, because of the danger associated with using it, scrupulous cleanliness became ingrained into Japanese culture. Households that were not careful fell ill to one of many deadly diseases, cholera most prevalent. This is the history for about 1000 years. Please note that excepting Typhoons and earthquakes, cholera epidemics were historically rare in Japan which says quite a bit about their culture and adaptation. Contrast this same history to that of China or India and there is a vast difference. Cholera outbreaks in both of those areas were historically common and deadly. This is NOT a critique of their cultures, just observing that there was a difference and that it was pretty emphatic. Note that cholera outbreaks in Europe during the Dark and Middle ages were also a common occurrence with all the associated mortality.

The point of this history is that after wwi, Japan began to accelerate industrialization. And one part of that was to shift away from "natural" fertilizers to artificial ones: nitrates. This was needed because they needed to increase farm productivity, and as the cities grew, sewage treatment as opposed to farm recycling became necessary. So, by 1940 Japan had a number of nitrate plants in both Japan and their colonies. This is known. Catch is, this capacity was needed for a primal commodity: food. Further, these plants were designed and built largely for fertilizer. When they started to build up their army, this is when the nitrate shortage reared its ugly head. Worse, the purity also became an issue as the commercial plants couldn't make weapons grade nitrates; they weren't designed for that.

New plants had to be built (LI/HI), and that meant more power plants as well (HI). All of this is factored into the starting data in the scenario as part of the HI, LI, ARM, and VEH production numbers. And all of these numbers for IJ, Andy took from Scen 1. The allies starting economies are modified, in some cases substantially, from Scen 1.

[RangerJoe]

I am aware of the fertilizer used in many parts of east Asia, don't eat the raw vegetables! Also that leads to a lot of Hepatitis A infections. As far as Cholera goes, there is a gene that some people have that prevents the deadly infection. Unfortunately, if a person has 2 copies of that gene, then they have cystic fibrosis. There is a story about a medical doctor about that but I won't get into that one. The other story about Cholera is how beer is/was considered healthier than well water, plus the perceived healthiness of mountain spring water has the same origin. That story includes how the germ theory of disease was proved. If you want a link to that story, I can provide one.

Here is information from that link about the fertilizer production at Hungnam, which was where the 10th Corps landed and was later removed during 1950, this starts towards the bottom of page 36:

The huge scale of electric power development on the Pujon River was unprecedented in the Japanese Empire. To initiate it, it was necessary to construct a railroad for material transport. The first power plant was finally completed in 1929.
Using the same methodology, Noguchi was also engaged in development of power sources on the Changjin and Hochon rivers, two other tributaries of the Yalu River. Construction of power
plants on these rivers began in 1933 and 1937, respectively. The scale of both of these projects surpassed that of the Pujon project.
Noguchi’s ultimate goal was to build a chemical fertilizer plant in northern Korea that would have access to ample and inexpensive electrical power. He invested ¥10 million to establish
Chosen Chisso Hiryo Kabushiki Kaisha (Korea Nitrogen Fertilizer Company) in 1927 (which merged with its parent company, Nippon Chisso Hiryo, in 1941), and began the construction of a
plant in Hungnam (in the eastern part of northern Korea), which was completed in 1929.
The Hungnam plant was comprised of facilities engaged in ammonia synthesis, electrolysis, ammonium sulfate manufacture, machinery manufacture, and catalysis. It had an initial production capacity of ammonium sulfate of 400,000 tons annually, which far exceeded that of Nippon Chisso Hiryo’s plants in Japan (in Nobeoka and Minamata). . . .

So there was the production of fertilizer for both Korea and Japan.

Here is a CIA report from the USA (dated in 1956) that details electric power production in North Korea. While that is outside the scope of the game, it does give a little of the history of the area as well as a chart on page 32 of the electrical production starting in 1932. It also stated that the area reached its peak power production in 1945. A lot of that power went to Manchuria and North Korea still provides power to China as a source of foreign currency. I don't think that very much electrical power is provided to Seoul or any part of South Korea any more.

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CI ... 0001-3.pdf

I am aware of the differences in cultures of many parts of the world, I do not look down on anyone because they have a different culture elsewhere. As long as people are happy with their culture, I see no reason to change it unless it were to affect me or other people who do not want to be affected by it. I also do not judge previous generations/cultures based upon today's morality although I do regret things that either were done or weren't done since the state of the human condition could have been improved (at least in my opinion) so much sooner.

I enjoy reading your AAR as well as these discussions. Are you thinking of writing a book about a possible alternative if Hirohito would have taken direct control and was no longer a figurehead? That would be interesting!

Another thing, when your characters are walking around these industrial plants doing whatever they are doing, just don't have a steel beam fall on them unless you want to remove them from your narrative.

[BBfanboy]

Hmmm - Minamata- namesake of Minamata disease i.e. heavy metal poisoning. In Minamata's case I think it was mercury. I wonder if it was connected to the Ammonia or fertilizer production. The symptoms of heavy metal poisoning at Minamata were used in Canada to prove that a First Nations tribe at Grassy Narrows, Ontario were being poisoned by mercury from the pulp and paper mill upstream. We are all connected by the flow of knowledge between nations!