A group of high ranking naval officers sat discussing the final adjustments to the 3rd Naval Armament Supplement Plan. As the situation progressed throughout 1936 the situation had changed many times. The geopolitical landscape and technological world were changing extremely quickly.

To advocates of naval aviation the newly minted G3M, A5M, and B5N aircraft have proven their worth. This camp is led by Deputy Naval Minister, Vice Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. His camp includes some of the best and brightest in Japanese naval command including Captains Minoru Genda and Takijirō Ōnishi along with Rear Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa. Genda and Ōnishim have radically and harshly critiqued the continued construction of battleships. Genda has even gone so far as to call for the scrapping of current battleships.

However, this group faces the still formidable big guns club. Many high ranking officers, unwilling to abandon the way of war they have practiced for decades, belong to this school still. Yet the tide was turning against this group.

Geopolitically the United States is fracturing and on the verge of war with Canada. Preoccupied internally and to the north the United States no longer poses an immediate threat to Japanese expansion plans. At the same time Germany is producing a navy that poses more and more of a threat to Japanese plans. Therefore naval planners have begun to look south rather than east.

Against Germany the long term strategic situation is much less grim. In industrial capacity Germany is vastly inferior to the United States and must maintain a significant battlefleet due to the threat posed by the Third Internationale. Due to this, Japan can win a long war with Germany. Though plans will still focus on a quick war, preparations for a long war are not to be ignored since such a scenario is no longer to be considered hopeless.

Given the evolving situation a compromise has been struck between the two factions. Funds and dockyards will be split between the two factions. The navy will build two more modern fast battleships. At the same time the naval aviation faction will be given two smaller slipways, but slightly more funding. With this they will build four new fleet carriers, two at a time.

Additionally, the naval aviation faction has received funds to increase pilot recruitment. Pilots will now be recruited from top civilian aviators to join the navy and flight school capacity will be increased. At the same with a long war being not entirely dismissed some consideration was given to reserve pilots. However, the pilots and advocates of naval aviation pride themselves on the small, elite cadre of pilots.

Therefore, compromise had to be found. While not yet a significant part of naval planning and marginalized due to the focus on elite, highly trained pilots, a small reserve school has been formed. For now the school will simply engage civilian pilots in reserve training. The larger plan is to recruit reserve pilots, partially trained for combat, in order to reduce the total training time needed to train them as combat pilots and press them into service to replace potential losses, though a significant program to achieve this goal will take much more time and many more resources to build.

Ultimately, the navy’s rearmament program had been given ¥1,015,000,000, of which ¥865,000,000 will be used for shipbuilding. ¥150,000,000 will be allocated towards naval aviation. The final tally for ships is as follows:

Additionally, 2 Kagerō class destroyers and 1 Mogami class cruiser will be laid down for Venezuela and launched in September 1938.