Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: timtom

Gee, get a room, you two - and invite Terminus while you're at it!

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ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

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ORIGINAL: Rapunzel

Well I am unsing nik´s mod and i am getting steamrolled by japan. It is 7/42 and 3/4 of my army are out of supplies. I could hold the frontline citys but he bypassed them and occupied several backyard bases (with paratroopers - tanks). He does not seem to have any supply probs doing so... .

I think nik was asking you rapunzel ?

I you failed to garrison rear bases with one corps at least your inviting trouble like this ( paras anyway). i dont understand the tanks one though ? surely you saw these coming along from somewhere ?

pls enlightlen us ..

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All true. Additionally one should say that the Independent Mixed Brigades and C-Type Divisions that are in the game were (historically) employed for those garrison duties. Vanilla WITP gives them too much firepower/offensive capability while they historically were (nearly) static formations. Thus the "police" formations Nik was speaking about are in the game...

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China was a vast country and the war fought there between Japan and China prior to Dec. 41 was vastly different than that fought between Russia and Germany. There were no special police units created in VAST quantities by Japan to occupy rear areas, because they never actually conquered those rear areas to begin with so there was no pressing need for them.

There was no sweeping front that swept through the country conquering every little village and hamlet, instead Japan attacked along transportation routes on a very narrow front and was forced to occupy the entire line because everything else in the primitive hinterlands remained under Chinese control (except when punitive offensives were launched, but Japan always withdrew back to the transportation lines after).

Front line troops were required to garrison the entire railway network because Japan lacked sufficient troops to occupy the vast interior areas of China. Just because some guy colored in vast areas of the country with red ink on some map and said it was occupied doesn’t mean a few police troops could have had a hope in hell of controlling those areas.

The best way to represent what Japans occupation looked like would be to draw red lines over the rail and main road network and leave the rest uncontrolled. That would be a realistic representation of what the situation in China was on Dec. 1941. Japan was forced to keep 80% of the combat formations in China guarding the rear areas, because China had active large scale combat formations available to sweep in and cut any part of the line if Japan let its guard down.

I’ve read accounts where entire Chinese combat divisions would melt away into the local populace as a Japanese offensive swept through their area. They would then reform after the Japanese passed through and reap havoc in the rear and simply melt away again whenever the Japanese returned to hunt for the unit.

Technologically the Japanese army was far superior to Chinas army, but China had millions more men under arms and unlimited replacements available to replace the horrendous losses taken whenever the two armies would clash in stand up fights. Japan spent five years learning they couldn’t defeat China in a land war. Anyone who thinks the current land situation in the game is even remotely close to justified from an historical point of view is simply delusional.

I think the best solution in China would be to give the Chinese their historical armies, and then allow them to draw unlimited supplies from ANY Chinese hex not occupied by a Japanese combat unit. Take away all but a few engineer squads so they have no hope of assaulting defended Japanese bases with forts, and then you’ll see a more realistic game in China. Japan will be forced to defend every rail and road hex with combat troops (as they had to do historically) and China will have lots of offensively weak but large combat formations roaming the primitive countryside.

The better more modern equipped offensive Chinese formations (perhaps 70-100 of the almost 400 total divisions China fielded) would be fixed in the larger Chinese controlled bases, and only become available for use in late 44 or if the Japanese attack them first.

This begins very well indeed. It ends very badly - with proposals which imply the nature of Chinese troops are not understood. And it ignores the vast numbers of "Japanese Chinese troops" - actually millions of them.
In China being a soldier is - first of all - rarely a choice. The government (KMT, CCP or the local warlordy) claimed it was your duty - and refusal would at a minimum get you beheadded - maybe your whole family as well. In fact, in that sense, Japanese Chinese troops were better than most Chinese Chinese troops - Japan didn't claim you had to fight for them! Either way, you didn't get paid. This is SOP in China too - the way it was until the 1990s reforms (not entirely implemented today). Chinese units grow their own food so they can eat - make their own uniforms - often make products for sale - sometimes make their own guns - and otherwise engage in non-military activities more of the time than military ones. If a unit wants to MOVE it must figure out how to pay for the trip and how to survive in a new area. [See Tsuji's first book - he spent years under cover with KMT in China and SE Asia - KMT was not limited to China]. But fight? This was not the same thing as being in a military unit. Fighting could get you killed! Chinese troops invented lots of ways not to fight - and often had real problems (like ZERO shells for artillery) that made it sane to think that way. There are lots of exceptions - but they are EXCEPTIONS - not the rule. IF China's army tried to fight in a modern sense it would quickly have NO effective units - due to no ammunition! How you game that is a big problem. And giving China its historical army is unfair UNLESS you give Japan its historical Chinese army (armies actually). In a way, most Chinese troops are more like occupation troops - and more competent keeping civilians under control - than troops of use against a real enemy army. For a good sense of the complexity of this get War of Resistence - a mechanical game using the Europa system.

Jim

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

This begins very well indeed. It ends very badly - with proposals which imply the nature of Chinese troops are not understood. And it ignores the vast numbers of "Japanese Chinese troops" - actually millions of them.
In China being a soldier is - first of all - rarely a choice. The government (KMT, CCP or the local warlordy) claimed it was your duty - and refusal would at a minimum get you beheadded - maybe your whole family as well. In fact, in that sense, Japanese Chinese troops were better than most Chinese Chinese troops - Japan didn't claim you had to fight for them! Either way, you didn't get paid. This is SOP in China too - the way it was until the 1990s reforms (not entirely implemented today). Chinese units grow their own food so they can eat - make their own uniforms - often make products for sale - sometimes make their own guns - and otherwise engage in non-military activities more of the time than military ones. If a unit wants to MOVE it must figure out how to pay for the trip and how to survive in a new area. [See Tsuji's first book - he spent years under cover with KMT in China and SE Asia - KMT was not limited to China]. But fight? This was not the same thing as being in a military unit. Fighting could get you killed! Chinese troops invented lots of ways not to fight - and often had real problems (like ZERO shells for artillery) that made it sane to think that way. There are lots of exceptions - but they are EXCEPTIONS - not the rule. IF China's army tried to fight in a modern sense it would quickly have NO effective units - due to no ammunition! How you game that is a big problem. And giving China its historical army is unfair UNLESS you give Japan its historical Chinese army (armies actually). In a way, most Chinese troops are more like occupation troops - and more competent keeping civilians under control - than troops of use against a real enemy army. For a good sense of the complexity of this get War of Resistence - a mechanical game using the Europa system.

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ORIGINAL: Big B

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

This begins very well indeed. It ends very badly - with proposals which imply the nature of Chinese troops are not understood. And it ignores the vast numbers of "Japanese Chinese troops" - actually millions of them.
In China being a soldier is - first of all - rarely a choice. The government (KMT, CCP or the local warlordy) claimed it was your duty - and refusal would at a minimum get you beheadded - maybe your whole family as well. In fact, in that sense, Japanese Chinese troops were better than most Chinese Chinese troops - Japan didn't claim you had to fight for them! Either way, you didn't get paid. This is SOP in China too - the way it was until the 1990s reforms (not entirely implemented today). Chinese units grow their own food so they can eat - make their own uniforms - often make products for sale - sometimes make their own guns - and otherwise engage in non-military activities more of the time than military ones. If a unit wants to MOVE it must figure out how to pay for the trip and how to survive in a new area. [See Tsuji's first book - he spent years under cover with KMT in China and SE Asia - KMT was not limited to China]. But fight? This was not the same thing as being in a military unit. Fighting could get you killed! Chinese troops invented lots of ways not to fight - and often had real problems (like ZERO shells for artillery) that made it sane to think that way. There are lots of exceptions - but they are EXCEPTIONS - not the rule. IF China's army tried to fight in a modern sense it would quickly have NO effective units - due to no ammunition! How you game that is a big problem. And giving China its historical army is unfair UNLESS you give Japan its historical Chinese army (armies actually). In a way, most Chinese troops are more like occupation troops - and more competent keeping civilians under control - than troops of use against a real enemy army. For a good sense of the complexity of this get War of Resistence - a mechanical game using the Europa system.

So ...would the practical solution be to add the full Chinese OOB - AND - some Japanese garrison units for China?

B

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When small arms were not brought over by the defecting Nationalist soldiers they were supplied by the Japanese from 'war booty'. These arms were not usually supplied free, and the Nanking government had to buy them from the Japanese. Some very poor quality captured small arms were given to the Nanking Army without charge, but these must have been virtually useless. The Nanking Army units nearest to the capital were generally better armed than the units stationed in the outlying provinces.
Even when a 'puppet' soldier was issued with a rifle, the amount of ammunition he was allowed was strictly limited by the Japanese. The 'puppets' were usually limited to, at the most, 30 rounds of ammunition, and in fact some were only issued with 5 bullets each. Japanese thinking was that even if the 'puppet' soldiers went over to the Nationalists or Communists they could not take too much ammunition with them. Some Japanese rifles were issued, but their war industry had enough problems supplying their own troops without equipping the large number of 'puppet' troops as well. One 'puppet' unit in north China was given the task of garrisoning a large strongpoint called 'Mafeng' from 1944, after the Japanese troops guarding it had been withdrawn. The 50 'puppet' troops holding the strongpoint were given 'old' and 'discarded' rifles and were issued with a bare minimum of ammunition by the Japanese.
The Japanese kept their 'puppet' troops short of heavy weapons, as they simply did not trust them not to go over to the Nationalists or Communists when the opportunity arose.When artillery was used by Nanking units during anti-bandit operations it was usually kept under the control of their Japanese advisors. ...

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So ...would the practical solution be to add the full Chinese OOB - AND - some Japanese garrison units for China?

B

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ORIGINAL: el cid again
with proposals which imply the nature of Chinese troops are not understood.

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So ...would the practical solution be to add the full Chinese OOB - AND - some Japanese garrison units for China?

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Even when a 'puppet' soldier was issued with a rifle, the amount of ammunition he was allowed was strictly limited by the Japanese. The 'puppets' were usually limited to, at the most, 30 rounds of ammunition, and in fact some were only issued with 5 bullets each.

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The Japanese kept their 'puppet' troops short of heavy weapons, as they simply did not trust them not to go over to the Nationalists or Communists when the opportunity arose.

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If the "millions" of Japanese Chinese troops were anything better than utterly useless, Japan would not have been forced to keep more than 80% of their in country armies in the rear garrisoning the rail network.

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But what I find amazing is your total lack of regard for Chinese troops. You give them no credit at all for the hard 5 years they fought the Japanese before Dec. 1941, and the sacrifices and heroics of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese that died in major battles around Changsa, Shanghai, Nanking, etc., etc.

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There are plenty of accounts in the history of China’s war where poorly supplied and out tech’d Chinese troops raised themselves to heroic feats to fight against the Japanese. But many westerners are prejudiced against the Chinese because of Chiang Kai-Shek’s political machinations after the western allies entered the war.

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Chiang’s policy was to allow the western allies to beat Japan and do as little as possible in order to preserve his strength for the coming battles with the communists.

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The Chinese soldier was no worse or better than any other nation’s soldiers. Their weakness was due to technological inferiority, not some coward gene that pre-disposed them to seek ways of saving their own skins. The corrupt government also produced some piss poor leadership in the officer corps, but on a one for one basis the average Chinese soldier was just as good as any other nations soldiers when equipped well.

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When properly equipped, Chinese divisions were the equal or better than Japanese divisions.

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

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If the "millions" of Japanese Chinese troops were anything better than utterly useless, Japan would not have been forced to keep more than 80% of their in country armies in the rear garrisoning the rail network.

This is hardly true. China was - and remains - the world's most populous nation. Parts of China were - and are - very densely populated. One could have very large forces in a country like that and it might seem like they were woefully inadequate - regardless of troop quality. Frankly the problems Japan had in China were much more political than military. Until Japan began attacking China, most Chinese admired Japan for standing up to colonial powers. Japan squandered a great deal of good will by its policies. To some extent this changed late in the war (pressed labor was ended - by order - no matter who you were you could not use it any more; siezed properties were returned; administration taken from China by colonials of various nations was returned to Chinese). But it was too late to buy the kind of good will that better policy could have bought earlier. For a more successful example of Imperial Japanese "occupation" (Japan NEVER occupied like we did - it ALWAYS used local officials, except in special enclaves, like Balikpapan) see the Dutch East Indies. IF Japan had adopted a more rational policy, it could have had peace in China, kept Manchukuo, and needed no occupation troops whatever.

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

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The Japanese kept their 'puppet' troops short of heavy weapons, as they simply did not trust them not to go over to the Nationalists or Communists when the opportunity arose.

Quite correct - and also very misleading. It is left out this is the NORM in China for ALL Chinese armies. Artillery was quite rare - and might be of museum quality - or even non-functional. If it could work, that did not imply any ammunition was available for it. If there was ammunition, that did not imply there was a single person capable of spotting, or running a fire direction center: direct fire was often the only mission possible. In China an MMG was a big deal heavy weapon. Most units had NONE. So a unit with ONE was quite well off. A unit with an actual heavy weapons company - normally two formed a platoon and 2 or 3 platoons a company - was a very fine formation, heavy weapons wise.

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

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So ...would the practical solution be to add the full Chinese OOB - AND - some Japanese garrison units for China?

A practical solution would involve several elements:

1) evaluate different forces - some you don't put in at all - that is NO troops is more accurate than any at all! These would include units that vaporized under pressure historically.

2) Overrate the size of formations - call a battalion a regiment for example - a regiment a division - and so on. And a corps is called an army - that is really true by the way. Then outfit these units with almost no heavy weapons. It is quite common for a SINGLE artillery piece to decide a "battle" - and then without shooting at all - or shooting only to proove it has shells! Most units are almost pure infantry.

3) Break up Japanese Independent Infantry Brigades and Regiments into battalions - there is NO real brigade - everything is attached out - even tiny slices of engineers and comm guys. These battalions become the "good" occupation troops.

4) Create troops for the Peiking and Nanjing regimes to Japan (as well as those of Manchukuo and Liaoning).

5) Give control of CCP units to the Soviet Player - classify them as Soviet - or else use a blank nation - they are allied but NOT KMT. Make the CCP command independent.

6) Make all guerilla units static. They live of the LOCAL land and are not very easily moved. [Not even the language is the same. There are 634 languages in China today - and at least as many in WWII. The local land is hard pressed too - it isn't good times - feeding a lot more troops is NOT going to be popular, easy or even possible.]
This is just off the top of my head. Probably there is more to it than this, but it is a fair start.

Also, use the new RHS map. [It will release in a few days - it is in test now and final errors are being corrected.] IT will work with CHS - you won't have to use it with RHS. But it gives China more mountains - something it needs to defend better. Also more trails.