Chinese war theater (Full Version)

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Ildabaoth -> Chinese war theater (5/12/2010 12:55:05 AM)

Hi, guys,

I'm a rookie and english isn't my native language, so please be nice. [&:]

I'm playing a full campaign with the Allied. As far as I know, keeping the japanese at bay in China isn't an easy task. So I'm doing the following things:

- Used most of early PPs to change a lot of bad Chinese commanders.

- Moved some air transports and level bombers to Ledo in order to provide some small supply (btw, it is ok if my level bombers don't have the range to provide supply to Chengtu, but an small town (Paoshan)?)

- Moved the reserve forces from central China to Changsha, so I have some infantry and artillery with 50 experience available to combat.

- Deployed some forces from to periferal positions ahead of Changsha. They engage some japanese troops and when they are getting tired/low on supplies, I send in reinforcements and retire them to the city again. Then rinse and repeat.

- Whenever it is possible, I move small forces to important roads so they disrupt the japanese supply lines, but as soon as any Japanese unit is approaching, they take the leave (I don't even wait to see how big is the japanese unit, and the recon planes don't give me the unit size).

- Commited some forces to important battles in northern China(more than 50.000 troops engaged sometimes). To do that, I move in some regiments/divisions to do a couple of bombing rounds, and then they are joined by fresh troops, who do a quick shock attack. So far, that have been succesful, but I haven't tried to follow the retiring japanese troops because I don't know what can be lurking behind them.

- I have read that a lot of people prefer to do suicide attacks by units with less than 1/3 of their full force, because they are replaced in a few months. But I don't have the guts to send them to a meat grinder, so I rather send them to the rear area. By doing that, am I putting in risk the Chinese campaign?

As I've told you, things are going ok so far, but I'm afraid the japanese forces used to the Singapore invasion may be redeployed in China. If they go to Rangoon instead, it's ok for me, because I'm not commited to hold the line there.

I'd like to have some feedback and advice from the experts over here. Specially about the deployment of the central China reserve units, the decision to preserve the units with high casualties instead of sacrificing them and the commitement to battles in northern China. Thanks.



bairdlander2 -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/12/2010 4:00:56 AM)

If you play the quiet china scenario,you dont have to worry about china,the ai does it.



Ildabaoth -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/12/2010 4:18:28 AM)

Thanks, Bairdlander. But I do want to play with the Chinese army too, so I want some advice about it. [;)]



Smeulders -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/12/2010 10:59:21 AM)

A couple of hints for the China theatre.

a) Find and engage Chinese collaborator units, these hardly have any replacements. Doing damage to these will force the AI to use there better Japanese troops for garrison purposes. This may be a good reason not to retreat at the first sight of an enemy, if they are collaborator units, they will take casualties rooting you out and you win. If they are Japanese units ... well, you can afford the losses.
b) I wouldn't say preserving battered units is throwing away the China campaign, certainly not against the AI, but it isn't helping you. I'm not saying to throw them at the heaviest enemy concentration you can find (Though feel free to do so), but use them to cut off roads. They'll get eliminated eventually, but again, you can take the losses.
c) The AI remains the AI, from time to time it will throw forces forward without enough strength, stand fast, get a unit to enter the hex to cut the enemies retreat path and eliminate it.




mg62 -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/12/2010 1:15:38 PM)

I'm still kind of a rookie myself, but here are my 2 cents.  Initially I was overwhelmed with the Chinese theater but now find it keeps the action going while action in the Pacific is slow due to staging of units & resupplying.

I have found that I let north east china move to a stalemate quickly in the beginning of the game.  I keep enough forces there to block the few IJ advances the AI puts out.  In my current game I have in the south moved to recover some of the initial losses but am not entering Canton.  I did this in my WItP game and it became a pit for more and more units; eventually I won but it took most of the free Chinese units and did took a lot of time.  I am at a stand off 1-2 hexes out.

Most of my action in the current game against the AI is in the central China.  My goal is to try to cut off and surround units, then regroup.  By keeping the focus narrow I'm better able to deal with the land units.  My big concern now is a bunch of IJ units parked on the road to Burma cutting off supplies.

I may be missing something but I have not been seen much benefit to the Chinese Air units except as recon.  I did get some good mileage out of the flying tigers early in the game.



maypor1410 -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/14/2010 2:05:33 PM)

hey
 
 
 
how is the theatre now??
 
 
 
 
like ur post....
 
 
 
 
and thnx for the information



Q-Ball -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/14/2010 2:10:28 PM)

The biggest tip: Don't fight in open terrain. The Chinese get slaughtered in open terrain. That probably means abandoning the central plain around Nanning and Loyang and heading for the woods. Painful, but you will live to fight another day, and you'll probably stop the Japanese.



Chickenboy -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/14/2010 2:54:15 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

The biggest tip: Don't fight in open terrain. The Chinese get slaughtered in open terrain. That probably means abandoning the central plain around Nanning and Loyang and heading for the woods. Painful, but you will live to fight another day, and you'll probably stop the Japanese.

Q-ball has got this totally wrong.

Please keep those Chinese troops in the triangle Loyang-Nanning-Chungting (sp?). It's very important that you keep them in the open plains around these three cities. You can keep them here indefinitely-ignore the IJA spearheads focusing on liquidating these pockets. When you get these cities cut off from outside retreat or supply, that's a good thing. This really bothers IJ players a lot. Liquidating large populations of Chinese on the open plain is very difficult to do as the IJ and I urge all my Allied PBEM partners to consider such resistance. [;)]

Don't throw me into the briar patch please!

ETA: Forgive my sardonic response above. Alright, Q-ball's not wrong here. As a matter of fact he's right. The Chinese get slaughtered in open terrain. An IJ player can bag a lot of Chinese troops in the triangle Nanning-Loyang-Chungting if they stand and fight. Terrain is the Chinese troops best ally. It's the only thing keeping them alive.

I've never understood the logic of letting whole units be destroyed just because you 'get them back' later at 1/3 strength. The cost / benefit side of that equation is still squarely with the IJ forces. Even the Chinese get limited squads of (crap) infantry. It takes supply and time to flesh these units out. Supply in the Chinese theater is very limited, so squandering it on unnecessary squad replacements for units that shouldn't have been killed in the first place is foolhardy, IMO.




Sredni -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/14/2010 3:55:37 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
I've never understood the logic of letting whole units be destroyed just because you 'get them back' later at 1/3 strength. The cost / benefit side of that equation is still squarely with the IJ forces. Even the Chinese get limited squads of (crap) infantry. It takes supply and time to flesh these units out. Supply in the Chinese theater is very limited, so squandering it on unnecessary squad replacements for units that shouldn't have been killed in the first place is foolhardy, IMO.


I was throwing away those units that start at less then 1/3rd strength and preserving the ones that were higher, or had the potential to be higher with a little rest. There's a lot of chinese units imo that come back stronger if you let them die.

I'm also planning to establishing a group of 500 av or so that I will just constantly recycle. Sending them out to take some chokepoint and leaving them to die only to be reborn again 30 days later. Or just simply using them to wear down some IJA stack somewhere with fruitless attacks. Put them in one of my defensive strongpoints and having them shock attack until depleted while the actual defenders stand back and watch.(I think you can have partial attacks?)

That 500 av may only kill 100 av of IJA (or worse lol, the chinese are pretty bad), but in the long run attrition favors the chinese yes?



Ildabaoth -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/28/2010 5:18:18 AM)

Update: Yes, I had to change my strategy. I mean, I tried to be conservative with the troops, but there are not enough supplies to keep them running, so, unless I'm mistaken, they will begin to die anyways due to the lack of supplies. It has become more like a guerrilla warfare. I use the planes not to fight, but to recon, and as soon as I locate some japanese unit isolated, I gather some Chinese groups close to it to attack it, big enough to cause high casualties in a single shock attack and then I retire them to the original position as soon as more japanese units arrive. Once I tried to hold the city I gained after one of these raids, but several japanese division arrived in a sudden shock attack and the result was awful: 18000 chinese casualties vs. 250 japanese casualties. So until now (june 1942) the attrition warfare is going on nicely. I don't have an estimation of Japanese casualties in the Chinese Theater, but I'm pretty sure it has been costly for them. And considering it well, it is not far away from reality: one of the reasons the japanese decided to attack the european colonies was that in Chine they were expending more resources and men than what they were getting there.



PMCN -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/28/2010 10:07:05 AM)

Not to disagree with the comment about fighting in bad terrain, because terrain is the chinese army's friend...I've had a single corp in jungle and level 4 entrenchments hold off 3 ind. bde's for 6 months or so...but due to the fact that it is often hard to get supply to stay in cities it is a good idea to defend in depth.  If you are dug in even open terrain is not so bad...though admittedly you do need about a 2:1 "AV" ratio to make the fight "fair."

But if the IJA makes the point to take something I doubt you can stop them regardless of terrain.  However they have to have a supply line so surrounding them is a good plan.  Plus not every IJA unit is made of up of good troops.  I don't see any reason to not bomb the japanese with the chinese air force, just practice "no be there" when their fighter cover shows up but the CAF has inflicted serious casualties on IJA formations operating far form their air bases.  The SB-III's even fly against light opposition although that eventually cost me a fair number of them, but still the planes are tough and were effective against a couple of nate's.

I personally don't like throwing troops away so I don't think that just because you will get a formation back at 1/3 strength this is a good reason to just toss formations into the meat grinder willy nilly.  The replacement rate for rifle squads is 200 per month, and for heavy weapons it is much much lower.  It will take a long time to replace serious losses in formations, plus the loss in experienced troops etc  I can't see this being good in the long run.  I look at it more as way of saying that if a formation is destroyed due to mischance well c'est la vie no need to get worked up about it there are always more peasants to be rounded up.

The key to holding a city is the fortification level inside it, the overall number of men in attack and defense plus supplies.  I've destroyed a japanese division shock attacking across a river into Loyang.  But with fort level 4 and the number of troops involved it is hardly a surprise.  The same occurred with a japanese division shock attacked (involuntary) into open terrain but against the same level of forts and same density of troops.  I also have repaired damaged industry, especially the heavy industry since it gives both supplies and new heavy weapons.  The supply cost may be high in the short term but in the long term you get the supplies back due to increased daily production and more heavy weapons is important.  Chungking is at full production capacity and Chengsa has also recovered a great deal even in only may of 42.

To me it is a question of defense in depth, cutting off the japanese troops advancing, and holding territory.  Patience basically.



anarchyintheuk -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/28/2010 4:42:41 PM)

When your troops are in the city, be careful to note whether they have adequate supplies listed in the lba unit screen. Generally, they don't. Your troops were probably fighting w/ no supplies. Best of luck.



castor troy -> RE: Chinese war theater (5/29/2010 8:06:03 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

When your troops are in the city, be careful to note whether they have adequate supplies listed in the lba unit screen. Generally, they don't. Your troops were probably fighting w/ no supplies. Best of luck.



yeah, defending China in bases is a nogo for the Chinese. It wonīt be possible to avoid it totally but the Japanese should do all his best to force the Chinese into their bases because the bases canīt be defended as the troops in bases wonīt be supplied but the troops outside will. Of course you can use the editor and give the Chinese 500.000 supplies, that would mean their bases would have supplies for the troops but it probably wonīt take long and some Allied players would use those supplies to go ont he offensive big style. [:D]



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