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RoyalOak -> RE: History of the War in CHina vs Japan (9/21/2004 12:20:46 PM)
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I think too the way the Japanese-Chinese war is depicted in the game is ahistorical, mainly because this war was not a conventional one.
I just copy-past the description Qy-Panzer made in this forum a year ago (the original thread is here)
quote:
The war between China and Japan in WWII can be divided into 3 parts (from China's view): Resisting battle, seesaw battle, counterattack.
First is Resisting battle:
Now it is 1937, and the China war finally broke out, in ShangHai. Just as Mogami has mentioned, KuoMinTang put its Germanlized army in the front. These Germanlized armies are really powerful, because of both its fine German weapons and good training by German drillmasters. The campaign of ShangHai lasted several monthes, at first, Japanese army couldn't advance because the Chinese Germanlized army are just as strong as them. However, as KuoMinTang government hadn't finished the reformation of its army, the number of Germanlized divisions are rather small, and the ShangHai campaign is a really hard one, these elite armies are soon lost in the campaign. Other armies are not as good in training and equip antique weapons, they can't bear the attack of Japanese arym, and China lost ShangHai campaign at last. I have to mention the civil posture of China here to let you master better why other army lost the campaign so soon. During that time, China just ended its dogfight between warlords. The main members of KuoMinTang government and military department are from different clique of warlords, this is the same with the army. Though the central government had the control right of all its army, the commander of these army didn't obey the rules every time, in fact, they only obey their warloads' commands well. Because of this, central government don't provide equal supply, weapons and training to the armies belonged to warlords as those belong to KuoMinTang itself. So when the elite armies of KuoMinTang itself depleted, warlords' armies without good traing and modern weapons can't bear the attack of Japanese army, the other non-Germanlized KuoMinTang's army couldn't do this too, because as Mogami said, they hadn't finish the Germanlization and though they can get better supply than warlords' armies, they didn't have better weapons either. What's more, as some warlords were afraid that KuoMinTang want to destroy their armies by letting them bear the Japanese attack, (in fact, KuoMinTang government do did this, when some warlords' army are desroyed or weakened, the government cancel the army's designation, or reduce the size of the army)they didn't do their best in resisting and usually retreated without big loss. Just because of this, China beat great loss in the battlefield, many big cities such as ShangHai, NanJing were lost. This is the first period of China war, I think that this period of war is more like common wars in the west, because only regular army took part in the war. If the war continued like this, the history will be like brisd has encountered in the PAC game, Japan will conquer China, however, the war is different in the later days. Even in the first period, China really win some campaign, one is The Battle of Tai'erzhuang Mogami mentioned. However, loss are more than victories during this time. In this period, Japan's aim is just like paullus99 have said to conquer China totally. However, it didn't achive it.
The second period:
After 1941, Pacific war broke out, Japan has to transfer many of its experienced soldiers to the pacific battlefield. What's more, it conquered too many cities during the first period. Japanese infantry's strategy is to conquer more cities in China. If the war took part in Europe, than I think it is right, but the war broke in China. At that time, city is not the deducing factor in China, because the industry were not advanced, city is only a place where more people lived. The main part of Chinese society is rural area. Peasants can live a self-sufficent life with out cities and they are the mojarity of the population. So though Japan controled many big cities, they can't control the rural area besides these cities. Because the rural areas are too vasty, and Japan didn't have enough army to control them. Then a paradox came out, the more cities they conquered, the more manpower they have to spend on guarding them. Just as TIMJOT has said, if Japan want, they can defeat KMT armies in frontispiece battlefield, but more cities conquered means more manpower arrested in the area they conquered. This is not good for Japan, for its lacking in manpower, in fact, conquering more areas means going to be defeated in the future. So it stopped, and indeed, it has big problems in the area it conquered. Both KuoMinTang and Communist Party send many and many partisans to the back of Japanese line of defense. Things are often like this: in a county, Japanese soldiers controled the county seat, and some big towns, KMT and CCP soliders controled all other villages and small towns. Japanese soldiers are not as familiar with the terrian as Chinese soldiers, so thouhg they have better weapons, they are easily to be ambuscaded by Chinese soliders, then they don't go out often except one situtation: sweeping. Japanese army will drive sweeping action periodically, when the harvest time comes(TIMJOT mentioned it), they went out to rob the rice or at other time, they went out to attack partisans. Ususally Japanese will gather a bigger army by transfering soldiers from adjacent areas to sweep. The background I mentioned before can illustrate this period's war process. As Chinese hate Japanese very much then, Chinese peasants are always willing to help KMI and CCP partisans, they supply them, cheat Japanese sweeping soldiers,... What's more, the war in the east is unlike those in the west. There is no obvious difference between regular army soldier and millita soldier. Many peasants do faming in the days, and kill Japanese enemies in the evening or at any proper chance. In this period, Japanese armies are locked in China. But during these days, KMT and CCP really drove some big campaigns, such as ChangDe Campaign, in which Japan lost more than 10000 soldiers and some high rank officers, though KMT bore a much bigger loss: more than 30000 soldiers lost, Japan lose the campaign because it didn't get what it wanted, and was counter attacked backward. CCP also launched a campaign named "100 regiments campaign", because about 100 regiments took part in the campaign, they captured many Japanese beachheads.
The Third period:
After 1944, when Japan was drove away from pacific, Japanese generals thought that they should beat China, then, they can use transfer more power from China to the pacific battlefield. As the war last so long, both sides are tired and weakened. If China can't get enough supply from Allied countries, then, China won't last long in the frontier battlefield (though it will still counter attack in the partisian battlefield). What's more, Japan needs to build a new mainland transort line to supply its soliders in the pacific battlefield, because it is loosing the controling sea right, they also wanted to sweep US air bases out. So Japanese start to cut the supply line of China and build supply line for themselves, they launched many campaigns. Though KMT won some battles and even won a campaign, they lost most of the campaigns because of wrong strategy commands. Japan finally connect its supply line with pacific, but as I have said before, patisians attacked the supply line everyday, so though Japan army win the campaign, they can't defend it, and the supply line worked badly. US airforce still existed in China too. With US army marching towards Japan itself in pacific, China began to attack back, at 1945,08,15, Japan lost the war.
IMHO, some major changes should be made in the game. I like the idea of Strawbuck. Here is another : always give Chinese units a minimum amount of supply (let's say 30 or 40%), even if they are completely cut off. This way the Chinese player can try some guerilla tactics : just divide some units and send them in Japan rear area to cut supply line.
Or increase the amount of supply loss suffered by the Japanese when it is transfered to inland bases, to represent partisan attack on supply lines. This way, Japan should have more and more difficulties to supply his army if he attacks inland.
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