Slitherine

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The game engine does not recognise 'guerilla' type units

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

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The game engine does not recognise 'guerilla' type units

how true.....I still remember the time Bangkok was "occupied" by a sub landed fragment of 100 men.

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

at the time, no. every major LCU had been needed to complete ops in Burma and Malaya (which finished neck and neck with the historical time line) This was way back to and might have been before base unit's got some instrinsic assault value. Kind of highlights the point though. Being operational in scope the game's primary LCU type (outside of specialized units such as NLF/SNLF units or USMC "raider" battalions) is the division or brigade. Divisions can be broken down into regiments....some brigades into halves. Japan to use an example only starts the game with 11 available full divisions for SRA ops.....am i the player really expected to devote a third of a div to each major rear area base to protect against a 100 man unit landed by sub that can somehow sequester an entire city? If one wants guerilla warfare, they need the ability to control unit disposition down to the battalion and even company level. This game is too big for such a thing.

I believe in garrisoning as mentioned previously, but garrisoning against enemy mainline forces and that stretches me thin enough. I can't cover everything as it is in my 1943 game and my opponent has taken advantage, landing on empty dot bases instead and hyperbuilding them into bomber bases through mass ENG stacking.

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If one wants guerilla warfare, they need the ability to control unit disposition down to the battalion and even company level. This game is too big for such a thing.

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IF Japan had adopted a more rational policy, it could have had peace in China, kept Manchukuo, and needed no occupation troops whatever.


But they didn't...and they did need to maintain the rear garrisons...

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Its not misleading...the quote is in reference to the "millions of Japanese Chinese troops". It was not about the KMT or CCP... It was about the Japanese 'Puppet" forces.

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Although I agree that guerilla units would appear somewhat 'static' in game terms, I believe with the current game engine that would be highly impractical.
The game engine does not recognise 'guerilla' type units - they are treated as regular line units. Guerilla units in WitP do not have the ability to hit and then melt into the countryside and reappear at their choosing.
Static guerilla units would be just weak infantry that can't even run - and destroyed all too easily...so I think making them static would not be desierable with the current game engine.

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Japan to use an example only starts the game with 11 available full divisions for SRA ops.....am i the player really expected to devote a third of a div to each major rear area base to protect against a 100 man unit landed by sub that can somehow sequester an entire city? If one wants guerilla warfare, they need the ability to control unit disposition down to the battalion and even company level. This game is too big for such a thing.

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So in our game terms they are best represented as a force in an area that is tied to that hex - this is true and functional. If an enemy force ignores them, and does not garrison the hex or wipe them out, then the hex is Chinese, and so are other hexes in its zone of control. Nice simulation actually.

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But more limited reforms were not only possible

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ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Like I said,,,what is the harm in trying Treespider's idea?

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ORIGINAL: Black Mamba 1942

We need to stop this fanboyism talk right now!

Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan

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ORIGINAL: Black Mamba 1942

Any smart Allied player garrisons India anyway.

You've got to do something to prevent the bogus Japanese player Normandy landings, that were never feasable in real life. But are an all too common an occurance in WITP.

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Whoever reads this need not restate the the Japanese did it ONCE in 1937 against the Chinese.

Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan

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ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Like I said,,,what is the harm in trying Treespider's idea?

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You've got to do something to prevent the bogus Japanese player Normandy landings, that were never feasable in real life. But are an all too common an occurance in WITP.

PS:
Whoever reads this need not restate the the Japanese did it ONCE in 1937 against the Chinese.

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So in our game terms they are best represented as a force in an area that is tied to that hex - this is true and functional. If an enemy force ignores them, and does not garrison the hex or wipe them out, then the hex is Chinese, and so are other hexes in its zone of control. Nice simulation actually.

Disagree completely - the Japanese Player will quickly pacify China. Immobile units are dead meat given the mechanics of the game. The biggest advantage of the guerilla is his ability to get going (out of the way) when the going gets tough. No Japanese WitP Player will be satisfied "coexisting" in a hex with a guerilla unit - he will instead scarf up some troops somewhere and go after the immobile guerilla units one by one until they are gone completely. Then he'll leave all those battalions and friendly chineses to occupy the hexes to prevent a respawn and move 5-10 main line divisions to wherever his Blitzkreig against the West or Russia needs it.

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But more limited reforms were not only possible

One reform most unlikely would be for the IJA to stop foraging for its sustenance...that was an essential part of the IJA supply "system" and bore a marked resemblance to similar systems in use in the West DURING THE THIRTY YEARS WAR.

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Obviously it's you who misunderstands the "nature" of Chinese troops. 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 a fact easily verified, Japan had to guard the rail net with their combat troops for the entire war, the Chinese troops they raised were useless and no way deserve to be included in the game. On the other hand the Chinese troops that forced the garrisoning to occur were very useful, hence the need for heavy military garrisons throughout the war.

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ORIGINAL: el cid again
For the record, no fact about the situation in China is "easily verified." For the record, KMT made real efforts to decieve the US before and during the Pacific War. For the record, even when they told the truth (as about Japanese bw attacks), we didn't believe them. And when we captured the bw scientists and DID believe them, then WE lied, and said there was no such thing, even when Russia put some on trial (which we called a "show trial" KNOWING it was a lie). China is central to the Pacific War - it is the actual causus belli - the issue over which the war was fought - and it was CHINESE policy that the US should enter.

IF you need confirmation that China might have lost to Japan, consider the utter conviction of senior KMT officials that the USA was "the last best hope for China." At one point the second highest KMT official defected to Japan, and many went with him - he might have set up a credible regime in his own right. Japan was tricked into dithering in official recognition by "negotiations" with Chiang - and in the end this defector came to be seen as a sort of Chinese Quisling. But there are important strains of Chinese culture (Confucian strains) that say recognizing the "Mandate of Heaven" is wise, not tratorious. If you are going to lose, you should not fight, but go along - it is a way to limit bloodshed - and it works too. For a tiny hint at CHINESE materials related to this - see a study by an academic named Yauli Sun called China and the Origins of the Pacific War (using almost entirely KMT archival materials).

Also for the record, you should know the modern Chinese military history is a very esoteric subject, little understood in the West - very reputable historians and soldiers and academics and analysts are often more wrong than right in what they write - even when they are sincere (which is not always). I am something of a writer on these matters, and some of my materials are used officially, as better than any others available. I do not really think ANYONE understands this subject comprehensively - but no one who is not using Chinese, Japanese and Russian materials can ever come close. Outside China, ONLY the Russians have ever done serious study of the economics that made Japan a success in Manchuria and North China in the 1930s, for example. You don't read Russian historians, you have never heard of it.

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I see 5 Division size landings as a common happening in this game.
You should try a PBEM game, not just the AI.

This is common for the Japanese players.
I call it the "Atomic Flyswatter".
180-200000 men per assault. Yeah, ok.
So they did it TWICE.

Load em, go stomp a base.
Then reload, and go do it again elsewhere.

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Currently China is a fantasy land in the game right now. Japan fought China for five years and couldn’t win, but many players have crushed the entire country in just 6-8 months as things stand now.

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Japan lost entire divisions of troops to these “primitive” Chinese troops, two of which I believe were very modern mechanized divisions.

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So the only real issue we have is how to tie down large numbers of Japanese troops to occupation duties without making the Chinese an offensively powerful country. Their troops could and did fight very well defensively, but the Chinese government was not going to commit to any kind of an offensive strategy once the western allies had entered the war.

Representing the units on map is probably not a good solution given the mechanics of the game, so I think upping the partisan value is the best overall solution.

Now I know Japanese players love crushing the Chinese and don’t want to lose that aspect of their fun, but it is not a recreation of any kind of historical reality, it’s pure fantasy. Large Japanese offensives to try and capture the airfields should be possible in late 1944. But even those should be anything but easy, Japan should be forced to take risks and make strategic compromises in order to launch assaults on these bases.

The simplest solution seems to be to reduce the number of mobile forces available to Japan. Right now the 20+ division hammers that steamroll China need to be shaved to about 4-6 division’s max I think. Still an imposing force, but not the devastatingly overwhelming steamroller China faces now.