According to the OOB on this website:
http://www.niehorster.orbat.com/014_japan/41-12-08_army/_41_ija.htm
Unless I'm mistaken the following units may be missing from the CHS Japanese OOB. Perhaps they are in there somewhere and I'm just not locating them but I've checked everywhere I know to look and didn't find them. [&:]
From the 3rd Army in Kwantung 3 tank regiments which were part of the 1st Tank Brigade:
Here are a few units from the Japanese mainland I couldn't find in the game. Of course I'm not sure how accurate this web site is but if it can be backed up by other evidence then perhaps these units might be able to appear in the game. [:)]
As posted about a month ago on a Japanese armor thread, there are four such Japanese tank brigades - one committed to Malaya - and all four are in RHS. They are, logically enough, the first, second, third and fourth. They are expanded to divisions in mid 1942 - much sooner than most realize. I did this by simply adding the rest of the division as a motorized brigade - also numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 - at the right date. This means the tank brigades need not disband. Also note that CHS and stock tank regiments are not correct in strength. Now this does vary over time - but still - these are rather unusual organizations - similar to Russian Tank brigades - a bit to big to be battalions and not big enough to be a Western regiment. The unusual thing about the Japanese units is the excessive mechanized support: they don't expect to be supported by higher echelons - so they have a lot more support than any comparable unit in the West - including numbers of spare tanks!
The fifth artillery brigade is actually present - as components.
The 2nd Artillery Regiment is shown as a mountain gun unit still in Manchukuo. The 10th Artillery Regiment is shown as a "heavy" unit in CHS and a "medium" unit (with the same weapon) in RHS - it was sent to fight in the South. Since the unit split, it is correct to represent it in parts.
There has been some work on the Japanese land OOB for CHS, by Joe Wilkerson. However ony part of the OOB was revised (primarily the infantry, I believe), and so the work is incomplete, as Joe has since moved on to other things. Perhaps this part of CHS will be completed at a later time.
Andrew
Information about my WitP map, and CHS, can be found on my WitP website
I worked under Joe when he was doing this. He said he only did major land combat units: divisions, brigades, independent regiments - things like that. We consulted closely on the airborne - probably wasting way too much time getting it right - getting a newly written Osprey book (Joe found listed but they didn't send it to him) - and some wartime US intel documents. But Joe has posted since he did not review support units. This was done for RHS - and you are completely free to copy any aspect of that you wish. Joe decided NOT to have units (e.g. divisions) go in at historical strength - and to have heavy weapons as extra units (an IJA doctrine) - so I added the missing (or detached) units. [The 5th Division in Malaya was possibly the strongest division in history in terms of machine guns - every line soldier had BOTH a machine gun AND a rifle! He would pick which to carry for each firefight- and carried all the gear and ammo on a bike! In the event they did not have to go back for the extra guns - the Malays brought them forward - without looting anything. See Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Greatest Defeat. Joe felt even this unit should not go in at its historical strength - and under AI control it often is forced to retreat - which NEVER happened IRL.]
ORIGINAL: el cid again
We consulted closely on the airborne - probably wasting way too much time getting it right - getting a newly written Osprey book (Joe found listed but they didn't send it to him) - and some wartime US intel documents.
Do you mean Japanese Paratroop Forces of World War II. Of Osprey Elite Serie. I have a copy of it.
Yes - that is the one - I got one - and eventually I think Joe got one too - he had to order again after months of waiting. It is not bad. I had almost all the information in my files. Our tentative guesses were basically confirmed by the book. There was rather more airborne than we had before in the game. I even added the strange Koryu Raiding Unit - and the Tank Raiding Unit (which had to stand down from landing on a B-29 base - because the war ended).
Joe decided NOT to have units (e.g. divisions) go in at historical strength - and to have heavy weapons as extra units (an IJA doctrine) - so I added the missing (or detached) units.
Hi,
this was certainly not what Joe decided. I worked together with him on this issue, thus I'm quite familiar with the considerations that led to the current Japanese OOB in CHS. He decided not to add certain devices (mainly 81mm mortars and sometimes additional guns and ATG) to Japanese TOE's when it was dubious if this formations ever received this devices. I did not always agree with this, but there never was a decision not to go in at historical strength, it was mainly a problem of conflicting sources (Japanese doctrines are one thing, the actual implementation of the this doctrines often a completely different affair).
K
It is not clear on what basis you are disputing me? I have quite current correspondence in which Joe states that he felt - and still feels - it is wrong to go with historical strength - unless we know it is below TO&E in some respect. He does not believe it is right to give 5th Division its special OB - used only for Malaya - although de facto he did do that for 65th Brigade (because there really is little choice in the matter).
That said, I always felt that Matrix had a very exaggerated view of Japanese heavy weapons - look up the South Seas Regiment in Uncommon Valor. This is a regiment? A JAPANESE regiment?
I defy you to find such an equipment list in a scholarly source. And so I agree with you that questionable devices need removing - or segregating into specialist units. That was IJA doctrine - let the army commander attach the heavy weapons as needed. [It also was Gen Marshall's view - but IJA did it on a grand scale]. It is good simulation to let players have the few mortar, rapid fire, independent artillery, etc battalions/regiments and send them where they want.
To clarify a bit.
The CHS version which is pending contains new work in the area of IJA Infantry formations, to wit: divisions, brigades and regiments. The process used was to first look at all available sources (in English) and from those, determine the real world OOB and TOE for the in scope units. This resulted in about 20 new TO&Es. All IJA Infantry Divisions, Brigades and Regiments in the new CHS will use new TO&Es and out of scope units will still be using the old (modified stock) TOEs. A number of decisions had to be made to rationalize the real world OOB with what can be represented in the game. Many units appearing in the OOB are for example, later absorbed into newly forming units. For example separate regiments or brigades are used as the cadres for new divisions. There is no mechanism in the game (currently) to remove a unit from the OOB. These considerations resulted in for example the 31st and 71st Divisions appearing early (they are present at start) but they are heavily disrupted, indicating that they are forming and thus not available for combat operations. Likewise the 55th and 56th divisions are presented as "short" divisions as these units have one of there regiments essentially removed permanently. Those two divisions got their own TOE.
Given time, we will eventually rework the remainder of the IJA (and then the IJN) ground units. Armor, artillery and engineers would thus certainly be on the list. Sid does have good data on the IJA airborne units and thus can toss those in with no additional effort. However, reworking the armor, artillery and engineers will be more than a weekend of effort ! But existing CHS has improvements over stock in these areas.
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Is a "Disband" function still in discussion? This would enable players to set up "House Rules," with the ability to remove units at a certain point in time. For example, units would have to be "in supply," and those that are disbanded would return a % of their men/gear to the pool. This would allow the removal of such units as the USMC Raider and Parachute Battalions in early/mid 1944 (they were used as cadres to form later USMC divisions).
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Some type of "remove unit on date such and such" is almost required to be able to more accurately represent the orders of battle. There are many units in the Japanese OB (mostly regiments and brigades) that exist for a while but then get absorbed in the formation of new divisions. In a "tight" historical scenario these absorbtions would be mostly "automatic" ... i.e. on an indicated date, the "regiment/brigade" would disappear and be replaced by the division. This type of implementation is also the easiest to do. Same thing could be done for air units (for example the 47th Chutai becoming the 47th Daitai on or about Oct 43).
So yes this is on the board for possible implementation at some point.
A more flexible system allowing players to disband some units and maybe even order the creation of new units, sounds like a wonderful idea, but something like this would of course be just a bit more complex to implement !
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Dutch
