Where is the 4th USMC rgt?(RHS)

[m10bob]

We have discussed this issue in past, and I was corrected several months ago with the info that the 4th had just been shipped from China to the Phillipines.
I may be going blind, but now, I cannot find them??(RHSCVO-6.XXX)..

[Fletcher]

m10bob you are not to be going blind... I can NOT find them at RHSCVO 7.696....

[JeffroK]

You mean 4th Marines[:D] Gday Don!
 
It SHOULD be there, albiet not at full strength.

[drw61]

I believe it was folded into the US Corregedor/Bataan Fort (LCU slot 2655), it has 112 USMC 41 Rifle Squads. 

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: drw61

I believe it was folded into the US Corregedor/Bataan Fort (LCU slot 2655), it has 112 USMC 41 Rifle Squads. 

Bingo. This is correct. The 4th Marines - and another "Marine battalion" whose number I forget (made mainly of sailors displaced from ships and naval activities no longer operational) - are part of the Corregador defenses - which indeed they were. I tried a number of variations of this - but ultimately technical limitations and slot numbers caused this particular compromise to seem best.

[m10bob]

Makes sense, but of course they will never be able to rebuild as a unit?

[spence]

Don't know about the Marines deployment but IIRC the "Sailors Battalion" was used as a manuever element on Bataan and fought in the Battle of the Points against a Japanese landings near Mariveles.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Makes sense, but of course they will never be able to rebuild as a unit?

We have problems with this. First - we lack the slots to have every last unit. Second, this particular unit was not a regiment at all but a battalion - and it historically didn't rebuild as a regiment - so permitting it to do so whould be somewhat ahistorical. And in our system, it would do just that every time - eating vital supply points that instead should be consumed by various units as "food" to make the siege last longer - IF we defined it as a regiment - which IRL it was not at this point in time.

But there is more going on here than meets the eye. We have big time problems with the siege on the Bataan pinnensula and Corregedor - which are in the same hex. Corregedor does not last longer than other units - it almost always dies sooner - and fixing defenses on it is a way to help it survive a bit longer. [More squads means it reaches 0 later in time]
IF I had more slots I have a way to use multiple locations in the same hex that might work - but we have too few locations as such - and it isn't yet clear Japan would ever take Corregidor with this approach? This is a compromise solution made in the context of many factors and it isn't quite what I would like. But that is how compromises go - particularly as we have no control over code limits.

[treespider]

From Gordon Rottman's US Marine Corps World War II Order of Battle:
 
 
 
[font=arial]4th Marines, 6th Marine Division [/font]
[font=arial]The 4th Regiment was activated on 16 Apr 1914 at Puget Sound, Washington, and conducted a show of force in the Gulf of Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. It moved to San Diego in Jul 1914 and supported the Panama-Pacific International and Panama-California Expositions in San Francisco and San Diego in 1915. It deployed to the Dominican Republic on 18 Jun 1916 attached to the 2d Brigade. It was redeployed in Aug 1924 and assigned to the West Coast Expeditionary Force in 1925. It deployed to China in Feb 1927 and was assigned to the 3d Brigade in May 1927. On 4 Oct 1927, the 2d Battalion, 4th Regiment (an element of the Provisional Regiment of Marines organized at Olongapo, Philippines, in Jun 1927) was redesignated 2d Battalion, 12th Regiment, and its lineage was transferred. A new 2d Battalion, 4th Regiment was organized later, but it did not carry the old battalion's lineage. The 3d Brigade redeployed in Jan 1929, but the 4th Regiment remained in Shanghai and was redesignated 4th Marines on 13 Feb 1930. It had a 3d Battalion between Jul 32 and Dec 34. The 4th Marines was attached to the 2d Marine Brigade, FMF in Sep 37. The 2d Marine Brigade withdrew in Feb 38, with the 4th Marines remaining in China.[/font]
[font=arial] [/font]
[font=arial]The 4th Marines evacuated to the Philippines, arriving by 1 Dec 41 with two battalions of only two rifle companies each and these with only two rifle platoons apiece. Marine Detachment, Naval Base, Olongapo, Subic Bay, Philippines, was absorbed into the 2d Battalion on 22 Dec 41. It was proposed to split the Regiment into two and absorb two Philippine Constabulary regiments with the 4th Marines commander in command of the resulting brigade, but this never occurred. The Regiment was moved to Corregidor between 26 and 28 Dec 41 placed under the command of U.S. Army Forces, Far East, and made responsible [/font]
[font=arial]for the beach defense of "The Rock" on the 29th. The 1st Separate Marine Battalion (less elements to the Naval Rifle Battalion) was absorbed into the 4th Marines as its 3d Battalion on 1 Jan 42. The Regimental Reserve was formed in Jan 42 from assets of the Headquarters and Service Companies as Companies O and P and Battery A, 1st Separate Marine Battalion. The 4th Battalion was organized in early Mar 42, largely from personnel of the Naval Rifle Battalion. Besides Marines, on Corregidor the Regiment comprised men drawn from 142 different units and organizations, including the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Army Air [/font]
[font=arial]Forces, Philippine Scouts, Philippine Army, Philippine Constabulary, Philippine Army Air Corps, and Philippine Army Off Shore Patrol. No single company remained purely Marine. The 4th Marines surrendered on 6 May 42 on Corregidor.[/font]
[font=arial] [/font]
[font=arial]The 4th Marines was reconstituted as a separate reinforced regiment on 1 Feb I 44 from the assets of the 1st Marine Raider Regiment (see later) on Guadalcanal and its Pack Howitzer Battalion from the 3d Battalion, 12th Marines. The Regiment was attached to Task Group A, IMAC on 22 Feb 44 for the unopposed Emirau occupation. The 4th Marines was briefly attached to the 3d Marine Division for the conduct of the planned Apr 44 Kavieng, New Ireland, assault. The Regiment was attached to the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade on 19 Apr 44 and assigned to the 6th Marine Division on 8 Sep 44. Its Pack Howitzer Battalion was [/font]
[font=arial]redesignated 1st Battalion, 15th Marines. On the eve of V-J Day it was attached to Task Force A (Third Fleet Landing Force) on 20 Aug 45 to land in Japan and then to the 2d Marine Division on 21 Sep 45. The Regiment was reattached to FMFPac on 20 Nov 45, being relieved from the administrative control of the 6th Marine Division. The 1st Battalion was deactivated on 29 Dec 45. Detachment, Headquarters Company and the Weapons Company were deactivated on 20 Jan, and the 2d Battalion on 31 Jan 46. The 3d Battalion was deactivated on 14 Feb 46, and its assets were used to form the 2d Separate Guard Battalion (Provisional). Headquarters Company ( - ) deployed to China on 17 Jan 46 and was reassigned to the 6th Marine Division, and the Regiment was reactivated on 8 Mar 46, using assets of the 22d and 29th Marines. [/font]
[font=arial] [/font]
 

[JeffroK]

Great info, I believe its strength on 7/12/41 was about 750 men, the 2 Bns x 2 Coys works out to about those numbers.

[Don Bowen]

100% correct, but omits the very interesting story of the "illegal" 1st Separate Marine Battalion.

Prior to the start of the war, Headquarters US Asiatic Fleet requested permission to withdraw the 4th Marines from China. In the event of war they would obviously get chewed up by the vastly supperior Japanese forces and would only be wasted. Washington rejected the request for political reasons.

So Asiatic Fleet began to surreptitiously withdraw the 4th by holding up replacement personnel intended for the regiment. As individual marines rotated out of China, their replacements were "Shanghai'ed" in Manila while in transit, resulting in a slow reduction in the size of the 4th Marines. As the number of marines in the Philippines increased, they were formed into a unit named the 1st Separate Marine Battalion and assigned AA and security duties at the Cavite Naval Base.

The 4th (or most of it) finally withdrew to the Philippines just before war began (a chartered troopship sent for the last contingent was lost at sea upon the start of hostilities). The 4th Marines, 1st Separate Battalion, and assorted other forces were then merged as detailed in treespider's excellent post.

[el cid again]

I had this information when working on the Bataan, Corregedor and other Manila Bay defenses. The somewhat unusual 4th Marine regiment - and a number of US Army units - are worked into the Bataan/Corregedor Fort unit. It works better as a combined unit than as a separate set of units in these senses:

a) It does not require multiple slots;

b) The single slot Fort (I tried separate slots for each major Fort, the 4th Marines, and some Army units) survives longer than the uncombined slots do if a siege develops and supply is not available;

c) All these units stay in their historical location and do not "wander off" in ways that may not have been a political option IRL;

d) The 4th Marine Regiment, not being defined as a regular regiment, does not attempt to rebuild itself into a regular regiment, which it didn't do and probably couldn't do in the early war situation.

While I regard this as an acceptable compromise, I to not think there are not other reasonable options. And I hope some day we have a better way to simulate the coast defense forts - which lose their big guns first of all in the game instead of last as IRL. If changes come our way we can revisit this particular combination again. [When a squad is lost due to lack of supply, it appears it is a statistical thing which squad is lost. Further, it appears the chance it is a particular device is linear - and if that device has only a few squads, it loses them all very early, whereas if there are many squads, some survive late.]

[drw61]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Makes sense, but of course they will never be able to rebuild as a unit?

We have problems with this. First - we lack the slots to have every last unit.

There are still 52 open LCU slots in the allied reinforcement section of the database. The database uses some of these just to state the date of arrival I.E. ------------1/42. I have tested these slots and they can be used at the beginning of the game, what I don’t know is if the AI does something with them later in the game.

(Looking at slots between 2828 and 3236 in EOS v 7.697)

[el cid again]

These slots are either free or they are used by comments. Most of the comments are dates.

We have already improperly (in a good programming sense) removed far too many comments - which are good practice - and which make using the database easier for all (including ourselves) later in time. It is also a principle of good programming to have slots for unforseen technical problems/developments. Indeed, for some time, I have been adding empty slots whereever possible, because we have too few. In some cases I have failed: see the aircraft database.

Just what slot is used for what is a judgement call - and it is my judgement that there need to be a reasonable number open wherever possible. I don't think 50ish is enough for a monster file like the location file - and I wish they were not mostly Allied slots - but split more evenly (at least 1/3 Axis).

If someone wants to use these slots they can do so. Your mod = your judgement. That will not fix the technical issues I wrote about above: the Corregidor/Bataan Fort behaves better in a technical sense with the 4th Marines folded in IMHO - based on many tests. The 4th Marines defined as a regiment behave much worse - even starting at the right size - consuming supply points to become a line unit - so if you actually like that - you can do that as well.

A technical point to note if you tamper with this is that the allegation the 4th Marines are missing is false - so if you "add" it you must also "subtract it" from the Fort - or you have a duplicated unit. And the Marines are more than just the Marine squads as such. They are some of the support and some of the heavy weapons as well.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

These slots are either free or they are used by comments. Most of the comments are dates.

We have already improperly (in a good programming sense) removed far too many comments - which are good practice - and which make using the database easier for all (including ourselves) later in time. It is also a principle of good programming to have slots for unforseen technical problems/developments. Indeed, for some time, I have been adding empty slots whereever possible, because we have too few. In some cases I have failed: see the aircraft database.

Just what slot is used for what is a judgement call - and it is my judgement that there need to be a reasonable number open wherever possible. I don't think 50ish is enough for a monster file like the location file - and I wish they were not mostly Allied slots - but split more evenly (at least 1/3 Axis).

If someone wants to use these slots they can do so. Your mod = your judgement. That will not fix the technical issues I wrote about above: the Corregidor/Bataan Fort behaves better in a technical sense with the 4th Marines folded in IMHO - based on many tests. The 4th Marines defined as a regiment behave much worse - even starting at the right size - consuming supply points to become a line unit - so if you actually like that - you can do that as well.

A technical point to note if you tamper with this is that the allegation the 4th Marines are missing is false - so if you "add" it you must also "subtract it" from the Fort - or you have a duplicated unit. And the Marines are more than just the Marine squads as such. They are some of the support and some of the heavy weapons as well.

What you did with the 4th rgt was a very sound idea. I'm all for it, for the very good reasons you gave.(Kinda remonds me of the movie "BATAAN"), actually...
If we really want the 4th resurrected in '44 (as a prior post suggests), we can always do it as historically was done with many units, all over the globe, with maybe one "free" slot.

[el cid again]

The 4th Marine Regiment (Reconstituted) IS ALREADY in ALL flavors of WITP - including RHS. It is an element of the 6th Marine Division. In fact, it is sort of double represented - because it formed from the First Marine Raider Battalion - which we have as well. Adding it again is, ah, reduntently redundant?

[m10bob]

You're way ahead of us, and my original question has been answered...Thanks all.............