Japanese Death Star Artillery

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: ckammp

The solution is easy, and obvious:

Play vs. AI.

Playing vs. AI avoids the gamey "unbeatable artillery death star".

Thus, playing vs. AI is the best, most satisfying method of enjoying WitP:AE. [:)]

ouch, all of what you said here just hurts...

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: treespider


Which is why when I get around to doing my mod a fair number of these guys will be made to be Permanently restricted. If Japan wants to take units out of manchuria let them take the Infantry and some Tanks...units which actually count towards the garrison requirements.

making them permanetly restricted sounds good but it doesn´t change the fact that you can move them overland into China, Burma or even India. This could only be restricted by a hr then. No movement out of Manchuria without having paid pps, you can´t for artillery so it would have to stay there.

You could add some garrison unites to their TOE which would anchor them, if you wanted to make some mobile over the years, you could withdraw/replace them with a unit without the garrison unit.

What drives the supply usage for a LCU?

If you put extra support sections would it draw more supply 9without affecting anything else?)

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: goran007

Considering number of barrels for a offensive that a typical 'death star' would have, casualties are by far less that it would have been. Baloney! If that were true, then the entire German Army Group Center would have disappeared on June 22nd, 1944. The Russians used 31,000 artillery pieces and rocket launchers in their barrage that day (many times what Japan ever owned), plus 2600 attack aircraft. But they still needed 1,200,000 troops, 5200 tanks, and most of a month to finish the "Destruction of Army Group Center". And Russian Guns a lot heavier and better than any Japanese Artillery ever was.

To make this clearer to those who keep insisting that 10,15, or even 20 bns. of Japanese Artillery is such a massive force..., "Operation Bagration" referred to above took place along a 400 km frontage (240 miles)---or 6 WITP-AE hexes! That means more than 5,000 Artillery Pieces (not "guns" as anything from an MG on up as the game defines it) in EVERY HEX! Plus more than 400 "bombers" for every hex.

Comparing that with the at most 250 Artillery pieces represented by 20 Japanese Artillery units in the game. You are talking about a drop in the ocean. And to use those guns for a single turn of bombardment, the Russians brought forward 17,000 train car loads of ammunition. Try matching that to the rediculously small supply expenditures in the Game. [8|]

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: goran007

Considering number of barrels for a offensive that a typical 'death star' would have, casualties are by far less that it would have been. Baloney! If that were true, then the entire German Army Group Center would have disappeared on June 22nd, 1944. The Russians used 31,000 artillery pieces and rocket launchers in their barrage that day (many times what Japan ever owned), plus 2600 attack aircraft. But they still needed 1,200,000 troops, 5200 tanks, and most of a month to finish the "Destruction of Army Group Center". And Russian Guns a lot heavier and better than any Japanese Artillery ever was.

To make this clearer to those who keep insisting that 10,15, or even 20 bns. of Japanese Artillery is such a massive force..., "Operation Bagration" referred to above took place along a 400 km frontage (240 miles)---or 6 WITP-AE hexes! That means more than 5,000 Artillery Pieces (not "guns" as anything from an MG on up as the game defines it) in EVERY HEX! Plus more than 400 "bombers" for every hex.

Comparing that with the at most 250 Artillery pieces represented by 20 Japanese Artillery units in the game. You are talking about a drop in the ocean. And to use those guns for a single turn of bombardment, the Russians brought forward 17,000 train car loads of ammunition. Try matching that to the rediculously small supply expenditures in the Game. [8|]

Exactly.

Ppl keep saying. Art rules, BIG guns do damage, art caused 70% of casulties in WWII.
All good and true in it self.

Its a question of see the bigger picture. A few btn of 75-105mm or 155mm guns doesnt do that much. If u, as some do, compare to WWI, western or eastern front WWII the number of guns involved in doing these in game high number of casulties are rediciously low.
Do u know, well read above and u might get a clue how many guns there were or could be in a 40 mile hex on the eastern or western front in WWII. Heck Normandy is equaliant to around 2 40 miles hex of front. The brits, americans and other allied packed more guns into those 2 hexes than what is in all of WITP AE combined, if u exclude the soviet forces [;)], during july 1944. Normandy campaign was one long campaign of attrition not 3 days of bombardment and then it was over.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Walloc
Normandy campaign was one long campaign of attrition not 3 days of bombardment and then it was over.

Well seydlitz's attack on Voroshilov started on 29 Jan 1942 and last time I checked it was 7 Feb, 1942...will be curious how long it goes on...needless to say its longer than 3 days...Normandy didn't involve a disorganized Chinese rabble defending.[;)]

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: WITPPL
Art should inflict much less casualties in the open than in a city.

My goodness. What artillery units have you served in??? You seem to have gotten this exactly backwards!!!
[:)]

I wasn't a gun bunny, and even I know that's the wrong way around.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Well seydlitz's attack on Voroshilov started on 29 Jan 1942 and last time I checked it was 7 Feb, 1942...will be curious how long it goes on...needless to say its longer than 3 days...Normandy didn't involve a disorganized Chinese rabble defending.[;)]

No, but this rabble or what ever other conditions, take ur pick made, china a war of attrition too. It toke the japs 4 years to get where they are at 7 dec 1941 and as mentioned in other posts in other threads. Jap toke 500.000 casulties in the '44 campaigns. How ever succesfull they were i dont think 6-9 art btns pulled down from Manchuria would have changed that in the way we see it currently in China.

Keeping going back to the chinease was rabble argument and they "could" have rolled over the chinease with a snease doenst hold true when u compare them to the succesfull '44 attacks. It was far from costless and there were more jap troops in '44 than in '41.

As to seydlitz AAR. Well if u start to look at those casulties, compare them to eastern front since its now not chinease rabble but the "same" troops as on the eastern front. Look at the number of guns involved and compare it to number of guns(meaning real art not 81mm morters) employed at for example Bagration and so on. The casulty rate is
still way overrated in the game it seems. Ofc FoW have to be taken into account. It matters much from what i see in my own games in not giving an accurate casulty report.

By nature of FoW i cant tell the exact casulty, but one tried to add up the casulties given in those 10 days and consider the number of guns as per FoW is 422 jap of all caliber in the latest report. Seen up too 700ish in others, but remember this isnt all high caliber art gunes. Presumably some are even AT guns.

The casulties is what near 2-3k per day of bombardment when they actually fire.
Even if we quater that, a very signficant reduction, saying FoW is to high. So that could be near 20k/4, 5k+ in a weeks time.
Considering the germans toke 200k to all causes during the entire normandy campaign, with many many times the number of troops and guns involved. I still say to that bombardment/combat engine in some cases causes way to many casulties.
Im not saying its one sided, in some cases but we got no explanation from russian side does the russian art take the same toll. Just highligting the issue.
One can only imagien, i assume the test team = you, would know more on that. That late game US art is capable ofc causing massive casulties too.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Canoerebel]

The problem with the "Allied artillery will even things out later in the war" argument is that its too late to help China.  As the game currently stands, the Japanese player can eliminate China in 1942 if he wishes to do so and if there isn't an HR to prevent it.
 
There is no way historically that Japan would strip Manchuria of all artillery while leaving behind the rest of the troops.  You don't strip an entire army of it's artillery.  Shouldn't artillery and other units necessary to support an army and defend a region ALL be included in the garrison requirement?
 
And isn't it logical that fortifications should substantially reduce artillery casualties?
 
It also seems logical that moving artillery and setting it up ought to take a bit longer, the artillery ought to use more supply, and artillery that sustains fire for long periods ought to have guns disabled.
 
Those items will also slow down Allied use of artillery later in the war.

[erstad]

One thing to keep in mind is that the "casualties" incurred in Witp/AE are not all casualties in the normal sense. Certainly, it includes dead and wounded; but it also includes anyone who has been rendered combat ineffective in the immediate term. (which is why the disabled squads can recover so quickly - it's not all folks with bandaids and concussions).

I don't know that I've ever seen a list of what effects are included in "disabled", but I would assume it includes people temporarily separated from their unit; units which are out of ammo and need resupply, units which have been forced to relocate and are temporarily out of the chain of command, units whose equipment is broken/damaged needing repair, guys who lost their rifles, etc.

Main point is you have to be a little careful in using "casualties" as the main metric in comparing to historical arty actions.

Which doesn't take away from the fact I would agree that the overall effect of arty currently seems overpowered, but there's enough other people weighing in what the cause is and what the fix should be that I'm not going to join in there.

[FatR]

  To be honest, at least until the beginning of 1943, when USSR position finally stabilizes, Japanese should be able to safely strip Manchuria and leave there only token forces. And Kwantung Army was gradually bled of its valuable assets anyway, leaving underequipped and undertrained second-rate forces. In 1941-42 they kept so much troops and equipment there, because they did not want to miss the opportunities, opened by USSR's highly possible collapse and IJA leadership wanted to invade anyway.

  So, actually removing tanks and guns from Manchuria should be quite possible. The problem is not in reinforcements from there, it is in low supply demands for bombardments, relative ease of getting those supplies to far corners of China (historically, supply difficulties and garrison demands were the main factors that stalled Japanese advance) and exponential growth of bombardment effectiveness with increase of the number of units involved.   

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: treespider
One thing every one needs to keep in mind here...the Japanese player has taken a sizable chunk of the Independent Artillery units from Manchuria and placed them into one hex to fire on some poorly trained and led Chinese troops...

But it’s a 40 mile wide hex. Massive artillery bombardments did not saturate 40x40 miles worth of territory. Rather they would be focused on one or maybe two units and used to shatter the defenders on a local narrow front to help create a breakthrough for armored spearheads, something that did not occur in the Pacific.

Japan NEVER utilized mass artillery type attacks so it shouldn’t even be permitted by them in game period. There should be an upper cap set to the number of artillery type units allowed to fire in a single hex in one turn for Japan, China, ANZAC and Britain. Though Britain should have a larger upper limit of units allowed to fire.

And the number of units affected by bombardments should be restricted to one or two units only, not all 10 or more defending corps. Artillery was not that damn powerful. What the game simulates right now is tactical nukes it’s nothing like realistic artillery fire.

ORIGINAL: treespider
As Q-ball so eloquently posted...If the Japanese had been able to concentrate their artillery for such an Attack, this outcome probably would have occurred.

No it wouldn’t have occurred, because it doesn’t match Japanese doctrine. This is a Japanese fantasy scenario pure and simple. They did not fight lighting war type breakthrough battles, so massive bombardments followed by armored breakthroughs were not part of their battle plans.

The US would probably be the only power capable to use this kind of battle doctrine in the Pacific theater, though I personally would argue against allowing it, since it was something they used in Europe and wasn’t necessarily needed in the Pacific.

Granted they had the knowhow, but the fighting they were involved in in the Pacific never saw massed artillery bombardments other than pre-landing saturation bombardments by the navy. And perhaps the fighting on Okinawa would possibly fall into a massed artillery category, but nowhere else.

ORIGINAL: treespider
So the question is not necessarily how to tone down the attack, but what makes this kind of attack possible?

Again pure fantasy speculation about capabilities that Japan did not posses, nor ever attempted to use.

Jim

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: erstad

One thing to keep in mind is that the "casualties" incurred in Witp/AE are not all casualties in the normal sense. Certainly, it includes dead and wounded; but it also includes anyone who has been rendered combat ineffective in the immediate term.

Hehe, i know its a pet peeve of urs Erstad. When i use the term casulties its not just dead and wounded. Its explicitly from all causes. Of those 200k german casulties in normandy a good number was just wounded returning later on. A good number didnt.

(which is why the disabled squads can recover so quickly - it's not all folks with bandaids and concussions).

Hehe think u playing Jap exclusively Erstad [;)] I dont know if i would use the word fast, at leased exclusivly.
I've closely followed Chinease units resting with the best avaible leaders with tracker. They on average gets no more than 1 squad back per turn resting and is no imidiate danger aka not in same hex as japanease air bombarded or similar. i know from personal experience it goes alot faster on the japanease side. The reason is ofc better leadership, moral xp and so on in game term. The overall effect is that disable squads on for example chinease side act much differently than u experience on jap side. They are in effect out of the battle for a significant peridode ofc affect ur ability to hold what ever ur trying to hold if any thing. Not just in the "first" battle in any comming one's too.

I don't know that I've ever seen a list of what effects are included in "disabled", but I would assume it includes people temporarily separated from their unit; units which are out of ammo and need resupply, units which have been forced to relocate and are temporarily out of the chain of command, units whose equipment is broken/damaged needing repair, guys who lost their rifles, etc.

Main point is you have to be a little careful in using "casualties" as the main metric in comparing to historical arty actions.

Im not disputing that in the sense of logic, but the effect is just diffent in game for the chinease side. I've had a unit in Chungking from the start of all my games. Its starts at 50% disabled. Been continusly resting and naturlly fully supported and supplied. 4(130 turns) months into the game it has far from fully recovered those 50% disabled. Just imagine what the rate of recovery is for the badly supplied not fully supported units the chinease generally field. No, u dont have enough HQs/support squads so not just a question doing better nor do u have much supplies so u cant keep ur troops supplied.

So in theory u might be right, its just not the real condition at leased for the chinease side.


Kind regards,

Rasmus

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The problem with the "Allied artillery will even things out later in the war" argument is that its too late to help China.  As the game currently stands, the Japanese player can eliminate China in 1942 if he wishes to do so and if there isn't an HR to prevent it.

There is no way historically that Japan would strip Manchuria of all artillery while leaving behind the rest of the troops.  You don't strip an entire army of it's artillery.  Shouldn't artillery and other units necessary to support an army and defend a region ALL be included in the garrison requirement?

And isn't it logical that fortifications should substantially reduce artillery casualties?

It also seems logical that moving artillery and setting it up ought to take a bit longer, the artillery ought to use more supply, and artillery that sustains fire for long periods ought to have guns disabled.

Those items will also slow down Allied use of artillery later in the war.

you do strip an entiry army of artillery (except what is in the divs itselve) if you think it´s a front where nothing will happen. The problem is that the Japanese in the game know that there won´t happen much, better say nothing, if they don´t activate the Russians themselve.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
The problem is that the Japanese in the game know that there won´t happen much, better say nothing, if they don´t activate the Russians themselve.

Yeah, I wonder how much artillery they'd buy out if every time a unit was bought there was a 1 in 6 random roll for immediate Russian activation.

Jim

[seydlitz_slith]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Yeah, I wonder how much artillery they'd buy out if every time a unit was bought there was a 1 in 6 random roll for immediate Russian activation.

Jim

I like the way that you think. The current numerical game is just that, a game where you know the rules.
There should be a hidden numeric range that has a wide variation in each game as to the amount of AV that the Japanese player must keep there. The Japanese player should not know what this number is. That way, he can never be sure if the Soviets will activate if he pulls any troops out, or potentially even if he pulls no troops out at all.

You could have a formula that is checked every so often:

Check for Soviet activation every third turn during supply phase.

Chance of activation = 5%-((USSR AV in theater-Japanese AV in theater)/10,000) + (allied victory points/10000) - (japanese victory points/10000) <roundup all fractions to next highest %.


Formula is just an example but illustrates my point.

If based on a difference between soviet and japanese AV in theater the Japanese player would have to be more careful because he couldn't be sure what the soviet AV count really is. Planes need to be counted in somehow for both sides.

The victory point modifiers would come into play because it would simulate the reluctance to attack a Japan that was kicking tail and demonstrating strength while at the same time it would encourage the soviets to pile on a japan that was very weak. All of this would serve to make the japanese player very careful about all troops in theater. The risk of a soviet intervention would go up as he is also losing in other theaters.

Not perfect for sure, but maybe a good talking point to get us to a proper suggestion.

[Feltan]

I suspect if one interviewed Japanese generals after the war, and asked them if it would have been a good idea to pull more artillery out of Manchuria to address the "China Problem," the answer would have been a unanimous "yes."

Of course, that is hindsight too.

However, the Japanese clearly had the option to do so. It is also pretty clear that the Russians probably wouldn't have done anything even if Manchuria was reduced more dramatically. They didn't want a second front. Period. When approached by the British in late '41 about the issue, they simply wouldn't even entertain the issue.

I believe the garrison requirements, as they stand, are realistic -- perhaps even a bit too restrictive. For even if the Japanese player benefits from historical hindsight about Russian options, the Russian/Allied player benefits too from knowledge about Japanese options.

Hence, I don't think the Death Star problem has to do with, or will be solved by, the location of artillery units from Manchuria. One way or another, there is going to be concentrations of artillery. Rather, the issue has to do with doctrinal employment and logistical restrictions, and it affects both sides.

Regards,
Feltan

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Feltan

I suspect if one interviewed Japanese generals after the war, and asked them if it would have been a good idea to pull more artillery out of Manchuria to address the "China Problem," the answer would have been a unanimous "yes."

Of course, that is hindsight too.

However, the Japanese clearly had the option to do so. It is also pretty clear that the Russians probably wouldn't have done anything even if Manchuria was reduced more dramatically. They didn't want a second front. Period. When approached by the British in late '41 about the issue, they simply wouldn't even entertain the issue.

I believe the garrison requirements, as they stand, are realistic -- perhaps even a bit too restrictive. For even if the Japanese player benefits from historical hindsight about Russian options, the Russian/Allied player benefits too from knowledge about Japanese options.

Hence, I don't think the Death Star problem has to do with, or will be solved by, the location of artillery units from Manchuria. One way or another, there is going to be concentrations of artillery. Rather, the issue has to do with doctrinal employment and logistical restrictions, and it affects both sides.

Regards,
Feltan

To be honest, if the Japanese had really put any effort into it, they could have used all the units that attacked the SRA on Dec 8, 1941 to solve the China problem in the years leading up to the war. In the real war, the Japanese never made the committment to China that players often do. Players have hindsight, and to us, neutralizing those Chinese airbases that are in Heavy bomber range of the Home Islands is not only a good idea, its almost imperative.

I think the original solution posted several pages ago is the best, and it not only nuetralizes the Japanese artillery death stars, but the allied ones as well. Bombardments should do the damage they do now, but at a steep cost in supply usage, making it possible but unsustainable.

And if you wanted to tack an additional penalty on it, fatigue could rise sharply as well with each bombardment, as loading guns for long periods of time is hard work.

[medicff]

ORIGINAL: treespider


Well seydlitz's attack on Voroshilov started on 29 Jan 1942 and last time I checked it was 7 Feb, 1942...will be curious how long it goes on...needless to say its longer than 3 days...Normandy didn't involve a disorganized Chinese rabble defending.[;)]

Well technically it is not the Chinese rabble defending but much higher quality and quantity of RUSSIAN equipment. I would say by seydlitz AAR that the Russians are doing are much more capable battle than Chinese with more equipment and still both sides are having enormous casualties. I would reckon to say without seeing the other side of the AAR that the difference in who will win is the lack of supply for the Russians being almost cutoff which is translating into destroyed units instead of disabled.

Pat

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: medicff

ORIGINAL: treespider


Well seydlitz's attack on Voroshilov started on 29 Jan 1942 and last time I checked it was 7 Feb, 1942...will be curious how long it goes on...needless to say its longer than 3 days...Normandy didn't involve a disorganized Chinese rabble defending.[;)]

Well technically it is not the Chinese rabble defending but much higher quality and quantity of RUSSIAN equipment. I would say by seydlitz AAR that the Russians are doing are much more capable battle than Chinese with more equipment and still both sides are having enormous casualties. I would reckon to say without seeing the other side of the AAR that the difference in who will win is the lack of supply for the Russians being almost cutoff which is translating into destroyed units instead of disabled.

Pat

How well fortified is Voroshilov versus anywhere in China? Fortifications should have an impact on bombardment effectiveness as well.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: Walloc
Normandy campaign was one long campaign of attrition not 3 days of bombardment and then it was over.

Well seydlitz's attack on Voroshilov started on 29 Jan 1942 and last time I checked it was 7 Feb, 1942...will be curious how long it goes on...needless to say its longer than 3 days...Normandy didn't involve a disorganized Chinese rabble defending.[;)]

Nor does it involve highly flexible and well-equipped Allied Artillery! Japan's artillery weapons and fire control were at least a generation (if not two) behind the Allies. Think of them as the Italians of the Pacific.