Armor corps in the Pacific?

WarPlan Pacific is an operational level wargame which covers all the nations at war in the Pacific theatre from December 1941 to 1945 on a massive game scale.

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ncc1701e
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Armor corps in the Pacific?

Post by ncc1701e »

Currently in the game:
  • Japan can build Mechanized Corps and Armor Corps
  • UK can build Mechanized Corps and Armor Corps
  • USA can build Mechanized Corps and Armor Corps
  • USSR can build Mechanized Corps and Armor Corps
  • China can build Mechanized Corps and Armor Corps

I really wonder if this is historical:
  • None of the USA armor divisions were in the Pacific not speaking of corps
  • Japan had only four tank divisions never in any corps
  • Australian, Indian, UK, USA, China, Japan mostly engaged Tank Brigade or Tank Regiment

Nothing closed to a division or a corps. In the Pacific, tanks were employed to support infantry.

In my opinion, expect for USSR, all Armor Corps should be removed from building options.

Since tanks were there to support infantry, I would keep only Mechanized corps even if this is not really the Mechanized corps of USSR for the rest of the countries.

Any opinion about this idea?
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Platoonist
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Re: Armor corps in the Pacific?

Post by Platoonist »

Both the US 13th and 20th armored divisions (forming XIII Corps) were slated as reserves for the invasion of Honshu island in Operation Coronet planned for March 1946. Although they never got closer to Japan than California, they might have seen action there had the war had dragged on long enough.

I suppose if a player wishes to build such formations they should have the freedom to do so. However, they were not many locations outside of the plains of northern mainland Asia where such formations would have been able to operate with the sort of sweeping effectiveness they did in Europe. Besides the Kanto Plain there weren't many locations in mountainous Japan itself that would have been armor friendly. Like the fighting in Italy and Korea it would have been mostly an infantry slug-fest.

I imagine there are vast swathes of Australia that are tank friendly, but they weren't the parts Japan was likely interested in. Nationalist China building an armored corps seems plausible only if Uncle Sam provides both the training and the Shermans and the funding for both doesn't get embezzled away.
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ncc1701e
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Re: Armor corps in the Pacific?

Post by ncc1701e »

China had one mechanized division only, it seems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/200th_Div ... nary_Army)

Initially, China had Russian tanks (mainly T-26) then US tanks (M3A3, M5A1 Stuart).

I agree we may leave the players with this possibility.

Japan could have indeed put together its division to form a corps.

It is just that an UK armor corps in Burma can be extremely annoying. :lol:
By chance, UK has not a lot of logistics.
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stjeand
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Re: Armor corps in the Pacific?

Post by stjeand »

In the mod I had been working on a year ago...all armor was converted to divisions outside of the USSR.

It just made more sense in the Pacific since tanks were not used to the extent as in Europe.
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Re: Armor corps in the Pacific?

Post by ncc1701e »

Make sense yes. I was not thinking it was possible. I mean armor division for everybody except USSR that could have armor corps.
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Re: Armor corps in the Pacific?

Post by stjeand »

And it is not like the USSR is building armored corps anyways...but the option was there.
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