The Great Wall of China

[Mike Solli]

Has anyone ever put this in one of their maps? I'd be curious to see where it is. If in the right area, how would it affect combat or movement?

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Has anyone ever put this in one of their maps? I'd be curious to see where it is. If in the right area, how would it affect combat or movement?

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... hina-91386

[Maallon]

Seems like historically the only fighting that took place near the Great Wall was operation Nekka in 1933:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Great_Wall
After that the wall seems to not be important for the duration of WW2.

Something to note is that the Great Wall was build along mountain ranges and thus terrain that was easy to defend.
Mountain passes in the area were blocked through this wall and historically fighting took place near this blocked mountain passes.

In WW2 it could have impeded movement in the region as troops would either need to find a gate or a section of the wall that was already broken.
As far as I know the gates aren't all that large, so they would have definitely created a bottleneck.
In the worst case they would have needed to blow up a portion of the wall and make a path through it.
But the latter would also have taken a lot of time I would imagine, especially getting rid of all the rubble so that vehicles could drive through.

In terms of combat I think the wall wouldn't be of much use in WW2 expect being an obstacle.
First thing to note is that the wall isn't build the same way along it's whole length and because of that it defensive capability may vary greatly depending on the section.
One of the big problems is that soldiers on the wall have absolutely no protection from above, making them easy targets for air attacks and vulnerable to artillery/mortar fire.
Battlements vary in height and shape throughout the wall but are not very thick anywhere and most often made out of bricks.
Concentrated gun fire will ultimately break the battlements and leave the soldiers on the wall in the open and make them completely defenseless.
The towers, that are scattered along the wall, would make for a better defensive position, but could be brought to collapse through bombs and artillery, ultimately burying the soldiers inside.
I think the wall would only offer protection against the use of armored vehicles who could break or flank the front lines. Otherwise it makes for a good speed bump, but wouldn't stop a superior attacking force.

In terms of gameplay in WITPAE: Slowing down movement in hexes that contain the Great Wall could be interesting, but I don't think adding a further defensive combat modifier to the modifier of the hex terrain type would be justified.

[jiajia1]

yes, defense of the Great Wall was 1933.

The great wall has defense value in the history, but at ww2 it means nothing to modern artillary firepower. IJA only used hundreds of 150mm shells to open Taiyuan wall (10-15 meters thick). Chinese army did not use the great wall as fortification and since then many cities started to tear down their walls because if occupied by IJA they provide good defense against Chinese.