Help wanted for long Japanese campaign

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Hi everyone!

I would like to create a Japanese Campaign consisting of many small, quick-to-play scenarios.
The core force would consist of one Infantry Platoon A*, that means:
A0 Japanese HQ
B0 Japanese Plt HQ
B1 Inf Platoon A*
B2 Inf Platoon A*
B3 Inf Platoon A*

The scenarios would be very small and quick to play.
Sometimes there would be no aux units (so that only the 5 units of the core force have to fullfill the mission), most times there would be auxiliary units.
The battles would be somewhere between the size of the smaller MCSE/MCWT-scenarios and real mini-scenarios (like M4's incredible 8X8-Koenigstiger scenario).

If several people merge together, we should be able to create the campaign within a few months.

The current state is:

I have created a raw version of 6 scenarios picturing Mongolian/Manchkuoan border clashes in May/July 1939 (that would be the foreplay for Nomonhan).
This campaign is placed in Slot 33 and the zipped file has a size of 118 K.

Normally, I would continue to make another 4 or so scenarios representing Nomonhan, then asking for some playtesters, refining the campaign and would be finished.
However, if some other authors would join, we could create a japanese campaign of many small scenarios that would allow the player to lead a japanese infantry platoon from 1939 - 1945.
It would be a semi-historical campaign that would be fast&fun to play.

The Nomonhan clashes rougly represent actions of the IJA 23rd Inf. Division. This Divison was statuioned in Manchuria until 1944 when it was redeployed to the Phillipines where it was destroyed.

For a nice campaign, we should take the liberty to use the infantry platoon at the more interesting places.

I could imagine (suggestion):

1940-late 1941: China, Oppoents: Nat. Chinese, Com. Chinese
late 1941/early 1942: Philipines, opponents: Philipinos, USArmy, USMC
Aug. 42 - Feb 43: Guadalcanal, Opponents: USMC, USArmy
March 43 - Sept 1944: ? (It would be nice to have somne scenarios with UK and Australian opponents)
Oct 1944-Dec 1944: Leyte
Jan 45-Aug. 1945: Luzon

Hypothetical scenarios could be:
Midway June 42 (Invasion goes on despite carrier losses)
Comando actions with submarine transport against any allied location

We could do this either with one coordinator for everything (finding playtesters e.t.c.) - this sounds a little difficult.
Or we could declare the mainstream here (from date to date at location xyz) and one author would be responsible for that timeframe and coordinate everything within that timeframe - he would ask for playtesters e.t.c..

What do you think?

Is there anyone out there who would be interested to participate as author or as playtester?

I suggest that everyone who is interested posts within this thread.

If there is no one who would participate in this effort, I will finish that campaign with Nomonhan - it would be a Mini-Campaign consisting of 9-10 small scenarios.

The scenarios are very small, so it should be possible to create one sceanrio/weekend and to refine it on another weekend or so.

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

The technical details of the scenarios (suggestions):
Since the player must use a core force of one inf. Platoon A*, it seems wisely to have the Japanese HQ and the Inf.Platoon A* as normal units and the rest as auxiliary units. That way, the scenarios could be tested/played seperately.
Moreover, with a fixed number of core units, special scenarios are possible where some vehicles are seperated from their crews at the scenario start.
This could be done to represent the capture of an enemy vehicle or crews that are sleeping in their tents and who have to hurry to their vehicles at the start of the scenario.

I have so far created six scenarios:
Mongolian border raid:
The player's core force prevents MPRA (Mongolian People's Republic Army) returning from a raid from escaping towards the Halha River back into Mongolia.
Halha trap:
Player is attacked on a very small (8*8) map by overhelming force and must do a fighting retreat. (Must be reworked or written again)
Halha retreat:
Player must protect a convoy and exit it throughj a Victory exit hex. Soviet tanks are pursuing.
Across the Halha:
Invasion of Mongolian territory. Player must secure a bridgehead on the west bank of the Halha river.
Into Mongolia:
Player escorts a convoy that must exit on western edge of the map.
The Soviets are escorting a convoy that must exit on the eastern edge of the map.
Combine this with poor visibility, a very small map (the two forces *must* run into each other) and the chaos is secure...
Guns of Halha:
The Japanese have reached a hill with USSR artillery. There is no time to wait for friendly artillery. The playert will have to charge into what is believed to be 3 heavy guns at daylight....

Textfiles are no complete, but you can get an idea of what I mean by playing through the campaign.
Anyone who wants to get the campaign should send me a PM or an email to roland.rahn@cityweb.de. The zipped file is just 118 K (yes, it's smaller than a big single scenario).

I would really appreciate it if we could create a nice campaign for the Japanese. This is not a commercial project, there are no payements and the campaign will be free for everyone.

To my person:
I'm more a beginner in scenario design, my only noteworthy result was a small Czechoslovakian campaign (can be found at the wargamer depot).

Kind regards,
Roland

[M4Jess]

Hi Roland!~

Sounds great!

I will be happy to help, giving the time after Das Reich is complete

Jess

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Hi Jess,

thanks for your response.
To make clear what I have in mind:

http://people.freenet.de/steelpanthers/RisingSun.htm

WARNING!
THIS IS NOT A CAMPAIGN THAT CAN BE PLAYED, IT IS A CONSTRUCTION AREA THAT WILL EVENTUALLY BECOME A CAMPAIGN!

Currently, some nodes have reached a state where I'm pleased with the node (=they could be playtested by alpha-testers - nodes 005 and 008 are such nodes), others will very likely be deleted and replaced by a new scenario (this is true for example for node 001).
Some time ago, I published a hypothetical campaign featuring a core force of four chzechoslovakian tanks that fight in the first days of october 1938 against german troops.
It was a campaign with scenarios that where smaller than an average campaign scenario, so that the player would use much lesser time to finish one scenario.
This led to a fast playing style and there was some positive feedback for this.

Last december (?), you published a U.K. commando-campaign that consisted also of smaller scenarios (and I enjoed it much).

What I have in mind is a campaign with scenarios that can easily be played between coming home from work lately and going into bed - I don't know if that expresses correctly what I intend.
Some of the scenarios would be *very* small (node 008 would be an example for this) and could be played in much less than an hour.
It would be semi-historical, but should have a real background (in the direction of your commando-campaign).
And, while it would not refelect the history of a specific unit (also the first part is very roughly identifiable with the 23rd Div), it should be believable - so, no Tarawa 1943 followed by Guam 1944 followed by Iwo Jima followed by Okinawa followed by some late action in the Phillipines [:)] .

Anyone who wants to participate is welcome!
And everything is negotiable - currently, only node 010 requires a core force of a HQ and exactly four other units, so at this stage we can change the core force to something else.

If there would be no one else to participate, I would finish the Nomonhan part and and finish the campaign with a title like 'Nomonhan 1939'.

The optimum would (IMO) be a campaign of 100+ small scenarios that would probably consume less time to play then Wild Bill's excellent 'A Long, Long Road to Victory'.

I could also imagine that there would be one 'Rising Sun'-campaign and, for those who are interested only in a special chapter, smaller sub-campaigns like 'Nomonhan 1939', 'Guadalcanal', 'Phillipines 1941/42' e.t.c. where these smaller campaigns would be just subsets of scenarios from the large campaign.

However, we must take into consideration that after the core units in the smaller campaign will gain experience, so a 'Guadalcanal 1942/43' that is balanced when playing it alone may become inbalanced when it uses a core force that has already seen two years of constant combat.....

And one question:
For the Nomonhan part, I used Alvin Coox's 'Nomonhan' as a source to get an idea what happened then.
Is there any good source on what happened in China in 1940/41? Something that gives you an idea of the typical warfare back then?

Thanks in advance for all responses,
Roland

PS:
For some odd reason, when you have finished work on 'Das Reich', I will very likely disappear for a few days....[:D]

[Wild Bill]

A Couple of years ago, I began a Japanese campaign but never finished it. I envisoned it as beginning after Pearl Harbor, and it included Singapore, Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Betio, Peleliu, and a couple of others that I can't remember. I called it "The Rising and Setting Sun."

I have the maps and the basic scenarios already done or in the process. I don't know if I will ever finissh it but if you would like the material I have completed, I'd be happy to send it to whomever could take it, adapt it, or use it to his liking.

Its yours for the asking...Wild Bill

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Hi Wild Bill,

I will never be able to create anything like you do [&o], but I'm interested in any material that might be helpfull, so I would greatly appreciate if you would send me the material to

roland.rahn@cityweb.de

However, I see great flaws in my already created scenarios...
In some, the player would just form a static line with his units and fire on everything that moves, others result in complete chaos (it might not be a good idea to have victory exit exes for both sides on a 10*5-map [X(] ).

Roland

[M4Jess]

I too would like to see your work on this WB..

Please send it to me as well.

Jess

[Wild Bill]

I'll send them to both of you. I hope that they will prove beneficial to you. They may need some updating but feel free to edit and change as you wish.

I envisioned an elite infantry unit, sent from one place to another, perhaps with cavalry, or armor in certain scenarios in a support role as ausixiliary units.

It would be a special (such as SNLF or higher) unit, well trained and disciplined, and with even paratrooper training.

Let your mind wander a bit. Mix history with what-ifs. Try to go beyond the standard attack defend scenario, using reinforcements, withdrawals, raids, etc.

Your imagination can run free, beginning with history and reaching beyond.

Good luck with it Roland. Jess is one of the very best and can certainly offer many great pointers to you.

And thanks for the very kind words. That is most encouraging.

Wild Bill

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

To Wild Bill:
Thanks for the scenarios, Wild Bill. They look great and I hope that you will find someday the time and motivation to continue this project. I would love to see such a campaign. (And campaigns for many other Nations that still don't have a campaign - Dutch, Belgium, France, Australia/NZ,......).
(BTW: i'm a little surprised that there is a scenario at Betio in September 43 and after this there are still other scenarios happening - I would expect such a scenario as the end of a campaign. )

To everyone else:
Under http://people.freenet.de/steelpanthers/RisingSun.htm , there is now Version 0.00 of my Japanese campaign.
(For some odd reason you can't download it while GetRight is running, so it's neccessary to shut GetRight down before attempting to download it. Strange....[&:])

It has now 13 (very small) scenarios taking place in 1939 vs. the Soviets and their Mongolian allies.
It's still in a very early phase and still under construction , but some feedback at this point would be helpfull for me. (I remember the invaluable feedback I received with my Czech campaign - again thanks to all who playtested it and posted their critics [&o]).
If anyone has some spare time and is interested in small scenarios played from the Japanese side, it would be nice if he/she would post a small comment here. Any feedback would be helpfull, including suggestions for improvements of the textfiles (not only typos, but also: Gives the text the neccessary information the player needs to understand what is intended in this scenario?).

The most-flawed scenario is (IMO) node 004, 'Into Mongolia'. I made several experiments but it's still my problem child #1.

After playing the complete campaign (as it is now), I realized another problem:
After the last battle (Road of Death), the unit values where:
A0 Experience 90, 8 Kills
B0 Experience 103, 36 kills
B1 Experience 108, 47 kills
B2 Experience 106, 58 kills
B3 Experience 115, 80 kills

So, the worst warriors of the core force would be at the level of well-trained paratroopers. This offsets the balance of the later scenarios a little [X(].

If the campaign would continue at this point, either the whole core force must be killed in regular intervals (every 10 scenarios or so), or the storyline would be that of a very special unit (more like a commando team for the dirty work).

This also kills my earlier idea of having several mini-campaigns (Nomohan 1939, China 1940 e.t.c.) and one big campaign linking all the smaller campaigns unless the player would change the troop experience in the preferences before purchasing the core force for a later campaign.

Kind regards,
Roland

[Wild Bill]

Thanks Roland. Your campaign sounds intriguing. I tried to get it from the site but was unable to do so. If you could send it to me, I'll take a look at it. I think it would be a good one about a much neglected time of war history.

bwilder@bellsouth.net

Wild Bill

[RolandRahn_MatrixForum]

Hi Wild Bill,

sorry for reacting so late, I read your post just today.
I can download the campaign when I shut down GetRight [&:], so I guess something is wrong with my website.
I have send you an email with the campaign.

Roland

PS:
Anyone else who wants the campaign [it's still under construction and it will remain so for the comming months] but can't download it, please send a PM.