Japanese grand strategy

[WiTP_Dude]

Good points. You really have to play as Japan once to know what you are up against as China. It is tough.

[moses]

Understand about fatigue, supply morale etc. By two equal forces I mean forces that have equal combat power all these things considered.

Since forces are doubled by shock attacks for odds calculation you can have situations where either side will win depending on who attacks first. In woods or urban terrain this does not happen since both are doubled on defence.

My point in response to Feinder was that combat in clear terrain was inherently unstable as he suggested. When two large forces come together in clear terrain their is a very high probability that one of the two will be totally defeated in short order.

Almost by definition one side has to be stronger and so the shock attack will give it 2-1 odds which will retreat an unfortified enemy immediatly and a fortified force fairly soon. Only when fortifications allow a weaker defender to reduce the odds can you get a long term stable combat.

In wooded/urban terrain it is easily possible to have long term stable combats since terrain bonuses make it possible for the weaker side to keep the odds down..

[Nikademus]

Seems to me that a central factor/complaint here that gives the Japan player a major advantage is the rail net. The Japanese can concentrate their forces so quickly that the Chinese player cant exploit such a concentration (16 divisions?!) by attacking the areas Japan weakened in order to assemble such a force. They capture a city or roll up the defenders then teleport to another map area and repeat. As rail hexes favor movement at little fatigue cost there's no need to rest and reorganize.

I mussed about changing the inner supply hexes to trail but maybe a better idea would be to eliminate the rail hexes entirely and convert them to road hexes. That would give the Chinese player time to position a countermove and require the Japan player to deploy his forces with a bit more thought (since any mistake would require time to redeploy)

[WiTP_Dude]

The only problem is the railroad did exist. Removing it would be gamey.

[Andy Mac]

While I agree the rail net existed did the infrastructure exist never mind the rolling stock to move that many troops about so quickly.

Is a road a better representation of the true transport capability in China.

I.E. was moving 150k men possible on the Chinese rail net.

Moving a division by rail requires a lot of rolling stock which I am guessing did not exist.

Perhaps the abstraction of rail is just to abstract for China.

Andy

[Rossj]

everybody says china is easy, yet the IJA was unable to do it thus there must be a game/supply/oob problem...I think the situation is skewed toward the ija, but witpdude's strategy for taking changsa mirrors mine...in both cases we are far more agressive in massing forces sufficient to do the job the first time...unlike the IJA who didn't get it right till the 4th try at which time it was too late...

On a related point WITPdude has been seeking oponents to try out a china only strategy, but his constraints are back to what the IJA was dealing with---work with what you got instead of beefing up the theater.
Typically, i keep the chinese in check while i mass forces to take yenen, an clear out the area around changsa...I move in 1 or 2 Kwangtung divivsion, the mongols, 1-4 saa divisions (after the sra is captured), 2+ homeland divisions and ALL the bombers...and i pound the chinese mercilessly, take a region, regroup/rebuild...repeat...the IJA never massed forces to this extent...if they had, they would have controlled more of china faster which may have functionally forced them out of the war.

[Mr.Frag]

Since forces are doubled by shock attacks for odds calculation you can have situations where either side will win depending on who attacks first. In woods or urban terrain this does not happen since both are doubled on defence.

Shock attack doesn't result in just the attacker being doubled, the defensive fire is also doubled.

[Rossj]

I think they were concerned about the soviets thus the nonaggression pact...
I think they were rightly concerned about taking on every allied power at once and kept there sra forces in the sra...
I think there mind set was a blend of radical and conservative by that i mean trying to do and accomplish what they did was radical military thinking, but not following up in china was because they got repeatedly bloodied at changsa and things started going bad in mid 42...
do you really think that if they had massed 300,000 troops to take chagsa the first time they'd just stop...they would have regrouped and continued on. they didn't do more in china, because they never established the momentum there. They didn't establish momentum, because their initial drives failed and things went bad elsewhere.

P.S. yes the game needs to be fixed regarding the ease of achieving a quick easy victory in china, but that doesn't invalidate an aggressive china strategy...the IJA decided it was too hard, but if that were true then why the repeated offensives on changsa.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: moses

1.)Some captured supply is fine thats why I said 90% destruction. We can argue over the exact number but certainly not all enemy supply that exists in a base is going to remain in useable form for the attacker. Some will be destoyed, some will be carted away, some will be of no use to the attacker. 20000 SP represents in the game 10 months of combat supply for a whole Jap division. Your not normally just going to find that much abandoned. Maybe 50 to 90% should be randomly destroyed. That would account for the occasion where the losser totally fails to burn his warehouses.

2.) All this concern about the russia theater is probably misplaced. This is the easiest to fix. All you have to do is let the russian player move if only from city to city. In my russia only game I had to bring in 10 outside divisions to win. Even then the only reason that I could defeat the russians is because I was able to mass my forces and defeat a critical part of his army before he had any ability to react. Take that oportunity away from me and the russia theater is fixed.

3.) Shouldn't overreact in China either. As is, under 1.4, I believe an expert Chinese player can stop the Japanese army. With a few more small changes to correct the attacker/defender imbalance I think the average player will have no problem holding. It would also help to have another 300 supply.

4.) I do not believe that the game is broken or unplayable in any way. Its a fun game and the best simulation of the pacific war that has ever existed. Everyone involved with its development should be proud. I hope I haven't upset anyone too much by recommending changes that I think would improve the game.

MOSES..... Would you please be consistant.....Your first three "points" describe areas of the game which ARE broken; as well as some relatively useful ideas to "Fix" the problems you refer to.....Then in your 4th point, you say you don't think the game IS broken!.....If it isn't "broken", why does it need the "fixes?

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Rossj

everybody says china is easy, yet the IJA was unable to do it thus there must be a game/supply/oob problem...I think the situation is skewed toward the ija, but witpdude's strategy for taking changsa mirrors mine...in both cases we are far more agressive in massing forces sufficient to do the job the first time...unlike the IJA who didn't get it right till the 4th try at which time it was too late...

On a related point WITPdude has been seeking oponents to try out a china only strategy, but his constraints are back to what the IJA was dealing with---work with what you got instead of beefing up the theater.
Typically, i keep the chinese in check while i mass forces to take yenen, an clear out the area around changsa...I move in 1 or 2 Kwangtung divivsion, the mongols, 1-4 saa divisions (after the sra is captured), 2+ homeland divisions and ALL the bombers...and i pound the chinese mercilessly, take a region, regroup/rebuild...repeat...the IJA never massed forces to this extent...if they had, they would have controlled more of china faster which may have functionally forced them out of the war.

ROSSJ.....You are playing a GAME....They were fighting a REAL WAR in the REAL WORLD.
Just because you are able to sort and shuffle units in the game does not mean that your real world counterparts had that option.....The game woefully underestimates Japan's need to garrison it's holdings everywhere---they were anything but "popular" with all of the occupied populations.....The game give's you Vietnamese reinforcements if the Chinese enter IndoChina---in the real world Ho Chi Minh and his boys were tying down the Japanese garrison all by themselves......The Koreans hated the Japanese with a passion.....The IJA had to maintain a large presense in the Home Islands to insure their own political control of the Empire.

Yes, the Japanese were able to mount a few limited duration, limited goal, offensive operations in China in the latter half of the war.....and they immediately had to abandon the areas "conquered" to re-garrison the rest again before they totally lost control......If the game were truely representative of the real world situation, the Japs would be needing to maintain a garrison of two divisions in Korea, one in Formosa, 2-3 in the Philippines, 2 in Malaya, and two in the NEI, just to hold down the locals and be able to plunder the resources of those areas.....Plus another couple in Japan to ensure their own political control, and another few to hold down Indo-China and the lines of communication in Burma.

Even the South Sea Islanders and the New Guinea Headhunters needed garrisons after a few brushes with "enlightened" Japanese occupation policies.....Your ideas are strictly suited to a sterile game environment---what we need is a "simulation" of actual realities.
Then if you can do a better job than your historical counter-parts you will have earned a few bragging rights.

[Rossj]

I don't know how much rolling stock is required...but then again, divisions moving by rail are on moving 60-120 miles per day...they'd move faster if there was more rolling stock...my GUESS is that in order to simplfy the game, a relatively small rail movement bonus was given to offset the infrastructure/rolling stock issue.

[Rossj]

mike: I have continually stated that the garrison requirements throughout the empire are a huge factor in the game being skewed toward the IJA. The requirements you've listed look about right...so if a player can meet those requirements and chooses to go for china in a way that the IJA didn't...doesn't mean the IJA were idiots or that a player who advocates a more aggressive china strategy is in a fantasy land.

If they had scraped together several more divisions (I'm not suggesting it would be easy...) and protected the north while mounting a huge thrust on changsa in spring 42...they would have been two years ahead of their historical performance...it might have motivated them to push even harder to break the chinese...

look I understand there are a great number of people who believe it was historically impossible to beat china, their probably right, but ultimately japan conquered a huge portion of china proper...and if they had put the effort into it in 42 that they did toward the end of the war the outcome may have been different

[mogami]

Hi, I am in favor of letting the Japanese do what ever they want.
But I can't as China send 360,000 troops to oppose Japanese at Changsha in Mid Dec 1941 but the Chinese did send 360,000 troops there in mid Dec 1941.

The Japanese did eventually scrape together 300,000 troops to attack Changsha. In 1944 the result was they captured Changsha but lost northern China and because of the troops taken from Manchuria the Soviets overran the entire Manchurian army in 10 days a year later.

[Rossj]

Yes the initial chinese oob or at least the chinese force allocation around changsa is lacking...
and as for the operations in 1944...my point is don't strip the north in 44 repriotize forces and reinforcements in 42...if ija had defeated or at least driven the chinese back further in 42, manchuria and northern china wouldn't be wide open in 1945

[mogami]

Hi, The IJA attack in 41 was 100,000 troops and Japan can do this in WITP
The Chinese countered with 360,000 troops and China can not do this in WITP

The 1944 offensive used troops from all of China and from Manchuria and numbered over 300,000 Japanese. The Chinese opposed with 500,000 troops in a 2 month battle Japan captured Changsha and neighboring cites but lost control of the north. In series of battles after Changsha where Japan attempted to retake the north they lost 300,000 troops.
As a result units borrowed from manchuria were not returned and when Soviets attacked Manchuria only had 750,000 Japanese troops and the Soviets ran over these in just 10 days. (The veterans had all been transfered out)

[Rossj]

got it...I misunderstood your previous post, but were back to my point,

if IJA had come up with 300,000 troops in 42, without stripping the north (admittedly extremely difficult) then the outcome would be different...

now we can all hypothesize what the effect would be in china and elsewhere (where the troops came from), but that is what the game invites, it is the grand strategy that should make this game greater than it already is...

and it would be best if it were accomplished with realistic upgrades and not game mechanics that force a repeat of history as we already know it.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Rossj

look I understand there are a great number of people who believe it was historically impossible to beat china, their probably right, but ultimately japan conquered a huge portion of china proper...and if they had put the effort into it in 42 that they did toward the end of the war the outcome may have been different

ROSSJ.....I've never said it was historically impossible.....It was historically unlikely after the Japanese had siezed Peking and Nanking without discouraging the Chinese enough to give up on Chaing and Mao.....The Japanese were banking on a collapse of Chinese morale and will to fight.....They understood as well as Ghandi that 50,000,000 Britons
(or 75,000,000 Japanese) cannot rule 350,000,000 Indians (or 500,000,000 Chinese)
without the cooperation of the "ruled".....The British had a "moral supremecy" dating back to Clive, and had accompanied it with a relatively benign rule using mostly local
troops (though in 1857 they had to re-establish "moral supremacy" with bayonets)

The Japanese tried to sieze moral supremacy through combat as well, but had waited
until nationalism had taken root in China in the early part of the Century, which made
it much more difficult.....And their "rule" offered no mitigating circumstances such as the English had offerred India with the supression of local despots, regularized laws, sanitation, education, improved transportation, etc.....The Japanese replaced inefficient local Chinese Warlords with efficient and brutal Japanese Rule; offerred nothing but promises and took everything that wasn't nailed down.....To their suprise, the Chinese peasants saw through their bu11shit and rejected it---leaving them with the impossible task of trying to forcefully hold down a country and population several times larger than their own.....Winning hearts and minds was something the Japanese were notoriously lousy at.

Had Japan had no other war to fight (as in 1937-41), and free access to the outside strategic materials she required (as in 1937 to mid-1940) she MIGHT have eventually been able to over-run all the important areas of China......But probably she could never actually conquer it, because the Chinese weren't willing to be conquered.

[mogami]

Hi, And I will add only by cutting off outside supplies could Japan ever hope to defeat China. Well actually they had long before abandoned trying to defeat China all they wanted was for the Chinese to agree to let them keep certain areas they had control of.
But unless outside aid was cut off the Chinese could fight forever and had told the Japanese that was what they were going to do.
It was entering Indo China to close the Burma road that resulted in Pacific War.
And it was not because of the Army in China that Japan went to war. Along with steel and oil the Japanese lost access to aviation gas and the IJN went ballaistic over this.
It was the IJN that pushed for the expansion of the war. The Army was caught between a rock and a hard place.
The Amry did not have troops to use outside China and manchuria but the navy could not do the job alone.

So you have the Navy needing a larger war because of the Army's failure and the Navy failing to defeat the new enemies because the Army was already over commited.
I don't think there were any Japanese in position to stop the expansion who realized just what was going to happen but there were plently of Japanese who in 1941 said Japan would lose the war by 1943. Which they did. It just took till 1945 for them to quit (But they had clearly lost by 1943)

[Mike Scholl]

At last we agree on something.....And you last paragraph is a perfect sumation of Japan's position.....I wish I'd written it.

[mogami]

Hi, I think I almost always agree with your history.
Concerning WITP we sometimes differ in how or what or why results should be produced.
I don't think it should have to have code to stop certain actions or results. I would prefer the historic factors that limited courses of actions were present where ever possible to be the limits.
Sometimes I get caught up in the trees when I really only want to discuss the forest.

Like China.
1. If the combat system was (insert whatever model you want) the limiting issue in China should be that Japan is simply too weak to both add new areas and maintain control over areas already occupied.
2. The Chinese were not inclined to drive the Japanese out. They knew the Japanese were going to leave. However they fought to prevent Japanese expanding their area of control.

If the game can model the historic situation then I would allow Japanese players to try to defeat China. Import troops from other HQ and anything else because it will impact the war outside China and Japan taking a few more cities will not win them the war or free up troops. Offensives in China after 1940 were pointless. In 1944 Allied heavy bombers began flying from China. Now offensives again had a point and the Japanese made a massive all out effort that in the end failed.