If N lists 10th as triangular, why is it not in his Dec 7, 1941 OB? Since the division dates to the 19th century, this seems quite odd. But note that ALL data bases contain errors - and ours is no exception.
31st I will look up.
10th Infantry Division is in Niehorsters' Dec 7, 1941 orbat (directly subordinate to Kwantung Theater Army). It is in stock and CHS as well (but wrongly placed at Port Arthur; actually it was at Chiamusssu/Kiamusze then), only missing in RHS.
I looked before posting - seems unlikely it is missing only in my copies of both. Got a slot number? I have some questions about divisional structure - and if present they might be indicators of what someone else thought. Actually, I looked them up using software - sorting by name. IF present they should have sorted into number order.
EDIT: OK - I found it - slot 1295. This unit is thought by both stock and CHS to have field guns (vice mountain guns) - which was my first guess as well. For some reason stock has the unit about 1/3 overstrength - possibly they thought it was square? - while CHS has a similar line squad count - indicating someone probably thought it was triangular. I wonder why it didn't sort? Not to mention - why we lost it?
Note I also corrected a post above in which I "confirmed" incorrectly that the 10th was not listed - when in fact it is. If you don't click on every possible symbol, you can miss a unit - and there are huge numbers of sub symbols. In this case the unit was not part of one of the corps - in spite of text saying otherwise - misleading some of us anyway. It was directly under K Army in the N listing - which does sound like a strategic reserve unit to me.
As many units are involved in the game AND in historical OOB's, and compound this by the several previous "builders" beginning this huge "house", I would be surprised if the "house"" did not have several loose "bricks" just lying around.....[;)]
IJA Thirty First Division (第31師団, Hohei Sanju-ichi Shidan?) was an infantry division in the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the Furious Division (烈兵団, Retsu Heidan)
The 31st Division was raised in Bangkok, Thailand, on 22 March 1943 out of reservists from Fukuoka prefecture. It was assigned to the Japanese 15th Army.
The order of battle for the 31st Division included:
*58th Infantry Regiment (Takada)
*124th Infantry Regiment (Fukuoka)
*138th Infantry Regiment (Nara)
*31st Mountain Art Regiment
*31st Engineering Regiment
*31st Transportation Regiment
Reference: Madej, W. Victor. Japanese Armed Forces, OOB 1939-1945.
(2 volumens) Allentown, PA: 1981.
For other hand, I can not find 31st Division at Neihorster list.
Madej is partly wrong here: The infantry regiments that formed 31st Division were not newly formed by reservist, they were regiments that had become independent when 13th, 18th, and 116th Divisions were triangularized.
Excuse me Kereguelen, You are right.
124th Infantry Regiment was detached from 18th Division.
138th Infantry Regiment was detached from 116th Division.
58th Infantry Regiment was detached from 13rd Division.
About 10th Independent (or Mixed?) Brigade at China I am researching.
124th Infantry Regiment was detached from 18th Division.
The 124th was part of Kawaguchi's Brigade on G-canal in Fall 42. It was for all intents and purposes destroyed there. So it would make sense that a 124th reincarnation in 1943 might be basically composed of reservists.
Speculating more or less -----
Seems to me that the 18th is a triangular division when it lands in Malaya in 1941. So they attach a 4th regiment first then decide to triangularize the division and detach it to the 31st
Also wasn't the Kawaguchi Brigade (35th) half of a square division that was in China Exp Army on 12/07/41.
124th Infantry Regiment was detached from 18th Division.
The 124th was part of Kawaguchi's Brigade on G-canal in Fall 42. It was for all intents and purposes destroyed there. So it would make sense that a 124th reincarnation in 1943 might be basically composed of reservists.
Yes, probably. But the regiment was never officially disbanded.
ORIGINAL: spence
Speculating more or less -----
Seems to me that the 18th is a triangular division when it lands in Malaya in 1941. So they attach a 4th regiment first then decide to triangularize the division and detach it to the 31st
18th was not triangular, 35th Brigade was just detached. The division converted to a triangular division in April 1943.
ORIGINAL: spence
Also wasn't the Kawaguchi Brigade (35th) half of a square division that was in China Exp Army on 12/07/41.
No, just 35th Brigade HQ with 124th Regiment and some signal units under command.
Ok so 35th Bde and 124th Regt were detached from 18th Divsion as the "Kawaguchi Brigade" thus the 18th functioned as a "triangular" division while in Malaya.
Seems to me that the 35th Bde on 12/07/41 in WITP has the equivalent of another regt of infantry in its TOE. In UV I recall it definitely has 2 regts of infantry. Where'd the other one come from?
There are two ways to read the question. One way is "where did the other binary brigade come from?" The answer to that is it is 65th Brigade. A strange organization, originally a single regiment, it eventually controlled no less than three regiments, yet these were all two battalion affairs (at the time there were three) - making it a six battalion brigade (whereas when formed it was a three battalion one regiment formation with slightly stronger attachments). Its commander didn't have much regard for its possibilities either - being green and newly raised troops. In this case the regiments must have actually reorganized, because Japanese infantry regiments as such didn't have two battalions - yet we find 65th brigade with three such regiments. I treat it as a binary brigade of six battalion size - because code divides a brigade into two parts. We could call it a "brigade-division" - which means we put "brigade" in its name and give it the suffex division - with exactly the same strength - but then it would divide into two parts. Looking - I see this was indeed what we have done. Two other cases are "division" brigades - divisions with two sub regiments are given the suffex brigade so they divide into two parts vice three. [56th division brigade is one and 55th division brigade is the other]
The other way to read the question is "where did the other regiment of 35th Brigade come from?" The answer is - it didn't. That is, our 35th Independent Infantry Brigade - the only one we have - has 144 "squads" in the line - just as other brigades with one regiment do - so it is not a binary unit. IF it divides, presumably it forms two reinforced battalion combat teams. IF this unit SHOULD have a second infantry regiment, we will need to change it. [This unit is slot 1137. It has 270 squads in stock - which I cannot justify - and 104 squads in CHS - which is based on a different model than we use in RHS - where we count "fire teams" as WITP squads - and each IJA squad has two of these - meaning we are only claiming 72 actual squads. But we also separate out the MMG - and I think these may be counted as CHS squads - since they do not have MMG as separate units. We have 28 Type 92 AA "HMG" - the parens meaning that is the literal name - and we consider it an MMG.] 72 actual squads plus 28 MMG squads = 100 total squads - very very close to CHS 104 squads - and actually weaker - but in our view better modeled and more combat effective. How stock got 270 squads I have no clue? [FYI we give US Army squads two fire teams - and after a certain point USMC squads get 3 fire teams. A really big difference in RHS is that, because of adding MMG squads, US formations gain hundreds of squads in the line - often very high numbers of hundreds. We also added the smaller mortars (but drew the line at the 50mm Japanese "knee mortar" - which we regard as organic to the squads although technically it is attached at platoon level down to the squads). Later US formations are simply gigantic in squad counts if you add fire teams, MMG, HMG, and the 60mm mortars. But we think that too is better modeling. IJA looks very good vs Allied colonial infantry formations - including the Philippine Division which is virtual colonial infantry - theoretically square but with only three regiments - two of those being Filipino troops - and the later scale of heavy weapons not being used. IJA looks a lot less good if you throw in all the heavy weapons in later line US formations. All of which seems right.]
A line IJA squad normally divides into an LMG team and an AT team - the first army in the world to make organic AT teams part of every line infantry squads (although specialist units - e.g. airborne - didn't do that). Operationally these units could function together or separately - and doctrinally the AT team should go off on offensive missions at night - when Allied units would "dig in". But if pressed, you had two tactical units per squad in the line in any action.
There are two ways to read the question. One way is "where did the other binary brigade come from?" The answer to that is it is 65th Brigade. A strange organization, originally a single regiment, it eventually controlled no less than three regiments, yet these were all two battalion affairs (at the time there were three) - making it a six battalion brigade (whereas when formed it was a three battalion one regiment formation with slightly stronger attachments). Its commander didn't have much regard for its possibilities either - being green and newly raised troops. In this case the regiments must have actually reorganized, because Japanese infantry regiments as such didn't have two battalions - yet we find 65th brigade with three such regiments.
Nice explanation, but wrong. 65th Brigade was not formed from a single regiment, it was formed from 65th Independent Infantry Group, which had three reserve regiments with two battalions each (like the other Independent Infantry Groups located in Japan).
