Modifications to MWiF China Map portion

[wosung]

If I had to choose between them 2 maps, I'd go for the one with more cities on it.

Regards

[trees trees]

I've been wondering if the "Silk Road" will be drawn out further?

I think Devin Culter among others has a House Rule (ut-oh) connecting it to Alma-Ata in the USSR?

The Soviets did use it to send some things to the Nationalists, including aircraft (note the models of the early Nationalist aircraft in the force pool), but it didn't amount to very much so I think ADG decided to simplify it out of the game. Having it on the map could be nice for the future.

I do recall in Tuchman's book that Stillwell was sent to Lan-Chow by the War Department to report on the volume of this aid. It does leave the impression that Lan-Chow remained in Nationalist hands as well.

[Froonp]

I've been wondering if the "Silk Road" will be drawn out further?

It does not appear on the map.
I did put it for my own personal pleasure.

I think Devin Culter among others has a House Rule (ut-oh) connecting it to Alma-Ata in the USSR?

The Soviets did use it to send some things to the Nationalists, including aircraft (note the models of the early Nationalist aircraft in the force pool), but it didn't amount to very much so I think ADG decided to simplify it out of the game. Having it on the map could be nice for the future.

I believe that the Resource out North of Lanchow is here to represent (abstract) the lend lease from Russia down the Silk Road.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I've been wondering if the "Silk Road" will be drawn out further?

It does not appear on the map.
I did put it for my own personal pleasure.

I think Devin Culter among others has a House Rule (ut-oh) connecting it to Alma-Ata in the USSR?

The Soviets did use it to send some things to the Nationalists, including aircraft (note the models of the early Nationalist aircraft in the force pool), but it didn't amount to very much so I think ADG decided to simplify it out of the game. Having it on the map could be nice for the future.

I believe that the Resource out North of Lanchow is here to represent (abstract) the lend lease from Russia down the Silk Road.

Soviet help was for Nationalist China, not Communist China. Most of it arrived 1938-1940. Most of it was shipped from Odessa to South Chinese free or treaty ports. But smaller quantities came along traditional silk road. Imagine the difficulties.

There were a few Soviet Russian squadrons in China, perhaps about 1-2 airgroups (about 50-100 planes). Most of them defended Chungking, Chengtu. IIRC one fighter squdron was in Lanchow. They were flying I-16's and even older stuff. China was the rubbish heap for prewar military material.

Especially for the Russian airstuff in China see:
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/sino-japanese-1938.htm
http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/Geor ... part_5.htm

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

I do recall in Tuchman's book that Stillwell was sent to Lan-Chow by the War Department to report on the volume of this aid. It does leave the impression that Lan-Chow remained in Nationalist hands as well.

Exactly this was my main point. There seems to be little info about Lanchow in WW2. But the things I found point in the same direction. And the infos about Chinese Soviet Border area puts the partisan base NE of Lanchow, and N of Sian. Even in 1944 these two places were outside Communist control.

Plus Lanchow wasn't exactly an industrial centre.

And if there are worries about Chinese Communist centre Yennan being too vulnerable, what about relocating Yennan to the mountain hex W of where it is now? But then it should be in the extrem Eastern part of that hex.

[trees trees]

At least all these ideas are on here for the future. I know nothing will change from WiF, and it will continue to simulate China quite bizarrely. Opening up the map opens the possibility to reduce some of the abstractions (Yennan, Si-An) necessary in the game WiFFe. I think it should be considered quite carefully whether to even put Yennan on the map and draw extra attention to this design compromise, if no other changes are going to be made. Without some new design input in this theater trying to 'balance' it will remain challenging; it will have to be done without reference to history.

One small piece of information above, about munitions facilities in Yennan, has me thinking now that maybe it is best for the Communists to have a city supply source like all WiF units. They proved on the Long March they could survive as a non-traditional army, like a fish through water, but in the process their strength went from perhaps 2 or 3 INF units to 1 or 2 Infantry divisions.

[ut-oh, not a map comment: There are some very good players out there who feel Japan's best strategy is not to even try advancing further in China. Send in some artillery, land-based air, garrisons, maybe a fort or two, and expand the Empire in other directions.]

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Here are my votes.

North portion
New Cities on the map
Ankang: Yes
Ningsia: Yes
Sining: Yes
Tinshui Yes
Tungkwan: Yes
Yennan: Yes

Cities Refused (not on the map)
Paochi: No
Paotow: No

Cities Proposed (not on the map)
Kweisui: No

Coastal portion
New Cities on the map
Anking: No
Kaifeng: Yes
Nanchang: Yes
Nanyang: Yes
Paoting: Yes
Suchow: Yes
Wuhsing: No

New Minor Ports on the map
Chefoo (Minor Port) (2 hexes NE of Tsingtao): Yes
Tsingkow (Minor Port) (was Xinhailian): Yes
Wenchow (2 hexes NE of Foochow): Yes

Cities Refused (not on the map)
Hofei (was Hefei) (1 hex NW of Anking): No
Siangfan (was Xiangfan) (1 hex SW from Nanyang): No

Existing Cities modified
Hangchow becoming a Minor Port: No
Wuhan Moved 1 hex NW (should be named Hankow ?): Yes (keep name Wuhan)
Macao becoming a city: Yes

Cities Proposed (not on the map)
Chinkiang: No
Ichang (3 hexes W of Wuhan): No
Kalgan (hex NW of Peking): No
Ningpo: No
Shasi: No
Weihaiwei: No
Wuhu: No

Coastal portion
New Cities on the map
Chihkiang (was Chihchiang) + river south moved: Yes
Kweilin: Yes

New Minor Ports on the map
Amoy (port) (2 hexes SW of Foochow): Yes
Pakhoi (Port): Yes
Swatow (3 hexes E of Canton): Yes

Cities Refused (not on the map)
Liuchow (2 hexes SW of Kweilin): No)
Kwangchowan (Port): No

Existing Cities modified
Chungking moved southwards: No
Kunming moved 1 hex SW: Yes

Cities Proposed (not on the map)
Hengyang (2 hexes S of Changsha, on the rail): Yes
Kiukiang: No
Wansien: No
Wuchow: No
Dianquan/Dianqian (port) (2 hexes SW of Foochow): No

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

At least all these ideas are on here for the future. I know nothing will change from WiF, and it will continue to simulate China quite bizarrely. Opening up the map opens the possibility to reduce some of the abstractions (Yennan, Si-An) necessary in the game WiFFe. I think it should be considered quite carefully whether to even put Yennan on the map and draw extra attention to this design compromise, if no other changes are going to be made. Without some new design input in this theater trying to 'balance' it will remain challenging; it will have to be done without reference to history.

But nobody would think about ommitting Washington D.C. from map. Even if it perhaps wasn't quite one of the industrial centres of USA.


One small piece of information above, about munitions facilities in Yennan, has me thinking now that maybe it is best for the Communists to have a city supply source like all WiF units. They proved on the Long March they could survive as a non-traditional army, like a fish through water, but in the process their strength went from perhaps 2 or 3 INF units to 1 or 2 Infantry divisions.

The info about ammunition production, by accident I've got out of a Chinese cultural history of Republican Era in 3 Volumes . This so called ammunition factory perhaps is best to be imagined as grass root manufactory (-ies?) for explosives and small calibre ammunition. Long march and War time Communism was a society of shortage and inventiveness. And because of the attraction of Yennan for intelligenzia they had some intellectual ressources up there - and the hard learned experience that practical thinking is necessary.

[ut-oh, not a map comment: There are some very good players out there who feel Japan's best strategy is not to even try advancing further in China. Send in some artillery, land-based air, garrisons, maybe a fort or two, and expand the Empire in other directions.]


Quite a strategy!! [:)]

[trees trees]

If the Communists are still given Si-An, Yennan will be one more place for them to defend from the Japanese divisions oozing past them. I agree it should be in the game, but then so should a lot of things. When it appears on the map more people will begin to question the realities of China in WiF.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

If the Communists are still given Si-An, Yennan will be one more place for them to defend from the Japanese divisions oozing past them. I agree it should be in the game, but then so should a lot of things. When it appears on the map more people will begin to question the realities of China in WiF.

Not a bad thing to my mind. I see WIF, and all historically based war games, as an educational tool. Anything that stimulates more interest in the subject is good.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

If the Communists are still given Si-An, Yennan will be one more place for them to defend from the Japanese divisions oozing past them. I agree it should be in the game, but then so should a lot of things. When it appears on the map more people will begin to question the realities of China in WiF.

That means correction is bad, because it might reveal former/other questionable spots?? Better don't stirr things up?? [&:]

Regards

[trees trees]

I've learned a lot from WiF over the years. Barnes & Noble would be wise to sell this game because it does spur further study. How many other wargames have a bibliography? And this thread should show you where it led my interests. I just threw that idea of no Yennan out there because realism lapses in a wargame are usually pretty glaring and reflect poorly on that game. Without Yennan is not real. But neither is giving Si-An to the Communists. It's just that the game is coming out as-is. Fortunately China is the most mysterious theater in the war, even more than Burma. With WiF people say 'Oh well, another crazy game in China, but the rest of the game is still great. Wanna play again?'

A map thought I think I typed into a response and lost to a time-out, and forgot on the re-type:

Mapping the Wuhan area looks challenging for a wargame cartographer. iirc, 5th Edition maps put both Wuhan and Hankow (Han-chow? I forget the exact name of the other major city near-by) on the map ... in the same hex. Problem solved.

[Incy]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

I've been wondering if the "Silk Road" will be drawn out further?

I think Devin Culter among others has a House Rule (ut-oh) connecting it to Alma-Ata in the USSR?

The Soviets did use it to send some things to the Nationalists, including aircraft (note the models of the early Nationalist aircraft in the force pool), but it didn't amount to very much so I think ADG decided to simplify it out of the game. Having it on the map could be nice for the future.

I do recall in Tuchman's book that Stillwell was sent to Lan-Chow by the War Department to report on the volume of this aid. It does leave the impression that Lan-Chow remained in Nationalist hands as well.

If you stretch it all the way it will be a viable strategy for Japan to attack south central russia along the road, if it can crush china (or china surrenders). It will also be possible for russia to directly aid China by marching a HQ and a few corps (and maybe some air) down the road and into the front in china.

The distance from central russia to Lanchow is about 30 hexes(much of it desert), so it would take about 8-10 land impulses for a force to be moved along the road. So a force can be sent/withdrawn in about 2-3 turns (more in winter turns).

Allowing this might be fun, and I'm not so sure an advance either way will be a very profitable/smart strategy(because a fast HQ has to be comitted for a year or more), but it might be exploitable, and I think it will tend to help whatever side is allready doing well if anything.

If the road is there I think we might sometimes see players moving a UK/US HQ + some corps/air into russia, rail it to the chinese border, and march the units into china. The road will also potentially help allied units in China trace supply without control of the seas. This might lead to an allied HQ plus LBA flying into South China Sea. Btw, the last problem allready exist by allowing allied HQ's in China to trace to India over the Burma road.

[trees trees]

sounds a little challenging. Wosung's information that Russian aid for the Kuomintang came in by sea, like the west's, makes far more sense. The existence of this bare skeleton route though can help explain the Oil option, the way China has one saved oil so Mao _or_ Chiang can re-org in a turn. I think this is what the route was used for - a minimum trickle of gasoline supply. ???

In WiF5 I have marched on Urumchi (and defended it) but I don't expect to ever have to do that again.

regarding this:

"This might lead to an allied HQ plus LBA flying into South China Sea. Btw, the last problem allready exist by allowing allied HQ's in China to trace to India over the Burma road."

This was the Allied High Command's exact plan. There it is in WiFFe too, Stilwell HQ-I and Chinese Lend-Lease Liberators. They pulled it off, after an enormous logistical investment (Ledo Road optional, anyone? [8|]) Then the Japanese promptly overran the brand new airfields.


I re-checked the supply rules today, pondering the Burma Road. In WiFFe you don't usually need to use it for that purpose and I had forgotten how it worked. But since it is like a railroad for supply, I still would leave Chihkiang off the map. With all the new cities, the Chinese would no longer need their HQ units so much.

Here's a thought: how about distilling all the spellings and the current vs WWII names of places that we have learned from the great contributions in this thread, and include that like the way the really nice leader biographies will be included? Somewhere, someone will ask "Where's Beijing in this game?" OK that hopefully will be very, very rare amongst people interested in this game.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

I've learned a lot from WiF over the years. Barnes & Noble would be wise to sell this game because it does spur further study. How many other wargames have a bibliography? And this thread should show you where it led my interests. I just threw that idea of no Yennan out there because realism lapses in a wargame are usually pretty glaring and reflect poorly on that game. Without Yennan is not real. But neither is giving Si-An to the Communists. It's just that the game is coming out as-is. Fortunately China is the most mysterious theater in the war, even more than Burma. With WiF people say 'Oh well, another crazy game in China, but the rest of the game is still great. Wanna play again?'

Yep. There's a common lack of knowledge about the war in China (I'm not better off), as compared with , say D-Day, even if Chinese had the longest WW2 and the second highest human losses.

How many "famuous" battles in China do we know?? This lack of knowledge might result on the fact, that war in China was the theatre with the least Western involvement in WW2.

A map thought I think I typed into a response and lost to a time-out, and forgot on the re-type:

Mapping the Wuhan area looks challenging for a wargame cartographer. iirc, 5th Edition maps put both Wuhan and Hankow (Han-chow? I forget the exact name of the other major city near-by) on the map ... in the same hex. Problem solved.

We discussed that here before: IRL in the 1930s Wuhan grew together from 3 independent cities: Hankow, Hanyang and Wuchang. It already was one big city.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: trees trees

sounds a little challenging. Wosung's information that most of the Russian aid for the Kuomintang came in by sea, like the west's, makes far more sense. The existence of this bare skeleton route though can help explain the Oil option, the way China has one saved oil so Mao _or_ Chiang can re-org in a turn. I think this is what the route was used for - a minimum trickle of gasoline supply. ???

And reinforcements for National Chinese Airforce

In WiF5 I have marched on Urumchi (and defended it) but I don't expect to ever have to do that again.

regarding this:

"This might lead to an allied HQ plus LBA flying into South China Sea. Btw, the last problem allready exist by allowing allied HQ's in China to trace to India over the Burma road."

This was the Allied High Command's exact plan. There it is in WiFFe too, Stilwell HQ-I and Chinese Lend-Lease Liberators. They pulled it off, after an enormous logistical investment (Ledo Road optional, anyone? [8|]) Then the Japanese promptly overran the brand new airfields.


I re-checked the supply rules today, pondering the Burma Road. In WiFFe you don't usually need to use it for that purpose and I had forgotten how it worked. But since it is like a railroad for supply, I still would leave Chihkiang off the map. With all the new cities, the Chinese would no longer need their HQ units so much.

About supply: Maybe with all the new cities, Chinese attack weakness should be mandatory. IRL they didn't have much of a supply train, because all the new arty was parked for the real (the civil) war. On the other hand most of the time regular Chinese Troops were not fighting, but foraging. Japanese Attacks, so to speak were unwelcomed interruptions while foraging.

There are some other aspects of supply which are quite abstracted in WIF (and I know they will be in MWIF, no question, but that's ok):

-Some supply lines were not in-being. They grew trough the war (Burma road)

-"Normal" supply needs in the different armys mirrowed different social economical cultures. Esp. US and Japanese had quite different definitions of "being out of supply".

There's well-known description of Model or Manteuffel about russian tank spearheads in 1944: Subtracting all the Nazi-dicourse about "unbelievable unorganized asian hordes" in it, on the bottom line remains: They had much less supply trail, so it's difficult to cut then off.

Here's a thought: how about distilling all the spellings and the current vs WWII names of places that we have learned from the great contributions in this thread, and include that like the way the really nice leader biographies will be included? Somewhere, someone will ask "Where's Beijing in this game?" OK that hopefully will be very, very rare amongst people interested in this game.

Good idea. This thread already contains some data. The more of all these minor changes in China there would be, the better they should be documented, proved and explained.

Maybe this can help to calm down accusations of being unwiffy or having setup "another crazy game in China".

BTW Bejing = Peking (both: "Northern Capital") = 1930s-1940s Peiping ("Northern Peace", or "Peace in the North").

Here's another tought, I know Steve will hate it: What about 2 alternative setups for China (esp. in the Northwest), maybe as an, errh, optional rule??
WIFE traditional and MWIF nano-revised??

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Not for MWIF product 1. [:-] Focus, man, focus![:)]

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Not for MWIF product 1. [:-] Focus, man, focus![:)]

Surprise, surprise.

But better a WW2 strategy-game with "one more crazy game in China", than WW2 ETO or PTO only. [:)]

[c92nichj]

To put a bit more fuel on the discussion I did a global war setup in the current beta version of the product, it does not include patrice new terrain and cities but the number of hexes are the same so the picture does show the counterdensity pretty accurately.

I did not spend an awful lot of time tinking about the strategy of the setup, it is just to give you all a flavour.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: c92nichj
To put a bit more fuel on the discussion I did a global war setup in the current beta version of the product, it does not include patrice new terrain and cities but the number of hexes are the same so the picture does show the counterdensity pretty accurately.

I did not spend an awful lot of time tinking about the strategy of the setup, it is just to give you all a flavour.

Japan sets up second, so I assume you are going after the Communists?

Though Japan has fewer units, those units have more mobility and are stronger on average. The limiting factor for offensives, for both armies, is the number of HQs. As shown, China has 2 and Japan has 1.

What you don't show in this screen shot are the units in Japan and Manchuria/Korea that are available to the Japanese, who are the first to move. I can't telll whether you set up Japan's Asia/Pacific infantry corps in China or not. Stealing one of the units from Korea et al (not the HQ) is typical and bringing over the two marine units, militia and Yamamoto HQ from Japan should be accomplished in the first turn (the first impulse if you want to take a naval move). This gives Japan more units to defend rear areas and if they want to put most of their units into attacking in some sector of China, they can.

But it is touch and go here. If Japan does not leave enough for defense, they can get burned. If they do not put enough units into the attack, they won't get anywhere. They same is true for the Chinese.

To some extent, the way to play this is to screen the opposing HQ(s). By which I mean, to have several units prepared to defend against an enemy attack driven by the enemy HQ. In American football, this is equivalent of having one defensive player assigned to do little more than defend against the opposing quarterback running the ball.

Though the isolated Japanese unit in the interior looks to be in bad shape, it should have air cover available and the Chinese would need nice dice to even flip the unit. As in WIF FE China combat, the dice can make or break an offense/defense.