Ok I will say it..CHINA

[newoldposter]

China in AE now looks like my stepdaughters room after a sleepover..can anyone make sense of it? Allied or Japan?

as Allies..the empty french base..the HQs everywhere..i know its accurate but damn its a mess..

[51st Highland Div]

Personally this early in to AE release im just leaving the China Theatre completely alone until every other theatre is in some measure of order (as well as understanding)...it just seems a extremely forbidding task atm [:D]

[moonraker65]

So far I've managed to consolidate fairly well in China. Lost a few cities to the Japs but elsewhere have given them a bloody nose by defending in depth. That seems to be the key at the moment.

[Shark7]

Well, I've taken a look at it. The Chinese divions are very weak for the most part, but there are a lot of them. China will turn into a quagmire quickly, which is historical.

[Chickenboy]

What have you been doing to replenish the Chinese divisions? They start off being so disrupted with replacements off. Shouldn't they benefit from a rest in an urban hex whilst drawing replacements?

(I know, I know-with WHAT supplies will they draw replacements?)

For those of you doing anything with the Chinese hordes, how have you been tackling the rest/replenishment/supply question?

[jwilkerson]

For Chinese - and everyone else - rest is good - this will increase morale much more rapidly than combat - Chinese need more of this than others - but everyone needs it some.

As to replacements - Chinese are short on supply and replacements should be off except in very rare cases.

[Knavey]

JW,

Are you saying that if I put a Chinese Div and a unit from another country in the same hex with the same modifiers, then the Chinese will not recover as fast? Something like the repair rate of planes implemented for ground units in the code?

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Knavey

JW,

Are you saying that if I put a Chinese Div and a unit from another country in the same hex with the same modifiers, then the Chinese will not recover as fast? Something like the repair rate of planes implemented for ground units in the code?

Most Chinese armies were paper tigers anyway. Huge on paper, but made of unwilling conscripts, many who were taken at gunpoint and died on the way to the units. Training was poor, equipment lacking, the average Chinese soldier was shabbily clothed, poorly fed and had very low morale. Nothing could fix the fact that the average Chinese soldier wanted to be anywhere except the Chinese army...morale was low due to that.

How do you show this poor quality in game? With high disruption and low morale combined with low experience. I personally believe that Vanilla WiTP probably over-rated the chinese units. I think AE has it just about right.

[Q-Ball]

I agree with you Shark7, though tough part is that after a year, even the Chinese Collaborationist units should be trained into the 50s, and at pretty high morale. The engine would have to be rewritten to change that, but as of now, you can work those units up to a decent level of ability.

Modelling China is tough, because what it is really there for is as a consumer of Japanese resources. Ichi-Go showed that Japan could have made headway there earlier by committing resources, in the game it's a matter of do you want to commit resources to it, or pull resources from it.

[DerJimbo]

I've stared at that mess for hours trying to figure out the "logic" employed by the genius that permitted the land situation that existed in China prior to Dec 7, '41 to come about in the first place. Finally, late one night, I sat back and...it came to me.

Imagine that you're Chiang Kai-shek and you fancy yourself a great commander. You've studied the Battle of Cannae and you figure you'll try something similar--piece of cake. None of this inching your way forward consolidating your gains as you go. Instead, you decide to try a giant double envelopment by driving deep into the center of China aiming to reach the coast and bypassing Hankow and the surrounding base complexes with a giant pincers movement.

Of course, the trouble is that this places your troops in two giant salients on with the Japs in the middle and in strong positions on either side, and they're perfectly willing to let this happen. After all, in the center they control the bases on either side of the big river, they therefore don't have to worry about supply or overland troop movement--the river is navigable all the way up to Hankow, and the Chinese have no coast defense guns anywhere around to interdict it. Plus, the Japs have overwhelming air superiority, obviously.

And then, the execution by your field commanders leaves something to be desired, but this is entirely understandable. The Chinese army upper echelon during this period was dominated by rather traditional commanders with a "warlord" mentality and an ego to match, without necessarily having the technical competence to back it up.

You can see this all quite easily on the map if you just step back (literally) and look at the "big picture".

That's my take on it, anyway.

[Graymane]

I use these 2 maps to help me out with what the Japanese did and to orient myself to the fact that the AE China is "on its side" so to speak.

Japanese Occupation
China

I also made a table of the major chinese units. I would do the same if I was playing the Japanese. There are 12 Chinese "War Areas". These are Army Groups. They are numbered 1 through 9 and also include Lusu War Area, Jingsa War Area and Central Reserve. Each of those groups have a number of Corps attached to them. You will find that the War Areas are responsible for particular sectors (4th Group Army covers Burma and Indochina, for example). Some war areas are screwed up because the Japanese are advancing and throwing the Chinese into disarray. Also, in the real Chinese theatre, the Chinese had to contend with the communists as well as war lords, so the dispositions aren't helpful for dealing only with the Japanese.

It will also help to look at what happened historically and match it up with the start in AE. The Japanese went down the Yangtze more or less toward Chungking. They also tried to join up the major rail lines and networks. Turn on the road overlay and you can see this. Finally, they took all the major ports along the coast.

The best way to deal with the China theatre for now is to pull back to the nearest river lines and try to consolate assault values.

Here is a rough outline of my first planning map for the Chinese. The dotted blue line is what I'll try to initially hold with the dark blue line what I want to hold if possible.

[jomni]

I'm playing Japan and I have to say that China is the one that's bleeding me slowly.  It is just Jan '42 and a lot has already happened.  I lost two frontier cities but also gained some near the coast.  But the chinese army is so huge.  I have witnessed massed assaults worth 2,000 AP againt my defenders of about 800 AP.  We lost that battle and I will start consolidating the frontlines and cleaning up the stragglers in the interior instead of going on the assault.  Lots of cities in stalemate with forces just bombarding each other day by day like World War 1.

After one month of fighting, the allies lost 800 army points while I lost about 100 points.  I believe most losses are from China.

BTW, after taking Hong Kong, Canton has a huge amount of soldiers waiting for some action. I just can't get them to the hotspots quickly because of the lack of rail lines to other parts of China. Maybe it's faster if I load them via ships in HK and sail to other major ports in the East, then take the train to the front lines. Instead of walking through a few hexes.

Can you build rail lines using construction engineers?

[Mistmatz]

ORIGINAL: jomni

I'm playing Japan and I have to say that China is the one that's bleeding me slowly.  It is just Jan '42 and a lot has already happened.  I lost two frontier cities but also gained some near the coast.  But the chinese army is so huge.  I have witnessed massed assaults worth 2,000 AP againt my defenders of about 800 AP.  We lost that battle and I will start consolidating the frontlines and cleaning up the stragglers in the interior instead of going on the assault.  Lots of cities in stalemate with forces just bombarding each other day by day like World War 1.

After one month of fighting, the allies lost 800 army points while I lost about 100 points.  I believe most losses are from China.

BTW, after taking Hong Kong, Canton has a huge amount of soldiers waiting for some action. I just can't get them to the hotspots quickly because of the lack of rail lines to other parts of China. Maybe it's faster if I load them via ships in HK and sail to other major ports in the East, then take the train to the front lines. Instead of walking through a few hexes.

Can you build rail lines using construction engineers?

Nope you cant build infrastructure in the game. There were some connections modelled in RHS, which required a new map and a new pwhex file for both players at the same date. So I assume you could theoretically add new rails/roads with AE but it would require modding abilities.

[Graymane]

I would simply take the port cities in China and leave enough to garrison.  Take those troops and use them somewhere useful.  If you want to make some kind of effort in China, you could try the rail and road network that runs from left to right on the map.  If you look on my map above, it is the line through Changsa (4th War Area -> 9th -> 1st.  Also, if you whack Chinese units, they always respawn later in Chungking.  The most important thing you can do is cut the Ledo road and its 500 supply.  China is really hurting to get any kind of a sustained offensive going because it has almost no supply.

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: Graymane

I would simply take the port cities in China and leave enough to garrison.  Take those troops and use them somewhere useful.  If you want to make some kind of effort in China, you could try the rail and road network that runs from left to right on the map.  If you look on my map above, it is the line through Changsa (4th War Area -> 9th -> 1st.  Also, if you whack Chinese units, they always respawn later in Chungking.  The most important thing you can do is cut the Ledo road and its 500 supply.  China is really hurting to get any kind of a sustained offensive going because it has almost no supply.

That is my general take on it as well. Playing as the Japanese I am going to try to clear the rail lines and capture chengchow ( sp ? ) , and obviously Hong Kong. Other than that there are the various city battles that I am dealing with. As I am early in the game ( still Dec '41 ) it seems like I should stick to limited operations in China for a bit. I am consolidating units where I can, watching my garrison limits, and monitoring supply. I certainly do not plan moving any units in here atm. And I will probably move all of the non restricted Hong Kong forces to other theatres as soon as I can.

[mjk428]

5 weeks in and I'm finally starting to pay some serious attention to China.

Thanks Graymane for the very useful planning map.

And thanks newoldposter for getting the ball rolling.

[dasboot1960]

Graymane--

Thank you for this map....of the unspeakable abyss. I am early in a PBEM GC and basically watching recon, combat and sigint reports to warn me if I should do something. I dearly wish I could just turn this area 'off' But, hey; here come my lumps............ thanks again

[Jonathan Pollard]

I've noticed that China has some heavy industry, but nothing on which to spend heavy industry points, at least at the start of the game.   I realize that heavy industry also produces supplies, but what happens to the actual heavy industry points?  Do they magically teleport to the Allied pool or do they accumulate for the possiblity of being used if China captures a place in Machukuo or Korea that has heavy industry point inputs?

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Pollard

I've noticed that China has some heavy industry, but nothing on which to spend heavy industry points, at least at the start of the game.   I realize that heavy industry also produces supplies, but what happens to the actual heavy industry points?  Do they magically teleport to the Allied pool or do they accumulate for the possiblity of being used if China captures a place in Machukuo or Korea that has heavy industry point inputs?

HI points always teleport; they don't have to be transported, and are not just used "locally". They go to a single, magic pool, available to all industry.

Not sure the Allies need more HI points though, and the Japanese...different problem, not sure you have the fuel to keep it, and the Home Islands, running all the time anyway