Artillery Death Stars Post Patch Two Hot Fix

[Canoerebel]

The gist of the thread is the destruction (havoc) wrought by Japanese artillery against well-entrenched Chinese troops.  You'll have to browse through the thread to find the plentiful examples cited.  Other threads have been started by a gent who has been doing tests that support the proposition with data.
 

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
How many tubes fired how many rounds at how many targets?

That’s one Kaleun will have to answer as I didn’t read the book. He mentioned he read about devastating concentrated artillery fire, so I found the casualty lists to give us a guide as to what had occurred.

As to supply, the Viet Minh were being supplied by the Communist Chinese at the time and the French airforce wasn’t really large enough to mount a meaningful interdiction effort at the time. Almost 100% of the aircraft in country were assigned to try and keep the garrison supplied by air.

The largest concentration of Japanese artillery in the Second Sino-Japanese war was at the Xiushui River crossing. I would imagine the Viet Minh had a similar number of tubes, though perhaps not any 155s, but I’m not sure as I can’t find and good OOB site for them.

http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/artillery_history.html

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: JWE
French were subject to (oh shoot, I don't know, let's just call it) interdiction fires, with occasional occasional prompt pushes. They (them other folks) had the high ground and could get pretty gnarly specific, but just didn't have the pile of shells to do what we might consider a destruction bombardment.

Right but all that kind of detail is lost in the massive abstraction of the games combat engine. All we have are raw statistical numbers to go on, tactical considerations of any given fight should have no place in an engine that tries to model 40 mile hexes and unlimited stacking restrictions.

ORIGINAL: JWE
Phan Thu'yen was a very well respected artillerist, and if he had the means, given the situation, he would have compelled capitulation far in advance of the historical schedule. But he didn't, so he couldn't.

I think it was more political concerns than lack of supplies. They wanted to use the garrison as a bargaining chip in talks, so total destruction had to be held back. But that doesn’t change the effect of the artillery barrages themselves against the men in the trenches, other than perhaps the fact there was a lull period in the battle.

ORIGINAL: JWE
Ðiên Biên Phú wasn't really intense, by any measure. It was merely sufficient.

Compared to what Japan’s historically largest artillery concentration was in China (see above posts link) it was a pretty large scale bombardment.

Jim

[Andy Mac]

Yup ok if its the arty issue then its been fixed and is being tested fair warning getting caught by medium arty in open ground in move mode is always going to be asking to be toasted no matter what we do.

There will be an adjustment for forts thats slightly more than whats in there now and a bit more protection for some kinds of terrain but getting caught in the open when the big guns start no matter who you are is going to be bad news

[Canoerebel]

I believe everybody understands that artillery does bad things to troops that aren't entrenched.  It's the effect on well-entrenched troops that is the problem (at least in China as things now stand).  I fear that the problem is much, much greater than an "adjustment for forts that's slightly more" will address.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
Right but all that kind of detail is lost in the massive abstraction of the games combat engine.

I suspose. Oh, well, given the wealth of data on, and from, both sides, and that it's part of the syllabus in darn near everyone's advanced schools, I guess there's no real point in discussing further in this context. Too bad. Two or three of the school solutions coulda helped out Navarre, especially when ya look at Na Sang contextually. Definitely coulda kept Piroth from eating that grenade.

Oh well. What the heck. [:)]

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: bklooste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_ ... note_China

3 studies show 3-4M dead.

The offical account of the war published in Taiwan reported the Nationalist Chinese Army lost 3,238,000 men ( 1.797,000 WIA; 1,320,000 KIA and 120,000 MIA.) and 5,787,352 civilians in casualties. Personally i think these are about as reliable as the USSRs 1945 figures ie not very considering the MIA is 1/2 the KIA.

An academic study published in the United States estimates total war deaths of 15-20 million from all causes: military casualties: 1.5 million killed in battle, 750,000 missing in action, 1.5 million deaths due to disease and 3 million wounded;

Thats 3.7M military death (KIA ,MIA and disease) and a total of 6.7M Casualties. There is also reports of 3M militia/conscripts dead . I may be out but not by a major margin. The Major battles in terms of numbers occured later in the war ie the 1942 Battle of Changsha and the 44-45 battles. Even if you change it to 1/4 of the losses for 1941-45 it only halves it. SO if you take it as casualties your still looking at 200 squads per day of which half would be killed.

First things first. Never quote Wiki as source for anything if you wish to be taken seriously. It’s unreliable and changes constantly as people add and remove from it all the time. We even had a proven case once in the old WitP forums where a poster went and modded wiki to back up some assertions he was making in a topic of discussion.

That said the numbers you cite back up the fact there were 1.3 million dead. You can’t then go and pile on those lost from disease and wounds and try and say they should be part of the casualties caused in combats.

One i used Wikipedias reference which iMHO is pretty reliable.

The MIA ( which were mostly KIA ) should be added they were by the US and actually Disease must be modelled in the rates of wounded etc else China in 45 should have a lot more troops which is not approrpiate . China is particularly bad in terms of disease which prob shows up in terms of Division support and the recover of units from casualties or disablements. Note in my original i highlighted 100 squads KIA per day and said there was prob a 3 * modifier for Casualties .

The numbers cited for Changsha 44 are actually the total for the entire Operation Ichi Go, which encompassed an entire 17 division offensive that would be fought across half of southern China. In terms of scale, casualties after 1941 were nowhere near as bad as what had happened in the first five years of the Sino-Japanese War. China had learned to fight and their troops for the most part preformed far better than in the early years.

There were many engagements in the early war the main battle was Shanghai ( which was the biggest battle of the war by a wide margine I agree) but the forces involved were also much bigger in the later war ( at least from the Japanese side) .

But the most important thing to note from the Shanghai battle is the fact the battle lasted from Aug. 37 to Nov. 37. It took 3 months to reduce this large body of Chinese troops to a point where they could be overcome. THAT is the true weakness of the current system in game. Currently Shanghai would take days or weeks to reduce and Japan would have minimal losses and would be able to move to the next objective immediately.

250,000KIA or Casualties in Shanghai is still 250 squads per day ( KIA or Casualties) over 3 months , i was pointing out the squads lost in a day was not excessive however the poster countered that the monthly rate is 200squads ( I note Japan in some games builds Hundreds and Thousands of squads) . My point is

1) loosing 200 squads casualties per day or much more in a major battle is not inappropriate
2) There is a major issue if the Chinese only get 200 squads per month you cant tell me that Japan equiped only 15000 man per year from 42-45. The respawns are not good either as it forces China to be aggressive where historically they would gain strength by not being aggresive. You could up this to 2000 squads per month and it would still be a low realistic 150K raised per year.
3) It is well worth noting in these major engadgements the Chinese Historically often commited 300K men and their best artillary eg the 42 battle of Changsha yet when the Japanese Death Star comes in the game the Chinese player tries to defend with 100K so the strategy is certainly off compared to historical where they quickly moved most of the Ichang forces to the more important Changsha.

[modrow]

Alfred,

ORIGINAL: Alfred
hartwig.modrow,

The mistake I refer to is simply the implication your assertion makes that because the base is well supplied and the unit has been in rest mode all the time, a better rate of recovery for the disabled squads would be expected. My post did not apply to any other point made in your argument.

All that I am saying is that the unit in question itself was not well supplied (the figure being in red) and that is the problem which I expect slows down the rate of recovery of disabled squads. It is not sufficient that a base be well supplied, the supplies must also be distributed to the unit.

Whether or not there is a problem in the program actually distributing supplies to Chinese units is not something I have an opinion on. However I most definitely would not expect units which are not well supplied (as evidenced by being in the green) to quickly recover disabled squads.

Alfred

I understand what you are saying, however I do not *expect* any rate of recovery, I am just trying to make a point that the disablements induced in China are a problem for the Allied player and one cannot just disregard them by saying "oh, they are reenabled quickly". They are not. I do not say reenablement should be higher, I just say it affects what the Allied player can do.

I completely agree that I was not using an optimized example - I think I provided a better one later on which shows that even under good conditions (for China) getting diabled rifle squads back to fighting mode is difficult-, but that is not the issue. I was using a realistic example.

Let me say one more thing: The 64 leader is a factor of 2.2 better than the 29 leader. The replacement rate achieved by the fully supplied and better administrated unit (note that there was one more day available) is about a factor of 2.8 better. We are not talking about huge effects of the suboptimal conditions here, no factors of 10 or so involved.

So what can the Allied player realistically do in China for more than one or two selected units ? He can move units to places that are backwater and well supplied and put them in rest mode. If that does not lead to "quick reneablement" (and it does not), he won't get quick "quick reenablement", so disabled squads are a problem.

If people say one could use better leaders for better results, that's totally correct if you talk about one or two units - but capable leaders in China always used to be scarce, plus you can replace 3-4 per turn if you spend all your PPs on China, which I think may not be their best use. So this does not provide a solution for the problem caused by disabled units.

If people say, the units should be supplied better - yeah, sure. But it's a know fact that supply in China is scarce, so this is a bit difficult to achieve.

None of this is a solution to the Allied player's problem. All I advocate is to recognize that this is a restriction he is facing and that must be considered when discussing the results of the artillery.

Hartwig

[modrow]

Andy Mac,

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Sorry guys I am late to this thread what exactly is the issue ?

Is it Chinese replacement rate ? or is It Arty.

We are fixing the latter via hot fix and 200 per month is more than China can use anyway with its supply status but its not a massive problem I can bum em up for next patch.

Andy

My feeling is that we are amidst a good teutonic philosophy school type discussion. [;)] So I think there are various issues [:D]. Anyway, they have spawned a question or two for me, maybe you can provide an answer or three:

a) is rest/training the mode in which disabled sqads get back into fighting condition ? Specifically, reserve mode may be another candidate...

b) I seem to note based on lousy statistics that disabled devices and Engineers get back online much faster then Infantry squads and Support squads. Does this effect truly exist, and if so is it a device-dependent parameter or is it because a certain amount of "reenablement points" are (or aren't depending on the admin rating of the leader) allotted per turn and then used in a prioritized way (getting a big gun back into working shape may be more important then an infantry squad).

c) from your experience, what is the best average reenablement rate per turn for Chinese rifle squads that you have seen in China (without use of a supply pump pulling large amounts of supplies from India) ?

Thanks for satisfying our curiosity !

Hartwig

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
How many tubes fired how many rounds at how many targets?

That’s one Kaleun will have to answer as I didn’t read the book. He mentioned he read about devastating concentrated artillery fire, so I found the casualty lists to give us a guide as to what had occurred.

As to supply, the Viet Minh were being supplied by the Communist Chinese at the time and the French airforce wasn’t really large enough to mount a meaningful interdiction effort at the time. Almost 100% of the aircraft in country were assigned to try and keep the garrison supplied by air.

The largest concentration of Japanese artillery in the Second Sino-Japanese war was at the Xiushui River crossing. I would imagine the Viet Minh had a similar number of tubes, though perhaps not any 155s, but I’m not sure as I can’t find and good OOB site for them.

http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/artillery_history.html

Jim

Interestng read Jim, what site is that ?

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: stuman
Interestng read Jim, what site is that ?

It’s the web site of Akira Takizawa, a Japanese author who’s had a couple books published covering the Japanese military. A lot of great stuff on his site, since he uses Japanese source material for most of his research.

Here's the front page:

http://www3.plala.or.jp/takihome/

Jim

[bklooste]

Has ( ie can ) someone look at havind 2/3 on reserve see the impact and then rotate units after a few days it and see how quickly the disablement rate comes back ? MY gut feel is disablement comes back according to divisional support ( which is vlow for CHinese) so put some major HQs there to see the difference.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
How many tubes fired how many rounds at how many targets?

That’s one Kaleun will have to answer as I didn’t read the book. He mentioned he read about devastating concentrated artillery fire, so I found the casualty lists to give us a guide as to what had occurred.
Jim

I wouldn’t mind knowing that meself. Viet Minh artillery tactics at Dien Bien Phu were a bit unconventional. Many of the tubes were fired in DF. VM didn’t have enuf trained artillerists and FOs to do otherwise, even with PA assistance, so they dug holes, opened up a firing port, set up the battery scopes and then shot everything they could see. They would shoot and then move the guns to another hole. It wasn’t intensity so much as accuracy. They knew exactly where Piroth’s guns were and whacked the crap out of them. Poor Piroth could do nothing in return.

[Cmdrcain]

Hummm


In all of this has any looked into if the Low Supplies in China for Chinese have any effect?

If Chinese are in low supply then actually less then nwhat see maybe  in defense and the low supply troops more vulnerable to attacks with a greater number going disabled.

Japanese have better supplies

Also perhaps the lower start Forts  in china are an problem... is strange the so called beta testers for AE  should have noticed this... none tested such things for china?

What CODE changes between AE and WITP in regard to arty were done? That in itself maybe the problem
maybe yank out those changes and put back in the WITP Arty code.

This really is something the beta testers SHOULD have caught!

They could have used editor to have setup a large stack to see effects..

Maybe there actually is a need for also Stack limits even on land not just islands...
the amount of some japanese stacks and even chinese stacks is absurd... the amount of both at one city really wouldn't likely have occurred in real life due to space and terrain limiting factors...  perhaps for Land... a limit on number of divisions/Corps in ANY hex...go over and you
start to incur some penalty...double supply use perhaps...   Could really japan put 8-10 divisions right in a 40 mile city hex?

With Chinese having 8-10 Corps in  same hex? Its as if their sitting on top of each...

But the bigger thing is that japan's arty does more damage then chinese...
If it was mere  guns vs guns I would think 400-500 arty would at least be doing half as much back ie: where 1000 japanese caused 6000 loss why
don't then 400-500 chinese guns do 2000-3000 loss to japanese?

So I think it REALLY has to do with SUPPLY and that china should start out with plenty of supply and gain more
otherwise if its supply...theres no way to prevent it.

Also if its supply... the cost in supply for Japan should be alot more then it is now to bombard... a doubling of the cost in the code for japanese maybe ?

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Cmdrcain
where 1000 japanese caused 6000 loss why
don't then 400-500 chinese guns do 2000-3000 loss to japanese?

Because combat is sequential. Japan fires first and obliterates all the Chinese guns, so there's nothing left to shoot back.

Jim

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Cmdrcain
where 1000 japanese caused 6000 loss why
don't then 400-500 chinese guns do 2000-3000 loss to japanese?

Because combat is sequential. Japan fires first and obliterates all the Chinese guns, so there's nothing left to shoot back.

Jim

Yep, you got it.

In hexes where I don't have my Japanese guns bombard, the Chinese are able to get hundreds of casualties, just like mine are doing. Unfortunately the turn order is supressing the Allied bombardments. Might be a good idea to randomize the order if possible.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Cmdrcain
where 1000 japanese caused 6000 loss why
don't then 400-500 chinese guns do 2000-3000 loss to japanese?

Because combat is sequential. Japan fires first and obliterates all the Chinese guns, so there's nothing left to shoot back.

Jim

Yep, you got it.

In hexes where I don't have my Japanese guns bombard, the Chinese are able to get hundreds of casualties, just like mine are doing. Unfortunately the turn order is supressing the Allied bombardments. Might be a good idea to randomize the order if possible.

My pet peeve with WitP engine is that it is not true WEGO in land combat, since Japan goes first always. Combat should be resolved simultaneously when same units in same hex are involved.

[Canoerebel]

That's interesting.  I had never thought of that before.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Yep, you got it.

In hexes where I don't have my Japanese guns bombard, the Chinese are able to get hundreds of casualties, just like mine are doing. Unfortunately the turn order is supressing the Allied bombardments. Might be a good idea to randomize the order if possible.

My vote is for simultaneous combats as Sardaukar says. But barring that, the defender should always get to shoot first if combats have to be resolved sequentially. There is a natural advantage to defending and sequential combats should reflect that.

Jim

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns


My vote is for simultaneous combats as Sardaukar says. But barring that, the defender should always get to shoot first if combats have to be resolved sequentially. There is a natural advantage to defending and sequential combats should reflect that.

Jim

This is quite major my vote is side with the lowest AV goes first , you could modify the AV with a leadership/recon modifier. If this doesnt exist already.

Speaking of which does anyone have any Combat reports of 100K Japanese vs 300K Chinese including there heavy artillary ?