Japan 46 Campaign Supply Sources

[ComradeP]

unonimus:

Mr. Freer,

Some problems that were found in Japan '45 and Japan '46 in the previous version hasn't been fixed (Not that it's hard to fix, but manual editing of scenarios and OOB shouldn't be forced, I think.).

For Japan '45:

216th Division comes twice with strategy choices and French Expeditionary Corps and Navy comes after the end of the scenario.

For Japan '46:

The additional replacement value for 93rd Recon Battalion and 501st Infantry Regiment. It shouldn't be there.

Will there be a hotfix(? or 4.01?) for that? Or should I re-download them to see these problems fixed?

By the way, units can draw opportunity fire by trying to assault even though they don't have enough movement points or they are not able to assault (like artillery). Is this intended? I have tested it on both PzC and MC.

I actually asked the J '45 one to Rich, but since I forgot mentioning the thing in J '46 and I found the last bug (or feature?) yesterday, one can pretend I didn't ask anything to Rich.

Response from Strela:

Hi there,


I am reviewing these.

David

ComradeP:

One minor OOB issue with Japan '46: the 38th Infantry Division's artillery has "/32" instead of "/38" at the end of the battalion designations.

Elxaime:

Another couple of items for the Japan 46' WDS version for a future patch and/or consideration:

1. The mysterious minefield deep in Japan at 123,2 is still there in the Operation Coronet campaign game.

2. On the Japanese militia and partisan units, they are all subordinated to a single HQ, the 12th Area Army. While the 12th Area Army, based in Tokyo, has a pretty long command range, this essentially means these units - if they want to stay in command range (which is highly recommended) - can only cover the middle of the map (albeit a big part). This seems counterintuitive, since these units are organized by prefecture, some of them start fixed and release from quite a distance from Tokyo, and the nature of militia and partisan units is that they have the flexibility to operate throughout a country (especially the partisans). There is a "Volunteer Fighting Corps" in their chain of command, but no HQ exists for that. Suggest the designer do a sweep of the militia and partisans and consider reorganizing their command structure. This could include adding further "sector" commands (e.g., a "West Volunteer Fighting Corps" and "East Volunteer Fighting Corps") or perhaps HQs based on prefectures. You may also want to examine whether the units of the Tokyo prefecture - there are a lot of them - would be divided into sub-commands. Right now, you can't really consider an irregular war since the units can't stray past the range of their single HQ, the 12th Area Army. You may also want to, consistent with any reorganization, consider whether some of these units would start further south, e.g., on the two peninsulas on either side of Tokyo Bay, since the way the release schedule works, the Japanese player may not have time to get the slow-moving militia and partisans down to these areas before the Allied offensives cut them off (this is more an issue with the SE than the SW, since the Japanese naval infantry in the SW are very strong and that area is hard to breach). All of this begs the 30,000-foot question - how do you want to model any possible Japanese irregular forces? As minor or non-factors? Merely good for digging and holding rear areas? Or as a more potent threat? If the latter, you may want to consider making the smaller 50-man partisan companies a bit larger.

3. Allied post-landing naval "end runs" and airborne drops. Playing the Japanese, one of the things that bothers me is that, once they release, I can move all the rear area units to the front line and not have to worry about holding those coasts or be worried about Allied airborne drops. It would be nice to give the Allies some strategies to keep the Japanese side honest. You may need to add additional Japanese reinforcements subject to use of these options. One fascinating thought might be to model a Soviet intervention via sea, land or air, later in the campaign (including the Soviet Navy). Anyway, these strategies could allow use of US, British and French special forces.

4. On the Western Allied fleet, Japan 45' includes some attrition of these vessels to account for Kamikaze attacks, suicide boats, etc., but this effect is absent in Japan 46'. I am not saying yea or nay, but wonder why this is, and whether this was an oversight?

5. A regiment of the Japanese 321st Division sits on O-Shima Island, and there is a supply source and VP hexes there, but basically it is just fluff. When considering adding strategies, you may want to consider some options for this situation. For example: a) tie any attrition effect on Allied ships (mentioned above) to the Japanese holding this island (it would be assumed this was part of the Japanese being capable of and putting resources into this approach, so it models what is there in Japan 45'); b) allow Japan to withdraw these forces to the mainland to use them there, at a VP cost (this assumes the Allies then occupy O-Shima without a fight); c) if Japan stays, give the Allies a strategy to launch an invasion of O-Shima with a force that may otherwise not have participated (e.g. a Commonwealth or Nationalist Chinese Regiment). Just some thoughts. It seems strange to just see them there for fluff.

Response from Green:

James,


Thanks for the feedback. As I mentioned to ComradeP, the experience you both have with this campaign makes your input invaluable. At this stage work is still on-going with J45, so J46 has yet to be looked at. The primary focus is to make adjustments that provide balance, following the revision of the default rules. This needs to encompass the entire game and not just the campaign. Of course we want to balance the campaign to the extent possible but given the 600 turn time-frame the difficulties are immense. The realistic scope of this project will not include and major re-working of the original design. For example, adding units that are not a part of the existing OOB is not intended as part of this review.

Here are my initial thoughts on the points you raise:

1. These mines will be removed.

2. ComradeP has suggested that Militia and Boeitai units should be Fixed for the duration in their own city. Partisans are different but to what extent would these units have been controlled or coordinated by a higher HQ? In the Notes for the game it says that "Partisans were bypassed soldiers and specific teams left behind to disrupt any Allied advance". This does not suggest a force that should be provided with good command and control. At first glance the game reflects what is intended but perhaps I am missing something.     

3. The timing of the release of Fixed Japanese units is definitely something that can be looked at but additional landings or airborne operations is beyond what is planned. Some clear 'historic' justification would be needed. But I agree that it could make an interesting what-if variant to the historic plan. 

4. Lack of naval attrition was not an oversight. The idea is that the Japanese would have thrown everything at the initial landings on Kyushu. But this is something that could be looked at if you think it is an issue.

5. A solution is needed but it should to be simple as we are only talking about one regiment. There is no way in game terms to tie naval attrition to the Japanese holding the island. Perhaps if they are seen as serving no purpose they should just be removed? Would transporting them from the island have been a realistic option?

Anyway, when the time comes to work on this, your points can be considered more carefully. If anything occurs to you in the meantime, let us know and we can add it to the list.

John

To avoid the recent Japan '46 feedback being hard to find due to being in a thread about the recent updates, I moved the recent posts to this earlier thread. This should help in keeping the updates thread on topic.

In reply to the points raised by Elxaime:

2) How the various non-regular units can best be represented in game terms would depend on what the Japanese intended to do with them. As Green mentioned, I would be in favour of Fixing the irregular and Boeitai units in their own city/district. To give them the opportunity to respond to Allied movement into their area, the Fixed state could be paired with some tripwire T release trigger units 10-15 hexes away from their initial locations. The irregular and Boeitai units could be reorganized by district or compass direction. Releasing the Boeitai but not irregular forces might also work.

Partisan units are never Detached, so the location of their higher HQ is mostly irrelevant, aside from Disruption recovery (assuming that still depends on distance to the HQ for partisan units, like it does for other units).

My main issue as the Allied player with Japanese non-regular units is that, as Elxaime mentions, the Japanese can strip most of the map of any kind of unit and move everybody to the 2, in most cases fairly confined, Allied landing areas. In the western part of the map, the non-regular units are mostly digging trenches and relieving other Japanese units.

That further amplifies the Japanese advantage in terms of number of units in each formation.

Aside from many battalions featuring separate MG and AT rifle units, the non-regular units also increase the number of Japanese units in an area, resulting in the Allied player having to move through hex after hex of prepared defences.

Some additional differentiation between the Japanese non-regular units might also be a good change. Giving the Boeitai a Defense value of 16 would be reasonable, considering that they had military experience and would have had some idea of what they were doing. Currently, Peoples Volunteer irregular units and Boeitai share the same stats, but you would expect the Boeitai to be a more potent force.

3) The 11th Airborne Division can actually make an airborne drop in the western or eastern part of the map as a strategy option, but without a supply source and with the sheer number of Japanese units that is currently likely to be suicidal.

The 97th Infantry Division, and this also addresses point 5, can launch two amphibious invasions aside from landing at one of the initial landing beaches. One option is to land at O-Shima. The Allied player is unlikely to do so, for the same reason as why the Japanese regiment there feels like a wasted asset: the division can't get off the island after clearing it.

The 1100 VP's are enticing, but they can also be claimed elsewhere and the Allies don't exactly have a lot of divisions to work with initially, so a fresh division landing on one of the initial beaches is preferable.

4) Withdrawal chances for the Navy are problematic in the same way as they are problematic in Japan '45: even with a withdraw chance of 1% per turn, statistically speaking the Navy would be gone after about 10 days.

I'd also argue that the Navy is less powerful than you might think based on some of the losses you're seeing. Most of them are from stacks of ships, and naval units use 1/2 the Global supply value as a base to determine whether they're available. That means naval units can only fire every 3-4 turns at this point. I need to use a serious number of naval units to make any kind of lasting impression in our game thus far.