Advice on gifting expeditionary forces please

[50shadesofgreen]

I've never tried as Germany gifting units to Japan in the war on China in 1938. My aim would be to level up the unit commanders.

I've just attempted giving Japan Tac Bombers, but the JAP AI doesn't seem to use them much? I've been checking up on them with a tag switch and giving them targets occasionally to speed things up. After a while I find them dormant again. I had 8 separate single plane units. The AI seemed to have something against my Nightfighter guys that I really wanted to get the exp boosts. It had a habit of combining wings to reject those guys back to GER.

If I tried again I would perhaps only send one wing at a time to give the AI no choice. This would solve the other issue of the massive fuel costs this bites me back with ( hidden under trades out).

I have had better luck with land units. One corps in the area above Beijing was sent straight into battle by the AI, except for the one commanded by Guderian. I later sent a second corps to a port captured by JAP amphib. These second guys saw a lot of action, and was rewarded by the leaders levelling up nicely without me needing to get involved. Then I noticed too late that one div had expired. The leader was bounced back to the pool in GER.

On tag switch nosey I saw that my remaining divs in the area were low manpower and low org. Had I tried this again I ought to build full strength (not reserves) expeditionary divs as the units will not fill out while GER is unmobilised.

Anything else that I should be aware of? Any tips on trying this again, please? There is little about on this forum on gifting exp forces.

 

[roverS3]

I do like the creativity of sending German expeditionary forces to the meat grinder in China, though I do wonder whether the manpower cost is worth it in the case of ground forces. The Sino-Japanese war is a very bloody affair and Japan has more manpower to spare than Germany. Some remarks on why things might not have worked out how you hoped they would:

The limit on Japanese air power in China isn't so much in the number of planes available but in the logistics of keeping them supplied in bases within range of the front without negatively affecting the provisioning of the army too much. Japan needs very few fighters in China as the Chinese Air Force is small and rather toothless. With fuel and air base space at a premium, especially once you get away from the coast, it doesn't make much sense to base fighters all over just in case the Chinese Air Force shows up. You can easily use CAG along the coast, and maybe a single wing of interceptors or multi-role fighters further inland that you reserve-hop to wherever the Chinese try something.

If by 'Night Fighter' you mean Ftr, those do use significantly more fuel and supplies than Int, so there is some logic behind the Japan AI's decision to not use them much on top of the fact that interception opportunities tend to be few and far between in China. They were mostly dead weight...

Even if you managed to get the Japanese AI to use your expeditionary air units instead of it's own, I'm not sure it's worth it as you're then depriving the Japanese Air units of valuable experience they will later need against a numerically superior USN and USAF.

It is indeed a good idea to only send full strength units as expeditionary forces if you aren't at war yourself. Of course full strength units can also shatter and break, but they will take more punishment before they do. Expeditionary forces are inherently risky that way because the AI can get your units encircled or break them and you can't do anything about it. And then there is the tricky bit of getting your units out, especially if they are, as in your case, on the other side of the world. You have to request them back a month in advance, and then you need to corral them to ports and then ship them all the way back to Germany. I'd expect that to take about 4 months.

Finally a question: How did you get the AI to accept expeditionary forces in such large numbers (by the corps)? Did you send the units one by one, or did you have to propose it multiple times?

 

[50shadesofgreen]

I cheated to get them to accept. Used tag switch so I could accept the proposal I made. I wanted to test how the units performed so didn't want to mess about with multiple requests/denials.

I meant Night Flyer traits, not Nightfighter, sorry. I only sent TAC bombers. But your same argument holds. The AI is dumping what it sees as inefficient leaders. It had no issues with Fleet Destroyers though?

Yes, supply at the airbases could have been an issue. I was sneaky and sent the local JAP planes back to Japan.

I'm not sure the expeditionary units in the landed pocket were getting replacements at all. I would need to watch that carefully next time.

 

[roverS3]

I meant Night Flyer traits, not Nightfighter, sorry. I only sent TAC bombers. But your same argument holds. The AI is dumping what it sees as inefficient leaders. It had no issues with Fleet Destroyers though?

Nightfighter is indeed a mostly useless trait for bombers. The AI will also use Tac to do naval strikes and port strikes, so fleet destroyers for Tac makes some sense.

I'm not sure the expeditionary units in the landed pocket were getting replacements at all. I would need to watch that carefully next time.

This would indicate a relative lack of supply in the beachhead as only units which are in supply get reinforcements.

Yes, supply at the airbases could have been an issue. I was sneaky and sent the local JAP planes back to Japan.

When playing as Japan, I've found that 2-3 Tac units is pretty much the limit during the China Campaign (though I did use some motorised forces, somewhat sapping the fuel in the system), you can add any units that are based on Taiwan and in Dalian as they have separate supply convoys, but those don't reach that far into China. Infrastructure in China is worse than in the Western Soviet Union and air bases aren't that common either

 

[50shadesofgreen]

In tests today they also bounced the Spotter air leader. I wanted the Night Flyers buffed in particular, but now got Kammhuber up to 4 and halfway to 5! The AI also finally got the unit lead by Guderian into action. Got my fleet destroyer up to 4 also. So getting results for my massive fuel outgoings. The airbase on Taiwan is paying off, thanks.

I forgot that not only do my reserve divisions not fill out as expeditionary forces, leaving them weakened. They also don't reinforce unless I put some input into the production sliders! I put a point into reinforcement and made sure that all my exp forces in Japan were priority for replacements.

I set the Shanxi victory provinces as targets for JAP and MAN allies. They took down Shanxi after a few months. The same tactic is not working elsewhere. I was trying to set objectives to outflank the Beijing River obstacle.

 

[roverS3]

In tests today they also bounced the Spotter air leader. I wanted the Night Flyers buffed in particular, but now got Kammhuber up to 4 and halfway to 5! The AI also finally got the unit lead by Guderian into action. Got my fleet destroyer up to 4 also. So getting results for my massive fuel outgoings. The airbase on Taiwan is paying off, thanks.

Spotter is also pretty useless for bombers so that makes perfect sense. The massive fuel outgoings is because the fuel your planes use comes out of your stockpile + the fuel cost of getting said fuel from Tokyo to your air units also falls onto you. (basically the amount of fuel and supplies used up by Japan to supply your expeditionary forces is continually being refunded from your stockpile to Japan's stockpile at the end of every day)

I forgot that not only do my reserve divisions not fill out as expeditionary forces, leaving them weakened. They also don't reinforce unless I put some input into the production sliders! I put a point into reinforcement and made sure that all my exp forces in Japan were priority for replacements.

You are responsible for reinforcing your expeditionary forces so you should be putting some IC into reinforcements to train and equip replacements regardless of whether it's a reserve unit or a full strength one. I forgot to mention that.

I set the Shanxi victory provinces as targets for JAP and MAN allies. They took down Shanxi after a few months. The same tactic is not working elsewhere. I was trying to set objectives to outflank the Beijing River obstacle.

They're probably running into supply issues (bad infra) and/or bad terrain, thighs in these departments tend to get worse the further inland you go. Shanxi always gets taken out by the AI, it's pretty flat terrain, relatively weak, and somewhat decent Infra, at least where it matters. This can take between a few months and over a year, depending on whether the AI is fast enough to knock them out before the Nationalists reinforce Shanxi's line, so you probably sped up the process by helping the AI prioritise the right targets. The China campaign can be quite frustrating as a player, with the AI it inevitably turns into a slow grind.

 

[50shadesofgreen]

Which leads me to wonder what the right targets are to aid the AI? I seemed to have luck when using them as a guide to take out Shanxi. They failed to take the hint to swing behind that river line at Beijing.
The other groups of exp forces that I sent to reinforce an amphib landing just floundered Anzio-style while the Chinese took their time to surround them. It looks like the GER division that I lost was cut off in a forlorn attempt at a breakout.
It may be a better resort next time would be to gift some river crossing lead units and try to storm that northern river on the direct route?

 

[50shadesofgreen]

Replaying this, with this time sending fewer air units. Annoyingly there is little improvement with spending much of the time idle, even in the well supplied Dalian airbase with plenty of nearby targets.

The AI still occasionally groups my expeditionary air units together, bumping out one of my leaders as a result. I recall these back to GER and split them to re-gift again (my aim being to gain leader experience). Oddly the AI combined a GER wing with a JAP wing. Luckily I was still able to recall the German unit but also got the JAP tac wing as a native GER wing now! It has no expeditionary symbol and a Japanese name.

The land war seems to have reached a stalemate at the end of 1937 with no further battles. The lines have thickened above the Shanxi capital. No moving of objectives seems to provoke any actions.

I am struggling to work out how to get my Japanese allies moving again.

 

[roverS3]

The AI still occasionally groups my expeditionary air units together, bumping out one of my leaders as a result. I recall these back to GER and split them to re-gift again (my aim being to gain leader experience). Oddly the AI combined a GER wing with a JAP wing. Luckily I was still able to recall the German unit but also got the JAP tac wing as a native GER wing now! It has no expeditionary symbol and a Japanese name.

What a mess. I guess that's one way to get a free air unit... As the AI's only ever seem to give each other land units as expeditionary forces, and I've never been able to get an AI to accept air or naval units, I didn't know it was this broken... This is maybe less likely to happen if you group your wings into Tacx2 units, even if that does go at the price of less commander XP...

The land war seems to have reached a stalemate at the end of 1937 with no further battles. The lines have thickened above the Shanxi capital. No moving of objectives seems to provoke any actions.

I am struggling to work out how to get my Japanese allies moving again.

There really is very little you can do to help your allies out in this instance. All you can do is send expeditionary forces (preferably forces that don't need too much supplies/fuel compared to their fighting strength.) and place objectives. What happens after that is up to the battling AI's, how they deal with each other, and how they deal with obstacles like rivers, bad infrastructure and bad weather. If the AI isn't initiating any battles it's either because of a lack of supply, because it considers the odds to not be in it's favour (insufficient forces, weather, etc.), or a combination of both.

All in all an interesting experiment.

 

[50shadesofgreen]

Thanks for the suggestions. The wing size of two seems to be stable, and the AI is now stuck with MY choice of leader.

I finally realised that the TACs were stood down once their org dropped to below 50%.

The static front line does seem to be down to the poor infrastructure. The southern assault was back and forth, leaving any victor with nil infra. Thus poor supply and poor org.


I spent much time setting objectives steadily towards Taiyuan to knock out Shanxi ( my default objective). Once I left the AI alone it made a sweeping attack instead to the left, making a path towards Communist China. If the AI had told me of this strategy, I would have left it alone!

 

[50shadesofgreen]

So 1939 comes and it's a dash to gift new GER expeditionary commanders to the JAP front, gain experience then dash back before the Danzig event isolates them in the East. Was a close run thing getting all my guys back in Germany before the war started in the west. One of the most nail-biting moments I have had playing this game. It's actually my (GER) choice when the war starts, but delaying it costs me the early start and early conquests.

Was the rush worth it? I got air commanders Milch and Sperrle up to level 6. Zander (fleet destroyer) up to 5, and Kuhl + Hellingbrunner also 5. The last two are Night Flyers and I hope to get good returns on them intercepting allied bomber raids.

The army commanders von Leeb, von Runstedt, Hausser and von Manstein are also level 6. Got Rommel 93% of the way there. Nine other land guys also got boosts. This will mean my OOB for the Poland campaign will start quite differently.

As to the actual fighting in Japan. I totally failed to get the Japanese to make any impact on the Chinese. Didn't even break Shanxi or the Communists this time. Supply didn't seem to be the issue as there was plenty, except at the airbases. Japan didn't make any amphib landings this time.