China's stength compared to Japan in the new DLC

[KalypsoKirin]

As Daniel admitted it was a mistake that cost him help from the Soviets and don't forget he is one of the best players but the A.I should also get some credit for not screwing up when it has all the advantages. In a single player game its good to know that the game can give you a challenge and in a multiplayers game don't make the same mistakes Daniel did!!!

It was an honest mistake!

 

[walt526]

Chinese states should be very difficult to defeat on their home turf, but have limited capability outside their own territory. So the solution to China is to give them a really strong core attack/defense buff (and then allocate cores appropriately across the Chinese states) so that they can hold their own against the Japanese and each other but aren't much of a threat to expand beyond China if their industrial capacity is appropriately set (i.e., minimize the number of building slots per province) and they have limited research capacity.

 

[ollie98]

If the way supply worked in the game was changed and if the AI had a system in place which meant they checked if their battle plan was still advantageous then maybe you could bring the Japanese attack to a halt.
The lack of ability to supply in further provinces would make the battle plan dis-advantageous, which the AI would realize and therefore not trigger it and therefore not attack and therefore stay on the defensive.
The AI could then determine how many divisions it needs for its current situation (unable to attack therefore on the defensive) and the other divisions could then, for example, be attached to another army and used for the invasion of SE Asia.

 

[Limith]

The simplest solution (for paradox) is to make Japan's penalties fighting China go UP as they occupy more territory to simulate worsening supply situation and worsening garrison penalties. Thus a player would be incentivized to occupy important cities/territories rather than carpet occupy the area.

On the flip side it's too easy right now as the Nationalists to remove army corruption in the game. Army corruption did not go away. The problem is not all units were corrupt, which isn't properly modeled. Jiang's personal troops, the german trained troops, and the latter British trained troops were competent. Guangxi troops were competent, as were Shanxi Clique troops. Jiang abandoned the defense of Nanjing to evacuate the remains of the better troops under his command so he could fight again. As Natchi holdings shrunk, it got better as generals were closer to the central government and thus couldn't be as corrupt anymore, but it never went away. Army corruption led to the defeat of the nationalists in the civil war. As soon as these generals left the watch of the central government they went back to being corrupt.

Of course making it harder to remove army corruption won't improve the balance. It just goes to show how utterly unrealistic the situation is in HoI4.

The main limiting factor for Japan IRL was supplies (logistics/garrison) and money. They had to garrison supply lines. Supplies were stolen by partisans (500,000 partisans in northeast china alone by war end. They didn't get weapons from nowhere). Japan was so short on weapons that they stripped their Manchurian border garrison of weapons and gave them old WW1 guns to supply the front. The army couldn't find money to pay for more troops (blackmailed the banks to fund the war). And lastly, there was no value to occupying the vast majority of land in China for Japan which is why they went after the cities hoping for a peace where they would get the industrial and resource areas. Not some "not taking the chinese seriously, but the player can change that by spending some mana".
____
Watching the warlords stream reminds me why I won't play HoI4. Too little historical plausibility. Sure, you can have the Guangxi Clique side with Japan for player choice. But it should come with severe penalties. Troops would revolt and desert. Your generals would desert. The New Guangxi Clique's leadership was very much against collaborating with Japan and the 'Third Guangxi Clique' would necessitate a different leader to be historically accurate. Historically Japan tried very hard to win over the warlords but none of them did. There were reasons for this which is not modeled ingame as a penalty for seeking Japanese support. If anything seeking British support would be more likely for Guangxi as the KMT was collaborating with the Germans at the time.

The warlords which might side with Japan are Xinjiang and some warlords which are not modeled in game. (Shandong area general fled rather than fight at the beginning of the war).

Yan Xishan ordered his troops to fight to the death against Japan rather than retreat and stalled the Japanese offensive long enough for the Nationalists to reform.
Zhang Xueliang started the Xi'an Incident because Jiang refused to fight Japan.
Ma Clique issues fatwas and jihads against the Japanese.
Guangxi threatened a border war with Nanjing in the Lianguang Incident under the pretext that Nanjing wasn't dedicated to fighting Japan (which was true) and demanded to send expeditionary forces north.

None of these cliques should be allowed to 'seek japanese support' at the sole cost of some mana points. There should be real consequences that reflect historical plausibility, leading to drastic changes in leadership and severe internal struggles, possible even communist revolts. If a player wants to go down the ahistoric route and can overcome these historically accurate challenges then that is fine. But right now the game is just spend some mana->do unrealistic thing.

 

[Nevrion]

Daniel made some mistakes for sure. He also had the bad luck with Mao so he couldn't establish an united Chinese front. Because of that he had to fight an inner China war instead to focus on Japan. The game isn't over and maybe he still can manage it to fight back, but because of all these circumstances it's hard to judge if the Chinese AI is able to fight a Japanese AI successfully. We just can assume Japan can handle that war in the beginning.

I mean, what do we expect? A war between those two countries that gets stucked, like in reality? I don't see a problem if the AI solves problems that reality didn't. But of course, there should be a chance for both countries to win the war. (including Mao) And if doesn't work in 1.5, it probably will in 1.5.1.

 

[stl3l9n]

The simplest solution (for paradox) is to make Japan's penalties fighting China go UP as they occupy more territory to simulate worsening supply situation and worsening garrison penalties. Thus a player would be incentivized to occupy important cities/territories rather than carpet occupy the area.

On the flip side it's too easy right now as the Nationalists to remove army corruption in the game. Army corruption did not go away. The problem is not all units were corrupt, which isn't properly modeled. Jiang's personal troops, the german trained troops, and the latter British trained troops were competent. Guangxi troops were competent, as were Shanxi Clique troops. Jiang abandoned the defense of Nanjing to evacuate the remains of the better troops under his command so he could fight again. As Natchi holdings shrunk, it got better as generals were closer to the central government and thus couldn't be as corrupt anymore, but it never went away. Army corruption led to the defeat of the nationalists in the civil war. As soon as these generals left the watch of the central government they went back to being corrupt.

Of course making it harder to remove army corruption won't improve the balance. It just goes to show how utterly unrealistic the situation is in HoI4.

The main limiting factor for Japan IRL was supplies (logistics/garrison) and money. They had to garrison supply lines. Supplies were stolen by partisans (500,000 partisans in northeast china alone by war end. They didn't get weapons from nowhere). Japan was so short on weapons that they stripped their Manchurian border garrison of weapons and gave them old WW1 guns to supply the front. The army couldn't find money to pay for more troops (blackmailed the banks to fund the war). And lastly, there was no value to occupying the vast majority of land in China for Japan which is why they went after the cities hoping for a peace where they would get the industrial and resource areas. Not some "not taking the chinese seriously, but the player can change that by spending some mana".
____
Watching the warlords stream reminds me why I won't play HoI4. Too little historical plausibility. Sure, you can have the Guangxi Clique side with Japan for player choice. But it should come with severe penalties. Troops would revolt and desert. Your generals would desert. The New Guangxi Clique's leadership was very much against collaborating with Japan and the 'Third Guangxi Clique' would necessitate a different leader to be historically accurate. Historically Japan tried very hard to win over the warlords but none of them did. There were reasons for this which is not modeled ingame as a penalty for seeking Japanese support. If anything seeking British support would be more likely for Guangxi as the KMT was collaborating with the Germans at the time.

The warlords which might side with Japan are Xinjiang and some warlords which are not modeled in game. (Shandong area general fled rather than fight at the beginning of the war).

Yan Xishan ordered his troops to fight to the death against Japan rather than retreat and stalled the Japanese offensive long enough for the Nationalists to reform.
Zhang Xueliang started the Xi'an Incident because Jiang refused to fight Japan.
Ma Clique issues fatwas and jihads against the Japanese.
Guangxi threatened a border war with Nanjing in the Lianguang Incident under the pretext that Nanjing wasn't dedicated to fighting Japan (which was true) and demanded to send expeditionary forces north.

None of these cliques should be allowed to 'seek japanese support' at the sole cost of some mana points. There should be real consequences that reflect historical plausibility, leading to drastic changes in leadership and severe internal struggles, possible even communist revolts. If a player wants to go down the ahistoric route and can overcome these historically accurate challenges then that is fine. But right now the game is just spend some mana->do unrealistic thing.

Yes!

 

[TrotBot]

The difficulty for japan would be that the revolution in china was developing too, and that holding a country in the throws of revolution, or attempting to, is impossible. So yes, if the player wants, they should be able to temporarily conquer china, but it should become almost impossible to hold the more of it you try to conquer.

 

[TrotBot]

Mao's already leading a guerilla army and he stays active and very effective as a partisan. So there's your discouragement for your cheap victory with the help of the traitorous Kuomintang.

 

[FOARP]

Chinese states should be very difficult to defeat on their home turf, but have limited capability outside their own territory. So the solution to China is to give them a really strong core attack/defense buff (and then allocate cores appropriately across the Chinese states) so that they can hold their own against the Japanese and each other but aren't much of a threat to expand beyond China if their industrial capacity is appropriately set (i.e., minimize the number of building slots per province) and they have limited research capacity.

Umm. Well.

China lost the majority of its major cities in 1937-40. That includes Beijing (then Beiping) a city of millions of people, which was lost within a couple of days without even a shot being fired. When the Japanese stopped advancing in 1940 it was because they genuinely didn’t think they had anything to gain by doing so and could just lay back and win a political victory.

I really, really am not seeing the basis for the idea that the Chinese should be super-strong on home turf. Some of the best performances of the Chinese army were in the Burma campaign (US weapons, equipment, and organisation will do that) so the other part of the equation also seems to lack basis.

The Chinese fought hard in a number of battles (Shanghai, Xuzhou, Hengyang, Changsha) but the general standard was bad and I don’t see why the game should pretend otherwise. Indeed the idea that China should be hard for Japan means that you never get to see a realistic Pacific campaign, since the result is Japanese forces being diverted from the Pacific and South-East Asia. In reality this wasn’t the case as even at peak strength only roughly a third of the Japanese army was in China (~31 divisions).

 

[stl3l9n]

Umm. Well.

China lost the majority of its major cities in 1937-40. That includes Beijing (then Beiping) a city of millions of people, which was lost within a couple of days without even a shot being fired. When the Japanese stopped advancing in 1940 it was because they genuinely didn’t think they had anything to gain by doing so and could just lay back and win a political victory.

I really, really am not seeing the basis for the idea that the Chinese should be super-strong on home turf. Some of the best performances of the Chinese army were in the Burma campaign (US weapons, equipment, and organisation will do that) so the other part of the equation also seems to lack basis.

The Chinese fought hard in a number of battles (Shanghai, Xuzhou, Hengyang, Changsha) but the general standard was bad and I don’t see why the game should pretend otherwise. Indeed the idea that China should be hard for Japan means that you never get to see a realistic Pacific campaign, since the result is Japanese forces being diverted from the Pacific and South-East Asia. In reality this wasn’t the case as even at peak strength only roughly a third of the Japanese army was in China (~31 divisions).

Yes, I agree with that allot but Japan would've moved more of their army to China if they could IRl, but they didn't. I think the USSR should get a decision allowing them to declear war on Manchuria and Japan if there is less than 300k in manpower on the Soviet-Manchurian border (and the same for the Japanese) until you have a non-agression pact with Japan. This would force 30 divisons + to be in Manchuria which already solves most of the problems.
Also, the penalties for Japan (which unfortunatly we need to have until we get a proper supply system) should start low, but go up further you got into China. Ichigo would allow you to reduce them quite a bit, but you would have to be at war with the US. Player Japan in singleplayer should be able to beat China in 39 if they're a good player (assuming mid 37 war start), or if the aren't very good, they would only be able to beat China during Ichigo in 40/41.

 

[Limith]

Umm. Well.

China lost the majority of its major cities in 1937-40. That includes Beijing (then Beiping) a city of millions of people, which was lost within a couple of days without even a shot being fired.

The Chinese fought hard in a number of battles (Shanghai, Xuzhou, Hengyang, Changsha) but the general standard was bad and I don’t see why the game should pretend otherwise. Indeed the idea that China should be hard for Japan means that you never get to see a realistic Pacific campaign, since the result is Japanese forces being diverted from the Pacific and South-East Asia. In reality this wasn’t the case as even at peak strength only roughly a third of the Japanese army was in China (~31 divisions).

There were plenty of hard fighting by the Chinese even at the start of the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Xishan#Early_campaigns

During the Battle of Xinkou, the Chinese defenders resisted the efforts of Japan's elite Itakagi Division for over a month, despite Japanese advantages in artillery and air support. By the end of October 1937 Japan's losses were four times greater than those suffered at Pingxingguan, and the Itakagi Division was close to defeat. Contemporary Communist accounts called the battle "the most fierce in North China", while Japanese accounts called the battle a "stalemate". In an effort to save their forces at Xinkou, Japanese forces began an effort to occupy Shanxi from a second direction, in the east. After a week of fighting, Japanese forces captured the strategic Niangzi Pass, opening the way to capturing Taiyuan. Communist guerrilla tactics were ineffective in slowing down the Japanese advance. The defenders at Xinkou, realizing that they were in danger of being outflanked, withdrew southward, past Taiyuan, leaving a small force of 6,000 men to hold off the entire Japanese army. A representative of the Japanese army, speaking of the final defense of Taiyuan, said that "nowhere in China have the Chinese fought so obstinately".[56]

The Japanese suffered 30,000 dead and an equal number wounded in their effort to take northern Shanxi. A Japanese study found that the battles of Pingxingguan, Xinkou and Taiyuan were responsible for over half of all casualties suffered by the Japanese army in North China. Yan himself was forced to withdraw after having 90% of his army destroyed, including a large force of reinforcements sent into Shanxi by the central government. Throughout 1937 numerous high-ranking Communist leaders, including Mao Zedong, lavished praise on Yan for waging an uncompromising campaign of resistance against the Japanese

Early Japanese tank advantage was a significant factor for why many early cities were overrun. There were accounts of chinese trench lines being run over by Japanese tanks with no weapons on the chinese side that could penetrate the tanks. The battle of shanghai failed similarly because the chinese did not have equipment to dislodge Japanese tanks. In addition the shock factor of Jiang's best German trained troops being unable to defeat a small contingent of tanks (a dozen or so) severely impacted the army (you could say the army shattered). Imagine being on the front and hearing the army's best divisions could not defeat less than a dozen tanks. After some fighting against tanks, the Chinese discovered grenades/dynamite placed under the tank could destroy them, and better equipment arrived that could destroy tanks, which made this advantage only be relevant at the start of the war. In addition supplying tanks in mountainous terrain was difficult for Japan.

Shandong troops fled without fighting due to psychological reasons as well as covert reasons (the governor was communicating with the Japanese and considered turning coat). Jiang even gave the troops extra resources to hold the line but the troops fled at the order of the governor who wanted to turncoat. Thus Shandong fell not because the Japanese army was better.

If paradox wants to implement warlords collaborating with Japan, add a clique for Shangdong and have them turncoat.
____

When the Japanese stopped advancing in 1940 it was because they genuinely didn’t think they had anything to gain by doing so and could just lay back and win a political victory.

I really, really am not seeing the basis for the idea that the Chinese should be super-strong on home turf. Some of the best performances of the Chinese army were in the Burma campaign (US weapons, equipment, and organisation will do that) so the other part of the equation also seems to lack basis.

The Japanese tried to take more cities numerous times past 1940 and they were stopped or taken at severe cost. I do agree that there was nothing advantageous for them to gain by occupying the countryside. However they still wanted to advance to capture cities because they felt doing so would knock China out of the war. This is similar to their misguided idea that attacking Pearl Harbor would knock the US out of the war. China at the time had 90%+ of the population in the rural areas. Taking the cities would not have knocked China out of the war even if the cities were under collaborationist control simply as they would have control over less of 10% of the population. Collaborationist armies were ineffective, demoralized, and frequently surrendered to partisan regiments that were 10x smaller than the collaborationist force.

See Siege of Changsha 1, 2, 3 and 4, Wuhan, 1939 Counteroffensive, Shanggao

The 1939–40 Winter Offensive was one of the major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, in which Chinese forces launched their first major counter-offensive on multiple fronts. Although this offensive failed to achieve its original objectives, some studies have shown that it came as a heavy blow to the Japanese forces, as well as a massive shock to the Japanese military command, which did not expect the Chinese forces to be able to launch an offensive operation on such a large scale

1941 Attempt to advance, beaten back

The Battle of Shanggao (simplified Chinese: 上高会战; traditional Chinese: 上高會戰; pinyin: Shànggāo Huìzhàn), also called Operation Kinkō (Japanese: 錦江作戦), was one of the 22 major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
...
After reevaluating the situation, Japanese tacticians concluded that they could not afford to suffer any more losses from what was considered to be an inconclusive battle about the trivial matter of a Chinese headquarters, and on 1 April, they began to withdraw. In haste, the Japanese left behind many of their weapons and wounded troops. They would soon be captured by the Chinese. By 19 April the withdrawal was complete, and both sides now occupied their original positions.

In conclusion, the battle ended with a decisive victory for the Chinese forces, who were able to capture substantial amounts of military equipment and supplies, and boost the morale of the Chinese people.

Ichi-go also largely failed to achieve it's objective. The reason was Japan was already spread too thin. In addition even if they did manage to capture a few cities, it would not have ended the insurgency. The misconception many people have is taking Japan's rationale for Ichi-go at face value. The Japanese felt capturing a few cities would knock the Chinese out of the war. That doesn't mean the Chinese would have agreed to a surrender. Just like how a 'successful' Pearl Harbor would not have knocked the US out of the war or ended the embargos. A successful Ichi-go would have likely seen an expansion of the collaborationist government and perhaps a truce along the front at least for territory that Japan cared about (the coastal cities, resource regions) but an insurgency would have continued on in the rural areas. At best it would buy time for Japan to focus elsewhere for a few years before they would either have to return troops to fight an insurgency (see Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam for how effective that turns out to be) or see the collaborationist government kicked out or even switch sides (a la Kaiserreich Prussia becoming hostile if you are syndicalist)

I think the Chinese theater is better compared to the Soviet theater where instead of 'russian' winter, it's logistics that makes things worse and worse for Japan (although logistics is also a part of why Germany's advance lost steam). China had an underdeveloped logistics system at the time and transporting equipment inland was a challenge for Japan. The 'home turf' advantage is the defenders have the support of the civil rural population who provides food to the troops and are willing to trek long distances to keep troops in supply. Japan doesn't have this source of free labor to help maintain their supply lines and has to deal with hostile attacks on their supply lines (eg bombing of the very few railroads that still existed at the time as well as the cost of repairing railroads). Once they were away from the sea supply was a major problem.

The equipment improvements on the Chinese side is also a factor.

Indeed the idea that China should be hard for Japan means that you never get to see a realistic Pacific campaign, since the result is Japanese forces being diverted from the Pacific and South-East Asia. In reality this wasn’t the case as even at peak strength only roughly a third of the Japanese army was in China (~31 divisions).

I'm of the opinion that Japan is on the contrary too powerful in Paradox games vis-a-vis real life. There were specific reasons why they were able to overrun China early on that stopped being true. The war became a stalemate. This isn't really possible to model in game due to how wars and Industry works in paradox games (and how you tend to lose IC = lose wars even more). Japan is able to churn out enough supplies for her troops to easily take over China when in real life she struggled mightily to do so. Did Japan manage to strike far relative to her industry in real life? Yes. Did Japan manage to succeed early in the war? Yes. But that was all in spite of their weak supply situation. In fact it is acknowledged by the Japanese the reason they went to war with the allies was for resources in Asia that they desperately needed. The emperor criticized the IJA for lack of success in China in 1941 and the they had estimated that critical war resources would run out by 1943 if they did not seize it from SEA.

I will also reiterate that the reason why Japan didn't send more troops to China was because they economically (in terms of cost-benefit) could not do so, not only from a supplies perspective but also from a wages perspective. This is not modeled in any HoI game. Japan sent out troops to the pacific to acquire war resources for their industry they desperately needed, and they did so by hollowing out their Manchurian garrison. Japan was bleeding equipment in China just trying to maintain the status quo. They were bleeding equipment whenever they lost a fight to the Nationalists. The collaborationist government was bleeding equipment to partisans. Their supply lines were being raided by partisans. Enough equipment was captured in the totality of the war to arm 500,000 partisans in northeastern china alone that formed the backbone of the Communist army in the civil war. None of this is true in game.

 

[mjb2k]

So first off let's just get this straight. The dev playing is completely incompetent. This isn't anything knew, he is the same dev who builds 30 widths... Do I need to explain more? Also the Chinese debuffs you refer to when Japan takes 'Chinese border incident' actually applies to Japan. If the dev was somewhat more competent he would have not done some of those focuses, not research arty, not built forts and changed his templates to 10 width to have more of them for org wall. Like I can tell you straight off the bat that some of those Chinese focuses are dumb. Like the 60 division plan is completely worthless (-25% training time is not worth the 70 days + 25 pp). Also the fort line focuses only added a couple of forts in certain areas which makes them very weak. The entire welfare tree is literally counterproductive because of the consumer goods it gives you so I don't know why you would touch that tree. The annexing/puppeting warlords is probably not bad and actually good for you (although unlike the Dev you should actually cheer when they refuse). He basically threw 12 widths into Mountains and thought it be ok... He probably lost a couple thousand guns to those battles alone. He should of reached out to Britain more early on and build only mils in order to just make a bunch of 10 widths to fight back. Guarantee you if that's me I don't lose the entire province of Beijing. Considering China can go partial in may 36 that's hella good. Also he gets free trade for free which is actually good for China, don't listen to the devs for strats; they don't know what they're doing.

 

[FOARP]

There were plenty of hard fighting by the Chinese even at the start of the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Xishan#Early_campaigns

Early Japanese tank advantage was a significant factor for why many early cities were overrun. There were accounts of chinese trench lines being run over by Japanese tanks with no weapons on the chinese side that could penetrate the tanks. The battle of shanghai failed similarly because the chinese did not have equipment to dislodge Japanese tanks. In addition the shock factor of Jiang's best German trained troops being unable to defeat a small contingent of tanks (a dozen or so) severely impacted the army (you could say the army shattered). Imagine being on the front and hearing the army's best divisions could not defeat less than a dozen tanks. After some fighting against tanks, the Chinese discovered grenades/dynamite placed under the tank could destroy them, and better equipment arrived that could destroy tanks, which made this advantage only be relevant at the start of the war. In addition supplying tanks in mountainous terrain was difficult for Japan.

Shandong troops fled without fighting due to psychological reasons as well as covert reasons (the governor was communicating with the Japanese and considered turning coat). Jiang even gave the troops extra resources to hold the line but the troops fled at the order of the governor who wanted to turncoat. Thus Shandong fell not because the Japanese army was better.

If paradox wants to implement warlords collaborating with Japan, add a clique for Shangdong and have them turncoat.

"Because tanks" isn't the reason why the Chinese collapsed, or didn't even fight, in so many early battles, nor was it the reason why they lost the battle of Shanghai. Indeed Beijing was captured by a single infantry division and some independent brigades (no tank formations), and the Shanghai battle was lost ultimately because the Chinese were outflanked by amphibious landings and had no heavy weapons that could penetrate the Japanese bunkers during the initial stage of the battle when throwing the Japanese out of Shanghai might have been possible.

Nor, by the way, is "because traitors". Yes, the governor of Shangdong retreated from most of the province without a fight, but he was only doing the same thing that commanders in Beijing and Tianjin were doing. He was the one who, when being taken away to be executed, said that he would pay for losing Shandong but asked who would pay for losing Nanjing.

Poor equipment, poor training, poor morale, poor tactics, and poor leadership were the primary reasons. The Chinese lack of artillery, machine guns, and other modern weaponry is well known, though they were very well supplied with grenades (which were a serviceable weapon against light Japanese tanks). Their tactics were based on Qing-era manuals which had been only marginally updated to accommodate the teachings of WW1 - this was where there was any real training at all. CKS had the same failings of another militaristic dictator - insistence on micro-management - but in a system where he was not guaranteed to be obeyed.

The Japanese tried to take more cities numerous times past 1940 and they were stopped or taken at severe cost. I do agree that there was nothing advantageous for them to gain by occupying the countryside. However they still wanted to advance to capture cities because they felt doing so would knock China out of the war. This is similar to their misguided idea that attacking Pearl Harbor would knock the US out of the war. China at the time had 90%+ of the population in the rural areas. Taking the cities would not have knocked China out of the war even if the cities were under collaborationist control simply as they would have control over less of 10% of the population. Collaborationist armies were ineffective, demoralized, and frequently surrendered to partisan regiments that were 10x smaller than the collaborationist force.

See Siege of Changsha 1, 2, 3 and 4, Wuhan, 1939 Counteroffensive, Shanggao

Sorry, but this is wrong.

The Wuhan battle took place before 1940. The 1939 counteroffensive was a disaster and obviously took place before 1940. The Changsha battles before 1943 were so-called "cut-short" offensives (i.e., offensives directed to disrupting Chinese offensives and not specifically directed to capturing the city). Whilst the Japanese obviously wouldn't have been sorry to have taken Changsha, this was not the reason for their offensive, nor is the failure to capture Changsha evidence of a fierce Chinese resistance (more Japanese arrogance in getting ambushed as they did). Shanggao was also a "cut-short" offensive.

For a true appreciation of what happened when the Japanese set out to capture territory post-1940, we have to consider the one offensive where they really aimed to do so: Operation Ichi-Go, where the Japanese captured all their objectives despite facing fierce resistance at Hengyang.

Ichi-go also largely failed to achieve it's objective.

Strategically, yes (but not because of anything the Chinese did). Tactically, no.

The Japanese took the airfields they aimed to take, and opened the corridor they sought to open. In the end this didn't matter because The US capture of the Marianas meant that air bases in China were no longer needed. Similarly the opening of the corridor didn't really matter as the shipping needed to complete the route at the Japanese end was no longer available, having been sunk by the US navy.

The reason was Japan was already spread too thin. In addition even if they did manage to capture a few cities, it would not have ended the insurgency. The misconception many people have is taking Japan's rationale for Ichi-go at face value. The Japanese felt capturing a few cities would knock the Chinese out of the war.

I base my views on the historical record. Whilst there certainly were people with that view (i.e., losing a few more cities would end the war in China) in the Japanese army they had not been listened to up until that point, nor does the offensive they actually undertook make any sense if that's what they were trying to do (why aim for secondary cities that just happen to be in a line across China if your goal isn't to open a corridor across China?).

I think the Chinese theater is better compared to the Soviet theater where instead of 'russian' winter, it's logistics that makes things worse and worse for Japan (although logistics is also a part of why Germany's advance lost steam).

The Germans went all-out to take Moscow and failed, surrounded Leningrad for years but failed to take the city, assaulted into Stalingrad and were surrounded there. The Germans deployed the main part of their army against the Soviet Union for the entire length of their campaign there - more than 100 divisions including elite units. Sure the winter of 1941 was bad for the Germans because they were unprepared for it, but ultimately it was Russian resistance that stopped them.

By contrast in 1937-40 Nanjing, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan were all taken by the Japanese, some with serious resistance, others basically without a shot. The Japanese deployed only a third of their army there even at peak strength, and many of these were the lower-quality "guard" divisions. For most of the war their main strength wasn't even deployed at the front (e.g., the Japanese 11th Army, their main offensive force in China). When the Japanese wanted to undertake a massive offensive in China, they could and did.

Even in one of the worst defeats the Soviets suffered in 1941, the battle for Kiev, Axis forces still suffered 45,000 casualties. Compare this to the insignificant casualties suffered by the Japanese in taking Beijing, or even the fairly minimal ones suffered in the fighting for Nanjing (~7k KIA and WIA).

If the Russians had fought like the Chinese did, they would have lost Moscow, Stalingrad, and Leningrad in 1941-42 and then treated beyond the Urals to fight from there.

The equipment improvements on the Chinese side is also a factor.

At the end of the war the Chinese were producing much the same weapons that they had at its beginning. The difference here was lend-lease from the USSR in before 1942 and from the US thereafter (if you exclude the aid that was delivered in 1945 - after the main danger had passed for China - the amount of assistance was the same, though the Soviet assistance is less publicised).

I'm of the opinion that Japan is on the contrary too powerful in Paradox games vis-a-vis real life.

If the game is out of whack, it's because people keep insisting that there be a balance between China and Japan such that the war there becomes a stalemate. The result is that Japan has to be capable of keeping 100+ divisions fighting in China AND carrying out the Pacific/South-East Asia invasions. Historically Japan just didn't need that kind of force to do what it did in China - a few dozen divisions and independent brigade formations were sufficient.

There were specific reasons why they were able to overrun China early on that stopped being true.

In the contrary, whilst morale improved (and then declined) the poor weapons, poor equipment, poor tactics, and poor leadership were generally true (with some obvious exceptions) throughout the war. You're obviously correct that when the war got away from the coast part of the Japanese advantage (naval) disappeared, and infrastructure was also obviously an issue, but infrastructure was also a major issue for the Chinese (particularly after the fall of Yichang).

Incidentally, some of the poor tactics we are talking about here were still evident even in the Korean war - British officers commented that even in the heaviest fighting of WW2 they had never seen Axis troop bunch together the way Chinese troops did - though obviously the Communist Chinese troops in Korea were much better trained, led, and even equipped than the Nationalist troops of WW2.

The big difference post 1940 is that the Japanese pursued a policy of winning a political victory in China and lost interest in fighting in China over what was seen as the great opportunity of conquests in the Pacific and South-East Asia.

The war became a stalemate.

A political stalemate, not really a military one. Modelling it as a military one results in the problems we see with China in every HOI game (except possibly HOI3:TFH which had a "seize the coast" event which, whilst horrid, was at least a closer approximation to what really happened than China being annexed in 1938 as in most games where the player controls Japan).

I will also reiterate that the reason why Japan didn't send more troops to China was because they economically (in terms of cost-benefit) could not do so, not only from a supplies perspective but also from a wages perspective.

This literally makes no sense. Japan had the troops available - we can see this from the fact that only roughly 1/3rd of the Japanese army was there at peak strength. Or are you using the fact that Japan did not fully mobilise to fight the war in China as evidence that they were heavily engaged there? Logically, what this shows is that Japan was not fully engaged there. Later, once the Pacific War had begun, the Japanese did fully mobilise.

Japan sent out troops to the pacific to acquire war resources for their industry they desperately needed, and they did so by hollowing out their Manchurian garrison.

Japan started sending troops from Manchuria AND China to other theatres after the outbreak of war, but all this shows is that they were not seen as needed there.

Japan was bleeding equipment in China just trying to maintain the status quo. They were bleeding equipment whenever they lost a fight to the Nationalists. The collaborationist government was bleeding equipment to partisans. Their supply lines were being raided by partisans. Enough equipment was captured in the totality of the war to arm 500,000 partisans in northeastern china alone that formed the backbone of the Communist army in the civil war. None of this is true in game.

Obviously partisan warfare needs modelling better, but again, "bleeding equipment" is something of an exaggeration - there were losses in anti-partisan operations but the ratio was often 10 or 20 to 1. The ~800,000-strong collaborationist army is certainly proof of something, but possibly not that the war in China was a gruelling one for the Japanese!

PS - Wiki is a great source when nothing better is available, but the following books cover the war in far more detail than you can get from Wiki and are the source for all of the above points:

- The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945. This is a great source, particularly on Ichi-Go and the Japanese war strategy, and benefits particularly from input from Japanese, Chinese, and US/European historians.

- China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China 1937-1952. Good particularly for understanding relative strengths of the two sides at the beginning of the war.

- Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze. You've probably seen this book mentioned here before but its good especially for the portrait it draws of the average Chinese soldier.​

I've tried reading Chinese language sources on the war in the past but they're normally pretty propaganda-tastic (the martial-law-era Taiwanese stuff particularly so, as anyone who has visited the CKS memorial in Taipei will know).

 

[stl3l9n]

Then why did Japan not just roll over the rest of China to Chonqing before 1941 if it was that easy? Why did they only send 1/3 of their army? Japan becomes way tooo op if they take out China (puppet China should get a -90% recrutable population modifier) so we need some kind of balance.

 

[Magnificent Genius]

So first off let's just get this straight. The dev playing is completely incompetent. This isn't anything knew, he is the same dev who builds 30 widths... Do I need to explain more? Also the Chinese debuffs you refer to when Japan takes 'Chinese border incident' actually applies to Japan. If the dev was somewhat more competent he would have not done some of those focuses, not research arty, not built forts and changed his templates to 10 width to have more of them for org wall. Like I can tell you straight off the bat that some of those Chinese focuses are dumb. Like the 60 division plan is completely worthless (-25% training time is not worth the 70 days + 25 pp). Also the fort line focuses only added a couple of forts in certain areas which makes them very weak. The entire welfare tree is literally counterproductive because of the consumer goods it gives you so I don't know why you would touch that tree. The annexing/puppeting warlords is probably not bad and actually good for you (although unlike the Dev you should actually cheer when they refuse). He basically threw 12 widths into Mountains and thought it be ok... He probably lost a couple thousand guns to those battles alone. He should of reached out to Britain more early on and build only mils in order to just make a bunch of 10 widths to fight back. Guarantee you if that's me I don't lose the entire province of Beijing. Considering China can go partial in may 36 that's hella good. Also he gets free trade for free which is actually good for China, don't listen to the devs for strats; they don't know what they're doing.

I'm not certain how you can sit there and expect anyone to take you seriously when you say that da9l is incompetent. He never loses. Ever. People send him ridiculous challenges to try and get him to lose and he never does. The fact is, they were playing sub-optimally, deliberately.

 

[FOARP]

Then why did Japan not just roll over the rest of China to Chonqing before 1941 if it was that easy?

They figured on winning a political victory by creating an alternate Chinese government under Wang Jingwei who they could make peace with. No need to go all the way to Chongqing then.

There were certainly proposals to advance on Chongqing, but they were turned down as 1) unnecessary, 2) likely to result in the Chinese government simply retreating to somewhere else, just as they already had twice before (Nanjing and Wuhan), 3) unimportant in light of the planned attack on the Western powers.

Why did they only send 1/3 of their army?

Because that's all that was needed to hold the territory that they had.

Japan becomes way tooo op if they take out China (puppet China should get a -90% recrutable population modifier) so we need some kind of balance.

Which is why the way the war is currently modelled is wrong. If China has to be strong enough to create a Soviet-style meatgrinder for the Japanese (and let's be clear: historically it was nothing like this) then when it is conquered it is strong enough to make Japan far too powerful.

In reality it may well be that a Japanese victory in China was simply impossible - no government that would accept the Japanese demands could be acceptable to the Chinese people, and without a government acceptable to the Chinese people the war would go on. Japan could occupy "points and lines" but had nowhere near the manpower needed to occupy the countryside so direct rule was out of the question.

What's needed is a partisan warfare system that:

1) stretches occupying powers a bit more.

2) can have partisan warfare in annexed territory.

3) can have partisan warfare against a puppet government even in its own territory.​

 

[mjb2k]

I'm not certain how you can sit there and expect anyone to take you seriously when you say that da9l is incompetent. He never loses. Ever. People send him ridiculous challenges to try and get him to lose and he never does. The fact is, they were playing sub-optimally, deliberately.

Uh did you see how we was performing? It was pretty clear he was losing. I can't tell if that's sarcasm because you're simply wrong. Also anyone who can beat the AI does not make them remotely good at the game or strategically smart. I can beat the Soviets as Italy with a couple of forts in Romania and hold there until they exhaust all their material then push out and kill the Soviet Union in a matter of months, not very hard.

 

[Limith]

and the Shanghai battle was lost ultimately because the Chinese were outflanked by amphibious landings and had no heavy weapons that could penetrate the Japanese bunkers

Tanks was crucial in Shanghai in allowing the Japanese to maintain their position. The chinese were able to penetrate the Japanese bunkers at heavy cost. However they were unable to finish off the garrison due to tanks blocking the way.

Battle of Shanghai

Every time a street was successfully cleared, the Chinese would set up a sandbag blockade, gradually surrounding each stronghold and closing off all possible routes of escape. The tactic was successful at first and the Chinese were able to destroy many emplacements and outposts in a single day. However, the Japanese then deployed tanks in the broad streets, enabling them to easily repel the Chinese attacks and defeat the encircling strategy. On August 18 the Chinese attack was called off.

Nor, by the way, is "because traitors". Yes, the governor of Shangdong retreated from most of the province without a fight, but he was only doing the same thing that commanders in Beijing and Tianjin were doing. He was the one who, when being taken away to be executed, said that he would pay for losing Shandong but asked who would pay for losing Nanjing

It is known that he talked with the Japanese and wanted to remain governor of Shangong in return for a deal. In addition he fled while Yan Xishan remained and fought in Shanxi. Beijing and Tianjin did see fighting. The idea that no fighting happened is a myth and a lie.

After 24 days of combat, the Chinese 29th Corps was forced to withdraw

Poor equipment, poor training, poor morale, poor tactics, and poor leadership were the primary reasons. The Chinese lack of artillery, machine guns, and other modern weaponry is well known, though they were very well supplied with grenades (which were a serviceable weapon against light Japanese tanks).

The chinese did have poor equipment but on the other hand they did have a few better units. The gernades vs light tanks wasn't known at the beginning of the war which is why I mentioned it is something that helped Japan push through at the start of the war PRIOR to the troops knowing an effective counter. The new divisions weren't operating on Qing tactics but German tactics, I don't know where you pulled that from. In addition after the germans withdrew they operated on Soviet tactics and later allied tactics.

Even in one of the worst defeats the Soviets suffered in 1941, the battle for Kiev, Axis forces still suffered 45,000 casualties. Compare this to the insignificant casualties suffered by the Japanese in taking Beijing, or even the fairly minimal ones suffered in the fighting for Nanjing (~7k KIA and WIA).

If the Russians had fought like the Chinese did, they would have lost Moscow, Stalingrad, and Leningrad in 1941-42 and then treated beyond the Urals to fight from there.

Let's ignore the weapons difference between the two fronts, eh. The Chinese side suffered tremendous casualties in the battles. Taking low Japanese casualties as proof the Chinese didn't bother fighting is disingenuous.

The big difference post 1940 is that the Japanese pursued a policy of winning a political victory in China and lost interest in fighting in China over what was seen as the great opportunity of conquests in the Pacific and South-East Asia.

For a true appreciation of what happened when the Japanese set out to capture territory post-1940, we have to consider the one offensive where they really aimed to do so: Operation Ichi-Go, where the Japanese captured all their objectives despite facing fierce resistance at Hengyang.

Now that's just dismissing their unsuccessful battles as 'they weren't serious' when in fact they were very serious. Let's ignore attempts in 1940 to capture Chinese capital (defeat for IJA). The Battle for Wuhan and 1/2/3/4 Changsha battles were very important battle. The reason why major successful offensives a la Ichi-Go by Japan did not happen until 1944 is because their major offensives in 1939, 1941, and 1942 were FAILURES.

Despite the capture of Wuhan, the Japanese suffered over 140,000 casualties.
The battle of Wuhan bought more time for Chinese forces and equipment in Central China to move further inland to Chongqing, laying the foundation for an extended war of resistance. After the capture of Wuhan, the IJA advance in central China was slowed down significantly by multiple battles around Changsha in 1939, 1941, and 1942

The earlier battle failures had severe impacts on the IJA. The emperor reprimanded the IJA for failing to achieve success in 1941. The reason Japan went to war with the US/Allies was because they knew they were running out of resources to fund their military adventure in China and because it was not turning out to be the success they thought it would be. NOT because 'these were great opportunities of conquests in the Pacific and South-East Asia'. In fact they knew that expanding in SEA was a bad and risky move but they felt they had to in order to get resources for the army which was fighting in China.

In 1941:

The emperor reprimanded General Hajime Sugiyama, chief of the IJA General Staff, about the lack of success in China and then speculated low chances of victory against the United States, the British Empire and their allies
During these negotiations, Japan considered withdrawal from most of China and Indochina after drawing up peace terms with the Chinese

Japan wouldn't have been considering withdrawing if they were 'winning' so much as you say. You seem to be under the impression that Japan decided to not advance because they wanted a political settlement while it is the other way around. Because they could not advance, they settled on a political settlement. The IJA declared war on China over the objections of the civilian government. Do you think the army would have even agreed to a political settlement if they had a choice?

The Japanese took the airfields they aimed to take, and opened the corridor they sought to open.

And made their supply situation even worse, losing 1/5 of the the troops committed to the fight, and setting them up for defeat in the subsequent campaigns. A true victory Pyrrhus would be proud of!

However, the Japanese victory resulted in very little actual benefit for them:[3] the operation drained Japanese manpower and a weakened Japanese army had to defend a longer front with more partisan activity in occupied areas. The opening up of north-south railway connections did little to improve Japanese logistics, for only one train ran from Guangzhou to Wuhan in April 1945, and due to fuel shortages the primary mode of transportation for Japanese troops was on foot.

The Japanese deployed only a third of their army there even at peak strength, and many of these were the lower-quality "guard" divisions. For most of the war their main strength wasn't even deployed at the front (e.g., the Japanese 11th Army, their main offensive force in China). When the Japanese wanted to undertake a massive offensive in China, they could and did.

This is the same incorrect narrative Paradox has that the Japanese 'simply didn't care'. "They deployed 1/3 of their army, if they wanted to be successful they could have, look at Ichi-go." Why did they deploy only 1/3 of their army? Why did they not do something like Ichi-go before?Japan knew by 1941 that they were running out of war resources. Japan KNEW they needed a victory soon (see reprimand by the emperor above). The narrative that they didn't care is about as accurate as the stab in the back myth. They did care. They did try to advance. Multiple times. They weren't successful until 1944.

The reason they deployed only 1/3 of the army was due to supply and economics. The Kwantung army which precipitated the war was funded by bank loans done under duress (blackmailed the bank). Prior to the start of the war they couldn't afford more troops and throughout the war they could not have afforded more troops in China. Japan had stockpiled resources prior to the war and they were running on fumes. Transporting supplies to the front was challenging.

If the game is out of whack, it's because people keep insisting that there be a balance between China and Japan such that the war there becomes a stalemate. The result is that Japan has to be capable of keeping 100+ divisions fighting in China AND carrying out the Pacific/South-East Asia invasions. Historically Japan just didn't need that kind of force to do what it did in China - a few dozen divisions and independent brigade formations were sufficient.

17 Japanese divisions which took part in Operation Ichi-go was 500,000 men. That's 50 ingame divisions if a division is 10k men. This argument doesn't hold up. Japan historically by war end had more than 100 in game divisions in China.

On the Chinese side a division was more like a regiment and an Army Group was closer to a traditional division.

In reality it may well be that a Japanese victory in China was simply impossible - no government that would accept the Japanese demands could be acceptable to the Chinese people, and without a government acceptable to the Chinese people the war would go on. Japan could occupy "points and lines" but had nowhere near the manpower needed to occupy the countryside so direct rule was out of the question.

What's needed is a partisan warfare system that:

1) stretches occupying powers a bit more.

2) can have partisan warfare in annexed territory.

3) can have partisan warfare against a puppet government even in its own territory.

I agree with this statement in most parts. China was to Japan what Afghanistan is to USA/Soviets and Vietnam was to USA. I do consider that to be 'a meat grinder'. 2 million Japanese casualties in China weren't negligible and the economic cost was high (5 million including puppets which is a 1:2 ratio with the nationalists who lost 10 million troops). This excludes civilian numbers.

The thing about victory possible/not possible: for a regime change to occur one must control the majority of the population. If a country's population is largely rural that becomes a logistical challenge.

 

[Magnificent Genius]

Uh did you see how we was performing? It was pretty clear he was losing. I can't tell if that's sarcasm because you're simply wrong. Also anyone who can beat the AI does not make them remotely good at the game or strategically smart. I can beat the Soviets as Italy with a couple of forts in Romania and hold there until they exhaust all their material then push out and kill the Soviet Union in a matter of months, not very hard.

The idea that the AI in this game is so bad as for the player to be unable to lose is categorically false. I don't know why that has become so prevalent an idea, but it is blatantly untrue. I lose to the AI all the time, in fact, I probably lose more often than I win. HoI is literally the only strategy game I play where that is the case.

I may just suck at HoI.

 

[KalypsoKirin]

The idea that the AI in this game is so bad as for the player to be unable to lose is categorically false. I don't know why that has become so prevalent an idea, but it is blatantly untrue. I lose to the AI all the time, in fact, I probably lose more often than I win. HoI is literally the only strategy game I play where that is the case.

I may just suck at HoI.

It's mainly the more you play the more you learn to fuck with the AI and build divisions it can't peirce while dropping paratroopers on all their VPs just moments after you nuke them so that they capitulate instantly.
A pretty loud minority complain the AI is abhorrently bad just because it fails at a few simple aspects. It's passable, which is all the AI in any paradox game ever really is. You'll also notice that the AI has improved drastically over time for every Paradox game of this generation, since you can just roll back to previous versions.