No Peace in Our Time - the 1939 World War II IH

[Barry Goldwater]

Technically speaking the CCP had actual fixed strongpoints & an HQ at Yan'an, which puts them a step above the truly province-less resistance movements, but we could simulate their popularity by giving them more partisans in the Japanese-occupied territories than the KMT.

If you want to take the KMT down an alternative path, go straight ahead - the entire point to Interactive History is that, although players start at a historic point in time with everything that's happened before said point already set in stone, you write your own futures Improving peasants' lives could be simulated by using $$$ to build up infrastructure instead of the army, for example. Though given the ongoing war with Japan that may prove to be easier said than done, but that's the way it should be

@IA For the sake of player convenience, in the event that you run out of fuel your fuel-consuming units will still be able to function, but will have to operate at a significant penalty in combat.

[Dirty Chai]

So the price tags next to the military units - is this recruitment cost, upkeep per turn, or both?

[Dave Strider]

Oh, by the way, Barry, I thought of a sort-of unique combination bonus/penalty for Socialist states today during class.

Collectivization - Upgrading of provinces costs less and takes less time, but provokes a significant dissent increase.

@BF: Recruitment. Upkeep is 1/2 of that cost, per turn. When making armies from scratch, cut the cost in half, because you already have the troops, so you're just paying upkeep.

[Dirty Chai]

Thanks again Dave.

How far does this game go?
If it goes into the final years of WW2 and beyond, then I would support giving the CCP some partisan bonuses to give them the opportunity to become an actual threat to the KMT.

[Pericles of Athens]

@BF: Recruitment. Upkeep is 1/2 of that cost, per turn. When making armies from scratch, cut the cost in half, because you already have the troops, so you're just paying upkeep.

Isn't creating an army from scratch just instant recruitment with 100% of your national income, why would you cut the cost of recruitment in half?

The game will last as long as we can keep people playing/Barry keeps running it, usually the former kills games.

[Dirty Chai]

He meant setting up your starting military Order of Battle, I believe, since they are already recruited.

[Dave Strider]

Yeah. Your starting OOB is stuff you already have, so it doesn't make sense to spend the full price (i.e. recruitment) rather than the half price (i.e. upkeep) for soldiers you already possessed at game start.

[Dirty Chai]

So what I seem to be reading from the resources I've found is that my starting OOB should look something like this:

- 31 or so divisions that are properly equipped, trained, and disciplined in German style; this equates to roughly 300,000-400,000 men. They were kept in reserve because they were the only high quality troops that Chiang Kai-shek could rely on against the warlords and CCP.
- 145 completely disloyal units that are undermanned and poorly equipped, some of which are CCP-loyal. Essentially peasant warbands.
- 124 other divisions that supposedly existed, but don't have a stated loyalty yet.

There are a total of 300 nominal divisions, including Communist forces.

So I'll need to know how many divisions you've given the CCP (and the total manpower), Dave, so I can proportion the ROC military somewhat correctly.

[Pericles of Athens]

I'm just going off what Barry said, it doesn't say anything about using upkeep costs to make an army from scratch if it's not historical. But I very well could be misunderstanding what you're saying, or I could be misunderstanding Barry.

if not just use 100% of your provinces' income to create an army from scratch

[Celsius]

Based on my research for Italians:

-59 Infantry Divisions
-9 Frontier Guard Divisions (?)
-5 Mountain Divisions (+maybe artillery brigades for pack guns)
-3 Mobile Divisions (Semi Motorized?)
-3 Armored Divisions (Light Armor because of Italian tankettes)
-3 Volunteer Divisions (?)
-2 Motorized Divisions (Mechanized?)
There are a few colonial divisions from Libya and East Africa, but I can't find exact numbers.

Navy:
-6 Battleships
-21 Cruisers
-59 Destroyers
-62 Torpedo boats
-114 Submarines (Italy has a ton of submarines.....)



Does this look okay/proportional?

[Dave Strider]

The USSR had something like 250 submarines. These, however, include the tiny ones used as shore defense, as well as the true large seafaring ones. I'd recommend looking up the Italian submarine classes, Cels, and seeing what ones were significant.

@Bastard, I have 15 divisions for the CCP, but 7 of them I'm positive never existed, and 5 more I believe existed but I know the numbering of the divisions is wrong.

I know the CCP held control of the Eighth Route Army (with Divisions 115, 120, and 129) and the New Fourth Army (which I imagined to be of similar size - three divisions - but the division names are lost to history). My CCP OOB has Eighth Route and New Fourth as each having five divisions, as well as the CCP having control of a "Tibetan Plateau Army" of five divisions more. So, fifteen in total.

300 divisions is a bit...unwieldy Hell, the USSR is renowned for its manpower and massive army, and I've reigned it in thus far to 200-ish divisions. (IMO my USSR OOB is absolutely beautiful, btw, if any of you'd like a look. )

[Dirty Chai]

Yeah, sources say my "War Area 2" army group nominally commanded the Eighth Route Army, as both were situated in the Shaanxi/Shanxi area of the Yellow River, so I'm sure we'll have some fun ignoring each other's commands and suggestions.

[Celsius]

I've looked and manage to get the number down from 114 to 89. This is the 1940 OOB, so I suppose I could knock it down even more so to equip the year 1939.

[Dirty Chai]

I think the Germans gave lots of submarines to the Italians, so that may be what you're looking at, Cels.

[Celsius]

Ok, so the Italians did build a ton of submarines, with 48 of them being midget subs/coastal subs.

69 ocean going submarines. That's the number I have now, and it seems ok. They produced many different variants, but they're all ocean going.

[Pericles of Athens]

Italy had a ton of ship, Cels, they went to war with the fourth largest navy in the world. The main challenge for the Regia Marina (besides their atrocious high command) was that they had a large amount of older vessels and failed to integrate radar and sonar in any meaningful manner.

[Celsius]

Yeah, I'm noticing that. Though their tech isn't as bad as I thought. Their submarines were on par with the Germans and out classed many of the allies. The Marconi-class Leonardo da Vinci sub in particular was the top scoring non-german sub of the entire war.

[Barry Goldwater]

@BF Perhaps to reflect the qualitative inferiority of most of the KMT's troops, those 145 peasant swarms + some of the 'unclear' 124 divisions could be classed as Conscript divisions instead of regular Infantry? Then again that'd make them completely free and 145 divisions of free troops (even if they are crap tier) might be game-breaking, plus conscripts do still need food & ammo to keep going, so maybe we should slap a low upkeep cost on conscript units. Say, $1k (raising them is still free ofc). What do y'all think?

[Celsius]

@BF Perhaps to reflect the qualitative inferiority of most of the KMT's troops, those 145 peasant swarms + some of the 'unclear' 124 divisions could be classed as Conscript divisions instead of regular Infantry? Then again that'd make them completely free and 145 divisions of free troops (even if they are crap tier) might be game-breaking, plus conscripts do still need food & ammo to keep going, so maybe we should slap a low upkeep cost on conscript units. Say, $1k (raising them is still free ofc). What do y'all think?

I would agree. I have troops classified as "volunteer" and "frontier guards", so calling them conscripts so theyre free is a little...meh. 1k sounds good.

[Dave Strider]

I can agree to a $1k cost.

Also, Barry, I hope you don't mind, but I've been attaching Armored Car brigades to my Artillery divisions to simulate them being towed, as the attachment of Armored Cars gives the Artillery Divisions a 1 province/day marching rate rather than their normal 1 province per 2 days.