Japan '45 Historical Plan/Placement Olympic

[ComradeP]

The Japanese and US forces have regimental HQ's with an unmodified range of 5 and divisional HQ's with an unmodified range of 10.

US Corps HQ's have an unmodified range of 15, US Army HQ's have a range of 20. The Army HQ range in particular hurts quite a bit as it means Corps HQ's have to be fairly close to the Army HQ. Surprisingly, all my Army corps HQ's are just C quality, as is Sixth Army. The V Marine Amphibious Corps is A quality.

Japanese Army HQ's have a range of 50, and their Area Area HQ has a range of 75.

It does seem the Japanese side receives some bonuses to make them fight better than they would probably have historically: higher speed rating, high quality 2nd Line units, increased Defense and Assault ratings.

The drawbacks of the Japanese Army, like having limited infantry weapons, are largely mitigated through increases in other stats.

I can understand a higher Defense rating and perhaps a small bonus in quality, but 2nd Line A or B quality units do seem a bit much.

One thing that is worth emphasizing about the fighting in the Pacific is that US casualty rates were high because the Japanese often fought to the last man and bullet. That also meant the Japanese tended to lose (nearly) their entire force on an island that was being invaded.

Even with US infantry being rotated in and out, the C&C elements in many of these formations would've been familiar with Japanese tactics.

The majority of the Japanese divisions, if not all of them, have never fought against a properly equipped Western army.

The quality and assault ratings are not consistent with the rest of the series, and I wonder how the McNamara database could generate such high Assault values for Japanese units lacking submachine guns, flamethrowers and other assault equipment, and semi-automatic rifles. Giving them a small bonus for infiltration tactics and zealous assaults, so 12 or so instead of 10, would be OK, but 16 to 18 does seem high.

In FWWC, French and Russian units that were doctrinally supposed to be mostly assaulting have higher Assault ratings but a penalty in one or more other statistics, like Defense or Soft Attack. The Japanese receive bonuses.

The Japanese face mediocre to poor supply, but with regimental HQ's it's fairly easy to keep a HQ close enough to pass the second supply check most of the time.

It's a good game thus far, but the Japanese do seem to be a bit too good.