I can't defeat China as Japan

[fuser]

No matter what I do.
Last run I had 40 width (14inf x 4art) 24 inf div at Chinese border. 8 Marine div of 20 width to land in Quindang with support of 20 width (7inf 2art) 24 inf div and another 20 width (10 inf) 24 division army at Shanxi border. In total 80 div + 6 div of mot and larm mixed.

I also have air superiority and I am using my carrier fleets as mobile airbases but still I just can't win. I try to push both from North and South to create a massive encirclement but apart from destroying 10-15 chinese division in small encirclements, my offensive comes to a halt, every single province is defended by at least 8 div, even when I am trying to attack from 4 dfferent provinces and for months by repalcing my divisions, I can't win. After first couple of months I just can't win any battle, my casualities become horrendous from all that offensive operations. When I see other people's Japanese run, I see something like Japan 100k, China 450k for me it was Japan 575k and China 495K in my last run. I can't make any big enccirclements because I just can't win any battles.

Plz help and tell me what I am doing wrong here.

[Krutsi]

Based on my experiences with playing against China with Expert AI...

Don't go for artillery in your infantry divisions. It's just not worth the production cost if you have no need to economize manpower, and you certainly don't as Japan. I'd just leave the infantry template as the default you start with as Japan (12 inf), only thing I'd consider adding is a support artillery company.

I wouldn't make so many and large marine divisions, the AI doesn't really defend against sea invasions anyway, small landing armies of 1x marine battalion (6x marine+supports) and 2x inf will clear out a single guarding chinese inf unit just fine. You can get mountain divisions instead with the freed up special forces cap, they're pretty useful for capping shanxi later on or for defending around the southern sea ports that are surrounded by mountains.

Get more armor units. I generally have 4x MotInf 3x Light Tank 2x Light SPG as my template for going into China, I had 12 in January 1938 in my last save and I could've had several more if I actually completely prioritized light tank production. I'll convert the starting two motorized divisions into this to get a surplus of trucks and the mixed battalions because I want my tanks to be fast.

Even building new cavalry divisions can be considered, they're quite good at harrassing the masses of low org chinese divisions that tend to be milling around when the frontline is moving in one direction or the other.

I'd dump all my remaining garrisons infantry and any units you bother taking control of from the puppets to guard the shanxhi side, it's hard to take mountain regions against the massive chinese infantry wall so better just to ignore it until much later and these weak divisions just don't do much on the offensive especially with the marco polo debuffs.

Sea invasions wise I'll do single large landings to the south of wherever the frontline currently and then swing north with them to try encircle the chinese. After you get control of some states you should build an airfield to get air support inland.

General combat wise I'll just mostly go through the plains provinces while ignoring any chinese stacks sitting on hills and mountains unless they're really low on org, even if it means making my frontline awkward. The chinese divisions don't really have offensive power so you can generally snake around pretty freely after you break through their line once and then starve out their stacks on defensive terrain.

[Ryan]

Here's a blurb on my Japan playthrough. Hope it helps:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/394360/discussions/0/1697169163409084030/

Japan losses: 38k
China losses: 1.3m
win in less than 6 months.
I went the Marco Polo Bridge route.

I think the key is to control your divisions manually. Battle Plan is fine for sweeping the plains, but you want to manually control those critical battles. AI just doesn't do it well. Avoid attacking large stacks in mountains and across rivers. Attack large stacks from multiple directions. As cruzz says, Mountaineers are great.

Also, don't wait too long to attack. Attack shortly after the Spanish civil war. You got a bunch of free army XP from that right?

[dzantor]

Originally posted by fuser:

I can't defeat China as Japan .No matter what I do.

Cause you don't own japan honour

[jojeck]

I think you might be trying to fight a European type war of rapid conquest in Asia. Getting 20 and 40 combat width are not that important for Japan, in fact they can be counterproductive. Having many small but well equipped divisions is probably better at least early in the game.

Japan should look on the war in China as a giant training exercise. The factories and resources are nice but not as important as the experience given to all your generals and field marshals and that gives them extra levels and special abilities that help in future wars. You get insane amounts of army and some air experience that you can use to reshape your divisions and improve the variants of tanks and planes.

So the key advantages Japan has are much higher production, the type 1 infantry weapon (china has to research this) and much better research that can improve factory output and research a battlefield doctrine and improve weapons at the same time wheresas China has to choose. Japan just needs to field a lot of well equipped divisions trained to regular and with good generals and field marshals to get all the bonusses. If a division gets battered pull it out the frontline, let it recover equipment and retrain back to regular before committing again. China has a load of divisions but most don't have all their weapons and have taken so many casualities that they are green or just trained. A long war of attrition is good for Japan in that you end up with great generals with loads of stats and abilities and many of your units will be seasoned from fighting really weak enemies for many days.

Hope I have given you a fresh way to look at the war in China from Japan's point of view.

[andersrlarsen]

lots of ways to defeat china, but i figured that this is the easiest and gives fewest casualities;
- 2 armies of 24 divisions to hold northern borders.
- 3 armies of 10 divisions to naval invade.
all divisions are the starting division with 12 inf, have eng, rec and art as support.

set up 3 naval invasions (10 each) in advance.
1. wave on the tile far south-east in jiangsu province. there isnt any harbours nearby, so you need to work quick, and get 2.wave started.
2. wave on the tile just south of hangzhou.
3. wave next to shanghai.

the idea is to have 1st and 2nd wave set up a defend line, and encircle the chinese capital. DO NOT take their capital, just encircle and defend the line.

after 1-2 months, ALL of their divisions will have low org, and most will also have low equipment. you can then sett everything on auto, and let your troops destroy chinese divisions.

note; do not take the capital untill your divisions have taken 90% of china, and make sure that you have battled against all other warlords.

result on veteran difficulty; 38k KIA.

however, in my opinion its not so clever to make a quick win.
use the time while nanjing is encircled to attack some other countries. the time to justify against other countries is only 10 days, so you can do lots. :-)
taking siam, iran and iraq should be easy to do. also consider turkey, bulgaria, romania, afganistan, saudi arabia, yemen and oman.
do not take greece unless you want to end up in early war with uk, and dont take yugoslavia chekoslowakia hungary or poland unless you want a early war with germany.

[Včelí medvídek]

Be very careful about poor infrastructure and supply. Better stick with lower width and dont concentrate too much units or you will cripple your supply and ability to progress. I found essentials to land on several spots and build harbors and infrastructure for supply army - create like 3 decent navail invasions and pockets on SE China while holding line at yellow river and you should be able to connect them to one eastern front in time. Should be straightforward from that point.

And as noted - if you 100% rely on AI than likely your units will be stuck forever trying push through chinese hills and mountains. Not any technological advantage or superior templates help you there, you need do key progress manually.

[andersrlarsen]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

Be very careful about poor infrastructure and supply. Better stick with lower width and dont concentrate too much units or you will cripple your supply and ability to progress. I found essentials to land on several spots and build harbors and infrastructure for supply army - create like 3 decent navail invasions and pockets on SE China while holding line at yellow river and you should be able to connect them to one eastern front in time. Should be straightforward from that point.

And as noted - if you 100% rely on AI than likely your units will be stuck forever trying push through chinese hills and mountains. Not any technological advantage or superior templates help you there, you need do key progress manually.

not if you do as i wrote above.
if troops dont have conection with the capital, they will start loosing org. they wont get equipment either, so the troops china have wont be able to fight.

[Shai-Hulud]

Originally posted by Ryan:

Here's a blurb on my Japan playthrough. Hope it helps:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/394360/discussions/0/1697169163409084030/

Japan losses: 38k
China losses: 1.3m
win in less than 6 months.
I went the Marco Polo Bridge route.

I think the key is to control your divisions manually. Battle Plan is fine for sweeping the plains, but you want to manually control those critical battles. AI just doesn't do it well. Avoid attacking large stacks in mountains and across rivers. Attack large stacks from multiple directions. As cruzz says, Mountaineers are great.

Also, don't wait too long to attack. Attack shortly after the Spanish civil war. You got a bunch of free army XP from that right?

I read that thread. Did you switch, or would you recommend switching to superior firepower?