Flames and Steel (official thread)

[KurtGodel7]

@Cernel said:

@KurtGodel7 I think there are two options here, not necessarily mutually exclusive. I assume that your conscript is 0/1 while the infantry is 1/2. The question is if something like the "standing infantry" should be unable to Combat Move too (thus being -/1 unless your game has stalemate or other conditions allowing to attack without combat moving). Then, one could also expand the matter further if there should even be something like the Volkssturm, which may be worse than the "standing infantry".

So the main question would be, are your conscripts going to be

1. just 0/1, rest same as infantry.
2. 0/1 and unable to receive artillery support.
3. 0/1 and unable to attack. (Is it possible to attack without combat moving in this game?)

Then, there are the Chinese. I think we all know the famous scene of "one man gets a rifle, the second man follows" of "Enemy at the Gates". Now, that may (or may not) have happened sometime in the Soviet army in some small-scale localized situations, but it was either something which happened very rarely or just a mith. However, if you ask Google AI "What percentage of the Chinese infantry in 1941 was not equipped with fire-arms?", the answer is

Historical estimates indicate that as many as one-third (approximately 33%) of the soldiers in a typical Chinese Nationalist division in 1941 were not equipped with any firearm.
The primary factors driving this staggering shortage include:
• Logistical Roles: Due to an acute lack of motor transport and draft animals, a substantial portion of un-armed infantrymen were used strictly as human pack animals to carry ammunition, food, and supplies for the rest of the unit.
• Severe Supply Shortages: While the Nationalist Army had roughly 3.8 million men on paper across hundreds of divisions in 1941, only about 40 divisions were fully equipped with modern European or foreign-manufactured weapons.
• Industrial Deficiencies: Domestic Chinese factories lacked the industrial base to produce small arms at a rate that could keep pace with massive wartime conscription.

The conscript is just like an infantry, except with less firepower. Conscripts are allowed to attack. If attacking on a 0, at least they serve as cannon fodder to protect other attacking units. If supported they attack on a 1.

Your research found 40 Chinese divisions apparently equipped with modern European or foreign-manufactured weapons.

Currently China is able to buy conscripts, but not infantry. Those 40 divisions make me wonder if China should be allowed to purchase either conscripts or infantry. I will have to do more research on this. Being handed a modern rifle does not automatically make a soldier as combat-effective as a normal infantryman would be. If I think of a normal WWII infantry division, I'm expecting them to have machine guns, hand grenades, maybe some handheld anti-tank weapons. Also combat training. If China's better divisions lacked these other weapons, if they were poorly trained, I would consider them having more in common with conscripts than infantry.

[Cernel]

@KurtGodel7 Asking Google AI "How many men of the Soviet-equipped divisions did China field in 1941?", the answer is

Between 1937 and 1941, Soviet military aid provided under the Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and transported via the Gansu-Xinjiang Highway enabled China to form 15 Soviet-equipped divisions. Based on the typical paper strength of the Chinese Nationalist Central Army infantry divisions at the time (ranging from 8,000 to 11,000 men per division), this represented a force of approximately 120,000 to 165,000 men.

Key Facts About China's Soviet-Equipped Force

• Strategic Role: Rather than being sent straight to the front lines, these 15 divisions were largely held in reserve by the Nationalist government for future strategic counteroffensives.
• Equipment Scope: The Soviet Union supplied roughly 110,000 rifles, 14,000 machine guns, 1,600 artillery pieces, 82 T-26 tanks, and thousands of ZIS-5 military transport trucks to outfit these formations.
• The Mechanized Elite: This aid famously established China's first fully mechanized unit, the 200th Division, which incorporated Soviet armor and saw action in major engagements like the Battle of Kunlun Pass.
• The 1941 Cutoff: This military pipeline officially halted in April 1941 following the signing of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, after which China increasingly relied on American Lend-Lease aid.

I guess this could be somewhat represented by China starting with a few infantry units but unable to build any more of them.

More complex would be accounting for lend-lease or whatever other kind of supply or even fully internally created infantry (as opposed to conscripts, which would be infantry units armed with very little more than just their rifles), possibly to represent their existant albeit very scarce (a few tens of thousands) heavy and light machine-guns production, but a proper infantry unit is supposed also to have a good quantity of infantry mortars (unless there are infantry mortars in the game as units), and I've no idea about domestic Chinese mortars production.