Chinese Nationalist "Warlord" LC

[Firestorm]

Difficulty Level: Hardest
Battles to be fought: 200
Standard start and end dates
Map size: 80X80 hexes
Custom-placed victory hexes

113 Point Core Force, 1 warlord militia company

A0 Chinese HQ (Ch hsiao Mao , 6 men- rifles, carbines, pistols and grenades)

-B0 Infantry Squad (So hsiao Chao, 12 men- rifles and grenades)
---B1 Infantry Squad (Hs shih Kai, 12 men- rifles and grenades)

--C0 Infantry Squad (Ch shih Hankow, 12 men- rifles and grenades)
---C1 Infantry Squad (Hs shih Tan, 12 men- rifles and grenades)
---C2 Militia Squad (Hs shih Tze, 10 men- carbines and grenades)
---C3 Militia Squad (Hs shih Jang, 10 men- carbines and grenades)
---C4 Scout Team (Hs shih Feng, 6 men- carbines and grenades)

--D0 Infantry Squad (Ch shih Zhang, 12 men- rifles and grenades)
---D1 Infantry Squad (Hs shih Zedong , 12 men- rifles and grenades)
---D2 Militia Squad (Hs shih Liang, 10 men- carbines and grenades)
---D3 Militia Squad (Hs shih Liu, 10 men- carbines and grenades)
---D4 Scout Team (Hs shih Sen, 6 men- carbines and grenades)

--E0 Infantry Squad (Ch shih Nan, 12 men- rifles and grenades)
---E1 Infantry Squad (Hs shih Sun, 12 men- rifles and grenades)
---E2 Militia Squad (Hs shih Chou, 10 men- carbines and grenades)
---E3 Militia Squad (Hs shih Huang, 10 men- carbines and grenades)
---E4 Scout Team (Hs shih Huey , 6 men- carbines and grenades)

First Battle
Meeting Engagement, Chinese Villages, 62 visibility, 90 turns (extended of course; this is a fight to the bitter end)

June, 1931. The financial situation continues to worsen in far-away Europe. The Second Encirclement Campaign against the slightly-less-far-away Jiangxi Soviet has just ended in failure, and elsewhere in the Hinterlands of China a band of peasants rise up against their local warlord.

I, Lieutenant Colonel Mao (unfortunate name for a Nationalist Army officer), lead a core force of Warlord Militia against our former employer. I have 180 men in total, armed exclusively with small arms which makes them quite well-equipped by the standards of our day; many have to make do with muskets, bows, swords and spears. In addition to my loyal cadre, I've brought up a number of peasant rabble and a mighty steed for own transport (support force of 6+ Warlord Militia companies, with the 5 points left over used for a single team of pack mules).

The core force was split in half and ordered to lead the advance. Support forces followed behind in several broad fronts, moving through the woods to hold the scattered road junctions and villages. They'll sweep across the map and drive away our brutal dictator and his army of craven thugs and mercenaries.

Battle

Mounting my HQ on muleback and sending him to lead the advance, while an excellent demonstration of my bravery and willingness to lead from the front, was probably ill-advised. My HQ managed to dismount before suffering damage, but the mules were caught in the crossfire and made awfully big targets. We ate well that night.

The opening turns saw brief skirmishes with hostile cavalry in a small village in the northern part of the map, and these were driven off with little trouble. More problematic was an armoured truck behind the horsemen, which I knew from past experience to be surprisingly potent. The tight confines of the village did allow us to immobilize it with grenades and drive the crew away, but not without losses.

Behind the cavalry was a strong force of infantry and militia, supported by yet another truck and even two small biplanes. This force occupied the heights beyond the village and began pouring fire down on us. Outnumbered two to one and suffering from massed, ill-aimed yet bloody volleys, I popped smoke and fell back behind the village and a line of trees. Support forces were rushed in to envelop the enemy; the focal point of the battle would be that hill and the houses facing it. Sunset would see the pathways into town flowing with blood.

While this was taking place, the rest of my forces were making their way deep into the enemy side of the map, engaging a few Type 24 AAMGs and moving on to destroy their mortar teams. It thankfully got off only one salvo in the entire battle, causing no damage.

A sniper and two type 24 HMG squads were deployed outside the village and this added to the butcher's bill for support troops trying to link up with my core. By now, however, the enemy was outnumbered and engaged on two fronts, and the weight of my assault was starting to have an effect on them.

Although we were taking ground, things were starting to go bad for my core force. My HQ was in trouble (again) and had been shot down to just two men, but then my scouts found and completely destroyed the enemy HQ! With the warlord out of the picture, his employees wavered quickly and it was not hard to finish them off. Watching the entire force disintegrate over the next few turns was very gratifying.

Results
Player One Losses:
208 men
12 mules

Player Two Losses:
758 men
44 Horses
2 Armrd Truck /MG

12 Type 24 AAMG
8 Type 24 HMG
4 Type 24 TMG

2 3" Stokes M.18

6 Type 26 LMG
5 Type 11 LMG
14 Type 90 Rfl Grn
8 Type 27 40mm GL
2 Type 27 50mm GL
1 Sniper Rifle

Numerous hand grenades, rifles, carbines, pistols and other individual weapons.

Lessons Learned
-I should be more careful with my HQs and stop using them as vanguard units. I like to lead from the front, but I had to savescum on one occasion because I got it destroyed (as I pretty much always do in the first battle of any LC). I also need to work on my forward defenses; I like sending units out ahead to ambush the forward scouts of my enemy, but the problem is that I never know when to pull them back.

-A poorly-trained, poorly-motivated, poorly-equipped force is going to lose heavily against an even slightly better force, no matter how well-commanded it is (and mine ain't too well commanded). If enemy machine gun, vehicle, and mortar units had been even slightly more effective this would have truly been a catastrophe.

-I deliberately set the VH's so that, for the most part, I would have to be the one attacking the enemy. The relatively small size of the map also did much to help keep the enemy forces close together and therefore more potent. A true advance or assault would have been much harder; I hope to have heavy support forces before trying one.

-Smoke and z-fire would have come in handy in this engagement, but I generally don't use z-fire against the AI.

-Chinese militia are such bad shots that the best way to use them seems to be as a suppressive rather than killing force. Fire from a distance to reduce the damage from opfire, fall back or pop smoke when things get too hot, attack from another direction, and keep it up until all units are comfortably suppressed before closing in for the kill. Scouts come in handy for both the smokescreen and close-attack.

Having even one heavy weapon in play will greatly alter the outcome one way or another, and it helps if the enemy is every bit as dispirited and gun-shy as your people. Works great against other Chinese; not sure how well it'll work against the Japs.

Aftermath
I have dreams of expanding my WL Militia company to a battalion of mounted (possibly mechanized) infantry, equipped with all the best lend-Leese kit I can lay my hands on... but that's going to be *far* in the future. The foreign weapons market is well beyond my financial abilities and even fellow KMT commanders will be unwilling to deal with a rebellious upstart who may give the wrong ideas to their own Lieutenants. Having the name of Mao probably won't help my cause.

My vanquished enemies will be my greatest supplier for the time being. I generally work under the assumption that at most half of their equipment and a third of their men will be usable by me after combat, though the latter are more likely to work in my rice paddies than my army unless I'm desperate.