Manchuria, China, and the Far Eastern Front
 

Hello all,

I was thinking about Soviet/Pact forces in the Far East (Mongolia, China, Siberia, Sakhalin & Kuriles) and I've been musing about the possibility of a Soviet-backed Manchurian People's Republic.

Canon sources mention that the Soviets have a series of cantonments in the area, and have at least 10 divisions in Manchuria itself. The possibility of a Soviet-backed MPR is also supported by the existance in 2300AD of Manchuria.

To start things off, I've written an order-of-battle for Manchuria.

Manchurian People’s Army (Mǎn rénmín jūn)

Order of Battle as of January 1, 1999.

Manchurian People’s Guard Corps
1st Niánqīng de mǎnzhōu People’s Guard Tank Division
101st Guards Tank Regiment
102nd Guards Tank Regiment
103rd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment
1st Guards Artillery Battalion

2nd Dà quán People’s Guard Motorized Rifle Division
201st Guards Tank Regiment
202nd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment
203rd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment
2nd Guards Artillery Battalion

3rd Tiě chuí People’s Guard Motorized Rifle Division
301st Guards Tank Regiment
302nd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment
303rd Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment
3rd Guards Artillery Battalion

38th National Pacification Army
113th Motorized Rifle Division
501st Motorized Rifle Regiment
502nd Motorized Rifle Regiment
113rd Tank Battalion
1061st Artillery Battalion

114th Motorized Pacification Rifle Division
901st Motorized Rifle Regiment
602nd Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
603rd Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
1062nd Artillery Battalion

116th Motorized Pacification Rifle Division
904th Motorized Rifle Regiment
605th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
606th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
1063rd Artillery Battalion

39th National Pacification Army
117th Motorized Rifle Division
503rd Motorized Rifle Regiment
504th Motorized Rifle Regiment
117th Tank Battalion
1063rd Artillery Battalion

119th Motorized Pacification Rifle Division
905th Motorized Rifle Regiment
607th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
608th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
1064th Artillery Battalion

120th Motorized Pacification Rifle Division
906th Motorized Rifle Regiment
609th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
610th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
1065th Artillery Battalion

42nd National Pacification Army
124th Motorized Rifle Division
505th Motorized Rifle Regiment
506th Motorized Rifle Regiment
124th Tank Battalion
1066th Artillery Battalion

125th Motorized Pacification Rifle Division
907th Motorized Rifle Regiment
611th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
612th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
1067th Artillery Battalion

126th Motorized Pacification Rifle Division
908th Motorized Rifle Regiment
613th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
614th Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiment
1068th Artillery Battalion


Niánqīng de mǎnzhōu : Young Manchuria
Dà quán : Great Fist
Tiě chuí : Iron Mace

Tank Divisions, Regiments, and Battalions are organized along Soviet lines.

Guards Tank Regiments are equipped with older model T-72 Ural MBTs.

Motor Rifle Division Tank Battalions are equipped with T-54/55 or Type 59 MBTs.

Motorized Pacification Rifle Regiments are truck-borne light infantry.

Motorized Rifle Regiments in the Motorized Rifle Divisions are mounted on BMP or Chinese-equivalent Tracked APCs.

Motorized Rifle Regiments in the Motorized Pacification Rifle Divisions are mounted on BTR or Chinese-equivalent Wheeled APCs.

Additional material will be posted as I come up with it.

Feedback, recommentdations, and suggestions are invited.

I can't say anything but good post, because I haven't thought about that theater of the Twilight War much -- it's was one of the most cataclysmic theaters of the Twilight War, yet almost no development of it was ever done by GDW or later on online.

Thanks
 

Thanks for the good word.

I'll see what other goodies I can come up with. A Soviet-Pact based game in Manchuria would certainly be an interesting scenario.

9th Company meets Red Dawn. . .

My turn to thank you
 

Good work and very nice idea. I had the same idea in my game but failed to come up with anything like you have done. I'll use yours and this will be of a great help. I can't wait for your next post. Anything on airforce and naval elements? :)

Air Force follow-on
 

Glad to see the response, and I'm working on it.

On a related point, does anyone have any good information about the Chinese People's Liberation Army and the PLA Air Force in the '90s.

Oh hey! I happen to have just bought a handy book on that. I covers the PLAAF from 1951 to Present (and the date of the book is 2003). What do you need to know?

Just the thing
 

If it has an order-of-battle and a list of major airbases, that would be perfect. I have a book on world air forces, unfortunately its dated from the 1970s and it's PLAAF data reflects both a lack of hard information and China's Maoist military thinking of the day.

Let me know what you have there. I may have to snag a copy for myself. . .

Thanks

Lots of hard work in there. Thanks for contributing.

I think this idea is great and applaud you for contributing this, however I have some questions to the reasoning behind the tanks, APCs and trucks.

Where exactly do all of these armored vehicles come from? A look at the Soviet troops in the area reflects the scarcity of armor.

It wasn't long before 1999 that much of Chinese army was leg mobile. Would it not be more realistic to have all of these units light infantry with perhaps only small armored force as a operational maneuver group for the Corps.

Great stuff! I had thought of coming up with something for the Far East front around 2000, the farthest I had gotten was using Merc's Gazetteer as a road map for remaining Chinese factions that would be fighting the Soviets and/or each other.

I'm not suggesting it isn't worth pursuing, but didn't the Soviets engage in saturation nuclear bombardment? Is there anything left there or is it just a massive no-man's land of mile-wide craters and fallout, dotted with enough skulls to build a few tens of thousands of Giza Pyramid sized mounds?

The order of battle is the paper one. The sort of thing that delusional bunker-bound senior REMFs consult while pushing unit counters around a map table. The composition notes are for what they would look like under ideal conditions, or when they were originally established.

Most of the motorised rifles would be straight-leg, and even so-called tank units would likely have armored cars instead of tracks.

As far as I've imagined (work in progress disclaimer) the Manchurian People's Republic, and its Army are largely public relations exercises and an attempt to make up for a shortage of Soviet troops.

As for the "pyramids of glowing rubble" notions, my thinking is that most of the tactical nukes in the east were aimed at pursuing PLA formations, airfields, railyards, etc. I expect that the Beijing and Shanghai regions would be serving as a nightlight for the Australians, though.

We don't really have an accurate count of strikes or megatonnage used against China. My impression from reading the v1 chronology is that China got hit harder than the US. I don't know how much harder, though.

"The Chinese were literally blasted back to the Middle Ages."
- USSR Challenge article

Yeah; that's what I'm saying. I mean I realize that Twilight 2000 != Red Dawn and likewise, but one of the great lines from Powers Boothe is when Daryl asks:

"Well who is on our side?"

"The British...they won't be in it much longer. Them and four hundred million screaming China men."

"I thought there were a billion screaming Chinamen."

<tosses cup of bourbon into fire> "There were."

Love that movie:)

I remember a quote from V1 which was carried over all the way to v2.2: " Entire divisions were vaporized in imagined pursuit..."

OK, reading through this book, it's more the Chinese aircraft industry than anything else; there's nothing like ORBATs or lists of units. Picking through it, I can get an idea of which aircraft the PLAAF had on hand at a particular time, but that'll be the best I can do with this particular book. Will that help?

Iiiinnteresting. . . . . . . . . .
 

That could actually be very helpful. Aircraft types and knowing their main manufaturing centers would be most helpful.

I've noticed that many of the posts are concerned with just how brightly China glows in the dark in Tw2k. All available information suggests that they were well plastered in the war. However, China is a big country, with a vast selection of potential targets.

The idea that the Soviets would turn most of Manchuria (at least) into radioactive glass strains things a bit. Can anyone figure a list of theatre nuclear targets in China. Also, is there any additional information on exactly what the Soviets had managed to take before they feigned a retreat leading up to the main nuke exchange.

And, on a silly note

"In the Day, when China will make attempt to solve their overpopulation problem at the expense of Russian territories, our Strategic Missile Forces will solve China's overpopulation problem."
Russian Army folklore.

My favorite lines from the movie! I thought it was 500 million screaming Chinamen though.

Actually it is 600 million screaming Chinamen. LOL

"AVENGE ME!"

lol, fusilier's right

It certainly would be interesting to know what being blasted back to the Middle Ages means. Of the nuclear-armed powers in 1997, China is probably in the best condition to endure a major nuclear attack. This is not to say that China would get herself back into the war anytime soon. Still, it would be interesting to have some ideas about what various parts of China look like in 2000.

Very cool project. I also sort of assumed the 2300AD timeline prominence of Manchuria represented something to do with the majority of Chinese and Soviet combat power in the region being parked in that part of China. Seems like the only real logical reason why they'd pull ahead of the other two Chinese states, since that part of the country is probably also the most blasted and war torn.

I guess the first steps would be digging up a OOB for the PLA, and coming up with a target list for what was hit with nuclear weapons....hmmm....

I thought I had some kind of Chinese OOB hanging around somewhere, had trouble finding it.
It also has some data about China's Air Force as well.

I was trying to remember where I found it.....I think it was here LOL

Destroying a division on the road takes many fewer nukes than destroying a division that has been properly prepared. You can do the job with a relatively small package of tactical nuclear weapons if the division is bunched up and in the open the way they would be on the march. The effects of tactical nuclear weapons delivered against combat formations in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia will be hard on the locals nearby. As always, though, the nation-killers are the 1Mt devices used against cities. Is there a strike list for China anywhere?

If we dont find one, Im starting work on one now.

First draft. Sources from www.globalsecurity.org.

Looks good...you might want to look at some of the other port facilties...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ports_in_China

(Granted some ports listed there may not have been large enough to warrant a nuke in 1997, but my understanding was also that China was hit harder than any other country, so I think even a moderately large port could well be a target).

Also, it's not on the wiki list, presumably because of its status as a Special Administrative Region rather than part of the PRC proper, but I'd expect Hong Kong to be targetted at some point, either in July or November / December, (handover from the UK to the PRC was slated for 30 June 97 - I think it's reasonable that in the Twilight War timeline that could have been delayed, and am inclined to think that if HK was still a Crown Colony the Soviets might avoid targetting it in July as doing so would be an escalation of the nuclear exchange. Obviously that becomes a moot point from November onwards...)