I'm overdue for an update. McMonkey's rapid progress has motivated me to get going on my own project.
I've placed all the units at the start and have done most of the events for the first campaign season, from the initial airraids in Dec 1941 until the onset of the monsoon in July 1942. I've been experimenting with balancing the reinforcements and the moveunit commands to get the historical pace of the Japanese offensive, which captured all of the country in that short period. I've been plagued with Japanese units being disbanded by the AI, but homing event-created reinforcements to captured cities has reduced the size of the problem.
There are several problems that need to be worked out:
1. The initial offensive has to be carefully calculated. The Japanese need to break into southern Burma from Thailand, and head for Rangoon. Once they capture it, they can bring in major reinforcements. But the British need to be able to hang on to it until they can bring in their historical reinforcements: the 17 Indian division in Feb '42 and the 7 Armoured Brigade in March. Then they must retreat as fast as they can for the Indian border, 1000 km to the north. The Japanese then need to head north - fast - in order to capture Burma before the monsoon. So far I have not found the solution, but will carry on.
2. The quality of the Japanese army and air force was initially very good, but declined as the campaign went on. So, I've divided the infantry into two types: the original 15 Army of 4 divisions, and everything that comes later. 15th Army units will all
be veteran, and the infantry and mountain artillery will treat all terrain (except impassible) as road (X2) and ignore ZOCs. This is to represent their jungle training and infiltration tactics. This has helped speed up the Japanese offensive considerably. Subsequent reinforcements will not have these abilities or be veteran (including air units).
Allied unit will all start as non-veterans, except the 7th Armoured Brigade (formerly part of 8th Army) and units of the American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers). Only Long-range Penetration units (Chindits and Marauders) will be able to move as road and ignore ZOCs. The British player will later be able to build Slim's Training Camp (Sun Tzu's Academy), so the proportion of Allied veteran units will rise while the Japanese proportion falls.
3. Who runs the Chinese troops? The Chinese Expeditionary Force initially entered Burma with 3 armies, equivalent to about 3 divisions. During the retreat, some went back to China, and some ended up in India, under Stilwell. I will make part of this force British, and part under the Chinese civ. How to divide it up and get the Chinese civ's forces in and out of Burma is a challenge.
4. The Thai Army occupied north-eastern Burma, and fought several battles against the Chinese Army there. Trouble is, the Japanese now get to those cities first. It should be fairly easy to fix. Keeping Thai units from wandering farther west in Burma is also an issue.
Finally, I'm finding my elaborate supply rules (see earlier post) to be a bit of a nuisance and not really needed. So that frees up a couple more unit slots. I'll keep the American trucks as trigger units for Chinese lend-lease events.