Help me defend my country from the Chinese!

General discussion related to the game goes here.

Moderators: Balthagor, Legend, Moderators

Post Reply
Cdiplayer
Colonel
Posts: 430
Joined: Aug 21 2012
Human: Yes

Help me defend my country from the Chinese!

Post by Cdiplayer »

So here's the situation. I am playing as Macedonia, I control Alexander the Great's historical empire. I was playing in the 1936 scenario, but as I got close to the modern day my computer was slowing down so much that I decided to just restart in the 2020 scenario and mod my empire in. However, I did NOT mod in my tech or armed forces, so almost immediately when I started, the Chinese declared war on me. Here is a screenshot of the current situation
Image
My only ally is Kazakhstan, and as you can see, they are sending their entire military into the breach to try and hold the line, but they are being driven back. The green areas are high ground. My initial thought is to try and defend the mountains.The Chinese are also at war with Japan, but since they have no land border, I think it will probably be a while before the Japanese really make an impact. I have plenty of money as you can see, and I have a vast military industry (43 land production facilities). I've also spent a significant amount of money buying tech and decent unit designs from the Americans, so I can eventually outproduce the Chinese and turn the tide, I just need to avoid a morale collapse in the meantime, so I need a good defensive strategy. Does anyone have any ideas?
The Chinese are starting with whatever units they have at the beginning of the 2020 scenario (I think its about 1200?) and I've got the following:
My army consists of:
4 light infantry
9 BTR-60PB
7 BMP 1
2 M113A APC
1 MT- LB
1 Steyr 4K 7FA
5 BMP 2
2 BTR -80
3 Motorcycle Recon
2 BRDM 2 Recon
5 T-54-2
1 T-55 Model 1958
7 T-62
8 T-72M
8 AT-3 Sagger
5 BRDM 2 AT
3 AT-13 Metis M
1 AT Milan 3
3 AT-14 Kornet E
5 M-30 122m Howitzer
5 M-30 Mark 2 122m Howitzer
1 M56 105m Towed Howitzer
5 D-30 122mm Howitzer
5 PHZ-81 107mm MLRS
5 BM-21 Grad MRL
4 BAZ-135L4 FROG Launcher
2 MAZ-7910 SCUD Launcher
5 T34 122mm
5 2S1 Gvozdika 122mm
3 Akatsiya 152 mm
2 m1939 37mm AA
1 KS-19 100mm AA
2 40mm L/70 AA
4 S-60 57 mm AA
6 SA-7b Grail
1 SA-18 Grouse
5 ZSU 23 4 Shilka
4 SA-2 Guideline
4 SA-3 Goa
1 SA-6 Gainful
1 SA-9M31M Gaskin
1 SA-11 Gadfly
4 SA-8 Gecko
2 SA-13 Gopher
1 SA-10B Grumble
1 S-300 PMU1
8 Supply Trucks

Then my Air Force (such as it is) contains:
1 Mi-2 Hoplite
3 Mi-24 Hind-A
2 Mi-25 Hind
5 MiG-21 Fishbed-C
2 MiG-25P Foxbat-A
3 MiG-23M Flogger-B
1 Su-24 Fencer
3 Su-22M3k Fitter-J
2 L--39ZA Albatros
1 Su-27SK Flanker
3 MiG-29S Fulcrum C
2 MiG-29SMT Fulcrum
1 AN-26 Curl
1 IL-76MD Candid-B
1 Mi-8T Hip- C
4 Mi-8T Hip-E
Felius
Warrant Officer
Posts: 48
Joined: Aug 13 2011
Human: Yes

Re: Help me defend my country from the Chinese!

Post by Felius »

Given your circumstances and relative army strength and production capabilities, I would say that most feasible way to handle this would be to play defensively, pick some good chokepoint and fortify the hell out of it. Trenches are your friend, take 3 days to build and give quite a few defensive bonuses. Remember to entrench behind the frontlines too, so as to have somewhere to place the artillery, AA, and supply vehicles in a way that they are less vulnerable to enemy artillery. Play conservatively with your air force, just throwing them in the frontlines are likely to see it destroyed. The Foxbat is probably one of your best units, as very few units, specially at the Chinese starting point can really handle high altitude targets. Try to get more of them if you can.

Overall, play for time while trying to bleed them out. Don't be afraid to fall back and retreat in a defense in depth strategy, you have the territory, a lot of it that doesn't seem to be all that productive and well supplied anyway. If nothing else the time the Chinese take to take it and wait for supply to flow in is time you can use to produce more infantry and better entrench into your lines.

If available and possible to buy, consider getting the Vodnik infantry design from the Russians. It's pretty weak, yes, but it takes 11 days to build (being probably one of the best units at that build time), and until you stabilize your front lines you likely need extra warm bodies more than you need those warm bodies to be elite units. Once you do get enough infantry to at least have the numbers, then consider transitioning to better quality units that can handle a better exchange rate against their units, but that can wait until you actually have the numbers to handle the sizeable front.

You will also likely want good AA: Prioritize initially combat time and/or numbers. The ultra long range powerful AA are great, but you basically need to park a supply vehicle stack near their stack them to keep them firing. The Chinese will be drowning you in planes if you try that. Also, don't even focus on it until you get enough frontline units, there's no point in killing planes if their infantry just walks in nearly unopposed. Same advice about artillery: Combat time and only after you have enough infantry.

Hope this helps.
User avatar
sparky282
Colonel
Posts: 384
Joined: Dec 31 2011
Human: Yes

Re: Help me defend my country from the Chinese!

Post by sparky282 »

I can already see from your picture there is a choke point developing around the center of the pic around the road.
Use this to your advantage the units in the north and south are running out of supply that's good let them don't send your units to them just pick them off with you jets or even attack choppers.

The next step would be to fortify along a strategic point I generally use rivers and bridges even if it means letting them take some ground and come to me, the less amphibious units they have the better.
You can even destroy bridges if you unable to hold which buy you more time

Generally, it's not possible to hold a large landmass on its own but it does create at times only 4 or 5 hexes you really need to defend.

I also employ a scorched earth tactic in front of my choke points destroying ports airfields bridges roads etc anything that will lower the supply once they take the land if I expect to lose it.
This can be very effective if the supply on their side is low as the AI struggles to deal with the issue and you can pick their air transports and supply trucks off one by one
Rosalis
Colonel
Posts: 417
Joined: Sep 07 2019
Human: Yes

Re: Help me defend my country from the Chinese!

Post by Rosalis »

Thats like the easiest spot to fight a major. China doesnt got an airfield for about 1000km., let alone an airbase... Chinese troops will get out of supply and you need to find them with your airforce. As long you entrench the cities they want to attack it should be easy to build up your troops.
You could buy vodnik light infantry design from Russia and you will have hundreds of them in no time and they really excell in low supply areas because of their fast attack and low supply consumption. Also heal very quickly. You will prolly need improved military chasis and then armor designs level VII for the design if you didnt add any techs, but after that it doesnt mather how much troops they gonna send at you.
Cdiplayer
Colonel
Posts: 430
Joined: Aug 21 2012
Human: Yes

Re: Help me defend my country from the Chinese!

Post by Cdiplayer »

I figure I should probably post a response here. Went on the slowest speed for the entire war, lost 12 units, enemy lost over 2000. The war ended after about 2 years when I reached the outskirts of Beijing and the AI agreed to peace, I then released Ugyhurstan as a buffer state.
Post Reply

Return to “General Discussion - SRUltimate”