Battalion of the Auspicious Pig

After almost a year, my Chinese battalion is finally done! While I may add another rifle company and more supporting elements later on, I think it has the bare minimum of components to take the field.

I have given it the name ‘Battalion of the Auspicious Pig’ for several reasons: first, because it was conceived and (mostly) built in 2019, the Year of the Pig; second, it’s creator (me) was born during the Year of the Pig ; and third, its artillery and many of the heads necessary for converting the figures came from the venerable Peter Pig miniatures. All of these combined seemed rather auspicious.

 

The battalion

 As mentioned in a previous post, this battalion follows the TO&E of a central government 18^th/19^th year type infantry division, although mine is short by one company. It is composed of two rifle companies, each with 18 stands, a machine gun company with six MGs, and a mortar company with six tubes.

HQ

First company

Second company

The MG company is comprised of four water-cooled Type 24s (a Chinese copy of the German MG08 commercial model) and two ZB 37s, imported from Czechoslovakia.

Machine gun company

Type 24

Type 24

ZB37

ZB 37

The mortar company’s tubes are any one of the myriads of indigenously produced medium 81/82mm mortars, such as the Type 20. Given the Chinese army’s paucity of communication equipment, I have decided to forego with a spotter. Instead, the company commander will act as a spotter, or engage in direct fire.

Mortar company

Medium mortars

Medium mortar

In support of the battalion is a battery of four 75mm Hanyang L/29 field guns, a Chinese produced copy of the Krupp 1903 export gun, and obsolescent by the time of the Japanese invasion. Such guns would have been in artillery regiments subordinate to GHQ, and not part of an infantry division. Divisional artillery would, in theory, be comprised of pack/mountain howitzers, but was often only mortars.

Field gun battery

Hanyang L/29

Hanyang L/29

Another view

As with the mortar company, I’ve left out the spotter team, as well as the staff team, for the same reasons. Outdated, broken, or missing equipment, and inadequate training, often lead to guns being used in a direct-fire role.

As for the miniatures and models themselves, I won’t go over too much already covered in previous posts, other than one company is comprised of Battlefront’s Finnish soldiers, and the other their Romanians, with head swaps from Peter Pig. The MG company is mostly BF Finnish Maxims, with Sokolov mount converted into a tripod, and two Romanian ZB 37s. The mortar company is also composed of BF Finns. The CiC and 2iC are a mix of Finns and Italians, with some converting and custom bits added.

CiC debates tactics over tea.

 

2iC leads the way with the regimental standard.

The artillery comes from Peter Pig’s WWI range: the guns are the Belgian 1905, which I thought was a good approximation of the Krupp 1903 export model. In retrospect, I think I could have spiffed it up a bit with some more detail, and its barrel could probably stand to be a tad longer, but I wasn’t in the mood at the time, and I’m content with it. At a later date, I may add some spent shell casings and wooden crates. The crew are once again BF Romanians with Peter Pig heads.

Rear view of the gun

 

Yet another view

As I said in the beginning, I may add more to this list, such 15cm mortars, a mountain howitzer battery, and maybe another rifle company, but for now I am moving onto other projects.

Chinese Army in 15mm - Part V

I’ve been putting this off, because it feels too much like school work, but it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty and discuss the TO&E of my Chinese battalion, and how to fit it in the Flames of War point system.

The first thing is finding what the historical units consisted of. Between 1928 and 1938, the TO&E of central government divisions was amended at least eight different times, reflecting changes in doctrine or technology. However, not every division was able to reorganize completely or at all, either because of a lack of equipment, manpower, or the reluctance of a local commander to change, and so by the time war broke out, any number of these organizations could have been in use. And this does not include the organizations of the various provincial armies.

Of the central government divisions, the infantry battalion seems to have remained relatively unchanged during this period, consisting of three rifle companies (each with three platoons), a mortar company and an MG company. One of the biggest changes was the introduction of the light machine gun into the rifle platoon.

A Chinese soldier armed with a Swiss SIG KE7 automatic rifle. He also wears one of China's few indigenously produced helmets.

The platoon of the 19^th Year Type A Division was composed of three 10-man rifles squads. In 1932, some of the better equipped and German trained divisions were organized into 21^st Year Type Divisions, which added two automatic rifle squads to the platoon, for a total of five squads per platoon. This platoon organization appears to have been carried over in subsequent reorganizations, more or less, with the exception of the Anti-Bandit Division created in 1933.

In terms of Flames of War (Version 3), this is how it would look:

Pre-1932 Rifle Platoon (w/o LMGs)

Six medium bases, each with five riflemen

The rifle platoon w/ three squads.

Post-1932 Rifle Platoon (w/ LMGs)

Ten medium bases: six w/ five riflemen each; and four w/ two light machine gunners and eight riflemen.

The rifle platoon w/ three squads and two light machine gun squads.

As stated previously, these reorganizations were not carried out across the board, and various provincial armies had their own unit structures, so it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to have a company or battalion with either type of platoon.

Unfortunately, I found out much of the above only after I had organized and based my miniatures, so I am now trying to fit what I have into a historical frame work, instead of the other way around.

At the moment, my only complete company consists of 18 medium stands, which works out to three pre-1932 rifle platoons. Each stand should have five figures, but for economic reasons, I had to limit it to four. Though technically inaccurate, I’m not too worried about this.

Rifle Company

However, historically speaking, if I want to field them as a Rifle/MG company, I really ought to add another 12 stands. On the other hand, with all the various unit organizations in effect and the exigencies of war, such a unit structure could have existed. I haven’t quite decided this matter, but it’s something to chew on.

Pressing on, the next thing to determine is the unit’s Skill and Motivation rating. With such a large, varied army, things like training, leadership, experience and morale were not consistent between units, save perhaps for the German trained divisions. To reflect this, I’ve decided to use the ‘Eight Million Bayonet rule’ used for Italians, to solve the same problem of their varied morale and training, where a die is rolled for each unit to determine its rating.

Below is the roll chart so far, but it may change, if I’ve determined I’ve been too generous/meager. ‘RC’ is for Reluctant Conscript; ‘RT’ for Reluctant Trained; ‘CC’ for Confident Conscript; ‘CT’ for Confident Trained; ‘FC’ for Fearless Conscript; and ‘FT’ is for Fearless Trained.

Roll          Infantry                       Dare-to-Die                    Artillery/Tank

1                                 RC                                    FC                                   RC 
2                                 RC                                    FC                                   RT 
3                                 RT                                    FC                                    RT 
4                                 RT                                    FT                                    RT 
5                                 CC                                    FT                                   CT 
6                                 CT                                    FT                                    CT

As I’m sure you've noticed, I’ve included separate ratings for the ‘Dare to Die’ troops, as well as artillery and tanks, paltry as the latter might have been. These will be discussed later, but let’s first work out the infantry.

Now that ratings have been determined, we can figure out points. I won’t bore you with all the details of how I figured out the points, but suffice it to say, I looked at similar early war units, such as the Italians and Russians, and divided the number of points per platoon (or company for the Soviets) by the number of stands. I compared that to units with different skill and motivation ratings, as well as between different types of units, such as between pioneer platoons and rifle platoons, or rifle platoons and rifle/MG platoons. 

The numbers I came up with are rough estimates, and so I don’t claim to be duplicating the Flames of War point system accurately. These are just to get a general idea, and probably wouldn’t be good for a tournament, where such things are more important.

  

Here is a very basic infantry battalion, with the bare minimum in bold text.

Battalion CO – 20 points (x2 small stands)

1^st Rifle Company – 190 points (x18 stands)

2^nd Rifle Company – 190 points (x18 stands)

3^rd Rifle Company – 190 points (x18 stands)

MG Company – 120 points (x6 HMGs)

Mortar Company – 105 points (x6 tubes)

The next post will deal with the various support units, as well as possibly upgrading a Rifle Company to a Rifle/MG Company.

Sources

Ness, Leland and Bin Shih. Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937–45. Helion and Company Ltd., 2016.