The Japanese have been fighting in mainland China since 1937, and the war was continued during that Asia-Pacific War. After losing control of the sea, the Japanese decided to refocus on this stuck battlefield and started “Operation 1”.
Roughly, objective of “Operation 1” was four.
Connect ground route between North China and Indochina to transport strategic materials safely.
Capture airfields to prevent strategic bombing.
Destruct the weakest country among participant of the Cairo Declaration, KMT China.
Gain good news to keep national moral. In that time Italy was already surrendered and Axis countries were defeating in Pacific and Europe.
To achieve these goals, this operation was the largest operation since the establishment of the Japanese Army: about the 500,000 soldiers were participated it.
Tactically Japanese won the battle and established ground route between Beijing and French Indochina in January 1945. However, after collapse of Burma front and defeat at Philippines, Japanese forces withdrew to the area around Nanjing and Shanghai and They were unable to achieve their strategic goals.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Both China and Japan are completely new forces and they have multiple unique weapons.
Unique Asian landscapes: completely different to European landscapes in Moscow, Normandy, Berlin and Stalingrad.
Cons
China campaign is not known well among American and European players than Pacific campaign.
I already know the problem about subdivision of players by multiple campaign. However, I believe we should have at least one campaign with Japanese forces.
Weapons
Notes:
[P]: Prototype
[N]: Japanese Navy
[L]: Lend-Lease
[C]: Communist
Some Chinese weapons were used only in Burma front. Also, some Japanese weapons were not sent to overseas.
There has been quite a lot of talk about the Asian balancing issue with all sorts of different sides, for example USSR V.S Japan, U.S VS Japan and so on.
Japan V.S China 1937 would be easiest to balance.
The Chinese nationalistic army lost the war because of poor moral, their hardware was pretty good and interesting combination of worlds from ALL OVER the world, please check:
IIRC, they tend to have some weapons that we usually don’t see elsewherer, I’m all for trying different things so why not.
But I think pacific is coming tho, I doubt DF gonna make this.
I am apprehensive about any Chinese campaign, as you face the Geopolitical issues of the current day, but if you do all of Operation Ichi Go, you could bypass that issue as the Communists waged a guerilla campaign in the North while the Nationalists fought more conventional warfare elsewhere, which could be merged in a way similar to how the Americans and British are in Tunisia, and with enough effort could appease the CCP censorship. Weapon selection looks good, but therre are a few things I would like to say.
Replace one of the Springfield Sniper Rifles with either a PU Mosin or a Gewehr 98. Not sure if either were used by the Chinese forces, but it’s doubtful they used the Springfield either, so it should be fine.
The Chinese never actually got a Garands, instead getting M1 Carbines through lend lease, so I would move the ZH-26 to match the Type 4 Rifle, and match the M1 with the Type Ko, although you might want to then make it the short barreled one, or one if its other competitors like the Type Hei.
From what I understand about the Vz.24 Grenade launcher (Which is still very little, so I could be wrong), it is a shooting cup for what appears to be a Chinese copy of the potato masher grenade, but the grenade in the few images that I have seen of it seems a little off. I could be completely off base though.
An M1 Carbine with an M8 Grenade launcher and an M9 rifle grenade launcher could work for the Chinese AT grenade launcher.
For the SMGs, I would restructure the Allied ones a bit, replacing the 20 round Thompson with either a Sten Mk II or a UD 42.
I would use the Lewis instead of the Maxim Tokarev, as it would be identical to the Type 92 Machine Gun and would work quite well.
Instead of both Mauser C96s for the Chinese, I would only use one and have a Browning Hi Power.
The Chinese were given M1a1 flamethrowers through lend lease, not M2 flamethrowers.
If the geopolitical stuff were to be set aside, this would be an excellent campaign, but with it, who knows. Maybe the devs can make it work and if they can, this is probably their best shot.
I agree it. Because of it, I made suggestions for Shanghai 1937
However, it have one problem: we can’t see late-war unique & famous weapons like Type 99 Short Rifle, Type 100 Machine Pistol etc. I believe camping of China 1944 will reduce this problem.
As a premise, British and American weapons were deployed preferentially to Burma, so it is not very suitable for them to appear in mainland China campaigns.
→ About rifle grenade
Translate: Type 28 rifle grenade. Unlike general rifle grenades, the range is adjusted by adjusting the insertion depth while keeping the angle at 35 °. The idea is similar to the Type 89 grenade discharge. The amount of explosive charge of the grenade was 55 to 60 g, and it had a killing radius of about 10 m, and there was also a smoke screen shell made of white phosphorus. The range is 70-220m.
The Type 28 rifle grenade could probably be used not only with the Vz.24, but also with rifles of the same size, such as Type 21 and Chiang Kai-shek rifle.
The M1 carbine was certainly supplied under the Lend-Lease Act, but many were deployed to special forces called SACO, not to general units.
→ About rifle
My previous post summarizes the rifles operated in China during WW2. Certainly M1 Garand was never put into operation in China. Personally, I think it would be interesting to increase the types of Thompson SMGs without unifying the number of rifles. China was the second largest Thompson SMG enthusiast after the United States.
→ About LMG
This is a table created by Bin Shih.
According to this, in 1944, the number of Hotchikiss was the highest after KE-7 and FN BAR. Historically, it was deployed in many units near Guangdong, so Hotchikiss may be a good alternative to Maxim Tokarev machine gun.
Well the UD 42 was given to Partisans everywhere, so it would make sense if the Chinese forces had some in places that were not Burma. As for the other lend lease, Yeah it might not make too much sense, but without them, it is kind of hard to achieve balance. Besides, Thompsons came with Shermans, which the Nationalists did use elsewhere and Hi Powers were never a military item, so the Chinese likely got theirs by purchasing some for themselves, meaning who knows where they went.
About Mortor, The Type 31 mortar is a copy of the French Brandt Mle 1935 60mm and may be too powerful and heavy compared to the Type 89. An alternative could be the MAM 37mm or a mortar produced by a warlord without formalization.
The mortar in the image above was captured by the Japanese army along with the ZB26 and looks like a 50-55mm caliber. I don’t know its name …
Copying of the Thompson SMG began around 1926 in China, and was widely used during the anti-Japanese war. In addition, there are various models depending on the production factory and time. Thompson M1928 provided by Lend-Lease from United States was deployed mainly in Burma, but the Thompson made in China was deployed anywhere.
The models that I personally find interesting are the 7.63mm caliber model produced in Chongqing after 1938 and the model with bayonet lugs produced in Shanxi Province for several years from 1929.
