ORIGINAL: Nikademus
Yes, with the Nationalist government refusing to "come to the table" and with the Nationalist army refusing to stand and fight (unless it wanted too) there was little else for the Japanese army to do prior to their big 1944 offensive against the USAAF heavy bomber airfields. India would also require a "garrison" rule but has none.
How much "actual" partisan activity was there, outside of Mao's communists? There is a tendancy to equate China with Russia in that regards but i've not read of rampant chinese activity in this mode. I did read in Caputo that the Nationalists and the IJA had a more or less "unofficial" truce around the 1941 period. Hence the stalemate.
China was a vast country and the war fought there between Japan and China prior to Dec. 41 was vastly different than that fought between Russia and Germany. There were no special police units created in VAST quantities by Japan to occupy rear areas, because they never actually conquered those rear areas to begin with so there was no pressing need for them.
There was no sweeping front that swept through the country conquering every little village and hamlet, instead Japan attacked along transportation routes on a very narrow front and was forced to occupy the entire line because everything else in the primitive hinterlands remained under Chinese control (except when punitive offensives were launched, but Japan always withdrew back to the transportation lines after).
Front line troops were required to garrison the entire railway network because Japan lacked sufficient troops to occupy the vast interior areas of China. Just because some guy colored in vast areas of the country with red ink on some map and said it was occupied doesn’t mean a few police troops could have had a hope in hell of controlling those areas.
The best way to represent what Japans occupation looked like would be to draw red lines over the rail and main road network and leave the rest uncontrolled. That would be a realistic representation of what the situation in China was on Dec. 1941. Japan was forced to keep 80% of the combat formations in China guarding the rear areas, because China had active large scale combat formations available to sweep in and cut any part of the line if Japan let its guard down.
I’ve read accounts where entire Chinese combat divisions would melt away into the local populace as a Japanese offensive swept through their area. They would then reform after the Japanese passed through and reap havoc in the rear and simply melt away again whenever the Japanese returned to hunt for the unit.
Technologically the Japanese army was far superior to Chinas army, but China had millions more men under arms and unlimited replacements available to replace the horrendous losses taken whenever the two armies would clash in stand up fights. Japan spent five years learning they couldn’t defeat China in a land war. Anyone who thinks the current land situation in the game is even remotely close to justified from an historical point of view is simply delusional.
I think the best solution in China would be to give the Chinese their historical armies, and then allow them to draw unlimited supplies from ANY Chinese hex not occupied by a Japanese combat unit. Take away all but a few engineer squads so they have no hope of assaulting defended Japanese bases with forts, and then you’ll see a more realistic game in China. Japan will be forced to defend every rail and road hex with combat troops (as they had to do historically) and China will have lots of offensively weak but large combat formations roaming the primitive countryside.
The better more modern equipped offensive Chinese formations (perhaps 70-100 of the almost 400 total divisions China fielded) would be fixed in the larger Chinese controlled bases, and only become available for use in late 44 or if the Japanese attack them first.
Jim
