ORIGINAL: el cid again
IMO the Japanese were stretched to their operational limits in China such that they really couldn't advance with out losing control over what they already had. The only way to represent this in the game as currently designed would be to drastically increase the partisan garrison levels required of the Japanese, unfortunately as modders we are limited to what extent these numbers can be changed.
I am skeptical of all such assumptions because of the 1944 offensive conducted WITHOUT sending reinforcements to China. Also because virtually all Japanese soldiers of the period - and historians since - think a general offensive was possible. It is not clear why it didn't happen until the B-29s raided? But Japan was a very divided society - and China was no exception. It has Manchukuo - and another puppet regime in Liaoning - and another in Peking - and another at Nanking - and yet another area of occupation under direct IJA control in the south - talk about complicated! Worse, Japanese companies were allowed to exploit (except in Manchukuo - one reason it was an economic success) and often IJA generals were running drugs and other forms of corruption - leading to no interest in a real unified and national control regime. This is probably the real issue: if all the area were run as Manchukuo was (it attracted Chinese, Russian and Korean immigrents by millions - each due to profits) - and the Zaibatsu were forbidden - and the Kempetei policed most forms of corruption (drugs are an exception - and they controlled). For another example see the Dutch East Indies - a place run with much local cooperation - in violation of standard military policy - investigated as such and it was allowed to stay that way - because it worked!
From the following website:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/72-38/72-38.htm
"...a major Japanese offensive in southern and central China. Stung by increasingly audacious air attacks by the Fourteenth Air Force, and aware of preparations for B-29 operations against the Japanese home islands, Tokyo ordered the ICHIGO offensive. The Japanese intended to capture Allied airfields in east China and to open an overland supply route stretching from Pusan, Korea, to Saigon, French Indochina. Such a line of communication would reduce demand on the empire's maritime lifeline, which was badly frayed by unrelenting Allied submarine attacks. Key goals were securing the entire north-south Peiping-Huangshi rail line, as well as the Wuchang-Liuchow rail line in central China.
To provide the needed force, the Japanese shifted units *of the Kwantung Army and Mongolia Garrison Army south, bringing their forces in China proper to 820,000 men. Fifteen divisions would participate in Operation ICHIGO."
And from this website...
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/sin ... n%2011.htm
"In his analysis of the Ichigo campaign Professor Hara noted that the Japanese offensive, like many of the army's operations in China , the offensive was very successful at the tactical and operational levels, but was a strategic disaster. On the other hand, Professor Wang argued that it was equally disastrous for the Chiang Kai-shek, who spent far too much blood and treasure trying to resist the Japanese onslaught.
Professor Hara pointed out that the Ichigo Offensive was conceived by planners in the China theatre, though its feasibility doubted by the Army General Staff. Yet it was set in motion nonetheless. The two main objectives of the offensive were to 1) to destroy American airbases in China , and 2) to secure a supply corridor from Indo-China into China in order to prepare for Japan 's climactic battle with the United States . The former objective was modestly successful, but considering the nature of the topography involved, the latter was not even realistic.
Successfully maintaining such a corridor was all the less likely, moreover, because of the greatly diminished capacity of the Japanese ground forces in China . which, by 1944, could take ground but could not hold it. Thus, Japan 's last and greatest land campaign was both futile and devastatingly counter-productive.
