Trying to make sense of the situation in China. Roger and I have an agreed bias to keep the campaign focus on theatres outside of China without ignoring this important area - call it Slightly Quieter China if you will. It may seem controversial to some but I am actually not all that interested in striving to capture Chungking and do not plan to assemble armoured divisions and heavy artillery in China to help achieve this. The majority of buyouts will be used to further strategies in other parts of the Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. What I will do however is keep the pressure up in China, and, in particular, claim any low-hanging fruit that falls into the basket.
A glance at the map will show that my opponent has not shown any designs on Ichang so far, while seeming content to hang on to Chengchow and Loyang while regrouping other forces on the Chinese plains. My current design is to save Ichang and also make the other two cities into a salient which will be squeezed at both ends, allowing the Chinese forces to be defeated in detail owhen they are forced to run for the hills as surely they must do soon...
Oh, and the other significant China event this turn was...
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Ground combat at Hong Kong (77,61)
Japanese Deliberate attack
Attacking force 23998 troops, 348 guns, 179 vehicles, Assault Value = 539
Defending force 6034 troops, 127 guns, 72 vehicles, Assault Value = 113
Japanese adjusted assault: 686
Allied adjusted defense: 157
Japanese assault odds: 4 to 1 (fort level 1)
Japanese forces CAPTURE Hong Kong !!!
Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), experience(-)
Attacker:
Japanese ground losses:
466 casualties reported
Squads: 12 destroyed, 35 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 10 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Allied ground losses:
6105 casualties reported
Squads: 263 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 172 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 21 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 165 (165 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Vehicles lost 102 (102 destroyed, 0 disabled)
Units destroyed 6
