After two months of heavy fighting in and around Shanghai, the Chinese Army was forced to retreat to the south bank of Suzhou Creek. Covering the retreat was the 524th Regiment of the Chinese 88th Division led by Lt.-Col. Hsieh Chin-yuan. The regiment held its positions around the Four-Bank Warehouse -- a reinforced-concrete warehouse owned by four commercial banks. In the middle of the burning Zhabei district, soldiers of the 524th prepared to write their own heroic destiny as thy faced the advancing Japanese Shanghai Expeditionary Army.
Attacker: Japanese (16th Division)
Defender: Chinese (524th Infantry Division)
6.5 turns
Players: 2 OBA: None Night: No
Unit Counts:
Squads: A:19.0 D:17.0
AFVs: A:0
AFVs: D:0
Guns: A:0 D:0
Misc Rules:
4 Random Blazes (C1.31), D: Fortify (B23.9) 3 locations in Factory Bldg 20E7, Fanatic (A10.8)
Japanese were in the building on turn 4 but took heavy losses. The Chinese were able equal exchange for the rest of the game to secure the win.
2024-01-12
(A) Robert Wiebe
vs
Dave
Japanese win
The randomness of the initial four blazes aided the Japanese immensely as the large multi-story stone building dominating the map's centre was shrouded in blazes and smoke by the game's end. This meant the Chinese could not use it to advance fire on the Japanese, who used a combination of Banzai and normal movement which saw a lone Japanese squad enter the factory building by the end of turn 2. The next three turns saw both sides slogging it out over the factory, but the Japanese secured the victory by cutting down any Chinese squads that had to move through the open ground towards the factory.
2024-01-05
(A) Robert Wiebe
vs
Dave
Chinese win
Dice were against me from the start, when my HMG on overwatch broke on its first shot, then was gone permanently the next RPh. Besides that, my assault up the right flank was pretty well on track as by turns 3/4 I was shooting into the Factory building; even got off two Banzai charges. Unfortunately, despite firing 12FP (after being halved) +2/+3/+4 shots I was not able to keep Dave's Chinese broken or pinned. Eventually ran out of time. Good use of skulking kept many Chinese units alive when they could have easily been chopped up.
Over all a very fun scenario, our first playing PTO, and we had a blast.
