Second Sino-Japanese War Chinese forces

Chinese 1937-39

Another project I completed whilst away from the blog was a small force of Chinese forces to fight by large Japanese collection, so would be Second Sino-Japanese war or early WW2. 

Those forces provide an interesting challenge for the wargamer; the country was still recovering from the Warlord era, and Chiang-Kai-Shek had sought support from the Nazi regime in Germany and later, the Soviet Union (which of course links to the wider strategic picture of which Khalkin Gol was part). As such, Chinese forces were a mish-mash of uniforms, equipment. Organisation was left very much to local warlords. 

The force I have based my collection on is post-Shanghai, where most of the better troops were lost, but not so late that there was nothing left of them, or the Americans had started to supply them. So, we can place this force in the 1937-39 kind of era. I haven't gone with any troops who were only armed with hand weapons!

The figures are also a mish-mash - some Foundry, some 1:72 miniatures, some Lancashire games, with some EWM and Zvezda early Germans standing in for some of the support weapons, too.

The Regimental HQ, with hand painted banner.

Regimental support weapons. These were well prized by the Chinese and kept at a regimental level.

German influence here: Pak 36 A/T guns. Notice mule transport as standard.

Oerlikon 20mm AA cannon. 

Armoured(!) support. Took a little bit of liberty here as they probably weren't serving at the same time/together, but the Chinese did have access to these. 

A PzI, T26 and two Cv33 tankettes.

Artillery was very limited to the Chinese, including the rounds. As such just one old Krupp 75mm.

And infantry! I read that Chinese tended to have smaller companies (I can't remember where to be honest) and so there are only 6 figures per company.

And, they have seen action down at NBHW! Please see the photos and report here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.6013540088698817&type=3&locale=en_GB

If this is new to you and interests you, I started with the Osprey books on the subject (The Chinese Army, Chinese Civil War Armies and Chinese Soldier vs Japanese Soldier) whilst please do also look at the 'Wargaming China' YouTube channel.

Thank you for reading.