ASL AAR: The Sangshak Redemption (J150)

AAR by: Neal Ulen & Scott Rowland

Advanced Squad Leader AAR: The Sangshak Redemption (J150)

Download the VASL .vsav setup file.
Download the VASL .vlog playthrough.

Here’s the historical situation:

Date: March 26, 1944
Location: Sangshak, India
Attacker: Japanese (58th Infantry Regiment, 31st Division)
Defender: Gurkhas (Support Company, 152nd Indian Parachute Battalion, 50th Indian Parachute Brigade and Company A, 153rd Gurkha Parachute Battalion, 50th Indian Parachute Brigade)

The 153rd Parachute Battalion, 50th Parachute Brigade, was the only Gurkha airborne unit formed during the war. Their initial combat experience occurred as part of a delaying action against the northern pincer of the Japanese envelopment of Imphal, india. Along with its sister airborne battalions, the Gurkhas were deployed to the vicinity of Sangshak village where it faced the experience Japanese 58th Infantry Regiment as it sought to transit this location. The Indians from 152nd Battalion were the initial airborne unit deployed to Sangshak to meet the Japanese threat. After a seven day battle the Indians were pushed back. The Gurkhas from the 153rd were ordered to retake the village.

In March 1944 the Imperial Japanese Army invaded India from neighboring Burma. The small village of Sangshak was a northwest crossroad that led to the more significant target of Imphal only miles to the southwest, where Commonwealth forces had established defenses and supplies. British and Indian Gurkha moved in to hold back the Japanese invasion in this tiny corner of India.

Code named Operation U-Go, the Japanese invasion of India was quickly repulsed and lasted a scant four months. To date it was their largest defeat of World War 2, but certainly not their last. The IJA retreated back to Burma by June, 1944 with a bloody nose, having suffered over 30,000 dead, and 23,000 hospitalized from combat, disease, and starvation.

This scenario simulates a small part of the battles near Imphal, Kohima, and the India-Burma border in the spring of 1944 …

.END OF BRIEFING.