浴血淞沪

Take command as the front line comes under fire

Machine guns pin down your infantry. Japanese tanks advance through the streets. Bombers approach while trucks carrying retreating friendly troops have yet to cross the bridge.

Do you concentrate fire on the armor, order your soldiers into cover, or take direct control of a gun to silence the enemy position blocking the road?

浴血淞沪 is a 2D single-player real-time tactics game set during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai. Command Chinese troops across city streets, riverbanks, villages, bridges and defensive positions. Deploy your forces, issue tactical orders and personally aim artillery to support the front line. There is no base building or resource gathering: your resources are positions, firepower, time and the soldiers still under your command.

12 campaign missions, from Bazi Bridge to Songjiang

Each battlefield has its own roads, waterways, cover and chokepoints.

• Bazi Bridge and Hongkou: Hold narrow approaches and fight through street barricades, suppressing enemy positions before advancing your infantry.
  
• Baoshan: Defend the riverbank against naval bombardment, aircraft and landing forces, then regroup behind urban barricades when the outer defenses fall.
  
• Luodian: Contest bridges and villages in a network of waterways. Capture positions, resist armored counterattacks and organize overlapping fire around walled compounds.
  
• Dachang: Command larger formations on the southern bank of Wenzaobang. Fight coordinated infantry and artillery assaults, then delay pursuit while friendly troops, wounded soldiers and supplies withdraw.
  
• Jiangqiao and Jinshanwei: Protect retreating trucks crossing a bridge under air and ground attack, then hold seawalls and villages against landings supported by naval fire and smoke.
  
• Mishidu and Songjiang: Fight delaying actions around crossings, river channels and evacuation roads. Coordinate battalion-scale forces through successive defensive positions to complete the rear-guard mission.

Attack, defend, counterattack and cover the retreat

Destroying the enemy is not always the only objective. Capture positions, hold for a specified time, repel successive attacks or protect friendly forces passing through dangerous ground. A bridge that must remain open for a retreating convoy calls for different decisions than a street barricade you must capture.

Infantry holds the ground. Heavy weapons shape the battle.

Chinese forces field seven core unit types as mission formations and equipment become available:

• Rifle infantry for advancing, occupying positions and guarding routes.
  
• ZB-26 light machine gunners for sustained infantry support.
  
• Type 24 Maxim heavy machine guns to cover streets, bridges and open approaches.
  
• 82 mm mortars to strike concentrated infantry and key firing positions.
  
• Pak 35/36 anti-tank guns to engage armored threats.
  
• Solothurn ST-5 anti-aircraft autocannons to counter enemy aircraft.
  
• Demolition assault troops carrying explosive charges for high-risk, close-range attacks on vehicles.

Depending on the mission, deploy anti-personnel and anti-tank mines or call in a limited number of long-range artillery strikes.

Face threats on land, in the air and on the water

Japanese riflemen, light and heavy machine gunners and grenade discharger teams advance with Type 92 70 mm infantry guns, M25 armored cars and Type 89B medium tanks. D1A1 carrier dive bombers threaten your formations, while Daihatsu landing craft, rubber assault boats and gun-carrying boats bring troops and equipment across the water. Type 94 trucks carry reinforcements by road.

Some missions also feature smoke, poison-gas bombardment and enemy infantry equipped with gas masks. Both sides together include more than 20 unit types and variants, spanning infantry, artillery, armor, aircraft and transport vehicles.

Be both commander and gunner

Observe the battlefield, select troops and issue movement and engagement orders, then switch to direct gun control to aim and fire. Decide when to strike gathering infantry, turn an anti-tank gun toward approaching armor or save limited artillery support for the next assault.

From a platoon defending a bridgehead to several companies fighting together, every fire-support decision still comes down to a particular street corner, trench or retreat route.

This game draws on the historical Battle of Shanghai. Some characters, unit formations, missions and battle sequences have been adapted for gameplay and are not exact reconstructions of historical events.