The manchuria attack has to my knowledge been debated approximately 43,242 times (not that the indian i.c. hasn’t either). The point I was making was that if you wanted a strong I.C., you would want to attack manchuria. Stacking those troops makes them negligible if japan is going for the I.C., as japan will just skirt around them that way and they will have to retreat at some point. Using the troops directly against japan creates a very tangible result and significantly strengthens the southeast against japan.
Certainly, I do not think the fact that the manchuria attack aids an Indian I.C. can be questioned, though it does provide the very normal agressive argument to the manchuria attack in general. Lets try not to talk about that frequently followed argument and instead focus on what the manchuria attack does for the indian I.C.
If that 2nd fighter in china would aid in it being held, IF an Indian I.C. has been placed and Japan is following your idea of attacking the Indian I.C. China can certainly be taken, but can india as well? Assuming you DID attack manchuria (and won) and DID place an Indian I.C., Japan’s attack against India becomes at most 4 inf + 1ftr + 1bmb. If you decided to do that, then you’d have 2inf + 1ftr (jp) vs. 2inf + 2ftr (ru). That’s a 2% win with japan, 20% if there is 1 fighter. Of course, japan will probably realize that they cannot do both, which is the whole point. Instead they may attempt to take china. They can bring to bear 4inf + 2ftr + bmb. Most likely they will take china with 1 inf, maybe 2. With only one fighter there, it will be 2 inf, maybe 3 and they will take with 99.8% probability instead of 95%. Is that worth losing a russian fighter for? Probably not, so that aspect of the move may be questioned. I usually use it if I am going to kwangtung with britain too, which I wouldn’t do during an I.C. Of course, the truly ballsy move would be to hit manchuria with infantry and fighter only, which is only a 63% take vs 90% with the armor. But if you did win that battle, you could move the armor in noncom to china. That brings the most likely results of the china battle to japan only taking with 1 or 2 planes.That would put a large stall on japanese advancement.
All of my mumbling aside, going for manchuria and eliminating that fighter means that the india i.c. will face at most 4inf + 1ftr + 1 bmb, which reduces the chances of a take from 90% to 60% and more importantly makes the chances of it being taken with ground forces less. On top of this, even though you state that china will be taken by a good japanese player, they will not have the best chance to take it even IF they used the bomber from japan.
