Had a great time playing this one Saturday with Jeff Shields.
Red Star, Red Sun takes place in Manchuria 1938 on three desert boards. Jeff had the Japanese, and I had Ivan. After looking over the map, I decided to attack down the Russian right, and send a slightly weaker force against the center. [Couldn't have Japs nipping at my flank.] the right flank had a nice sand dune from which I could set up over watch positions. The center had a smaller sand dune. I moved a medium to both flanks to put out fire lanes if needed. One of the primary features of this scenario is 2 [17 hex by SSR] 100 mm rolling barrages. I decided to use the PFPh method, overlaping on approximately one half of the barrage with the other. I then moved my forces onto the heels of that barrage. The Russian Attack was a slow grinding affair with carpet fire groups. Jeff did a nice job channeling my attack with fire lanes, so consequently my force ended up being lopsided toward the center. Going in I decided I didn't care if I lost the armour or not, so I triied a couple of platoon overruns against enemy squads. With BT-5s, this didn't accomplish a whole lot, but it kept the Jap squad from firing at me until I could swarm it with 3 or 4 to 1 CCs. My Sniper did an amazing amount of damage. He managed to flip a half squad with a mortar at a critical juncture, and flip an ATG crew also, stripping his concealment The barrage did some damage to the Jap right, and Jeff's screening force on the right collapsed. Jeff's fighter bombers came on board [Bombs only] and wasted two BT-5s. But on turns five and six, Jeff managed to box and six his heavies out of the game. At the end of the sixth, with my rolling attack merely four hexes away from victory, Jeff failed his morale check and conceded. I did lose two squads, one which went beserk, and charged through two 100 mm barrage hexes, and another brokie decided he didn't want to rally, so Commissar Bastyrdovich shot them.
Now for a couple of questions. According to the record, this scenario is Russians 11 Japenese 10. Could some one give Jeff and I a clue how to stop the steam roll attack? I'd like to hear from people who played the Japs and won.
Given a rolling barrage, when would you not use the PFPh method of advance? Assault move Advance, Assault move advance, with a +2 hinderence for the barrage is a good method for attack.
Finally, I ask for a moment of silence for the bottle of Jack Daniels that gave it's life that we might get tanked.
Thanks Jeff, I needed that.
Mark