My regular FTF opponent, Tom Mueller (Hi!), enjoyed this one quite a bit. we both decided that it has good replay value, since the Japanese setup can be different every time, and the US player luck regarding swamping or broaching in LCs can vary immensely. Our game went right down to the wire (the last turn), which was fun. I ended up barely winning as the Japanese. I had, after subtracting FP for GO Marine squads, about 5 FP to spare. Many of my comments will be from the Japanese side, so Tom will probably fill in missing stuff or correct the errors I'll make here...
Although at first glance it looks like a beast (31 squads for the US, 14 plus 4 crews and piles of fortifications for the Japs) and involves landing craft, play went much more smoothly than we expected. This is due in part by the fact that for about the first three or four turns, the US player is just driving his LC through the ocean, then trying to unload them. these turns go quickly.
US advantages: firepower, ten leaders, outnumber Japs by 2:1, SWs, including 3 FTs and 9 DCs.
US disadvantages: heavy surf, only 7 Raider squads (which aren't penalized on their Search dr's).
Jap advantages: entire OB set up HIP, 19 pillboxes and 6 trenches.
Jap disadvantages: not enough firepower to effectively combat Marines, poor close combat odds.
I took the Japanese side as Tom was anxious to give a seaborne assault a try. Setting up took an entire afternoon. There are plenty of places that are good to set up (concealment terrain everywhere). I set up most of my forces on the south half of the playing area, with only about 4 squads on the north half. A significant portion of my troops were on board 35 where the beach cuts off at a diagonal. The hmgs and one mmg were put in pillboxes in the middle of board 37 to cover the shell-holed area leading up the middle from the beach. This proved to be important: Tom landed most of his troops on the north half of the playing area and was late in getting to my force on Board 35, and was significantly held up by the mg's in the middle of 37. I set the gun up in hex 37P1, and kept it hidden the entire scenario. My FP from the Gun and the MMC on board 35 provided BARELY enough FP for me to win.
Turn 1. Tom entered his LC and headed for the north half of the playing area. After making tons of swamping DRs, one LC finally sank in deep ocean in the advance phase. (a 9-1, 3 x 668, 1 x DC, and 1 x MMG went down with it).
Turn 2. Tom's LC continue their way in...no more LC were to swamp in the game.
Turn 3. Tom's LC hit the beaches. out of the 10, one broaches into a wreck, and the resulting 2MC's break or pin most of the passengers. Five other LC beach but go TI. Tom's beaching DR's were terrible, and this kept most of his force loaded on the LCs an extra turn. Durning this turn, Tom also stays true to form by malfing 4 mg's mounted on LCs that he was using to search hexes by fire...
I hold my fire, deciding fanatic Marines (they were still on the beach) were just too much for my pathetic firepower I was able to put on them...only two of my pillboxes were in the immediate area of his guys unloading; each had a 447/lmg.
Turn 4; US Player turn 2 of Tom's LC's are still unable to unload due to bad beaching DR's. Some of his guys start entering hinterland hexes on the north half of board 37; I hold my fire still, and none of my units are revealed yet. One US stack moves right through a hex with a pillbox with a 347 inside. Tom does, however, begin to more methodologically search concealment hexes.
Turn 4; Jap player turn I finally fire one of my units in a pillbox. This is one of the four pillboxes in the immediate area of Tom's troops in the middle/north half of the boards. I manage to break a squad carrying a mmg. Tom fires a FT at my pillbox in defensive fire, but malfs it...my one squad I have revealed on the map is able to fight on. Tom is able then to reveal a 347 in a pillbox on the northern part of board 37 by fire; it fails its MC and is step reduced. I still have 2 unfound pillbox/squads, plus one empty pillbox connected to a manned one by a tunnel on the northern half of the playing area.
Turn 5; US player turn Tom forgoes prep fire to get moving and searching (he realizes there is A LOT of ground where my guys can hide). As one of his last LCs is unloading, one of the two pillboxes I have on-map fires...and makes his 8-0 with a FT go heroic! Tom sucessfully searches/finds two more pillboxes, but takes search casualties in doing so (he would take plenty more of these as the game went on). A platoon of raiders, plus one 8-1 and an 8-0 with a FT begin to make their way up the center of 37, through the shellholed area. One Raider squad charges a few hexes to try to draw fire...one of my hmg pillboxes (with the 10-1) covering this zone fires and breaks the squad. This hmg pillbox was to be knicknamed by Tom the "pillbox from hell"...
Tom enters into CC with two of the other four pillboxes he's found...he KIAs one of my squads, but I ambush him on the other and use a tunnel to escape to another pillbox further into the hinterland. At the end of US turn 5, Tom still has one LC that hasn't unloaded...Meanwhile 6 or 7 squads (along with his 10-2 leader) have really begun searching the north half of 37...exactly where I have nothing for him to find, except for one more pillbox with a 337...
Jap Turn 5. The hmg keeps the broken raider under DM, but I'm worried about his heroic 8-0 with the FT moving up on a new pillbox location which was discovered by him when I escaped the CC via a tunnel...
US Turn 6. Tom searches/finds another pillbox, but takes casualties again...the newly found squad then breaks the resulting HS. Tom then tries to rush my hmg pillbox with 2 raider squads (the third was still broken) and a FT-toting 8-0. The hmg spits death: one raider squad boxcars a morale check and the other breaks as well; the broken squad is then CR'd with the ROF shot from the hmg; on the THIRD ROF shot, the hmg KIA's the 8-0 with the FT.
Tom does get his heroic 8-0 with the FT adjacent to a hex with 3 squads (two in a trench, one in a pillbox) and defies all defensive fire attempts. The FT gets a K/4 in advancing fire, reducing one squad to a HS and step reducing another. The third squad goes berserk... Tom uses several DC to try to blow up pillboxes that I have tunnels to that he has overrun in order to keep me from moveing back behind his lines. All fail, but he really has already killed most of the squads that could have used them anyway.
In the CC phase, Tom kills another HS of mine, but I am able to CR a Raider in a separate CC. I'm giving him some problems (especially with search casaulties and the pillbox from hell), but my own casualties are starting to mount...
Turn 6. Jap player turn I am able to wound another 8-1 of Tom's with a lucky shot from a 347. The pillbox from hell has a rare ineffective player turn (although I keep his guys DM). Tom turns one of my squads into a HS in the Def. Fire Phase, but I cause him some problems by advancing two squads back into pillboxes they had previously abandoned behind Tom's lines via tunnels. In the CC phase a Japanese HS and a Raider HS KIA each other (the marine unit had the Jap HS traped in a pillbox without a tunnel or accessable trench). Of the three machineguns covering the middle of 37, only the hmg from hell has been revealed...I'm saving the other two for nasty surprises...
Turn 7. US player turn Tom boxcars his rally attempt from the broken raider hs that the hmg from hell had nailed. Tom has built a 34FP kill stack on the beach to combat my hmg from hell: boxcars saves me, and he malfs a mmg. It is beginning to look like the hmg crew is going to win MVP and a trip to the Pro Bowl...
Tom has finally gotten some units (only 4 or so squads, though) down onto the south part of 37/35; he finds 4 positions during the movement phase, but takes search casualties again and suffers another broken 8-1 in defensive fire. The vast bulk of his forces are still on the north part of 37 or combatting the hmg from hell. A key mistake here: Tom forgets to advancing fire a raider squad that had moved within range of the hmg from hell with a FT...I make a mistake as well, however, by not fireing a HIP squad that I forgot about at an adjacent marine in OG. My mistake turns out to be more minor...
In CC Tom nails both squads that had advanced into pillboxes behind his lines. My losses continue to mount, but enough of my force is still hidden...
Turn 7. Jap Player turn The hmg from hell, still pounding on the remnants of the attacking Raider platoon, breaks a squad, breaks and wounds an 8-1 leader, and CR's the squad that had picked up the FT that the KIA'd 8-0 was carrying a few turns ago. I open up with the second hmg in the area at an adjacent trench filled with three marine squads and the heroic 8-0 with the FT: one squad is broken, another is CRd and broken, but the hero survives.
Turn 8. US player Turn Tom fires the hero with the FT at the new-found adjacent hmg, but it malfs. Durning the movement phase he outflanks the CA of this hmg pillbox and enters the hex...the crew is KIA'd in CC, but Tom continues to have trouble on the South half of 35/37: he doesn't have enough squads there, and of the 4 he has there 2 are broken and constantly under DM due to Japanese fire. The US forces are still heavily involved in the north half of boards 37/35, although three squads and two leaders have moved south to engage the hmg pillboxes in the middle of board 37. The hmg from hell breaks the entire 34 FP kill stack which had moved into a shellhole hex off the beach; one squad in the stack CR's on the ROF that the hmg inevitably got...A squad and a leader are able to move up from behind the hmg (they had come from the north) and were about to advance into the pillbox hex, but my sniper saves the day and tags 'em.
Turn 8 Jap player Turn The hmg from hell KIA's the wounded 8-1 and finishes off the broken raider HS with the FT. I continue to dodge the few marines that are on the south half of the battlefield, but Tom manages to nail a mmg crew.
Turn 9 US player turn The hmg from hell finally dies; prep fire from the hero-directed stack nails it. But it's too late; the marines get another squad broken on the south half of the map; only one and a half marine squads remain in that area, and I have 4.5 squads there along with various support weapons (two mortars, two lmg's). The gun remains hidden, and one mmg pillbox in kunai in the center of 37 remains hidden (actually there was a marine squad in the hex, but I stayed hidden): just enough FP to win due to causalties the US had taken, and the relatively large number of broken units they had. The remaining squad/pillbox in the north half of the map is finally found by the 10-2 and some squads; it had been passed up on the rush to the interior. The happless squad is swarmed by marines and is CR'd in CC.
Turn 9. Jap player turn I spend this turn making sure I stayed away from the two marine MMC on the south half of the map, while keeping the broken Marines DM to keep them from rallying.
Final Turn: The 10-2/squads finish off my HS in the north. The squad and a half in the south rush my positions to try to get me in CC and thus win the game: my guys come up large in defensive fire breaking everyone, including an 8-1 by a 2FP attack. With the gun and a mmg still not found, and not enough GO marines in the hinterland to counter my FP that could reach the ocean, the game is over.
The action was fast and furious: lots of casualties on both sides. Some new tactics were learned, like just moving into pillbox hexes rather than advancing, thus denying the Japanese an ambush attempt...
Had Tom moved the large number of squads (and the 10-2) south, the outcome may have been a US victory; as it was, the only combat action the 10-2 was involvd in was KIA'ing a 2nd line HS in CC.
The hmg from hell won the MVP for me: it KIA'd significant portions of the US force, and kept an even larger portion tied up.
Here's what I think are key:
Mike
Just surrendered the Japanese side in a PBEM of ASL 73, "Hell or High Water", in which Mike Owens had the Marines. Mike wanted to play something with airborne, or gliders, or night assaults, or seaborne assaults, (he tongue-in-cheek suggested alloftheabove), so I offered a list and this was his pick. I won’t detail all the VC here, but basically speaking, to win, the Japanese player has to end the game with >/= 20 FP aimed at ocean hexes in a hypothetical PFPh, with the 20 modified by Hindrance DRMs and Marine squad-equiv’s that made it off the beach. I have to agree with Mike that, once it got going, it was pretty simple -- and a lot of fun! -- and there was no reason to be intimidated by the extra body of rules, fears of complications, etc. And I actually came to enjoy figuring out the results using the new (for me) dynamics for damaging/sinking Landing Craft.
But this was my first ever sea assault scenario, (aside from ye olde SL stuff), so I had to go over the rules for LCs, beaches, and seaborne assaults -- a project in itself -- before cutting out and setting up the huge ocean and beach overlays -- another project in itself. Seeming ages passed by me. Gray hairs were added to my slowly growing collection, and then...
Setup:
...finally, time to set up! The Japanese had 8 1st Liners, 6 2nd Liners, 4 crews, 3 leaders, 8 mgs, 3 Lmtrs, 1 75mm Type 41 mountain gun, 19 Pboxes, 6 trenches, and HIP. Moving from west to east in 11 LCs getting pounded by a heavy surf under a heavy northwest wind, Mike was bringing on an awesome force of 24 668's, 7 558's, (558's were Marine Raiders), 10 leaders, 10 mgs, 2 baz, 3 ft, and 9 dc.
Unfortunately, in my rush to read the rules and get the mapboards ready, I did not assimilate as much as I should have. I confused "hinterland" with "hinterland/beach hexside", so that when I read that my Japanese "set up first, in Hinterland/Island hexes, and with each MMC in a separate pillbox or trench," I thought this meant everything had to be next to the beach or on the island. With swamps and ponds negating some setup locations by the beach, this left me putting every fortification in every available hinterland/beach hexside location, with two fortifications left over for the island. I also had 8 tunnels to set up, and with the exception of a pillbox-to-pillbox tunnel on the south beach, they all tunneled straight toward the interior, for escape routes. My misunderstanding of "hinterland" left me with a number of empty fortifications that could have been set up on the other end of the tunnels, or nearby to the tunnels, thus providing stronger DRMs against advancing Marine units.
For the mortars, and for movement and post-divebomber FGs, I set up a pair of trenches in the center and a pair in the south, (the other 2 elsewhere). Most of the Japanese mgs were in pboxes w/interlocking CAs, from center-to-north, as it seemed likely the main body of Marines would not be taking the longer path to the south, as that would mean rolling extra swamp DRs, (as per heavy surf rules). (Mike ended up diverting I think 3/11ths of his LCs to the south.)
Action! :
Except for an illegal 50mm mortar shot from an island trench in dense jungle, (I caught the error--can't mtr from dense jungle--and Mike graciously allowed me to remove the sw to any of several vacancies in fortifications by the beach, so they got to sit in a penalty...er, in a pillbox for a while), I waited out Turn 1 and the 3 bombing runs and waited for those 11 LCs to start swamping in the heavy surf. Didn't happen, despite DRing in MPh and APh for each LC. On the other hand, all 3 DBs didn't even scratch my hmg/228 in a pbox by the second to last hinterland/beach hexside in the north, (35FF9).
In turns 2 and 3 I started opening up on the LCs with mgs, Lmtrs, and the 75mm gun. A 4th or 5th DB point attack finally step-reduced my FF9 hmg crew, and too late did I find the rule that aerial attacks vs pboxes use the NCA DRM. Mike then started going after the trenches, instead, and blew a (lmg)447 to kingdom come, but not much else, as I recall. With the DBs flying back home, I could sigh a breath of relief, (even moreso when ASAN was automatically reduced from 6 to 3 after Game Turn 3), and start moving some people around. (Note: JSAN6 performance stunk.)
The Japanese firepower during the LC transport/ early game was very disappointing, (er...from my perspective, obviously not from Mike's). I had the Type 41 in 35L9 with a CA:1 (pointed northwest), but in retrospect, it should have been in I8 CA:2 to keep fire on the LCs AND on the beaches stretching 960 ASL meters northward from that point As it was, the gun used intensive fire twice, (I could see those LCs leaving my CA), to try to finally get somewhere, and only netted 1 LC sunk and 1 DP on another LC. My 10-1/hmg228 near center-beach had a few LCs doing brodies (because of stunned crew), but when all the transporting was said and done, only 5 of the LCs had sustained losses from my firepower, the Marines losing 4 squad-equivalents. The only sinking had probably the smallest load, (baz668/dc668). Mike's comment per the latter: "Sorry about that chief."
The three 50mm mortars were useless. Absolutely useless.
After watching the Navy rollercoast safely through the deep ocean hexes, I was a bit relieved to see a number of the LCs start having problems fighting through the heavy surf when trying to land/unload. This caused some delay, for Mike, and one LC actually broached and killed a 8-0 leader, (although the crew and the rest of the men got out okay). But the landings were 9/11ths achieved, and if you consider the broached LC got the bulk of its cargo out, they were 10/11ths achieved. Having lost 4 squad-equivalents at sea, the Marines were arriving with a 28:16 ratio in squad-equiv's, with my 16 stretched out over 1240 ASL meters. Most of the Marines were arriving just north of center, to way north, and in fact the first landings (just north of the ponds at 35S10 and T9), spewed-out what we called "green skyscrapers" led from one LC by the Marine 10-2 and from another, in an adjacent sector, by a 8-0.
All that heavy surf, and not one LC had been swamped in deep ocean, and Jap firepower had been mediocre, at best. Know how it feels to see your troops spread-out like that, facing a force pushing twice as big and punching-in in concentrated formations, with IFP per squad 25% to 100% greater than your own,and 3 times as many leaders, and all those sw's? It was not the Marines getting swamped, and it was not the Marines getting that sinking feeling. [Aside: I was having fun, though!]
I had no trenches north of center, so the squad or HS defenders inside pboxes each had to make do without FGs, (or stick heads out into lead hailstorms mixed w/napalm), but the -2 DRM against albeit auto-fanatic-while-on-the-beach-seaborne-assaulting-Marines, combined with the rule that such fanatics breaking while on the beach results in casualty reduction instead, was the big Jap advantage in this situation.
Well, I can't remember all the shapes and locations of the turds in this developing disaster, but I can remember the smell, and it really stunk.
I had sws breaking down north, center, and south. The 10-2 platoon unloaded onto hard sand beach in the face of PBF from 2 pillboxes with interlocked CA's, a mmg in one and a lmg in the other, and *both* mgs malf'd--one on the First Fire shot, the other in the following Jap PFPh.I think the 10-2 skyscraper lost a HS. :-( With the 10-2's platoon and the 8-0's platoon in adjacent sectors, and largely intact, they began to eat up pillboxes like they were bacon and eggs, using IFP, FTs, and CC.
More Marines landed nearer center, and the Green Slime, (apologies, but it's just a damned game, right?), oozed southward from there, right into the trenches, forcing broken Jap HS leftovers to scramble toward 10-1-papasan through fields of shellholes, (a HS actually made it!)
Having foreseen big trouble earlier, (but not this pure hell), I'd moved the 10-1 C.O./hmg228 out of their pillbox at 35N9, via tunnel, (after checking ASLRB that leader increases squad inherent PPC, not just PPC, so that the 4PP hmg could be legally moved), so he could cover the relatively wide expanse of shellholed OG between the north half and the south half of the maps. Quite obviously, the Green Skyscrapers were going to be moving south,and they would have to cross that expanse. (Could have used those empty fortifications down on the south beach right here, eh?) Well, maybe I'd spent too much time with the 10-1/hmg228 forcing coxswains to do brodies in heavy surf, because after we set up the hmg to cover the shellholed OG, it malf'd on its first shot, never recovered, and was eventually disabled during repair attempt. (If it were me being the 10-1, I shot the damned thing with my pistol!)
I also had tunneled-out/DT'd a 447 (NON-skyscraper) to assist my fearless 10-1 leader, but even when he arrived in time to help, it seemed like pasting Elmer's glue on a leak in the Hoover Dam.
In the meantime, way up north, the northernmost LC had been having trouble getting landed. It was headed right for a bore-sighted beach hex, (only bore-sighted hex Mike hit), and I waited and waited, starved for bloo...er, action. These were Marine Raiders, (558's). When they finally unloaded, the leader and the whole platoon got the hmg bore-sight treatment, after a 3KIA and a 6/5/6/5 RSDR gave me a moment's reprieve from the slump of '97, (even my SASL campaign has gone down the tubes bigtime). Mike's comment: "Zoinks, scoob!" That hmg contnued to give the Raiders fits, KIAing a 4th squad and standing together with a 447 with their backs to the wall, right to the time I surrendered.
Aside from a mmg228 that tunneled to a CC and death, the gap between the above-mentioned Raider-killer in the north and the 10-1/b*hmg228/447 (Elmer's glue at 37R7/center) was 600 to 640 ASL meters. (Hey, maybe I shoulda tried a pincer movement, eh? [snort,giggle,foam,insane laugh]). My center group held on for a while, "reinforced" by a rally-or-die HS freshly escaped from Green Slime, but when the Marines were finally massing around the nucleus of their 10-2 leader, R7 began to fall apart.
At the southernmost battle area, from where the beach doglegs southwest, the Marines had more difficulties. For one, they only had two LCs that made it there, (Type 41 sunk the other). I knew I had to destroy this group, or there would be no hope at all of making a contest out of it, (note I said "contest", not "Jap victory"). As the LCs throbbed shoreward, they took a casred or two from Jap sw's, but they really began to fall when I finally started rolling some good DRs as per the beach dynamics mentioned earlier. Thus Marine Force/South was cut down to two groups: Wounded-heroic 9-1/permo-Fan*DC348 in one beach location, and Wounded 9-2/Fan*dmhmg668 in another beach location. Adjacent to the Marine heroic leader I had a 9-0/lmg447/Lmtr237 adjacent to a 347, (all in trenches), and, sick of watching Marine CC's vs dinky Jap resistance, I declared "Banzai!", Mike replied, "Uh-oh!", and the enraged Jap-nardians went over the top, destroyed the permo-fan*DC348 w/AdvF, lost part of our own 237 in step-reduction and sustained a wounded 9-0, pinned the Wounded-heroic 9-1 amongst his own dead men, and then....well...how does one picture all those Jap-nardians in HtH with that one pinned SMC? (He pistols down 5 from under the bodies and turns into bayonet practice? Or reaches up at the last second, smiling, and asks, "Care for a pineapple, boys?")
This is getting entirely too long, (I am prolific in defeat), so suffice it to say that the w9-2/hmg668 began tearing my southern defense apart, (despite my returning to the trenches), at the same time that my Elmer's Glue in R7 was melting away, and it was obvious my Type 41 was going to get clobbered on Turn 8, and there would go a huge chunk of my VC requirement. So after Game Turn 7 ended, I surrendered. Mike wrote he had been getting concerned about the time-element, (3 MPh remaining), which reminds me of an old buddy of mine who would say he flunked an exam and usually pulled an A. ;-)
Staring at the heavy surf pounding the blood-stained beaches of Cape Torokina, I wondered....mebbe I oughta go play Myst? [flat trumpet sound] :-/
--Paul "gimme a sw, I'll malf' it!" Venard