Silly After Action Report Part 2 - In Which the Predictable Becomes the Inevitable

Ivan Kent and I met up (in the electronic sense) to complete Scenario AP59 - Taking Heads.  People who bothered to pay attention to the first entry will note that at the end of Part One my all conquering Japanese had swept the miserable Filipino rabble before them and were poised to attack the village and make official an inevitable victory.  Purely out of modesty I had noted that the rabble sweeping had taken a little longer than was really desirable and that possibly, just possibly, I might be a gnats squeezed for time.  I might also have mentioned in terms of constructive criticism the inability of the massed firepower of three of my elite squads to deal with a single one of Ivan's nestled in a foxhole.

So with hope in my heart and a song on my lips (or possibly a song in my heart and hope on my lips) I resumed battle.  We started with Ivan's turn 4 which saw his troops slinking away from their flashing eyed Japanese foes and finding holes to hide in.  The only ones who couldn't slink off were the broken units stuck out in the open and I took a sadistic delight in slaughtering these with my defensive fire.  Since time was short I needed to amass victory points swiftly and that was four gained for no more effort than shooting.  Ivan also moved his half track around to the east of the board so its 75mm could cover the approach my troops were obviously going to use.  I had seized his 37mm anti tank gun in the rally phase and more for laughs than anything else I shot at the half track as it went by.  I didn't hit it but the number was so low that I could feel Ivan sweating over Skype.

End of Turn 4.  Ivan has pulled back and I'm about to start my despairing run.

Ivan's redeployment tightened up his position and solidified his position in the village.  I would have to punch him out of it and here is where two things conspired against me.  Firstly, having dawdled in the beginning I was short of time and would thus have to take risks and secondly my inability to harm his flank defenders in the slightest meant that what I originally intended as a flanking manoeuvre would now unpleasantly resemble a headlong dash into the teeth of his defences.

Firstly I wanted a little more smoke to protect my advance, I turned to my trusty mortar who chose this moment to reveal that he had donated his smoke rounds to a children's party.  I had another mortar but he was not in a useful position.  Still, having decided to bite the bullet I moved out.  Over on the right I slid troops through the trees and kunai until I was adjacent to one of his squads.  In the centre I pushed troops down the road and over the roadblock taking advantage of the cover provided by a merrily burning halftrack (remember that?) in doing so.  I sidled up to one of the victory buildings and somehow survived the defensive fire and prepared to advance in.  I had decided to try and mince my way through in close combat.  To put it bluntly my guys ran out in the open and charged towards buildings and jungle occupied by enemy soldiers.  If this sounds stupid that's because it was but I was running out of time.  Soon I would be running out of troops.  Before that happened though I gained a minor victory on the far left where my mortar finally broke a half squad that had been guarding the flank all game.  My accompanying squad galloped forward and killed it for failure to rout, another victory point to me which was countered when the 75mm on his halftrack reduced one of my squads to a red smear on the earth.

Here two close combats rage, both of which would result in disaster.

Uttering a prayer to the dice gods I launched my guys into close combat.  The dice gods are bastards!
I failed to inflict any injuries on his force and in return he killed a squad and a half of mine.  I fired into both melees in my next fire phase resulting in a pin on one of his squads.  On the other a morale check resulted in Ivan getting heat of battle which resulted in fanaticism and hero creation.  Because he wasn't doing well enough already apparently.  My personal morale collapsed at this point.  My spearpoint had been shattered and I would now have to do exactly the same thing again with my surviving troops only now against better opponents.

Two interesting things happened in Ivan's turn, attempting to shore up his last line of defence he dashed a squad and mmg across a road in full view of one of my surviving squads.  My dice roll was low and it was Ivan's turn to wash some of his casualties off the street.  The other was the blessed malfunctioning of his damn 75mm gun which had created carnage up until that point.  At least now my guys would only be hit by small calibre weapons.  Or smallish, there was still a .50cal machine gun out there somewhere.  I assumed it would be in the church steeple (wrong)and I attempted to make its job of hitting me harder by dropping some smoke.  My other mortar came up trumps and a beautiful smoke cloud billowed over his troops.  The very next turn on the weather check I rolled up gusts and blew it all away, so much for the cover.

Things were now desperate, that is they were more desperate than they had been a short while ago.  Somehow I managed to move more troops into close combat with his newly fanaticised troops over on the right while some desperate running down the street resulted in more deaths but also placed squads near a couple of victory buildings.  At which point Ivan revealed his .50cal not in the church steeple but in a building right next door to where one of my squads had just arrived, panting and lathered with sweat.  Just to prove that the dice gods are equal opportunity bastards Ivan promptly broke the thing with his first shot and it took no more part in the game.

 

Not that there was much of the game left.  I did finally manage to seize one of the victory buildings (the one next to the blaze) but in the close combat to the east Ivan rolled snakes and not only killed more of my troops but added an 8-0 officer to his hero and fanatic squad.  If I'd attacked one more time he would probably have wound up with a tank.  But there was no more attacking, I was done.  I had in total about six squads left of the thirteen I had started with.  I had killed some units and captured a building but the price had been far too high and the rest of the village was beyond the grasp of my remaining troops.  With one turn to go I conceded.  

In retrospect two things contributed to my defeat.  I was far too cautious at the beginning which meant I was slow in getting up near the village.  This put me under time pressure.  The other was my absolute inability to deal with his flanking troops.  It was never my intention to charge straight up the middle but rather ease around a flank.  With his flanks solid I had to attack frontally and naturally paid a horrible price in doing so.

Thanks to Ivan for the game, next time I swear I'm going to get you even if I have to make a human sacrifice to the dice gods.  On that note I think I might invite my brother over for "tea".