"Of course we could have stayed the night," muttered Hurikano to himself. "Then we could actually keep a twenty four hour watch but, no, instead we have to leave at sunset everyday and then shamble back up here in the steaming morning heat." The colonel had made grand statements about "pressing tactical necessity" but everybody knew that he just wanted to get back to base in time to watch Invader Zim.
The column lurched slowly forwards shedding sweat, weapon parts and the occasional glutted leech. A burst of heavy machine gun fire shredded some of the jungle near the head of the column and pandemonium ensued. To his surprise Hurikano noticed that he was the only one who wasn't surprised.
It was Mikes turn to choose a scenario and he came up with this one Scenario 67 - Cibik's Ridge. To my cost I agreed. It was my turn to defend so I took command of the US marines who had certainly done nothing to deserve me. I have a small but embarrassingly well armed force of marines attempting to defend a small hill from a large number of Japanese commanded by Mike Sexton. To hold the only part of the battlefield not underwater at high tide I have three 668 marine squads and six half squads of similar character. Supporting them are two heavy machine guns, two medium machine guns and pair of 60mm mortars. My leadership consists of two officers, one of them a 9-2 and I also get seven foxholes. To make things a little more difficult for Mike my entire force can set up hidden except for a couple of the foxholes.
To evict the marines from this hillock Mike has thirteen squads of first line Japanese infantry, a couple of crew and three officers of his own led by a 10-1. As support weapons he has three light machine guns, a pair of mediums and a couple of 50mm mortars which it appears the Japanese handed out to everybody from high school teachers upwards. Park rangers probably used them to deal with litterbugs. The Japanese have to set up in column which they can't break until they take fire.
Below is the set up, if you peer closely you might see my hidden units waiting for Mike's Japanese to snake their way forward.
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| Starting positions |
In retrospect I think I made a serious mistake. As you might be able to tell if you squint really hard I set up a full squad with an hmg and the 9-2 forward in the centre of the map, hoping I might be able to shred the front of his column and force him to plough slowly through the jungle. This actually sort of worked but not well enough. I had a half squad with a mortar on my left (top) and another halfsquad hidden next to the path on the right. To put it another way I had a third of my force and my best leader sitting right in the path of half the population of Japan.
Mike's columns lurched forward and I duly shot at them with little result. Over on the left my mortar fired one round and then broke. I wouldn't use it for the remainder of the game (I didn't use the other mortar at all). With the veil removed Mike could fan out and swarm (slowly) through the jungle towards my first line.
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| End of Japanese turn 1 |
With little room for manoeuvre Mike's main force ploughed towards my hmg post peeling off a couple of squads to work around to the left. My hmg did indeed have its moment of glory with a rate tear that killed a squad and a half and put a dent in Mike's forward momentum but other Japanese squads swarmed around the prone bodies of their comrades and I could tell it was time to go. First however I would have to survive a 1MC from the Japanese. Naturally neither my 9-2 leader or my eight morale squad could handle such a thing and suddenly my most powerful weapon was down with hordes of Japanese swarming around them. They would die for failure to rout and Mike bulled forward through the dense jungle seeking the less congested slopes of the hill.
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| The last moment it looked good |
Over on the left Mike's secondary column, no longer afraid of the mortar, shook out and prepared to go around or through the halfsquad standing in their way. These guys actually lasted quite a long time and irritated Mike's troops immensely although how much actual harm they did is open to question. On my left my hidden halfsquad neatly beat up a Japanese halfsquad but then decided to leave before the Japanese got overwhelming. I think I had the phrase "fall back defence" in mind. It all worked except for the "defence" aspect.
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| End of Japanese turn 3 the writing is on the wall and it has been written in my blood |
It had taken three turns and several squads worth of casualties but Mike was now at the base of the hill and ready to launch his assault. Only it wasn't really an assault, he simply walked on top of my hidden guys and killed them in close combat. He assembled a mortar on the right and dropped a WP shell onto a half squad with a medium machine gun. I boxcarred the morale check and that was one more support weapon down. In the centre my other hmg (guided by my 8-1) took one ineffectual shot and was also swamped in CC.
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| Basically he's just walking over the top of me |
Mike's advance was not without casualties. More Japanese squads went down, reduced and occasionally even killed outright but with each exchange the ratio of Japanese to American squads went up, not down. By the time turn five rolled around Mike was swarming all over the hill and the American forces had been reduced to precisely two halfsquads. I was due to be reinforced by another halfsquad and an 8-1 leader but I couldn't see how that would change the situation so I conceded.
In retrospect I think I fell between two chairs with my defence. Having decided to set up forward I should have committed more troops and left only a couple of token defenders on the hill. All of my forward defenders inflicted casualties but there were enough gaps in the line for Mike to winkle his way around them. Secondly I shot at his columns the moment they were in sight. I should have waited until I was sitting next to them and then hit them with everything I had. As it was with two squad equivalents forward (out of six) my defence on the hill was disjointed, certainly capable of hurting anything that got next to them but not really a threat to a large, well organised attacker. Congratulations to Mike who played well and took the initial casualties on the chin until he was ready to deal out punishment of his own.
Captain Hurikano dropped into a foxhole next to a corporal who held out something squashy in his hand.
"Leech?" asked the corporal politely.
"No thanks," replied the captain, "I just ate. Where's the colonel?"
"He's back at headquarters."
"Staff briefing?"
"No there's a Thundercats marathon on Channel 3"
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