Silly After Action Report - Maryuma's Stronghold

 Captain Shinobi Nojutsu tripped over an inconveniently placed bush and collided heavily with a tree.

"By all that's sacred," snarled his colonel, "will you keep the noise down?  That damn question mark won't mean a thing if you're making enough noise for the Chinese to hear in Chungking."

Nojutsu muttered an apology and shuffled back to his spider hole.  It wasn't really his fault that a trailing bootlace defeated his attempts at stealthiness.  The strangled shriek as he plunged head first into the hole drove his colonel over the edge.

"Corporal, go and find the Chinese and ask if they mind waiting for five minutes while I murder one of my junior officers."

"Ask them yourself," replied the corporal pointing to a large group of unusually well equipped Chinese soldiers carrying ear trumpets who were making a beeline for Nojutsu's position.

"Nojutsu, get that lmg into action now" yelled the colonel.

"I'm afraid I dropped the firing pin," responded Nojutsu's voice somewhat muffled from being head down in a hole.  "But don't worry, I think I see where it went."

"No rush Nojutsu," responded the colonel sweetly seeing with sudden delight that the Chinese had almost reached the captain's spider hole.

Richard Weilly suggested playing this one, Scenario AP 126 - Maryuma's Stronghold.  Having performed one of the most low value real estate grabs in history by conquering Burma a couple of years previously the Japanese now find themselves in the position of having to throw good money after bad and defend it from the British, the Americans and the Chinese all of whom unaccountably want to dispossess them of it.

Up in northern Burma it was the Chinese and the Americans who were doing the dispossessing.  Richard would take the attacking Chinese trying to seize Myitkyina from a bunch of stereotypically stubborn Japanese commanded by me.

The Chinese will win at game end by controlling all multihex buildings.  By extension the Japanese will win if they don't.  On paper it is a powerful force that Richard commands.  He has fifteen elite squads led by no fewer than five officers (granted one of them is a 6+1) hauling along a pair of dismantled medium machine guns, a pair of dismantled 60mm mortars and a (thoroughly mantled) bazooka.  A radio connects him a battery of 70mm OBA with HE and WP.

Hunkered down in the soggy undergrowth and slapped together buildings are my defenders.  Eight first line squads with a mere two officers to provide guidance and moral support.  I have a heavy machine gun, two light machine guns and a pair of the ubiquitous 50mm mortars.  A short barrelled 70mm infantry gun provides a little heavy metal and four concealment counters and a pair of trenches aid my defences.

 My set up

Above is my set up.  A railway divides the map into two unequal parts.  On the left side of the railway is a single multihex building.  I decided this would be where I would take my final stand with the railway line as a sort of defence.  I put both of my mortars behind the tracks and a squad/lmg team with one of my mere two leaders in a conveniently placed building (with a trench line leading to the multihex location).  For the remainder I had an outpost line of dummies, the odd halfsquad and a couple of squads in the north to hopefully inflict a few early casualties on the Chinese but more to encourage them to hasten slowly.  These guys would fall back towards the bulk of my defenders in the village.  Hopefully by the time they were overcome the Chinese would be sufficiently battered that taking the building across the tracks would be a bridge too far.  The 70mm gun I set up far to the rear covering an otherwise almost empty right flank.

Richard sent a monstrous horde plunging down the middle of the board and a smaller force on a wide flanking movement to the right.  I had that sinking feeling I usually get when I realise that 90% of my force is hopelessly out of position.  Fortunately I had time to reposition them and reposition I did.  I gave up any thoughts of shooting at the mass of humanity before me and did my best to slink away unseen and tighten up my defences.  I was somewhat successful insofar as Richard didn't wipe out my defenders in the first turn.

End of Japanese turn 1.  My guys have decided running away is the better part of valour

Undaunted by the suspicious lack of opposition Richard pushed on.  His centre force split in two forces one left and one right (whether that was deliberate or not I have no idea).  My forward defenders managed to punish the left hand force but the right shook itself out and started to seriously menace my troops.  Over on the far right his flankers flanked unopposed.  On my left I was still herding stragglers towards the fighting or to be more accurate where I expected the fighting to be in a turn or two.

End of Chinese turn 2.  Richard has taken casualties but he still looks pretty overwhelming

Witth my left apparently holding firm I sent my hmg team (led by my 9-1 leader of course) forward to the buildings on the right to bolster my threatened defences.  Strangely I wasn't too concerned about his flankers.  Japanese troops don't rout much and if he wanted the buildings his troops would eventually have to come somewhere I could shoot at them.

In the centre right Richard was certainly coming where I could shoot him.  Unfortunately he could also shoot me.  Things weren't helped when my hmg fired one shot and then malfunctioned.  Fortunately I managed to repair it the next turn.

End of Chinese turn 3

A struggle ensued for control of the centre right buildings.  Richard and I gained a squad killed apiece thanks to low rolls and well executed close combat.  Over on the right his 6+1 was hustling a radio toting halfsquad to a convenient location.  I took a shot at them with my gun without effect but this would have a significant impact on the game as the remainder of Richard's flankers now realised what their next target should be.

Mistakes have been made and casualties taken but for now the defences hold

With the main drive of Richard's attack now clear I attempted to revert to my tactic of sneaking the occasional shot when convenient and skulking the rest of the time despite the fact that that didn't really work too well originally.  Seeing the opportunity to bring in his game winner Richard dialled up his artillery and dropped a spotting round near my defences.  Meanwhile more of his troops filtered around the right trying to circumvent my defenders in the north of the village.

The left side of his force which had been incrementing slowly forward and licking its earlier wounds rallied and announced themselves ready to rejoin the fray.  This they did bulling their way through the kunai to where a lone Japanese squad/lmg combo had been holding the line.  His artillery came down soaking the centre in WP without doing much harm to either of us except for the associated eyestrain.  Further south though two of his squads (with mmgs and a 9-1 leader) fell foul of a mere spattering of fire from a halfsquad and yelped out of harms way.  Grimly sticking to their mission his flanking force headed for my gun with murder in their eyes.

End of Chinese turn 4.  Disaster has struck Richard courtesy of a precocious Japanese halfsquad

The end when it came came quickly.  With his centre struggling Richard sent forward his flankers to take out my gun crew.  They managed to sneak up on my gun retaining concealment, for my part I kept my gunners crouched underneath their own concealment counter.  Into close combat Richard plunged with two squads and a leader against my mere crew.  From time to time in an abusive relationship the abuser will do something nice for his victim simply to keep them off balance.  Thus the dicebot tossed me a bone.  I ambushed him and in the subsequent CC I rolled a three killing the lot without a scratch on myself.  That was the end as far as Richard was concerned.  Casualties had been heavy and he had not yet managed to break through my defenders.  He conceded and the game was mine.  Richard later noted that he had assumed Chinese 537 squads would have assault fire and was a little offput when he found out they didn't.  I felt an incredibly smug sense of victory until I checked the ROAR results and realised the scenario is little more than a Chinese graveyard.  Many thanks to Richard for playing it anyway, wins against him are few (even by my standards) and I will take each one I get.

Endgame.  Flankers are gone.  Richard has rallied his centre but they have far to go and not much time

The colonel coughed up a little white phosphorous and attempted to focus his streaming eyes on his after action report.  "The gun crew covered themselves in glory," he wrote, "and Captain Nojutsu must be counted among the fallen."  He couldn't help smiling at those words.  The smile was wiped from his face when Nojutsu tapped on the door and tripped over the step attempting to enter the room.

"Nojutsu, I hoped, I mean I thought you were dead.  We heard nothing from your position."

"I got a little lost and led a bayonet charge in the wrong direction," admitted Nojutsu.

The colonel sighed and shook his head, "Never mind, just rejoin your platoon."

Nojutsu saluted and then hesitated.  The colonel pointed, "It's that way."

Nojutsu hastened off.

In his defence the colonel did say "Look out for the booby traps" on the other hand he did say it very quietly after Nojutsu had left the room.  The anguished scream which split the air was the sweetest sound the colonel had heard all day.