Silly After Action Report - Getting Bogged Down

Bogging!  That's what could possibly go wrong.

With their immediate opponents swept away Mike attempted to move his armoured cars to find new victims.  Rather foolishly he tried to drive his centre car over the wall.  It bogged.  His other armoured car was in bypass and could only exit into a wire hex.  It did so and it promptly bogged as well.  That wasn't really bad luck.  The bad luck came next turn when he tried to free them and promptly immobilised both vehicles.

Things had reached a bit of an impasse in the north.  Mike had broken into the northern victory building but I had kept a toehold by the simple expedient of refusing to fight him.  Instead I skulked, slunk and generally did everything I could except fight to keep a presence in the building.  Mike's trouble was he had committed hard on the left and didn't have the necessary troop numbers to force me to stand and fight.  At the end of the game I still had a single squad there that I don't believe fired a shot the entire game having spent most of its time in smoke or under concealment counters.

 

 It was down in the southern victory building (which I had foolishly thought secure) that the game would be decided.  The left building was Mikes, the surviving (broken) squad had surrendered and Mike, rather cruelly, wiped out the 9-1 in CC although this hero did take a Japanese half squad with him.  To do so however Mike had moved a squad which until that time had a LOS down the road which allowed me to pull some troops back into that southern building.  Not a moment too soon.

Mike was desperate to take out my 75mm guns so he could roll his tankettes around to assist.  He did manage to break the crew of the gun on the right but its crew heroically self rallied and resumed their position.  His own gun was still banging away with cheerful impotence but at least its crew could tell their kids they contributed.

The south is crumbling

Artillery failing to do the job on my left hand gun he brought up his surviving squad from the south to winkle them out with the bayonet while he brought his forces from the left hand building to challenge for the southern location as well.  Over the next couple of turns he tiptoed these troops forward with little loss and then with only a hex or so to move launched them in banzai charges at my defenders at a range which would ensure that his troops wouldn't die of heart attacks before they succeeded.  At the same time he managed to break the left hand guncrew with infantry fire and my defenses were almost bare. 

I had had two squads and an 8-1 leader in the victory building.  After the close combats from the banzai charges were resolved I had one squad.  Unlike the other building Mike had the forces to make hiding not particularly viable.  I had a squad capable of reinforcing, an elite squad that had been trying (and obviously failing) to hold off his southern troops.  Unfortunately it would have to cross a road now covered by the tankettes that Mike had brought around but I had no choice.  They dashed across the road giving Mike's lead tank a 1-2 shot.  I boxcarred the subsequent morale check thus transforming my elite squad into a broken, first line half squad.  Mike then fired on it again and a snakes on the morale check resulted in a elite, unbroken half squad.  More importantly though it was still in the road rather than pushing into the building.  The only other reinforcement I could add was broken immediately after it arrived.  It self rallied and was promptly broken again.  One squad was all I was going to be permitted to have.

There is one Italian squad in the southern building, its a little difficult to see because its holding a Japanese lmg.

With time running low and the left hand gun out of the way Mike decided to bite the bullet and bring up his tankettes.  His fear of my gun proved unjustified as it bounced 75mm shells off the lead tankettes armour but he had left it just too late. The tankettes couldn't get into position in time but honestly it didn't seem like they'd be needed.  He had a pair of squads and a 9-1 leader in the southern building against a single squad of mine.  Surely if firepower failed close combat would see him through.  He didn't even need to kill them, a casualty reduction would put me below the two squad minimum I had to maintain.  Up in the northern building my surviving unbroken squad fled along the first floor pursued by vengeful Japanese who couldn't quite catch them.

The final turn rolled around and Mike tried his last.  He managed to send a reinforcing squad towards the south but my sole piece of defensive fire pinned them.  With me clinging onto one corner of the victory building by my eyelids Mike couldn't quite get his entire force into CC.  He managed to send in one squad which I killed and in doing so won the game by the slimmest of margins.  I can't express how important those elite Italian squads are.  Elite Italians are the only ones who aren't lax and against second line Japanese troops they have a firepower advantage as well.  It isn't often the Italians actually have the edge in close combat (or anywhere else).  This was a tough game with high casualties on both sides and for about five of its six turns I was sure I had lost it.  Thanks very much to Mike for the game.  The next time he plays Japanese troops I'm sure he'll want proper first line boys.

The end and a thoroughly implausible victory

Capitano Carburetta looked around at the building, still improbably Italian.  The windows were shattered, spent cartridges littered the floors, part of the ceiling had collapsed and the walls were pockmarked with bullets and splattered with blood.  Upstairs the defeated Japanese were avenging their loss by hacking up the fixtures with their bayonets.

"I don't know if we won," said Carburetta to the soldier hiding under the couch next to him, "but I'm pretty sure we're not getting our security deposit back."