Battle Report: On October 25th, 1942, Japanese troops from 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 124th Japanese Infantry Regiment moved north in the middle of the night towards a pair of ridges being held by the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division. An initial attack by a combined arms force from the 1st and 2nd Japanese Battalions on the east ridge was repulsed quickly with significant casualties, so the Japanese shifted their attention to the west ridge while maintaining bombardment to hold the east ridge in check. At 0300 hours, two Japanese platoons from the 1st Battalion had slipped by the west ridge in the swamp, but they were subsequently hammered by OBA. An hour later, three more had broken through to the north ridge and engaged the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (1D) in close combat. The fighting continued on both the north and west ridges until dawn broke, but units from both the 1st and 2nd Japanese Battalions had broken through all the way to the coastal track. A thunderstorm followed, drenching the battlefield, which slowed troop movement and diminished their fighting spirit. The battle broke off at 0745 hours with the rain still pouring down. The Japanese had taken control of both the east and west ridges, but their hold on the coastal track and north ridge was tenuous at best, and their supply and communication lines were stressed.

Analysis: This is a 22-turn scenario that uses hex control and step loss as objectives for both sides. The scenario was played using 4th Edition rules and the village rules from Kokoda Campaign for the village hex at the river mouth. Like the previous scenario, this one uses a fairly small section of the main map and has a number of units, resulting in frequent contact. Also like the previous scenario, the Japanese have a numbers advantage in terms of both amount and morale of units. But the Marines, with those 9FP HMG’s can build 2-platoon groups that use the 16 column on the DF table when they are led by one of their 1CF officers; three such groups were placed on the east and west ridges at key points. However, the Marines can’t spread themselves thin enough to create a complete block of the Japanese northward push unless they use weaker firepower. In this playthrough the strategy was to let a few groups slip through, while creating as much damage as possible to any enemy units that moved forward during the night turns. Daybreak is the Marine’s friend as they have better OBA and can create stronger two-unit fire groups. However, a thunderstorm event occurred at dawn, which limited both movement and visibility, which was stuck at two hexes for the remainder of the game. The concurrent movement decrease was also a problem for the Marines to get north and engage the Japanese units that had slipped through during the night. By game end, the Americans had caused 16 Japanese step losses, the minimum for a US victory. The Japanese, on the other hand, only had taken seven American steps, two short of the amount needed for a victory. However, they held five hexes within their objective perimeter, with three more contested; this was well beyond the necessary two hexes needed for a Japanese victory so match ended in a draw.