This one looked like it was going to be a USMC walk over but they ended up losing in a big way. The Japanese set up strong in and around the village with just 2 reduced service platoons hidden out forward. The 1st 2 marine activations blundered into these ambushers. Things went downhill from there. The inability to combine fire in the jungle is a huge handicap. The marines set up a fire base on the coast, 3 hexes from Kokumbona, 2 HMG & a MAR and they blasted away at the objective for 20 turn with only 1 X result and few MC's that the SNLFs easily passed. The rest of the marines formed a line at the creek and traded blows with the enemy MLR. There was some give and take but it was mostly a 7-fest, lots of 'no effects'. The marines were VERY reluctant to assault the japanese. A random event produced a new USMC leader, A 9-2-1 LT but he was very quickly removed by compound demoralization. Another random event caused a thunderstorm that lasted the rest of the game. Vis' dropped to 2 and it added a column to every shot! A 3rd random event decapitated the marines by a japanese sniper. A Cap' took over right away and called for the boats. The evac' went smooth despite some jap' pressure, the last USMC HMG platoon was pulled off at 13:15. Loses were US:6, Japan:7