The Australian forces have the fire power advantage over the Japanese with 128 DF points compared to the 104 for the Japanese, morale is equal for both sides, while the Aussies have a 4-2 initiative advantage so all things were close to being equal but up to this point in the campaign the Japanese have been the masters in close assault.

Set up has both forces deployed on or near the trail about 2 hexes apart so the action got started quickly when several Aussie HMG’s with infantry support come into contact with Japanese units positioned south of the trail who opened up with OP Fire but their fire was not effective.

On the text turn the Aussies won the initiative, who chose to attack with DF at close range which devastated several Japanese stacks with a couple of step losses, demoralization and a leader KIA. Japanese initiative was quickly at zero, thus began a one sided battle in which the Aussies got the better of the Japanese forces as they moved west down the trail towards the village.

As with other battles there were a couple of determined pockets of Japanese resistance, well lead, that held out in close assault all game, that gave more casualties than the took and stymied the Aussie advanced but they were easily bypassed.

At the end the Aussies had 30 VP to the Japanese 13 to seal a major victory. The HMG platoons early on were the decisive factor in the battle due to their high DF value.