The Battle

(visibility = 6 hexes due to heavy fog)

American forces march toward the hill. The Japanese are dug-in and hidden.

Gunfire breaks out and over the next few hours the Americans are cut totally to pieces. They are unable to get a secure hold anywhere on the hill.

At the 20 turn mark, the Americans have still not yet inflicted a single casualty and are down to 4 non-mortar steps.

The Japanese accept the American surrender.

JAPANESE VICTORY!!!

Aftermath

This wasn’t even a match. The Americans, without OBA, are forced to advance against the hidden defenders. Once spotted, they can engage in a long range fire fight or try to advance.

The difficulty is in the terrain and morale. The Japanese, with their +1 leaders, were at morale 10. This made them extremely hard to break and easy to recover.

The Americans are firing uphill against dug-in defenders (2 left column shifts). The Japanese are firing down into the muskeg (1 right column shift). So, any guesses as to who will win the long range fire fight? Perhaps I was impatient, but I chose to charge.

I tried getting a few units around the flanks of the hill, but these men were banzai attacked (read +3 column shifts for Japanese INF, leader, better morale) and were subsequently killed really quickly!

I just can’t see the Americans having much chance at this one at all. Maybe with some big ass artillery they could have broken a few units then advanced into the hole, but with only two mortars vs. dug-in units, they didn’t have enough bombardment power.

The muskeg also made the advance and any flanking attempt ponderously slow!

Scenario Rating 2/5 – Not a good scenario. Too brutal against the Americans. At least the previous two scenarios felt like the Americans had a chance of doing some damage…