Disclosure, I am the Designer and feel all my scenarios fall into the range of 4-5, 90-100% or I wouldn’t have created them, so take my ratings with a grain of salt! The only reason any are a 4, is because they are more difficult to make from design to development.

Saipan 1944, scenario 10: Tanks In the Jungle

Post 1 I wanted to play another big Saipan scenario, I wanted to use all 4 maps and I wanted tanks, so I picked this one, as I doubt you will even play a Pacific Island battle with this many tank other than the Philippines. So I setup the largest tank battle of Saipan. The Marines have a rather large area to defend but they have the fire power and can try to bottleneck the main expected route the Japanese might use in their attacks. The decision on setting up a defensive area takes some thinking as does the Japanese attack plans, yes they have a ton of tanks but they have weak armor. So I brought the Japanese SNLF in one the north edge of map 80 to tie up some of the American units, up there and brought the Japanese tank-infantry army in on the western edge of map 83 or eastern edge of map 81 around the only east-west main road there but realized it was way too congested to support all the armor and infantry so I portioned out some of the tanks with infantry riders to go farther north and hit one or main east-west roads on maps 80-82 and maybe have a chance at hex 0610 on map 80 call the radio station hex. The first couple of turns the Japanese have been taking a fair amount of casualties on the main map 83 thrust and some in the very north of map 80 with the SNLF but I still have hope, as the main thrust still has a lot of armor and infantry power left in it, they just need to find or make a weak area in the Marine lines but those star-shells are not helping. They Japanese also still have that nice size armor with tank rider flanking north that still hasn’t hit the American lines yet. I am currently sending a M3/75mm halftrack up that way to help beef up the lines, as the Japanese have at least 6 steps of tanks headed that way including the dreaded Shinhoto tank, if there ever was a dreaded Japanese tank.

I am looking forward into continuing play of this scenario, as currently the Marines have the edge, but it’s far from over!

Posting #2

The Japanese continue their advance in three main areas, the main SNLF in the north, the end around flanking Tank-Infantry assault in the middle north and the main Infantry-Tank push in the south and they took the worst beating in the south, so many casualties but still I pushed them forward, as they could still achieve their victory conditions even if the Marines were already at the Major victory mark because of Japanese casualties. If the Japanese could control hex 0610 on map 80, the radio station hex or control any beach hexes and eliminate 20 or more steps, they could cancel out the American Major Victory and it would be a draw.

The Japanese northern & central thrusts made the most progress and they were able to assault hexes 0610 and attack one beachhead before the Americans transferred some of their units from the south and central areas as these areas were under control. They blow the Japanese back off the one beach hex and the 0610 assault hex. After 14 turns, the Japanese could barely produce 14 American casualties for a minor victory but this was cancelled out, as the Marines had a Major Victory destroying over 60 Japanese steps. Most of the Japanese armor is burning, the only American armor lost was one step of LVT (A)-4 and the Shinhoto unit was destroyed by a M3/75 Halftrack on a side note. So the Sherman vs. Shinhoto match never happened but the Sherman unit took out it’s fair share of Japanese Infantry and Type 97’s while stacked with Marines Infantry for protection. Like in real life, the Japanese wasted their manpower and should have done this assault the night before when the American lines were less prepared. Instead then send their attack force demoralized back into the hills and jungle of Saipan, I even saw half step tank units heading that way to fight another day.

I really enjoyed this scenario, as it used all four maps and it was my second played scenario with the actual Saipan materials. Red Beach was a much closer battle on my first play but this one has a lot of maneuver area, so there are a lot of possibilities and who does want to try pushing a lot of Japanese tanks on the map. I kind of felt like the Western or Eastern Fronts at times accept for the terrain.