This is my first playing of one of the Kokoda Trail scenarios. I picked this one as it looked to be small and fast and I just finished a Guadalcanal scenario and wanted to play another Pacific front one. As I was playing it I looked up the history of this fight, as I don't much about the Kokoda battles. I was struck by the comment that something to the effect that by the time of this battle (it was among the last of the Kokoda fighting) the Australians had learned to not make frontal attacks but to fix the main enemy force and flank them through the jungle. I learned this the hard way. I had figured that I as the two sides had pretty much parity in forces that a slog through the Jungle would just be met by Japanese forces moving up and down the t main trail to get into to position to intercept.

So I tried to have the Aussies hit the Japanese guarding the north south trail and break though and get to the crossroads. But the Japanese stopped them cold (they rolled very well on many attacks too). So about mid game the Aussies moved into the jungle which forced the Japanese to spread out. One Australian HMG Platoon and Company Commander did make to the main trail but were later surrounded and wiped out. The Australians were having some success with the flanking moves but time ran out and they were decisively defeated.

In the real battle, they were stopped as well but with less casualties. when another battalion was brought up, the Australians then could overwhelm the Japanese flanks and force them to withdraw. This is what the second scenario on this fight depicts (scenario 30). What I found a tad curious was that the scenario has the Australians coming out of the north heading south then turn to the west. But in the real fight they came out of the South. This maybe was done to have the map fit the situation.