Marianas 1944, scenario #27: Mt. Santa Rosa

I wanted to play a small size Pacific battle with some caves again and picked this beauty. It doesn’t look good for the Japanese but still fun to try. I setup the Japanese in two sections, each with a cave and divided forces and by each cave I setup a strong adjacent support hex of units, one supported by the 20mm gun and a full strength Infantry unit the other a HMG and another full strength Infantry units. The reduced strength Infantry I put into the caves to make the Americans have to assault them out if they could get by the adjacent Japanese support units. I also setup in terrain most beneficial to the Japanese.

The Americans enter the southern map edge but split into two group to go after both Japanese caves at once but this will weaken their attack but with 18 turns, it took almost four or more turns just to get into range to stage these attacks. The Americans have to roll for off board artillery support each turn, while the Japanese have a little of their own each turn.

Kind of just about everything weird that could happen did happen in the American attacks of the Japanese positions but it was really fun to play and what I thought should have been an easy victory for the Americans wasn’t! The dice rolls certainly favored the Japanese on a few critical assaults and adjacent attacks. In the end the Americans controlled both caves after hard fighting but lost four steps in the process and they needed not only to control the caves but also lose fewer steps then the Japanese. The Japanese lost four steps as well, so the Americans lose but by not losing less steps then the Japanese. The US Army didn’t have time to regroup and go after a lot of those demoralized spread-out Japanese units in the last two turn, as they were pretty disorganized themselves.

The American artillery support in this one, was way off the mark. I believe the American should probably win this scenario 60% of the time but I found a way to lose it for them but dice were not on my side either. A really fun one scenario to play, regardless of the outcome. Makes me want to design more Pacific actions. Of course I already have: Philippines 1941-42, Philippines Luzon 1945 and Philippines Leyte 1944.