Battle Report: As night fell on November 8th, 1942, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Division were holding a defensive line along the Ilu River. They were confronted by elements of the Japanese 1st and 2nd Battalions, 228th Infantry Regiment probing on both flanks of the US line. The main Japanese force initially attacked the left American flank, but once the Americans shifted units to stem the tide there, a second Japanese attack group hit the center of their line. Fighting was most vicious on the left flank with repeated hand-to-hand assaults s the Japanese attempted to break through the American line held by the 1st Battalion/1/1. Meanwhile the US 2nd Battalion/1/1 sifted platoons to the northwest to provide support. One Japanese infantry platoon finally broke through the American line at 2245 hours, and by midnight a total of five Japanese platoons were west of the Marines. An hour later, the Marines had established a tight line and intercepted all advancing Japanese units, and by 0330 hours the Japanese advance was completely stalled. The area was cleared of enemy units by 0415 with any remaining leaders either on the run or victims of seppuku. Because of the success of the breakthrough, the battle was considered a Japanese victory.

Analysis: This 35-turn scenario uses Japanese unit exit and American step loss as objectives. The scenario was played using 4th Edition rules and the hidden unit rules from Kokoda Campaign. Since all of the scenario is played using night rules, visibility and spotting are quite limited, and most forms of firepower are shifted -1 column. The use of illumination by starshells can be of benefit to the Americans but was not used frequently in this scenario due to a number of early fog-of-war rolls, and the limitation on Marine movement for the first 3 turns. By then, units were too busy shifting to try and form a battle line that would counter the Japanese advance. The US player should consider setting up units to establish as much of a line as possible from hexes 0922-0917-0515-0218; event though all US units can’t begin in line, they can begin to shift on the fourth turn. The issue then becomes having enough strongpoints to stem the Japanese onslaught. I was able to build a few 16-point HMG/INF stacks with 1CM leaders, but not enough to really interfere with the Japanese advance. If the Japanese can get close enough to assault, which they did with marked success in this case, they have a decided advantage in terms of column shifts, as they have shifts for Japanese infantry, morale (assuming full strength platoons) and leadership. The Japanese had very little difficulty breaking a single unit through the lines for an exit point, so the best that the Americans could get after that was a draw. Once that happened, a Japanese victory would be assured if they could either get six steps exited or eliminate eight US steps. As soon as the Americans had to adopt a strong defensive posture to prevent any more exits, they began taking losses in assaults. Since the Japanese player starts with 29 units, and there is no penalty for step loss for them, so they can throw units at the US line, trying to spread it out and gain either weak spots or breakthroughs. A few house rules were added in this playthrough, since the scenario victory conditions allow for ambiguity. They state that “at least 6 Japanese units” exit the west edge in the NW sector for victory. This was interpreted as six good-order units that had both steps remaining. Since the rules don’t specify two-step units, the Japanese actually exited 7 units (four full two-step and three reduced one-step), but this was viewed as 5.5 units by house rules. By the 17th turn, the Japanese had taken eight American steps, but I decided to play on in case of a “New Orders” event. Then, things were so interesting that I kept playing for all 35 turns to see at what point the Americans could take control of the battlefield. They eventually did, but much too late to reach a draw; the Japanese had taken the requisite number of steps for victory and exited a unit. After playing the scenario out, the Japanese had lost 40 steps and exited 11 while the Americans lost 17 steps. I thought this was a very challenging scenario for both sides, particularly for the American player as defense against the high morale Japanese units which results in either step losses. The best chance for the Americans seems to be taking shots at illuminated units from a reasonable distance to weaken the Japanese units and slow their western progress. It’s best to avoid assaults from well-led Japanese infantry platoons until they are softened up enough to give the Marines better odds.