The Nisei as shock troops in the mountains of Italy are clearly ideal. Their imperturbability in the face of enemy fire sets them up for success. Importantly, the Germans must avoid losses as they become easier to shake (8/6 morale vs 8/8 for the Nisei). As a result, the mountain assaults tend to follow a pattern. The Nisei advance to combat taking losses but without losing effectiveness. They establish sight lines to the Germans, pound the defensive lines with artillery and HMG fire, then when they are shaken, assault. Followed by the same approach at the next site.

In this scenario the ground cover is such that the Germans need to expose themselves somewhat to be able to see the Nisei advance. They established an OP with INF and HMG support on the unwooded hill. This resulted in early losses (as predicted) to the Nisei as they advanced to contact. Unfortunately for the Germans, their OP was destroyed within an hour of contact through some very accurate artillery and small arms fire, followed by the inevitable assault.

The main German line was hidden on the wooded hill near the crossroads. Stunningly the German artillery and small arms fire was completely without any tangible effect while the American fire resulted in sufficient disruption and demoralization, despite tremendous German leadership (all with +1 morale modifiers), to permit advantageous assaults and resulting losses. Despite this the Germans hoped for a reversal of luck until nearly three hous after the initial contact.

Even though losses were running 9-3 in favor of the Americans at this point, the German position was strong and the Nisei were beginning to run into some average luck on their fire rolls. Due to the lack of sufficient units to provide homes to leaders the Nisei put together a strong assault on a good order location led by the German major. The Germans missed their shot entirely and the Nisei managed a 2 step loss, eliminating the position and capturing the major. The resultant decapitation demoralized the entire German force permitting two Nisei platoons to advance towards the north edge of the board (+12 victory points) and making it impossible for the Germans to accomplish their goals. Once the German force was back under command control they decided that discretion really was the better part of valor and left control of the crossroads to the Americans, who, wisely let the Germans withdraw.

Another straightforward infantry battle, with a similar result. Good dice for the Americans made this seem much more unbalanced than it really is. I give it a "3".

As I work my way through the Go For Broke scenarios I am struck by the variety of ways in which the exact same process is repeated. One begins to sense the demoralization that was endemic to the Allied forces fighting up the boot. One hill after another, winning merely meant that the same process would have to be repeated on the next hill or river. The amazing thing is that the Nisei did not become demoralized and continued to perform at a high level throughout the campaign.

There are a number of sources on the western Allies which describe the unwillingness of the troops to expose themselves to enemy fire, etc. once the deadlock of Normandy was resolved. One can only imagine the feeling of the troops in Italy who were clearly continuing to fight in a strategic backwater. It would seem that the number of Medals of Honor acheived by this unit were not without cause.