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.

Flush with success at taking the ridge south of the airfield (we played Henderson’s Ridge last time with a Japanese victory), Japanese patrols quickly surmised that the Marines reinforced the position and a follow on attack would most probably lead to failure. Instead, the Japanese would land an attack against the eastern perimeter of the Marine positions in an attempt to destroy the Marine supply depot.

The Marines, now in heavier strength, had formed a thin yet near continuous line on their eastern perimeter. Artillery support had also improved, as more radios allowed dynamic strike support as opposed to the limited target sets on the southern perimeter. Two full battalions backed by significant artillery sat in their foxholes along the perimeter as darkness fell.

The Japanese had landed two full battalions further up the shore, and the attackers moved west through the jungle to assault the Marine positions. Some artillery of their own stood ready to support the attack. The strategy was to attack the center of the Marine line and send an under strength company of infiltrators through either end to go after the Marine supply.

Realizing something was coming, the Marines started calling in star shells to illuminate the jungle line (burning activations to roll fog of war). Things seemed calm along the Marine line until the jungle exploded with charging Japanese (we left a one hex kill zone between the jungle and dug in positions). Half a battalion hit the Marine line. Marine gunfire erupted from foxholes and cut a swath into the Japanese. The charge wavered, and the Japanese troops dropped in the elefant grass and set up gun positions. Marine artillery units opened up on the stationary Japanese and ripped through the attackers. The Japanese continued to send in troops, largely piecemeal, but all came to a halt against the Marine positions. Marines from other parts of the line began to reinforce the center and add their firepower into the maelstrom. Entire Japanese platoons began to disintegrate. Still the Marines held the line, but the Japanese firepower was starting to tell. Unfortunately for the Japanese, their artillery was not as accurate as American artillery. Japanese infantry soon found itself shelled by Marine and Japanese arty support.

Meanwhile the two infiltrator companies moved to the flanks. The left side company found the jungle too dense and began to pull back as a reserve for the center attack. The right flank company, however, found wide fields of elefant grass and advanced quickly on the Marine left. About half the Marine left had pulled to the center to help fend off the Japanese attack. The infiltrating company stole up on the Ilu River and prepared to launch an assault. Two Marine squads noticed the movement towards a weak part of the line and charged the river to contest any crossing. The Japanese company opened up on the Marines as they approached the bank and obliterated them. The sacrifice, however, was not in vain. Now the entire Marine left knew the Japanese position. The Japanese troops made for the coast and tried to push through the platoon guarding the shoreline. Alert to the threat, the Marines opened up on the Japanese and caught them cold, halting their advance. The captain commanding the position placed in a priority request for all artillery support, and was quickly rewarded with a massive barrage by the just reloaded Marine guns. While the Japanese managed some effective return fire, the company was broke and few lived long enough to withdrawal.

With the total failure of either company of infiltrators to penetrate Marine lines, and the main attack being held in check with massive casualties, the Japanese decided that they could not break the weakening Marine line with enough support to carry the assault against even a hasty secondary Marine defense line. Having lost the better part of a battalion, the Japanese withdrew back into the jungle to take the long way back to friendly lines. The Marines heaved a sigh of relief. While their position had held, the point of the line was weakening, and any attempt to further reinforce or create a second line of defense would have weakened the flanks against further infiltration efforts. Casualties were surprisingly light given the ferocity of Japanese attack.

For the Japanese part, the loss of manpower for so little gain crippled any chance for a renewed offensive effort. The Japanese were now on the defensive waiting for the Marines to make the next move. The momentum had shifted.

Observations: The Marines won this one handily. No Japanese exited the board, and the Marines only lost one step. Casualties on the Japanese side were heavy, with approx 1/3 of their force eliminated. The hidden rules kept the infiltrators from having a real chance to decide the game since they became visible too often while still far from the Marine positions (during the night!). Recommend some changes to the hidden rules (only check when within three hexes or in line/range of sight).

Japanese players did not assault. Their view was op fire combined with Marine artillery caused too much disruption to develop a good assault. My opinion is when playing Japanese, assault is your only reasonable chance to affect Marines in defensive positions (as I demonstrated during our last game when I was Japanese). Japanese direct fire is too weak when adjacent to dug in Marines supported by artillery. While the Marine line was severely weakened in the center, it held with no step losses. A successful assault might have punctured the line while there was no significant reserve behind it. Might have been able to race some units through and exit them. When Japanese troops are expendable, the Japanese player has to risk expending them.

Speaking of artillery, Japanese arty was a failure. Friendly fire caused as many casualties to the Japanese as it did to the Marines. Usually when a Marines hex was targeted multiple Japanese hexes had to check for friendly fire. Little damage done to either side in the final analysis, but that amount of damage hurt the Japanese more than the Marines by further reducing Japanese assault capability.

Admittedly, the Marines did roll a bit better than the Japanese, but failure to execute a single assault combined with massive Marine artillery stopped the Japanese attack cold.

Another tough one for the marines where they must prevent Japanese from infiltrating their lines and exiting units off a certain portion of the west edge while somehow managing to not lose more than seven steps in the process. Setting up a solid, unbroken and effective line is next to impossible without spreading units too thin so I stacked up marine units leaving a few gaps through the line but never more than one hex apart in order to catch units attempting to pass through with heavy opportunity cross-fire. Should small-arms fire not slow the enemy down then there was a good amount of OBA (3 x 18; 3 x 10) available as a back-up. There were also a few platoons of reserves deployed further west of the line to try to catch any Japanese units that manged to get through but it was a very wide area to cover.

Right from the start at 19:45 a thunderstorm began lasting for an hour which slowed the Japanese advance to only being able to move one hex each turn regardless of the terrain. This was a benefit to the marines as they were prohibited from moving the first three turns so that by the start of turn 4 they were able to manuever a little before contact was made at the front line. Once the storm cleared up the Japanese began to hurl themselves into the marine positions in the south and went straight for the HMGs. Opportunity fire immediately takes out a whole platoon's worth of advancing infantry but more kept on coming, seemingly unphased by the punishment. At 21:15 the first Japanese assault is made and though first-fire takes out one step one of the defending American HMGs in turn becomes demoralized and has to flee the assault, leaving just one HMG behind. Then another thunderstorm began at 21:30/turn 8, literally putting a damper on both side's recovery efforts. Meanwhile, another Japanese attack group begins to near the coastal postions further north before movement is again slowed down to one hex becasue of the storm. This second thunderstorm in fact would last almost three hours (10 turns). Japanese losses continue to mount and soon they also lose both a Captain and Lieutenant along with more INF steps but they keep on coming. Then tragedy strikes when American OBA friendly fire reduces a HMG platoon defending in an assault while another assault is carried out on the other HMG that was forced to flee earlier. Marine reserves are moved up to try to reinforce but again the ongoing storm slows them down before they get to the lines in time. Japanese stragglers have passed through and bank north through the jungle to reach the elephant grass and palm groves in hopes the storm will clear up in time to make a faster get-a-way.

Meanwhile contact is made by the coastal positions and they too are soon assaulted at the weakest point. Soon enough a marine postion falls at the cost of a 37mm and a platoon of MAR infantry. Now there are two breaches in the American lines both north and south. Fog of war becomes a huge problem for the and to make matters worse OBA is way off the mark. With American positions tied-up in several assaults the floodgates are opened for a good amount of Japanese to make a run for the west edge in more than one area at a time. There is not much that the marines can do about it but they do manage to get a raiding party together to try to stop them by the border after the storm clears just in time. More OBA is called down but it is again ineffective. In desperation an assault is made on Japanese units poised to escape and goes awry resulting in the Americans losing their LT.COL, furher resulting in decapitation and catastrophic loss. The Japanese counter-assault with brutal efficiency and wipe-out their remaining attackers and at 00:45/turn 21 the first Japanese unit is able to exit the map preventing an American win. Even worse there are many other units just hexes away from exiting and by this point the marines can take no further step losses. Privy to this every available Japanese unit in close-quarters range either initiates or resumes on-going assaults to force that needed loss while all others keep running. All at once it happens at 01:15/turn 23; a total of six Japanese units manage to exit the west edge and one of the many assaults takes out the eighth American step making the Japanese victory clear and decisive with 13 turns left remaining in the scenario. There was no point in going on further with not even a chance of an American moral victory to be had; they had been thoroughly shamed and utterly humiliated.

The Japanese kept up attack after attack; assault after assault, rarely ever using direct fire or their OBA. This cost them many losses with: 3 leaders (CAP, 2 x LT), 13 INF and 2 steps of HMG eliminated but still managed to reach both of their VCs with ridiculous ease. As for the Americans they were really let down by their OBA, especially with the friendly-fire step loss. Also, though they had superior DF and first fire in most of the assaults the higher Japanese morale continued to prevail. Even just one full, good ordered platoon of INF and a leader got through to assault after passing their morale checks it was enough to make a mess out of the defenders. I don't know what I could of done differently with the American deployment other than to of spread out units thinner but don't see how that would of made things any better but far worse. Again, early, night-time fog of war played a huge role in this one and even the thunderstorms (14 turns worth) seemed to benefit the Japanese attack. It's tough to say whether this one was imbalanced or not due to the many random occurences but for what it's worth rate it a standard "3". On a good day (night), weather and fog of war permitting the Americans will be able to do a lot better, at least with a draw but this time it was clearly not their night.