Getting to love these night battles. Range matters little when they have to be adjacent to shoot, until the illumination starts popping anyway. The maps sort of beg for the Japanese tanks to attack down the trail, but with a title like Tanks on the Right, I decided to split them and send the full platoon up the right and the reduced platoon along the trail. My Marines were set up in a line, dug in, 3 hexes south of the junction of the boards, and since I set them up before thinking about how the Japanese might enter, I thought that the trail made good sense for the Japanese attacker and put a 37mm with it's disconnected tow jeep just forward of the line of dug in infantry, with the M-3/75 just behind and left of him, so the middle was solid and prepared. I kept the second jeep and 37mm guns limbered and back of the line on the east-west road ready to move to any breakthrough. Mortars were set up in the jungle near the beach where they could fire when called but stay well out of the fire. Japanese infantry started on line with and between the tanks, with the Major and Colonel just behind and in position to move 3 hexes of troops as groups. Japanese plans lasted pretty well until contact, but with the US getting initiative every turn, illumination was delivered as soon as the enemies made contact, and it was like fighting in daylight pretty much the rest of the game. Turn 3 saw the Japanese tank move into assault the Marine's right-most dug in force of 2 rifle platoons and a good quality LT. The Marines searched the foxholes during that initial assault for their bazooka rounds without success, but then the Japanese armor seemed to be oblivious to their being there (the rolls were as bad for the Japanese tanks as it was for the Marines looking for their AT weapons). Immediately in the US turn, the Marines found their AT rounds, and rolled Unit Eliminated. Not just a step loss but the whole platoon. The Japanese armor in the center faired no better as it was eliminated by the M-3/75 in one shot. The game moved from defending against armor to a brawl as Japanese assaulted Marines across the length of the line. US artillery managed to slow down the stacks of Japanese that were approaching the forward 37mm guns just long enough for the guns to get limbered and get the heck out of dodge. The Marines generally had a column better than the Japanese could manage at every point along the line because of their better firepower, so the Japanese started losing steps while the Marines started slowly losing morale. After several turns of assaults in the middle, the colonels on both sides were demoralized but were in hexes with good officers and highly motivated troops who continued to stand. Finally, losses became too much to bear for the Japanese force, and demoralized reduced platoons were in retreat in ones and twos all along the line. Both sides managed to rally here and there, but the Marines simply kept the upper hand, with units on the Marine left leaving their positions to join in the brawl and start rolling up the Japanese right flank. Nearing the time limit of 12 turns, with 30 steps of Japanese lost (including double for the tanks) and only 3 Marine steps lost, and with not a single Japanese unit having penetrated the line, it was time to end the suffering and call the game. A very good scenario, and one I think I took a bit more time in setting up than usual, a setup I would probably keep for face to face play, where often I learn the hard way that my initial setup wouldn't work. Great game.

I am just kind of bouncing through the scenario book replaying scenarios here and there and decided on playing this scenario, as the Japanese are attacking at night against a stronger US opponent but with achievable victory conditions, at least in my mind. Scenarios 2, 3, and 4 the visibility is only one hex, as it is a moonless night and that was missed in the scenario special rules.

The American setup first which forces them to setup spread out across the map, trying not to allow the Japanese access to the beaches. This allowed the Japanese to setup on larger attack force again thin but strong American lines, with a second smaller Japanese force to hitting further south, to keep the American from consolidating their forces. Last a third Japanese tank force to exploit any holes in the American lines.

The American were taking a large total on the attacking Japanese but the Japanese kept pushing on, no matter what their losses were, forcing the American to shift forces, losing the Dug-in status in many cases. Finally the Japanese found two small holes pushing through a small group of Infantry to the beaches which had to be tracked down and destroyed however the second group was three pretty fast Type 95 tanks steps, which played cat and mouse with American forces right to the end of the game, taking out the M3/75 and overrunning one of the 37mm AT Gun units unsupported by Infantry. The US Marines eliminated 26 Japanese steps which would have given them a three to one advantage and major victory as the Japanese only eliminated 6 Marine steps BUT they did not eliminate those three Japanese tanks steps that made a dash for the beaches on the last couple of turns. Not giving up hope as the Japanese player with the mounting losses, the Japanese came away with a Major Victory, using movement to spread out the Americans lines.

Note, next time I play this as the American, I’ll setup closer to the beaches, giving me less area to defend, as this was my critical mistake as the American player.

Author	treadasaurusrex (United States)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	United States
Participants	ACav
Play Date	2024-03-29
Language	English
Scenario	MARI004

This was yet another, nighttime slugfest in the jungles, that emphasized the need for illumination and the power inherent in adjacent-hex firefights. ACav led the Japanese and I had the the Marine command. We used the smoke/illum, excess initiative, strategic movement, extended assault and FOW optional rules.

strong text Once more. the darn hard to differentiate map boards made this a less that optimal experience for those of us with red-green color vision issues. This scenario gets a 3 from me, mostly due to the bad maps. This was a grim one for the Japanese as their step losses accumulated very quickly. Sure enough, their tanks came right down the trail and into the lion's mouth. As others have reported, one of the keys to this fracas is to setup the American force as close to the beach as possible, forcing the Emperor's troops to concentrate and carefully sequence their close assaults. In action, the broad front Japanese attacks suffered a senior leader elimination at the beginning of the 7th game turn, which caused a promising set of close assaults to collapse. They were rebuilt buy the end of th 10th game turn, but by then there were so many step losses to the attacking Japanese, that their prospects were very dim. Marine counter attacks were nearly always successful in this one. Final step losses were 32 for the struggling Japanese side, and only 5 to the American grunts.

An interesting, and kinda balanced scenario that merits play in both SOLO and SHARED play modes.