This is another night action, with Japanese armor supported by infantry entering the board and driving the Marines back from the northern board to the southern one. I started the Marines in a central position, with the Captain and 3 steps of infantry in the village near the juncture of the two boards, while one LT and 3 steps prepared an ambush along the west side of the road and the rest occupied the small 2-level hill just to the east. This allowed the Marine mortar to fire illumination as soon as contact was made and gave some opportunity for the Marines on the hill to engage at a bit more distance an illuminated enemy, while also allowing a clear field for the Marines to step back and avoid assaults by the Japanese infantry. It took 2 turns of just movement before any chance of contact was to be made, and the Japanese tank held back to allow the infantry to cover his left flank. This somewhat messed up the Marine plans, and the LT outpost chose to move back one hex in the jungle rather than risk assault on Japanese terms. The Marines on the hill fired but to no effect. Next turn, instead of staying in place and firing another illumination round, the mortars were disassembled and prepared to move back to avoid encirclement, so no additional fire could take place on either side and the Japanese attempted to move around the Marine's right flank with their infantry, leaving one LT and 3 steps of infantry to support the tanks. The Marines started a general withdrawal, except for the one LT on the western side of the road, who was able to assault the tanks after they entered the village, which separated the armor from the accompanying infantry for the turn. Combat in the village was very much one sided, as the Tanks did no damage while the Marines destroyed the one half-step Shin and took a step from the Type 95, and demoralized the remaining crews. The Marines got the mortar back into operation, just in time to take advantage of a lack of initiative on the Japanese part, illuminating and allowing the accompanying infantry to become demoralized by direct fire, and allowing the Marine platoons to withdraw back onto board 100 and away from possible encirclement. The Marines formed a line in the jungle hexes along the road and were able to damage the Japanese attempts to close with them, until in the last turn, the Japanese Captain and 3 steps managed to assault the Marine Captain with the mortars and 2 steps of infantry. Neither side had any success in eliminating the other side. So, with no Marine losses to a total of 9 (counting double for the 2 tank steps lost), and with all the Marines holding the central Jungle hexes, the game resulted in a Major Victory.

Marianas 1944, scenario #28: Night of the Tanks

Kind of an interesting situation to play out. The Marines setup on the southern edge of map 83 planning to dig-in and wait for the Japanese attack and pull back with enough time to get seven steps back into the heavy jungle on map 100. The Japanese lead with a stack of Type 97 and Shinhoto tanks but also with a reduce Infantry and leader and in the stacks that followed by more Infantry in carefully planned attack stacks to get the most out of their attacks. With only one hex visibility the Japanese close in to get up close with the Marine units and the 81mm mortar failed in its illumination attempt. This took about five turns before any action happened and both sides are kind of in a time pinch to complete their victory objectives. The Marine really don’t want to assault the Japanese as it favors the Japanese but take some good close up direct fire shots and manage to eliminate a total of 5 Japanese steps and one Leader but the Japanese had two nice dice rolls of 2 and 12 which gave them 3 eliminated American steps and one Leader as well but their assault on the 81mm mortar failed and the Marines reinforced it in time with a PIO unit. The Marines were barely able to pull out of the line to get seven steps into the jungle on map 100 on the last couple of turns but had no opportunity to knockout a Japanese tank. So the Americans achieved a minor victory but so did the Japanese, so this scenario ended in a Draw!

A very interesting puzzle to solve and I could see this scenario ending in many different ways.