In this scenario the Marsh, and swamp hexes are all light jungle and the lake hexes are a 20m hill with light jungle, the Americans must clear two cave hexes to win and the Japanese setup dig-in units around these cave hexes to better defend them and inflict casualties on the Americans but the Marines have a few tricks of their own in this scenario: mortars with smoke and artillery with VT Fuzes!

The Marines move in under the cover of smoke and blast holes through the Japanese defenses with heavy artillery and then direct fire and then assaults. I would have called it the prefect cave clearing exercise but they lost three steps in clearing the Japanese caves, two Infantry, and one Flame Engineer step. The Americans won and the Japanese lost 7 steps but still I think with all the American assets I should have done better than losing 3 steps, so I will try and do this scenario again with better results. Kind of a fun little scenario to try! Stay away from the 20mm Japanese gun until the artillery silences it.

I either had a very good game as the Marine commander or chose very poorly in setting up my Japanese defenses on this one. Lake becomes 20m hill on board 80, and lake and swamp become light jungle. I dug in the Japanese in 3 hexes of infantry, a full unit and a single step unit with a good LT in each of the 3 hexes Captain in the middle to help when possible, forward of the hill but in light jungle. The 2 HMGs I placed with the southernmost hill hex, dug in, with the Sergeant, and the AA gun to his right, the Mortar to his left, all dug in, and the caves on the other side of the hill, thinking that the Marines would have a tough time of fighting through these to get to the caves. After walking away from the table for a bit, I returned to set up the Marines on or near the road on and south of the xx15 line, with the 3 mortars and the Sergeant in the village to the east where he could put smoke or barrage fire where needed. The Marines got and kept the initiative pretty much the whole game, and after the start of turn 2, had somebody where they could call in the off-table fire. That +3 column shift meant fire on the 70+ column, even with the dug in status, in 2 shots. This was torture to the forward and right dug-in infantry, and then to the dug-in AA gun behind them. Both elements sort of melted away doing no damage to the Marines at all before being wiped out. Marines moved from the start down the road and through the towns to screen their movement until they could get into the heavy jungle and light jungle hexes to assault from into the Japanese flank, and this did them well. Having learned well how to employ that Flame unit, this and 2 Infantry with the Major and a good LT assaulted what was left of a demoralized infantry step and leader and finished them off with no chance for loss. At this point, I failed to realize that they were just as vulnerable to friendly fire with those VT fuses as the Japanese were, and the Major's force felt the effect of friendly fire, luckily only losing a single step and disrupting the surviving step and another infantry platoon. These were swapped out with another Infantry platoon and an HMG platoon next turn for an assault on the Japanese HMGs while the Japanese Captain and his men moved back to contest the north-eastern cave hex - a Marine force had already flanked the hills and taken the first cave hex unopposed. After another turn of Mortar fire, the Major and his replenished force moved in to destroy that last hex of Japanese infantry, who had been badly damaged by mortar fire. With a roll of 2 on the 30+ assault column, the Japanese infantry was no more as a forward fighting force. The Marine mortars zeroed in and fired counterbattery on the Japanese mortar and another roll of 2 wiped that element out. Now the Japanese Captain was catching hell, and after losing one step and having the other full platoon become demoralized and failing a morale check to fall back into heavy jungle, it came down to the final bit of fighting, with the Japanese losing the step in the cave hex, the Captain moving to the hex with his demoralized troops, and the last of the Sergeant and his HMGs in the Japanese middle. In 10 turns, the last Japanese defenders perished to a man, and both cave hexes had been taken, with only the single step of Marines lost to friendly fire. This one has a lot of replay value as I work out that Japanese defense. I think the USMC move on the road through the town is really the best attack route on this one, but a better defense setup could change that.