RayM
Posts: 310
Joined: 10/19/2000
From: Marlton, NJ USA
Status: offline
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For Attempt #4.
After 2 draws and 1 Marignal Victory, I added a couple more loaded LVTs to the Southern forces slated to move toward Hill 268 and the village to the NE of the hill.
Background: There are four log bridge crossings of the Lunga river in this battle, from North to South: #1 (hex 46,16), #2 (51, 31), #3 (65,48), and #4 (59, 62). In deploying my forces, I made sure that I had several loaded LVTs and 2 Stuarts (mine) and the AUX Stuarts in the mix to cross #1. I also sent 2 Stuarts (mine) with the most southern forces crossing at #4; assigned to take the village NE of Hill 268. I also left one Stuart (mine) to support the airfield defense forces...more on that aspect later. In all four deployments, I made sure that DC and FT units were among the mix (sure wished I could of bought more). I also assigned an FO to each group.
As before, the initial IJN air attacks on Turn 1 caused some problems to a number of my ground units. However, I minimize the casualties the best I could by dispersing my forces and getting them under cover. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do during the "Human Deploy" phase for the AUX units; they just had to take their lumps and try to recover in subsequent turns.
After the Turn 1 air attacks and hitting "R" for a number of units, I started moving my units W and quickly moved forces up to the #1 log bridge crossing and placed the blocking unit under supressive fire. Once supressed, I quickly sent a loaded LVT and Stuart across to the bridge to set up fields of fire against the units blocking the crossing.
I moved my forces toward #2 log bridge and kept a couple of Recon units in the jungle to cross south of the bridge. As before, I tried to put Scout or Recon units in front of the LVTs and tanks to spot enemy units and emplacements. Players Note: Avoid sending unescourted vehicles too far in front of your Marines. They have a nasty habit of stumbling into JA Snipers at the wrong time with very bad results almost all the time.
At the #3 log bridge crossing, I loaded my units and carefully moved them toward the crossing, keeping in the tree line. I sent a Scout unit forward until he drew fire from the 37mm emplacment sited on the hill top looking down over the log bridge VH. To the left, the contruction unit had not yet given its position away.
At the #4 log bridge crossing, I moved a couple mounted units toward the bridge crossing while also moving most of the southern force across the river itself, south of the bridge (the most direct W path to the village NE of Hill 268). The JA blocking forces reacted strongly to the Scout unit I moved across the bridge but I took the VH.
On turn 2, my arty and mortars became available and I began to smoke all of the crossings and dropped supressive fire on known or suspected emplacements. As it turned out, not all emplacements were supressed equally and in a couple of instances, they still had some fight left in them when my forces moved closer (lost one tank that way).
Turns 3 through 12 consisted on my laying smoke and HE ahead of my avenues of approach W toward the VHs and moving quickly as possible, avoiding protracted firefights. Thankfully, my casualties were light but every now and then the defending unit would really put up a fight. Unfortunately, I ended up having 2 tanks and 2 LVTs immobilized as I moved W of # 2 crossing but their guns were still available however. As my forces moved W, I left screening forces to protect my flanks and more importantly, block attempts by JA forces to move toward the log bridge VHs.
For the #1 and #2 crossing forces, they eventually met at the road junction just NE of the Lunga Coconut Plantation. As the #2 forces moved W to the VH at the "Y" road junction, they pushed back several Construction units that continued to hover just out of sighting distance. I ended up leaving a BAR squad and 2 LVT on that VH.
My most southern forces continued W toward Hill 268, staying behind the Recon and Scout units. They ran into minor opposition from the rght flank on one occassion that was easily driven off by LVT fire.
By Turn 8 or 9, my #2 crossing forces (2 tanks, 2 loaded LVTs, a mounted FO) had pushed across and had reached the outskirts of Kukum village. I moved 1 tank and 1 loaded LVT into the village itself to capture the VHs. I place the FO such that he could spot for arty. For the most part, the JA units I had pushed back during my moves stayed dormiant.
By Turn 10-11, my forces were in front of the Hill 268 village and had fired upon the defense units protecting the vllage in front of the VHs. Luckliy, I was able to move my loaded LVTs and tanks on to the VH after driving the JA units back. I was able to move a LVT and a tank further SW toward Hill 268 to see if there were any more VHs. (I never found out before the game ended.)
The real excitement comes around Turn ___ (deleted so as not to spoil the fun for others) when the JA counter-attacks begin at all locations. The blocking forces I left behind during my advances were sufficient to hold off the Banzai attacks.
The most exciting battle is at the airfield. In each game I played, I was able to hold off the Banzai attack here but not after learning from the first time, in which although I held on to all of the airfield VHs, the JA forces got right up against my defensive line and caused some bad casualties. In one game, it got so bad that I had to throw the 75mm tracked guns and the Stuart into the line in a direct fire role. Not pleasant.
On attempt #4, I tried something different. I fired numerous rounds of smoke to screen my defensive line from the JA forces moving out of the tree line toward the VHs. In previous attempts, the JA forces were able to apply some serious fire against my lines; focusing first on any MGs I had. The JA forces could stay inside the tree line and shoot to their hearts content. Of course, there was little or no cover available for my defensive line so their fire always caused 1 and 2 casualties per firing. Overtime, they would reduce my units to where they would retreat.
With the smoke laid across my front, I realized that the JA units would move piecemeal closer to my lines, enter the smoke and come out the other side to the point where they could fire at me. The cool part was that the other units that had remained behind and in the tree line could not add their supporting fires to the attack! Very cool BruceAZ.
Given this situation, for the next few turns, I was able to concentrate my fires against the lone unit(s) that came out of the smoke. In each JA attempt forward, I was able to isolate the unit and either destroy it or drive it back into the smoke. I was especially pleased with the cross-fires I was able to use all across my front. The JA attack quickly fizzled after a couple of turns as I continued to take out or drive back unit after unit.
As the game wound down, each JA counter-attack across the map was pushed back, although I lost another LVT and tank in the Kukum village area.
And then the game ended. Mariginal Victory for me. Marignal defeat for Japan. Score: 3711 USMC, 1188 Japan.
On to Battle 3.
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