Gung Ho-The Radio Station (2)

A week ago, I got together with my Finnish friends for the 2nd battle in the Gung Ho campaign. If you will remember from my last post, the first game was over in about 45 minutes after the Marines got the jump on the IJA by getting their JOP's far up the table forcing a quick withdrawal from the table before there was any real action. This game was quite different.

This is the first time I have games-mastered a campaign without being a participant and it is a lot of fun. I have been able to keep each side in the dark before each game especially the marines. This is only reasonable as the Japanese have occupied the island for some time so have local knowledge. Accordingly the IJA have seen all the terrain maps at the start of the campaign but the marines only get to see them just before each game but I can send them intelligence to give them a chance to prepare.

Pre-game Japanese intelligence

Urgent Radio Message to Jōtōheisō Kyanorsan from WO Kyuzaburō Kanemitsu. "We have intelliegence that the white devils are going to blow up our radio tower......they must be stopped at all costs."

Pre-game USMC intelligence

Urgent Radio Message to Lt Lagen from Lt Colonel Carlson. "Aerial Surveillance has identified what appears to be a radio tower, advance east and destroy the tower before the Japs have a chance to radio for help"

This game is based on the "Attack and Defend" scenario from the main rulebook. The Raider platoon also can win the game by destroying the Radio Tower as set out in the campaign guidelines. To do this they have to buy Satchel charges and use one team from any of their squads with a leader to destroy the tower using the Roadblock destruction rules in the main rulebook.

As you can see below the Raiders decided to go for it and purchased 2 Satchel charges and up-gunned their intrinsic units with SMG's and extra BAR's.

USMC (FM 9)

2nd Marine Raider Battalion

2 SL's

3 Raider Squads with Superior JL's and 9 men

Supports (8+1=9)

2x Native Assistance

extra BAR's

extra SMG's

2 x Satchel Charges

The Japanese appropriately used their Wild Card: Prepared Defences and an extra Buntai.

Japanese (FM 11)

62nd Garrison Force

1 SL

1 Inferior SL

3 LMG Buntai's with JL's

Knee Mortar Buntai with JL and 3x50mm Mortars

Supports (4)

LMG Buntai

Wild Card

2 Barbwire and 1 entrenchment

THE GAME

So on to the Patrol Phase, we started off using P-Y's patrol ap, we had some difficulties last game but this however was pretty smooth and we ended up with the following. Smaller dots represent the JOP's.

So I have to say it was a very different game.

Petri, the IJA commander carefully placed, 2 barbed wires to protect the approach to the tower at the start of the game. It looked like a good plan but unfortunately for him the raiders had taken 2 Native Assistance supports allowing them ti deploy 12' from a JOP rather than 6" thus they went down beyond the wire rendering it useless.

A heavily armed raider squad was now within inches of the Radio Tower, Eero cautiously went on tactical.   A SL was attached to provide support.

They were close but destroying structures is no easy task in CoC so more preparations were required by Mikko, the Raider commander. His other 2 squads were rapidly deployed, the 3rd on the far side of the road with a 2nd next to the radio hut. Petri responded by quickly deploying his 3 LMG Buntai, #'s 1 and 2 protecting the approach to the Radio Tower and #3 with the Knee Mortar Buntai on the other side of the path.

The 1st raider squad advanced toward the tower on tactical but now they were taking significant fire from the 2 Japanese squads. The other 2 raider squads advanced but the 2nd close to the house took significant fire from the grenadiers on the other side of the path with the entrenched LMG squad next to them firing at the 3rd Raider squad.

I initially thought that the Japanese would be in big trouble with the marines using the Native assistance, but the IJA are tenacious troops and they obey orders. Even with overwhelming firepower a single raider squad can not take on 2 IJA buntai and hope to win. They also had the disadvantage of going into light cover every time they moved while the Japanese remained stationary thus in hard cover. Once weakened the IJA attacked, it was near equal number of d6's but the the raiders had half the men the Japanese had, they were wiped out in the combat and had to test for a SL as well, their America force morale plummeted. 

First Buntai takes the banana plantation

I think it was clear to all that the marines were not going to win this battle, but the smell of blood in the air seemed to provoke both sides to inflict more casualties. The raiders knew they had to withdraw but they wanted to kill more Japanese on the way out, so a fighting withdrawal ensued. This did not go as well as they had hoped as IJA deployed their support Buntai, adding even more firepower.

Pink Buntai!

We made it!

Here are the final positions at withdrawal.

Butcher's Bill

USMC (platoon 1)

14 men, as well as a SL and a JL

Final FM 3

7 dead and 4 missing for next game, with a 2CI SL and two 1CI JL's

CO +2

MO -2

Platoon Leaders Outlook Content

IJA (platoon 1)

10 men, as well as a JL

Final FM 9

2 dead and 1 missing for next game, with a 1CI JL

CO 0 

MO +4

Platoon Leaders Outlook Merry

Well, certainly a bloody game. It will be 3 weeks until our next game but I suspect the raiders will be Gung Ho.

As an aside we lost one of our players, so now only have 3, four would be ideal and I believe we could have up to 3 aside. If anyone is interested we play at 1300h EDT on Wednesday with our next games planned on 17th and 24th of November. If interested please respond in the comments.