Saipan-Radio Saipan (4)

This Monday, we had our 5th turn in the Saipan campaign, but only the 4th turn on the campaign clock. This was the "Attack on an Objective" scenario from the main rulebook. Essentially same set up as game 3 but there are a lot of entrenchments on the table left over from the 2 previous games on this table. The game was going to have been won or lost depending on morale failure or withdrawal.

I felt I did OK on the Patrol Phase, and was happy to get a JOP in the Jungle on the northern edge. Probably did not place the the 4th JOP in the Radio Station building as well as I could but I was worried about the Marine JOP in the house in the south.

USMC (FM 11) (+4 on FM roll)

6th Marine Regiment

Type F USMC Platoon #1 (3 men missing)

2SL

3 Infantry Squads with Sup JL and 12 men

Supports (9)

M4A2 Sherman (7)

Pregame Barrage (2)

Japanese (FM 9) (+2 on FM roll)

136th Infantry Regiment

Type B Infantry Platoon #1 (8 men missing)

2 SL

3 Infantry Sections with Jl and 12 men

Grenadier Section with JL and 12 men and 3 50mm Mortars

Bunker

Entrenchment 

Supports (6)

Entrenchemt  (1)

Tank Hunter Team (2)

Type 94 ATG (3)

So on to the game:

I felt I had a good plan for this game. I had a JOP in the jungle on the northern edge of the board to counter the Marines, suspecting that they would launch their attack from their JOP in the jungle. I suspected that P-Y would take a tank so I took an ATG and a Tank Hunter team, as I found in the last couple of games that it can be hard to get a shot off with the ATG especially as it was in the bunker.

I put my bunker just south of the Radio Station but this time I had taken an ATG with a shield to increase my options on placement. The game started, P-Y rolled a double phase! This made it possible that he could overrun my northern JOP before the game started. He placed a squad in the jungle, but on his 2nd roll did not have the ability to take the JOP. With some relief, I rolled my dice, a 2 and two 3's. perfect. Then I found out that P-Y had taken a pregame barrage. 

What started then was a series of some of the worst die rolling in the history of tabletop wargaming. On my 3rd attempt, after wasting the 1st two rolls, I was able to place an infantry squad on OW in an entrenchment to protect the JOP. P-Y then placed his Sherman on the table and advanced through the northern jungle, it looked like my entrenched team was going to get some fire from both the Marine squad in the jungle as well as the advancing Sherman. P-Y also placed his 2nd squad in the pre-existing entrenchment in the field on the western edge of the board. I foolishly placed my ATG on top of the building, it gave me excellent vantage but no ability to withdraw when it started to suffer attrition. I also placed my Knee Mortar squad on the 2nd floor of the Radio Station.

Things were not going too badly but both my hit dice and save dice were failing me and I was not getting any double phases. The Sherman advanced east, and the highlight of the game for me was my ambush on the Sherman with my Tank Hunter team, they scored 3 hits with the Sherman just having 1 save---2 net hits, P-Y rolled a 5, the tank was immobilised, but maybe not the best result as it could still fire HE and it's 2 MG's. My 1st squad in the entrenchment was driven back and I was unable to get a 2nd squad to replace it quickly because of the PGB.

My FM was falling, and despite sending out smoke to protect my units in the radio station, they were suffering significant attrition. My dicing remained terrible, every time P-Y got a kill, I would roll a 1 on the leader hit, I would then roll a 6 on the BTH table. Before I knew it, my FM was down to 3, I gamed on to no avail. FM 0, game over...on to Table 4.

Butcher's Bill

The post game calculations were a little odd, as unlike the game I had great dicing and P-Y had poor dicing so the actual benefit was to the IJA.

USMC

Final FM 8

7 figures killed

Resolved per FM difference (2 down for next game)

CO +3 (+1 support)

MO +5 (+1 on FM roll)

Platoon Leaders Outlook Happy

IJA

Final FM 0

10 figures killed

 

5 killed + 3 missing (10 down next game)

CO -1

MO 0

Platoon Leaders Outlook Secure

On to some terrific photos from the camera of P-Y....

Was not a good idea

The Sherman

For the Emperor

Tank Hunters

Kill those tank hunters

Yes...it was a bad idea

safe in an entrenchment 

Immobilised but still firing

Keep Fighting!

Not a whole lot of value