At last Tuesday's Track & Hull meeting at Lord Al's. we played a marines vs Jap scenario. using the BattleGround WWII rules. The marine's objective was to cross the river, and clear the area of Japs. The river ran down the center of the table, and was crossable in only two places, the bridge and a ford. With the exception of the area around a Japanese pillbox which was cleverly camouflaged as a Civil War era barn for most of the game the table was jungle. Joe was on the right with a squad, and some guys with flamethrowers. He would go after the ford. The rest of us, in the order our chits were drawn, would advance to the bridge. The first chit was mine, I decided to save time, and risk advancing part of the way on the road. I place one guy as far ahead as I could, and advanced eight inches down the side of the road without incident. Next was Scott Jackson, with a Sherman, and 75 on a halftrack, he also went down the road. Next came another Scott, with another squad. He decided to wait for a lift on James' tanks. We had wanted James to be ahead of Scott J, but ended up lucky he wasn't. As I advance again I drew some fire, the scout was out of the line of sight, so instead the BAR man was killed. Scott J moved off the road to the left, to let James by, and ran into Andy's squad, that was suppose to fall on our rear. With a few casualties, they were mopped up. James' tanks were the next to draw tire. His lead tank was fired at by an MG, the exposed commander had to take a morale check, and rolled craven coward. The crew abandoned the tank. My scout ran for the bridge, and went prone behind the ramp, where he was latter shot. The rest of my squad went into the jungle, and advanced towards the bridge. Joe, who had been playing with himself off to the side, arrives at the ford. James' second tank. with the commander exposed. draws fire. Again he has to roll a morale check, and again he rolls craven coward. This time we were saved another abandoned tank, when we ralised that the commander wouldn't have been single out, with Scott's ten men on the tank, We rolled to distribute the hits, and it was taken by the squad. Joe starts across the river, and is ambushed by a squad, the river runs red. Joe gets to the opposite bank, and is surprised by a Jap in a spider hole with a satchel charge. Fortunately it was a case of premature eJapulation, the Jap dies dramatically for the Emperor, and Joe's men are just out of range. The river ran brown. Baxter managed to hit the underside of James' remaining tank, taking it out of the game. The game went on for a few more turns, but it was clear that without the two tanks the marines were not going to be able to accomplish their objective. Back to Dispatch Mar. 99 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com