Turn 3 had the US successfully pull a F4F Wildcat from Henderson field, who seemed to have some initial confusion (In Combat Command, if enemy and friendly troops are within 12" of each other, the air strike has a chance to attack the wrong target) due to US troops in the area. Both commanders rolled for control of the aircraft. Each rolled a '4'. On all ties, the strike remains with the owning player, so the Wildcat rolled in and decimated the squad that Dan had broken the turn before. The US players followed up the air strike with some consolidation movement to secure their position on the center of the battlefield.
Unfortunately, this movement left a gap in their covering fire and two more Sensha Sampei Butai rushed forward during the Japanese turn. One detonated a machine gun team trying to set up and the second claimed yet another Stuart- But by turn 3, it began to look a lot like too little, too late, as the US still had rallied and combined several shattered troops to field eight squads and one lone Stuart against the five remaining Japanese.
Turn four saw the US make their first assault on the Gifu range. Smoke grenades sailed out almost sealing a safe passage lane for most of the distance across the open ground. Almost, that is. Two more hidden machine guns chattered into life as the US troops cleared the smoke. Several soldiers fell and it looked like the attack would stall and break under the fire. But no! An unknown private BAR gunner suddenly jumped up in the maelstrom of fire and yelled, 'Follow me!" (Whenever a natural two is rolled for a morale check in Combat Command, a hero, or new leader, is created. The new hero and his squad or weapons team may immediately make one action: move, fire, or move and melee) Immediately, the US line steadied and poured a blistering return fire back onto the enemy position killing and breaking the Japanese machine gun nests that had pinned them down. Following the hero, US troops began ascending the western Gifu hill.
On the right flank, James' US attack ran forward to engage the enemy machine crew on the eastern Gifu hill, when they were stopped cold by a flurry of grenades from a hidden Japanese rifle squad that James' had forgotten to try and spot. The remaining Stuart pulled up to support James' attack.
The Japanese started their turn 4 by dialing in their Mortars on the advanced elements of James' US infantry. In a fitting display of accuracy, the Japanese mortar operators dropped their rounds directly on top of their own men at the base of the eastern Gifu. To make matters worse, the round fell perfectly into the entrenchment where the grenade throwing squad was positioned. The ensuing blast peppered most of the squad with fragments and sent the survivors running up the hill as fast as they could go. The fire phase of the Japanese turn was mute as no Imperial forces were in a position to fire.
The 2nd Japanese Movement phase for turn 4 went towards a desperate tactic to try and keep the US at bay. A bayonet charge from two of the remaining four squads on both hills ran down the slopes of both hills and crashed into the US soldiers swarming upward. A vicious melee erupted along the entire front and one US squad was destroyed and yet another was severely mauled But when it was time for morale checks, another US hero was created! More fire from the hero's squad poured into the massed Japanese ranks on the western hill, which forced the surviving Japanese to pull back to the top of the hills to lick their wounds.
Combat Command: Assault on the Gifu! December 1942 - January 22, 1943
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© Copyright 2002 Hal Thinglum
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