Yes, another exciting, stimulating, turbulent, thrilling, yet wonderfully historically accurate endeavor in the WW2 Pacific campaign I’m running between Bob Hurst and Don Bailey. Bob’s American forces have as an objective, the capture of the five islands in the Ooha chain, way out in the mid-Pacific, and currently held by Don’s Highly Imperial Japanese forces.
On the very first campaign turn, General Bob "Blaster" Hurst, his two pearl-handled pistols blazing, and wearing his distinctive jodhpurs... to my never-ending embarrassment, Don pointed out to me that "jodhpurs" has an "h" in it... anyway, Bob lost no time in shilly-shallying around... Blaster Bob had his forces invade all five islands, in five simultaneous amphibious landings.
If nothing else, that kept me, as the umpire, busy... fighting each battle solo, I was awash in WW2 battles.
This current effort involved the landing on Akoji island, defended by Don’s Japanese 1st Army. Blaster Bob sent in his 4th Army to do the job... he didn’t even commit his airborne reserves, nor did he assign any airstrikes to support the 4th.
In terms of a table-top battle, the affair was a small one... the American force had a total of 10 20mm stands in it, while the defending Japanese had 8 stands. Defining a single stand as a brigade, the battle could be said to consist of a division-versus-division encounter.
For this encounter, I wanted the system to do all the work for me in determining which brigades were to move, where they would move, and what type of offensive or defensive action they would perform.
I defined two types of regions on the table-top.
- (a) The first was the "battle-line" area. If a brigade was within 15 inches of an enemy unit, it was in the battle-line, and I prepared a special listing of appropriate actions which it could undertake.
(b) If a brigade was more than 15 inches from any enemy unit, it was in the "reserve" area, and here, too, there was a listing of functions to perform.
Sequence Deck
I had a sequence deck of four cards, from which I drew randomly... one card for US units in the battle-line area, one for US units in the reserve area, one for Japanese troops in their battle-line area, and finally, one for Japanese units in their reserve area.
There were two steps I would undertake when drawing a card:
- First, I would determine the number of units within the region, either battle-line or reserve, which would remain immobile, wouldn’t act at all, and be unaffected by the card. Percentage dice were used, and the number of immobile units could range from 2, to 1, or, perhaps, zero. This last result meant that all units would be affected.
Second, in referring to the list for the particular region, I’d dice for each individual unit to act under the auspices of the list.
It turned out that, on the table-top, running my own game, I had few decisions to make.
Here, for example, is the list for the tactical movement phase for units in the battle-line region... it contained five possible actions.
Note that for brigades located in the reserve region (List #2), i.e., more than 15 inches from enemy units, there was a good chance they’d zip up the field 30 inches, heading for key enemy sites... either the headquarters or the supply base.
Early in the battle for Akoji Island, just after the Americans landed, and had set up their headquarters and supply depot, and with most of the Japanese brigades located inland, far from the beach, I diced on List #2 for each of the defending units in the reserve region to determine their actions.
Two full Japanese armored brigades immediately dashed forward toward the American HQ, while 2 infantry brigades made for the American supply depot. The Imperial forces obviously meant business... they weren’t waiting for the Americans to come to them... they’d carry the war to the beaches.
Note that on List #2, there’s no provision for a force to remain immobile, and stay in the reserve area. I purposely did this... I wanted no laggards on the field of battle... if a unit was driven back into the reserve region, then as soon as it diced on List #2, it would advance toward the enemy force.
There were two ways a brigade could find itself in the reserve region.
- First, if it had been hit by enemy fire, it took a morale test, and if it didn’t pass (80 percent chance to do so), it fell way back, out of reach of the enemy.
Second, a unit could lose a close assault combat. Here, too, the losing unit found itself way back in the reserve region.
Combining the listings and the resultant back and forth movement of the units on the field, the battle was an interesting one, containing many unexpected encounters. Take, for example, the unexpected advance of the Japanese brigades on the American HQ and supply depot.
When this happened, I made a mental note to declare a Japanese victory if the Imperial forces (who were outnumbered) could hang on to these two key American sites for a couple of turns. After all, if the defenders overran the invading HQ, and, at the same time, captured the US supplies, I would assume that even Blaster Bob would have thrown up his hands, placed his pearl-handled pistols back into their holsters, and had his men withdraw to their ships and sail away.
In the sequence, after the Japanese made their surprise move, I drew a Japanese tactical battle-line card. The four Japanese units that were ransacking the American HQ, and destroying supplies were each within 15 inches of the American troops and were thus eligible to dice on List #1 for their actions.
The men in each of the four units involved were smart enough to simply fire on the nearby US troops, causing the US brigades to take a morale test. Note that in List #1, there’s a 40 percent chance that the testing unit will dash forward and will close assault an enemy unit. But here, the Japanese brigades didn’t want to leave the vicinity of either the HQ or the supply depot sites.
In contrast, when the US tactical battle-line card appeared, almost all the nearby American brigades closed in for the assault.
The Japanese fought valiantly, actually holding onto their position at thetwo key American locations, driving most of the attacking US brigades back. I was truly impressed and told myself that if they could do it again, during the sequence of card draws, victory would be theirs.
And now, I have to admit I had to fudge a wee bit to help out the Americans. Since both the American HQ and the supply depot were in Japanese hands, I defined them as being "enemy HQ" and "enemy supply base."
This meant that when the next American reserve card was drawn and I diced for the actions of US units on List #2, there was a basic 40 percent chance that each of the US units would head directly for either the HQ and supply depot... skull-duggery, indeed!
But the ploy worked! The American brigades moved toward the HQ and supply depot, and then, when their tactical battle-line card appeared, they attacked again!
This time they were successful. The Japanese brigades were driven back to their own reserve region. HQ was recaptured and the candy bars at the depot were again in US hands.
While all the excitement seemed to focus on the HQ and depot sites, the Americans were, in general, giving all the Japanese units a hard time. The defenders started out with 5 infantry brigades, and 3 armored brigades (one stand each). When they lost 5 of their 8 brigades (and the US had lost only one of their 10 brigades), I deemed the battle lost, and Akoji Island was in American hands.
In effect, I played a huge table-top "gotcha-type" boardgame. On its card, the active side moved and fired, and later, the opposition did the same. The only deviation from the "gotcha" concept was that I did permit defensive fire from a unit being charged.
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© Copyright 2001 Wally Simon
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