It's 1944, and the Allies are landing on the island of Wonga Wonga, a small islet in the Pacific. Wonga Wonga is not too large (the size of a ping pong table), and neither is the Allied force, which consists of four infantry battalions supported by two armor battalions. For this amphibious assault scenario, I used the 20mm figures in my Lannigan Brigade, so-called because they were sold to me a couple of years ago by Jerry Lannigan. Jerry furnished a quantity of Russians, Brits, Americans, Germans and Japanese. The defensive forces on Wonga Wonga consisted of a couple of battalions of Highly Imperial Japanese Marines, bolstered by a battalion or two of German troops... what were Germans doing on Wonga Wonga?... I didn't have enough Japanese Marines in the box, and to fill out the Axis order of battle, I thought that the Marines would welcome the support of their European friends. An infantry battalion consists of 2 stands, each stand with 5 figures on it, a total of 10 men per battalion. Stand size is approximately 2-inches by 2-inches... the stand consists of magnetized material, and the figures are mounted on metallic washers, so that they can be removed as casualties mount up. There is yet another way to display casualties... I have a number of 20mm casualty figures, which are placed by the stand when a hit occurs during the firing and close assault phases. These casualty figures stay with the stand until the end of the turn, when their effect is diced for and they are translated into actual losses (figures removed) via the following table: Table 1 01 to 33 Each casualty figure results in one man removed from the battalion stand 34 to 66 Each casualty figure results in two men removed from the battalion stand 67 to 100 Each casualty figure results in three men removed from the battalion stand Note that when the casualty assessment is made, a high dice throw (67 or above) can put quite a crimp in the initial battalion strength of 10 men. This was the case at the end of Turn #3 in the battle, when two defending battalions, each having accumulated some 7 casualty figures, tossed the dice and discovered that their actual losses (3 men for every casualty figure) totaled 21 men, more than the 10 men initially assigned to the battalion. At the end of Turn #3, therefore, these particular defenders, for all practical purposes, vanished, too weak to further participate in the battle. This happened on Red Beach, where the Allied E and F Battalions landed, supported by the 92nd Armor Battalion. The 92nd consisted of two 20mm tank stands. Wonga Wonga had two beaches, one was termed Red Beach and the other was Blue. On the ping pong table, Red and Blue were some 6 feet apart, and with troop movement rates of 10 inches per phase, the two landings were, for purposes of the scenario, completely independent. This battle was played in solo style... I didn't want to push too many troops around the field, and the size of the attacking and defending forces was scaled down. For example, note that the Allied landing force on Red Beach consisted of two infantry battalions and one armored battalion... at 2 stands per battalion, that's a grand total of 6 stands to move... definitely well within my specifications. And I should note that to reinforce the Allied landings, I had one paratroop battalion, which I chose to assign to the Red Beach force... even with this additional 2 stand addition, the Red Beach force had only 8 Allied stands in inventory. I termed this an 'initiative' game... the active side first moved his troops, and then diced to see how many units he was required to fire successfully, according to the following table. Table 2 01 to 33 Must hit with 1 unit 34 to 66 Must hit with 2 units 67 to 100 Must hit with 3 units The active side selected any units he desired, in any order desired, but as soon as he failed to hit the target, he immediately lost the initiative and the opposing side became active. Which means that if he rolled high and had to fire 3 units, and his choices to fire were Battalions A, B, and C, in that order, and Battalion A hit, but Battalion B missed, then Battalion C never even got to fire, since the initiative immediately transferred and another cycle began. Probabilities of Hit (POH) were fairly high... for example, each infantry stand in a battalion contributed 25 percent to the total, giving a POH of 50 percent, and if a MG stand was added to the battalion, this provided another 20 percent, bringing the grand total to 70 percent. In the middle of the island was the communications center, and the Allied objective was to knock this out as soon as possible. This was a 'clocking' game, in which a complete turn was not composed of the usual 'each side fires and moves' sequence, but a 10-sided 'clocking die' was tossed, and the turn ended when the accumulated clock total was more than 15. Here's a tally of the accumulated clock totals of the game: Table 3 Turn 1 10, 13, 19 Turn 2 7, 12, 18 Turn 3 1, 4, 7, 16 Turn 4 8, 12, 18 Turn 5 4, 5, 12, 19 Whenever a cycle began, the active side tossed the die. Note that Turn 1 consisted of 3 cycles. On Turn 1, the first clock die was a 10. The second was a 3, giving a total of 13. The third toss was a 6, giving a total of 19... at this time, therefore, the turn was over (the clock total was over 15), and Turn 2 began. Note the entire battle took 17 cycles before the Axis cried "We give up!". During the turn, units accumulated casualty figures whenever they were hit, and 'dragged' their casualty markers around with them on each cycle. The end of a turn was significant, since at that time, the actual effect of the casualty figures was assessed. This was done according to the results of Table 1, given above... figures were removed from the battalion stands, and if the casualties exceeded the battalion strength, off the board went the battalion. On Red Beach, the landing force proceeded inland (north) towards the town of Ho. Two Allied infantry battalions, plus one armor battalion, after landing, zipped north to get out of the open beach area as soon as possible. Movement was 10 inches, there was some 12 inches of open beach between the landing zone and the neighboring woods, and since rifle range was 20 inches, there were several casualty markers placed on the Allied forces by the defending Highly Imperial Japanese Marines. The total force summary is For the Allies... 5 infantry battalions, 2 armor battalions For the Axis... 7 infantry battalions, 1 armor battalion In truth, the Allies were slightly outnumbered, but four items evened up the proceedings: First, 3 of the 7 Axis infantry battalions, instead of being composed of 2 stands, were only at half strength... a single infantry stand, plus a supporting MG stand. The POH for this combined unit was 25% (for the infantry stand), plus 20% (for the MG), for a grand POH of 45 percent. Second, the Allies were given 2 'pop up' anti-tank guns, the Axis, only a single 'pop up' gun. These guns could be called on to miraculously appear at any point desired. Once in place, they could not move, and it took only one hit to destroy them, as opposed to the ten hits needed to destroy an infantry or tank unit. Despite their vulnerability, the Allied anti-tank weapons proved very useful... their POH when firing was 60 percent, and they diverted enemy fire from the regular units Third, of necessity, the Axis forces were spread out all over the table... they needed to defend almost 9 feet of beach along the ping pong table. In addition, several Axis battalions had to hang back to defend the area around the communications tower, and they only got into the battle in the last phases. Four, the Allies had at their disposal, one 2-stand infantry parachute battalion. I landed this unit just north of the town of Ho, supporting the Red Beach forces going north. All the above seemed to make for an even game. At the end of Turn 3, the Allies had taken Ho, and when the Turn 3 casualty assessment phase took place using Table 1, then 2 of the Axis battalions had taken excessive casualties, and were taken off the table. In the sequence, when the firing phase occurred, and the active side determined how many hits he had to score to retain the initiative (see Table 2), then each time a target unit was hit, it was permitted to return fire. In this manner, both sides kept up a steady rate of fire throughout the battle, and the placement of casualty figures mounted rapidly. At first, in the early phases of the game, I permitted a rally for casualties incurred by the units. For example, if a battalion had 2 casualty figures on it, and tossed a 43 for the assessment phase on Table 1, then the 2 casualty markers resulted in 4 figures removed from the unit's stands. Initially, I would let the side try and rally these 4 figures, and bring them back on the field. After awhile, however, I decided that a casualty was a casualty was a casualty, and if a man was removed from his stand, then tough on him... he'd stay removed. At the time the Red Beach force took Ho (on Turn 3), the Blue Beach force had just suffered a serious defeat at the town of Ha, on the eastern side of the field. The Blue Beach force lost its 2-tank armored battalion... all it had left was 2 infantry battalions, not quite strong enough to push on. And so, I held this force back... it was ony a question of time until the Allied battalions coming up the western side of the island could turn to the east and reinforce the battered Blue Beach units. Turn 5 proved decisive... note in the listing I gave for the number of cycles per turn (see Table 3), that Turn 5 was composed of 4 cycles, four chances for the sides to accumulate casualty markers. And when the Axis diced to determine actual losses (men removed from stands), another 2 battalions broke and went off the table. Two final notes (a) While an MG stand provided more firepower to a battalion, in essence, it had no life of its own. If the infantry battalion to which it was attached, disappeared, so did the MG stand. In similar fashion, when battalions engaged in close assault, the number of attached MG stands didn't count in determining who won the melee. In effect, the MG stands were along for the ride, and as long as they had an infantry battalion to support them to soak off casualties, they were fine. (b) In the next replay of this scenario, there will be included a number of airstrikes for both defenders and attackers. Back to PW Review February 1999 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Wally Simon 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