Chain of Command Saipan scenario one "D-Day at Red Beach" again

 

After a considerable gap Tim and I played the second game of our Saipan campaign. Having been thrown back off the landing beaches in the first game Tim's Marines returned to try again against a weakened Japanese defending force.

Being able to consolidate my defences after the first game I added an extra minefield to slow the Marines down and adopted a different approach by using my 9 support points on a Type 97 Kai Shinhoto Chi-Ha tank (the best the Japanese can get!) and a MMG:

The Marines started to deploy units along the dunes leading from the beach. Initially the only Japanese response was to deploy the reduced strength mortar squad with a SL:

The Marines appear to be following a similar plan to last time:

The Chi-Ha arrives! The Japanese have staked a lot on it being effective:

Marine scout teams approach the Japanese defences forcing them to deploy the understrength second squad to stop the scouts capturing the defences without a fight:

In a sneaky move the Marines use a CoC dice to advance one of their deployment points allowing them to place a whole section behind the tank traps:

Marine firepower quickly breaks the 2nd Squad though not before one scout team is wiped out:

The Japanese respond by placing the MMG in the entrenchment recently abandoned by the 2nd Squad and the 3rd Squad lining the defences next to them:

They wipe out the second Marine scout squad and kill a couple of the newly deployed Marine squad:

The Marines had sneaked a flame-thrower into their squad. Being in range they open up with devastating effect, killing two of the MMG crew and breaking them on shock and taking out three of the 3rd Squad including the Squad Leader:

At this point the Japanese decided to withdraw. The Chi-Ha had failed to move after deploying while the remaining men of the 3rd Squad would soon be overwhelmed and deploying the 1st Squad would have just lead to further losses.

Tim had obviously learned from the first game and given the situation some thought before playing this one. Although his approach was similar using a CoC dice to move his DP forward worked very well for him together with the heavy firepower the Marines can put down (with 3 BAR per 12 man squad lead by a JL who is, in reality, a senior leader with this list) and the flame thrower was devastating though if I'd know he had it I'd have tried harder to kill it.

Being able to have a flame thrower team as part of the squad does seem rather over-powered, flame throwers are very effective if you can get them in range (12 dice hitting on 4 plus, all hits count as in the open and shock is doubled!) with the usual downside being that as soon as you deploy them as a separate team the opposition will shoot everything at them and that they only move on a 1 command dice or if directed by a senior leader. As part of a squad they are far easier to move and share hits with the rest of the squad making them a lot harder to kill.

Japanese losses were 3 men from the second section, 5 from the 3rd and 2 MMG crew. 7 men were killed in the first game and from this game 4 men were killed, two will miss the next game and two will return meaning I'll be down 11 men killed and 2 missing.

Looking at the next scenario "Securing the Beachhead" the terrain does not look great for defending so I think I will not contest it moving us on to the end of game turn 3 and then play the Japanese 'Wildcard' night counter-attack and see how that goes!