Rising Sun: Operation Watchtower: The Goettge Patrol

Last night, I played the first scenario from Britton Publishers' "Rising Sun: Operation Watchtower", The Goettge Patrol.

***** Historical Background *****

The historical action took place on August 12, 1942. A small patrol consisting of Lt. Col. Frank Goettge, some 24 marines and a surgeon set out to land west of Matanikau where, according to a Japanese prisoner, there were soldiers in dire straights and willing to surrender. Originally intended as a combat patrol, Goettge had changed the mission to a humanitarian one - and this change caused excessive delay; the patrol did not depart until night had fallen.

Things went to Hell, thereafter. 

The Marines landed at the wrong spot. Their amtrac which had gotten stuck on a sandbar, had, according to some sources, alerted the Japanese to their presence. 

http://guadalcanal.homestead.com/

When Goettge and 2 marines made a reconnaissance patrol down a path into the jungle, they encountered Japanese soldiers, Goettge was shot and killed. 

The two Marines managed to escape back to the beach to join the main body of the patrol which would spend the rest of the moonless night being picked off one by one by the Japanese. 

http://guadalcanal.homestead.com/

Three men survived - two who had tried to reach the American lines to bring reinforcements (it was too late to save the patrol), and one who retreated into ocean to swim (4 miles!) back to the American lines, when he was the last man left.

***** The Set Up *****

The Britton Publishers scenario begins with the 2 squads of marines and a platoon HQ on the beach and a company of Japanese in the jungle making their way towards the marine position. The Japanese have 4 turns to eliminate the marines.

One key point, 4 turns is in terms of Britton's MicroMelee game for company level actions, which allows units 1-6 actions per "phase." Having no idea what this means, I decided on a 12 turn limit for David Newport's Tactical Combat WWII rules, which are my preferred company-level rules.

Tactical Combat, like, from what I have gathered, MicroMelee, uses 1 base per squad. However, it seems to me that, if you have the figures for it, you could play this 1:1 with Nuts! or Disposable Heroes or any other 1:1 set of rules. 

Britton provides a handy map of the table, which I duplicated to the best of my ability - although I reduced the table size to 3' x approximately 2' 33"  (the water is craft foam sheets that are 9" x 12").

I deployed my Marines in the center of the beach near the water's edge per the historical situation and then placed the Japanese by platoon, using a d6 1-2 = left, 3-4 = center, 5-6 = right. I placed the mortar squad with the company HQ in the same way.

Rather surprisingly, I ended up with the Japanese in a line from end to end - which almost never happens when I distribute forces by die roll.

MicroMelee has some sort of quality rating for each squad, so I translated that into Tactical Combat WWII terms.

The rifle squads range from TQR2-4 in MicroMelee, so, I interpreted that as Green to Elite in Tactical Combat WWII and then rolled a d6: 1-2 Green, 3-4 Average, 5-6 = Elite.

• Platoon A (right): 1st Squad: Elite, 2nd Squad: Average, 3rd Squad: Average
• Platoon B (center): 1st Squad : Green, 2nd Squad: Elite, 3rd Squad: Average
• Platoon C (left): 1st Squad: Average, 2nd Squad Elite, 3rd Squad: Green
• The mortar squad is Green.

The USMC squads are both Average.

The marines would start with fox holes dug, which would give them soft cover and force a +1 on the Japanese attack rolls  (in Tactical Combat WWII, the higher the number the worse the result when attacking).

Because the scenario is set at night, I decided that long range fire was at +2, normal to long range was at +1, and within one move was at +/- 0.

The marines couldn't see into the jungle and thus I wouldn't allow them to fire at the Japanese until the Japanese had moved onto the beach (if they did).

To control the Japanese, I set up the following:

• If they are out of range or no line of site, move up to range/LOS.
• At t long range, roll 1d6:
• 1-2 Fire
• 3-4 Light Mortars fire, all others advance 1 move
• 5-6 Advance 1 move
• In normal range but more than 1 move, roll 1d6:
• 1-2 Fire
• 3-4 Light Mortars fire, all others advance 1 move
• 5-6 Advance if Marines in cover, else Fire
• Within 1 move, roll 1d6:
• 1-2 Fire
• 3-4 Advance to close combat if enemy is paralyzed or suppressed, otherwise Fire
• 5-6 Advance to close combat

Although historically the Japanese didn't swarm the beach until the marines had been, to their knowledge, completely eliminated, that seemed really boring from a wargame perspective, hence why there's so much movement on those tables. 

Also, before the game started, I had decided that the Marines would sit tight and try to use their limited cover to increase their chance of survival, so I did not include an option where the Japanese would hold their action in order to use Opportunity Fire (only squads that do not activate/attempt activation can fire during their opponent's Movement phase).

The Japanese were the attackers, and so they would go first each turn. 

***** The Game *****

Turns 1 and 2 were simply advances made by the Japanese. The first move got them to the edge of cover, the 2nd allowed them to break out onto the beach. Marine rifle fire from the squad on the right managed to suppress a Japanese squad (B1, right most squad, center platoon).


Turn 3 saw more rifle fire exchanges.

In Turn 4 the first Japanese squads charged in for close combat. The marines made a strong showing and beat back the attacker with minor injury. Turn 5, they continued the close assaults, supported by fire from some of the squads.

Unable to hold out against the continued onslaught, by the end of Turn 5, the USMC squad on the left is driven back into the shallows of the water.

Still, they fought on despite having 2 hits (3 eliminates the stand), and in Turn 6, they took out the 1st Japanese squad.

The Marine squad on the right, which started the turn in perfect health was completely destroyed by the close assaults.

On into Turn 7, the Marine squad defended against attack after attack - eliminating THREE Japanese squads before finally succumbing to the superior numbers.

***** Thoughts on the Battle *****

I made it past the half-way point, and took out 4 Japanese rifle squads and 1 Japanese platoon HQ, so I don't feel too badly about my performance here.

If I were to play this again, with the same distribution of Japanese platoons evenly across the table, I would hold my Marines until the Japanese had committed, and then sweep out to one or the other side, to flank them. 

The idea would be to buy time by distancing my squads from the bulk of the Japanese force and limit the number of enemy squads that could engage them. Continued motion, rather than staying in any one spot, might increase the chance of survival.

Close combat, with the fox hole defensive advantage, slight as it was, may have extended the life of the Marines. That advantage would be lost if I used the fight-move-fight method above. But, the right Marine squad had two hits and won 3 rounds of close combat in turn 7 before being eliminated, so I'm not convinced that cover advantage meant all that much.

I lucked out that the Japanese mortar stand was useless - I rolled 9s and 10s every time it attacked.

Had it struck home it would have been disastrous for the Marines. 

Before I remembered it was night, I had planned to use it to lay down smoke, to give the advancing infantry some cover, but that was of no advantage at night and even if it had been day, it would only provided limited cover as it was just one single mortar stand. A handful of stands might make a big difference however in a daylight battle.

From 0 to 50 in 26 days: Revell 1:72 WWII USMC Done!

Ok, that may not be the fastest painting time ever, but it's pretty good for me. This evening I finished up my US Marines for my PTO project:

"The Old Man"

I'd like to pick up some Shermans for support but I'm jonesing to pit these guys against my Japanese in a game already.

Sci-Fi Small Scale Skirmish Rules Tests Continued

I've been playing games again with the various rule sets i'm considering for very small sci-fi skirmish. The new scenario is rather poorly designed but was intended to simply see how a given rule set scales up and when technologically different cultures clash, with those with better tech outnumbered by those without.

The Setup:

The plucky band of rebels had salvaged an old, pre-cataclysm, ambulance and were out to make a pick up from a supply dump when the old engine gave out.

"Base this is Arturo Fuente, we need a lighter"

*crackle* "Roger that Arturo Fuente, fueling one up and it'll be on its way. ETA 3 hours"

Well, it was no automobile club (not that they had any idea what an automobile club was), so nothing to do but sit and wait. Which would have been fine except for all the bugs...

The Forces:

3 low-tech/mid-tech human resistance fighters

vs.8 no-tech mantis men: regardless of rules, all mantis men would have the same stats (be it HP, Elan, REP etc. ) for ease of tracking.

The Game (This isn't a play-by-play):

The van and resistance fighters were placed in the center of the board and the mantis men encircled them - each placed on the far side of cover so they'd have to come out of the woods to attack.


Here's the table after the first turn of the first test (using USR):

"Guys! We need giant can of bug spray!?"

The first problem that's apparent is that record keeping is complicated by the fact that there are 4 poses of mantis men, 2 of each. It is virtually impossible to distinguish them from one another - so I had to use their clock positions to identify them - this mattered most in USR which has hit points and almost not at all in CR3:FV.

Regardless of rules, this setup is a problem - it's not possible to activate the mantis men as a group making their activation tedious.

However, with two of the sets I've used (USR and USEME) this didn't matter as the humans were quickly overrun by the bugs:

Totally. Hopeless.

Where are these glass blobs coming from????

The primary difference is that in USR, the mantis men had 12 HP and my attacks did little damage - I think I killed 1.

In USEME my humans fared little better.

In both cases, TPK.

CR3:FV gave quite an unexpected twist:

Circle of Dead Bugs

The mantis never got close enough for melee!

"Nice shooting team!"

Now not all of them are dead - technically some are just Out of the Fight:

Gratuitous Pic of My CR3:FV  Clutter Reducing Reaction/Status Tracker

Closing Thoughts:

I didn't bother testing my home mashup rules with this scenario - they use card draw for randomized activation and hit points for damage and so wouldn't tell me anything new.

USR took the longest by far, as each side chipped away at HP and resulted in the fewest mantis men dropped. CR3:FV took the least time and had the most mantis men dropped. USEME, with it's 3 statuses was somewhere in the middle.

I don't think the results were entirely rules dependent, however. The fact that the mantis men were overpowering in the USR game (A: 10, W:8 E:6, HP 12, armor) and were slaughtered in the CR3:FV game due to the failed rolls resulting from being Rep 4 - had as much to do with it as anything. Had I made the USR mantis men less powerful and the CR3:FV more so, the results may have been flip-flopped. For USEME, varying the Elan of the bugs would have most certainly have changed the game. There's no "right" values for the stats though - I'd rather stick to my guns about what I think is an accurate portrayal of my concept of the characters within the given rule set than worry about whether one side is too strong or not.

So, for this type of game, one side outnumbered by the other (although no more than 10 figures on the larger side), regardless of technological advantage, I think any of the rules I'm considering would work fine. It largely depends on how much record keeping I feel like doing and how much time I have.

Finally, the rules test could have been a lot more interesting if the mantis men bases were marked so I could easily identify individuals - this would have allowed variable stats for EACH bug man, rather than just universally assigning HPs, Reps and Elans. And if I was playing this as part of a campaign or cared about the outcome, I'd most definitely have added a turn limit for the "lighter" to arrive - which would have greatly aided the humans in two of the three games.

The Marines Have Landed!

First, welcome to those of you coming for a visit from the Two Hour Wargames Yahoo group! I am always surprised when someone stumbles on my blog, let alone posts a link to it.

Second, as the subject of the post says, the first of my 1:72 WWII USMC have landed!

And in sunny tropic scenes;

You will find us always on the job

The United States Marines.

I know my color choices may not suit the purists, but I like how they came out. Especially as I had meant to grab the Sea Foam and instead grabbed the Stonewedge Green. I'll probably paint some with Sea Foam simply because of the variety of shades the marine uniforms took on in the harsh conditions of the Pacific.

Colors:
Uniform - Ceramcoat Stonewedge Green
Web Kit - Americana Desert Sand
Helmet -Jo-Ann Craft Essentials Olive
Boots - Americana Honey Brown
Rifle and Scabbard - Ceramcoat Dark Brown
Flesh - Ceramcoat AC Flesh

Obviously, the basing needs to be finished and of course, there are 45 more to paint, but this is a start!