ASL71 - KP 167

Man, lets try this again. Got about 50% done with this and through my own stupidity I deleted the message. Anyway after 3 sessions Kent "wise in the ways of the force" Henson and I finished up KP167. After 10 turns my brave philipinnos were victorious over the Ken's Jap bastards. The game was not looking good for the home team but one timely late game roll saved the day. A 10-1/128/348 stack jumped on a concealed 6+1. No ambush, and predictably the 6+1 died in CC but after reviewing the odds, the 6+1 decieded to take on the 10-1/348 and rolled snakes, going down in a blaze of glory. A DR that will live in infamy.

Well if you get nothing else from this AAR, play this scenario. It's one of those Hill621/Clash Along the Psel epic types that you will remember fondly. The length and size of the OOB let you shrug off the occasional 2's and 12's, and even allow you to do a few stupid things.

The IJA get 6 HIP SE along with two ATG that can setup hip. They are lead by a 10-2, 10-1, and a couple of 9-0's. An incrediable force. The US has what it takes however, and I would give them a slight advantage in the scenario. They have 44 squads, armor support, lots of firepower, 11 turns to accomplish the task, and attack from both ends of the board forcing the IJA to conduct a 360 degree defense.

The scenario, logically played out into 3 sessions, the first (turns 1-3) were spent with me getting everone on board, and starting to deal with his up front positions. Next we played turns 4-6 which were spent reducing the outside obsticles, mopping up and preparing for the final assault on the last RB. Last night was spent clearing the last pockets or resistance, an then the last RB.

Session 1 (Turns 1-3) Time to get hammered. Turns 1-3 were spent mostly getting the guys on board. Early on Kent revealed his death star 10-2/448/crew,hmg/hs,mtr in 39G7. They pounded on the northern force for the first few turns, and there was really nothing I could do about it. At a lost as to what to do with the Towed guns, I just brought em on board and unhooked them right in front of Kent's firing units. One truck bought it, but another surivived although it never really got into the game anyway. In the north on board 36, I sent a feint attack to keep what turned out to be a 9-0/crew/mmg/mtr,448. They stayed a bit too long defending the area where the road(really a trail) crosses the river, and were eventually cut off from defending the final RB. In the south I sent my 6x667/9-2/hmg/mmg/347 turn 3 reinfocements down the same path. These guys would really help out the effort and probably won the game for me without directly attacking any of the road blocks. In the south along the board 39 road the units were encountering less resistance, and making pretty good progress. Of course the tanks with 10 FP mgs helped matters.

Session 2 (Turns 4-6) The Road blocks fall and lots of CC. In the north on board 39, I finally was able to bring some firepower on the 10-2 death start. Both 75L HTs, a 50 cal hmg/mmg stack, and units that continued to play hide and seek advanging two hexes away in an effort to give too many targets for the stack to deal with. Then fate smiled on me. The mg stack caused a MC which ended up breaking the HS, and HOB the full squad. The full squad went bezerk, and ended up killing a HS, but in turn was also killed. Good deal. A turn later one of the 75L HTs scored a CH, RS picking the leader and crew. Result was a 3 KIA, so they went away. Mopped up the rest of the positions, hopped 3 squads onto the RB, and put it under a -1 labor by the end of turn 6. During this session, kent decided to run the guys guarding the northern board 36 back to help protect the road block, but they would neve make it they were cut off. One squad gave chase. A 9-2/2x667 stack made it to the 36R1 hill where they encountered a hip squad in the kuani, fire against them was NE, and they were able to pin the guy in the Kunai. They jumped into CC, no ambush and ended up wacking the squad. Later they broke and ended up dying. The other 667's and mg guys assisted a CC along the board seem, and ended up taking out a 9-0/crew/squad stack with no losses, they then moved onto the 36t4 hill to keep that other 9-0/448/crew stack from getting into the battle. The southern RB was cleared around turn 5 with the help of another guy going bezerk and reducing a full squad to a HS with fire. The tanks went down the road, two made it through the minefield, one died to the AT gun, the other parked right in the AT guns hex and was flammed. At least it made the AT gun all but useless. There was one HS in 39x8 and w9 that ended up taking on 5 squads and a leader in 3 seperate CCs killing them all. A real thorn in the side. Kent said: "When you enter that hex, you see your guys tied to the trees with their genetials in their mouths". Yep I can believe it from those Jap Bastards.

Seesion 3 (Turns 7-10) What will happen So far my luck has been pretty good in CC. Sure I have had some losses but the main thing was too keep causing them. I was pretty confident at this point, but turn 7 was not kind to me. It started off pretty good. I broke that pesky HS that killed all my guys in CC and he died for failure to route. At this point Kent had 4 SE guarding the RB from what I could see. I advanced in in four different places and ended up killing a HS, and a crew in two seperate places. The other two Kent killed me out right, and it kinda took some wind out of my sails. Also he revelaed a full squad in some Kunai that I advanced into. His squad wacked mine so in three places I lost 4 squads while causing no casulties. He had two squads in the 39o9 area that I could not take out and never ended up doing that. Along with a squad in 39P10, they held off the entire Northern force, standing up to 30 flat shots, and withstanding numerous CCs. I ended up taking the squad in 39P10 down to a broken HS, but that was all I could do. It was up to the southern force to reduce the RB. Oh yea the nothtern most RB fell on this turn. During his turn 7 Kent went on a massive tear with his 10-1 HMG stack breaking a lot of units. I had to remove that position if I had any hope for reducing the final RB. Turns 8, 9 and 10 kinda blurred together. At this point things were down to AM'ing and such. During my turn 10 I was able to get 3xsquads on the RB, and kill that guy in 30P9. Unless Kent moved, they would have at least one clearence attempt without fire. I could not afford the -2 Haz movement mod. During his turn 10 is when the 6+1 did his dead, and I was able to go for the clearence attempt. I needed a 5 and rolled a 4. two great rolls in a row for game, set and match. What an experenice. Thanks Kent.