Bloody Red Beach

Today was the big day. Jeff DeYoung and I were going to engage in Bloody Red Beach from the Gung Ho! Expansion set. We’ve been talking about this now for several months, and I’ve been drooling over conducting an amphibious landing into the teeth of a prepared Japanese defense on Saipan in 1943.

Jeff has a spectacular 3D map for this, and you’ll see some pictures shortly. It really is something. He had a prepared defense and set up the night before in the interest of time, so when I arrived, I simply had to jam Marines into landing vehicles and start motoring into the shore. The night before, I found myself staring at the ceiling while laying in bed, stomach churning like I was actually going to climb into the boat in the morning. My hands were shaking a bit when we started the scenario.

The Marines are massed with 26 full squads, almost a full squad worth of leaders, including a 10-2 and a 9-2, and enough support weapons to make the most liberal of quartermasters blush at the excess. Five flamethrowers, five demolition charges, and something like 10 machine guns (Heavy and mediums). The Marines also get 9 Fighter Bombers with 150 MM Equivalent bombs and Napalm spread over the first three turns. Toward the end of the scenario an Naval Battery (120 MM) is available to pound the island. The Marines also get 4 Shermans, one of which is a Flamethrower tank! Glorious.

I don’t know the exact makeup of the Japanese forces, since I don’t have the scenario in front of me, but I know they get two 90 MM Mortars, two 70 MM Guns, some knee mortars, quite a few machine guns and a 20 MM Anti-Tank Rifle (of which I will rue). They are holed up in caves and pillboxes all along the beach, ready to whack Americans as they come ashore.

I loaded up my boats and divided them into three tasks forces, each mentally assigned to certain parts of the map. I wanted to try to keep my boats together in groups, but shift in various directions to offer some minor feints in case Jeff needed to move to react to the threats. He was free to inspect boat contents, so I thought it might be useful. It wasn’t, but hey…I’m trying to be S-M-R-T smart….

The boats started moving, as you can see here. I know it’s small, but there it is. The boats come in slow, taking about three turns to cross the reef and move on in. I should mention that they aren’t really boats literally. They are thinned skinned tracked amphibs. Once they cross the reef, they are actually on treads in about waist deep water while motoring in. The four tanks are dropped off at the reef by actual boats, and then they have to motor through the water to the shore (per special rule they have been waterproofed.).

Jeff held his fire for the first two turns, remaining hidden and concealed. I got three bombers per turn, but since they couldn’t easily see anyone, they really didn’t accomplish much. We talked about this, and I think this is the correct move. It’s tempting to try to rake the Marines from far off shore, but with so many bombing opportunities coming along, revealing your position pretty much assures the guns will be knocked out. Better to hammer the marines up close on Turn Three when the bombers are about to leave, which is exactly what he did.

When he opened up, he gave me everything he had. Before I knew it, a couple of Landing Vehicles – Tracked (LVTs) were knocked out with Marines spilling into the surf to wade their way ashore. Another went up in flames, taking the passengers with it into oblivion. The mortars began pounding the water while the bunkered machine guns raked the waves. My marines were holding tough though as I kept pushing to shore.

My last flight of bombers roared into action, dropping a load of Napalm on the top of one hill, cooking the crew of a 90 MM Mortar (you can see that here. The other bombers knocked out a 70 MM Gun, and the third didn’t accomplish much. His next fire phase saw another two LVTs knocked out, but no one made it out of the wreck alive. The carnage continued, with vehicles taking heavy fire as the Japanese came boiling out of the caves to saturate the water with fire. I cant’ recall details, only that the whole thing was a swirl of death.

Finally some of my Marines hit the beach. Once there, they are Fanatic on beach hexes, so they were accepting murderous fire while coolly collecting themselves for action. I had toeholds all over the beach, but I had taken murderous losses so far (34 CVP for those that know).

Then things started to get bad…

My Marines were angry and motivated by now. They have superior firepower, and in general the Japanese can’t stand toe to toe with them. Unfortunately, I decided to do something incredibly stupid, and if you’ve read any of these other posts, you would think I had this figured out….I went into Close Combat with the Japanese all over the map. Let me explain my lame thinking. Marines are fanatic on the beach, but I wanted to get up on the regular terrain to begin to assemble support weapons and lay down some fire bases. Terrain was choked, so in each case, the Japanese occupied the ground I had to have, and I didn’t want to hang out on that beach longer than I had to. The odds in CC were heavily stacked in my favor, so I decided the best way to get a firm footing was to whack his guys and occupy their ground.

Really, the numbers weren’t that bad…

You can see the pre-CC action here.

In one case, I advanced three full squads onto a depleted crew manning a 12.7 MM AA gun. I’m looking at greater than 12-1 odds, and it isn’t hand to hand, so the Japanese won’t get the -1 modifier. BUT, he won the Ambush roll, allowing HIM to declare Hand to Hand, getting a -1 for HTH and a -1 for Ambush. Next thing I know, he is at 1-8 odds needing a 3 or less to kill the whole stack.

He rolled a 3. BLAM, an entire platoon of Marines wiped out by a depleted Crew, who calmly reoccupied their gun and continued to pour fire on the advancing LVTs. I failed my personal morale check at that moment. But it wasn’t over.

We moved to the next CC action, where I needed a 9 or less to win. I rolled 11, leaving me locked in melee, open to the Japanese boiling out of the foliage to join the combat on his turn, and in short order, another collection of Marines were whacked. Suddenly my foot hold was essentially gone.

In the meanwhile, on the right flank, his little ATR (Anti-Tank Rifle) started to go to work on my landing craft. Before I knew it, another two LVTs were knocked out, leaving only a single leader alive and wading ashore with not a support squad in sight. The ATR ended up knocking out four crafts and immobilizing an amphib tank. Who fears an ATR??? Jeff just kept crushing me with it.

My moral continued to sag as the CVP total ran to the 70s. Per scenario victory conditions, the Japanese auto-win at 100 CVP of casualties. I pressed on and got my 10-2 on the beach with some men behind him. I took a flamethrower shot, only to boxcar the roll. I began to assemble machine guns and mortars, but in my confused state, I didn’t think about the fact that I couldn’t SEE anyone to shoot, so I was left lugging around the heavy support weapons when I really needed to be fleet of foot.

I took a moment to admire Jeff’s collection of maps, here. It was a moment of solace for me…

It just kept getting worse as my vehicles continued to wallow. He began to meet them at the beach, creating tank hunter heroes who ran out with Anti-Tank Mines, blowing themselves up and taking out my landing craft. Before long, we were at 100 CVP and the entire mess was over.

I was demoralized, exhausted, irritated at myself and ashamed of a pathetic performance. I tend to do this with big scenarios and I don’t like myself for it. I get so ashamed at my own stupidity in the game, I tend to become withdrawn. I HATE not giving my opponent a good game, especially when that person is a good player and I want to learn from them. I feel like I’m wasting their time when I do such completely stupid things, and then take it out on myself through irritation. I need to work on that…

The post-mortem revealed some major mistakes that I hadn’t caught on my own. All the while, my Shermans were wading ashore when I could have parked them out on the reef and used them to start blasting smoke on the guns and ATR. I could have even fired White Phosphorous and began to burn the Japanese. For some reason, I didn’t think the tanks could be used until they hit the beach. I could have even parked a few LVTs out there and started to use the large machine guns to spray the Japanese, maybe chewing them up a little to cover the others as they advance. It literally didn’t occur to me. I was so focused on reaching the beach, I didn’t think I could stop and engage. Missed chances.

Later, I realized I had a few chances to lay smoke grenades to cover my infantry as they moved, but I forgot to try. Of course, the CC lesson has finally been learned. Essentially – no matter what the odds, if it is numerically possible, count on the Japanese getting it done and adjust your move accordingly.

I feel bad about this thing. I’ve been so excited to play it, and seeing it decay into a nightmare was a big disappointment. I couldn’t muster the energy to get a second game today, and after hanging around a little, I came on home to Mark’s to get some rest.

As always, Jeff is a gracious and terrific opponent, and I only wish I could give you a worthy game someday. As it stands, I imagine it is a bit like beating a dead horse – momentarily satisfying, but essentially without any real value.

Back fresh tomorrow for some redemption…I hope…