Gun Copse

Chris Garrett and I have been working our way through the Schwerpunkt scenarios in numeric order. Its great practice for me, as the Schwerpunkt scenarios are heavily used in tournament play; they are usually quick, and very aggressive in design. The attacker always seems to be a turn behind, and the defender always seems to have just a little less than he needs to win. I can’t tell you how many times it comes down to the last couple of actions to determine the winner.

Today was Gun Copse. A very light detachment of Japanese occupies a banana plantation in Burma, defending with a Heavy Machine Gun and an 81 mm mortar. In typical British fashion, the Brits decide to assault the location over 500 yards of open ground, relying on artillery smoke to save their lives while they close the distance. The objective is to flush the Japanese completely out of the plantation area.

The game starts with the British player (Chris) designating a pre-registered smoke barrage in a specific hex. He does so, and then I set up. The plantation in the middle is a little too obvious – it is central, has great sight lines over the soon to be bloody plain, and ultimately is the final objective.

So I don’t set up there.

I figure the smoke will come down and block everything in the center, so I focus on a few scattered woods hexes on the board edge. I’m hoping that the oblique sightlines will work out just fine. I place the HMG and a leader in an open hex with a foxhole. There’s no sense is staying in the woods when he has artillery (trees actually are more dangerous than open ground under a barrage). I place the small 50 mm mortar nearby in another hole, and back that up with a vanilla Japanese squad in a building to play free safety. I place the 81 mm Mortar on the opposite side of the board in a woods hex that provides a good covered arc across most of the British advance. The mortar would be blind to an extreme edge approach by a British squad, so I have to place another Japanese squad in the plantation to cover that approach. I give him a foxhole to protect against that artillery. Finally, I get one hidden squad that should be the ace in the hole. The British have to kill all of the Japanese, so that means they have to find this guy in light jungle to win. I place him well back in the plantation, where the Brits would have to dig through jungle to get to him. He also has a view of the rear flank in case the Brits manage to swing someone around and try to come in from behind.

With the setup complete, Chris reveals his pre-registered smoke hex.

It isn’t in the plantation. Sigh….

He placed it on the flank, thinking I wouldn’t use the center as it is too obvious. The smoke comes down accurately and bathes my HMG emplacement and the small mortar in great swathes of obscurement.

The Brits come on board en masse, screaming to intimidate the Imperial Army. Since two of my primary weapons are now unusable, I end up having to reveal the 81 mm mortar and start laying down rounds as quick as I can. I manage to hit a squad and leader, pinning the squad but the leader keeps right on going, seemingly unaware his men are pinned down behind him. The mortar loses rate of fire, so I can’t do much more for now. The Brits essentially cover half the distance without a scratch.

My turn begins and I continue with the heavy mortar. It is a target rich environment, so I expect to mow down some Tommies.

Excuse those boxcars as I malfunction the heavy mortar.

Things aren’t looking good at this moment.

I pull up the heavy machine gun, leave the foxhole, and use the smoke to relocate to the plantation. It is vital that I get that piece in operation as soon as possible, given I have little more to resist the Brits with other than harsh language and my tangible despair. The same goes for the little mortar. I pull it back to a walled hex and wait for him to come through the smoke. My free safety unit activates and I move him forward into the plantation.

Chris starts his next turn with a glorious weather roll of boxcars, resulting in wind gusts which essentially blow away his protective smoke. Suddenly his Brits are naked and I have the Heavy Machine Gun ready to rock. As a bonus, the little mortar now has a clean sightline to a horde of awkward Brits scratching their collective heads and looking for their smoke. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

I fail to repair my heavy mortar, so everything isn’t roses yet. Chris cranks up his radio to contact the artillery battery and it craps out on him. It is harder to use radios in the jungle.

So Chris turns to his two light mortars and goes for smoke to cover the machine gun. Subsequent rolls reveal the British quartermaster wasn’t handing out smoke rounds this morning. So Chris switches to high explosive and tries to pepper the gun. Turns out the quartermaster was handing out shoddily maintained mortars as well, since one of them malfunctions.

Chris is rolling like me.

The Brits suck it up and move forward for King and Country. The resulting turn is as expected. Broken, quivering Brits are hugging the ground, running back to cover, or simply dying in place. He has more bodies than I have bullets though, so a good portion of grim men crawl forward a little closer.

Specifics start to get hazy at this point, so I will jump to the highlights.

At some point, the artillery wakes up and pummels my location with 94 mm shells, killing my only leader and taking out some Japanese troops. The heavy machine gun remains in service with a determined crew vowing to die in place rather than abandon the position to the Brits. I continue to sustain the machine gun fire in an epic sequence of shots, pinning, killing and breaking in a ridiculously improbable sequence. The machine gun SHOULD malfunction under so much abuse, the crew SHOULD lose their nerve and flee, but everything stays together. I can imagine the slightly glowing barrel when the gun finally ceases.

But the Brits managed to get a squad in close and engaged the valiant crew in close combat. The crew falls to the bayonet and the British take possession of the gun.

On the flank, my 81 mm mortar was utterly destroyed in a repair attempt. I think it got off two shots the whole game. Maintain your weapons, kiddies, especially in the jungle.

The Brits reach the plantation and we are reduced to a close in hide and seek as he looks for my hidden troops while I try to fade back and hit him when I can. The game seems to be turning as he quickly isolates my Japanese and closes the noose. He’s taking horrible losses, but he’s getting the job done.

The end comes on the final turn (Schwerpunkt). My hidden squad took some fire and ended up revealing himself. I’m down to him and a half squad of Japanese, surrounded by Brits.

This is where I screwed up. I’m not used to the Japanese. I think in terms of Western troops. Western troops have NO chance to remain in that situation and survive. So my instinct is to flee across the open ground to a nearby location where I can make the Brits come to me over open ground at the end. The Japanese don’t break like Western troops – they simply get a little smaller but keep going. So I figured I could have waltzed through some gunfire and have a reasonable chance of some guys living long enough to get to my destination. I was trying to use what I knew about the Japanese, while still thinking in terms of European troops.

Chris gunned me down and that was that.

Then the lesson began. “Jungle is the Japanese friend”. Chris illustrated how if I had remained in the jungle, surrounded by Brits, I had an advantage. The Brits could shoot me up, and given the protection of the jungle, I would probably survive enough to remain intact. Then as he was forced to move into close combat, I had a very good chance of affecting an ambush – a Japanese specialty – and withdrawing from the combat, thus winning the game!

We played out that course of events and the Japanese would have won precisely as he explained it.

So while this was a loss, it was a great lesson in the Japanese. As always, Chris played a great game and never missed an opportunity to teach. Thanks man.

(Cross posted at Amateur Megalomania)