D-Day Saipan

Yet another Oriskany Jim game yesterday, this one timed for the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Saipan. As usual, a beautiful board and miniatures, some of them lent by my partner for the day, Mark Ritchie.

Another reason I came was to play a bit of my part as club librarian. There is quite a nice collection of books and games that we need to organise. Mark suggested using a clipboard to track anything "checked out." I should've thought of that myself, as it's how my library handles computer sessions and magazines. I'll make a grid with spaces for name, title, date checked out and date returned, which should be perfectly workable. I also photographed the book spines and boardgame boxes, with intent to make a list of the collection - the magazines and slim wargame rule volumes will have to wait.

The arrangement seen above turned out to be for show; Mark and I were invited to determine our own "waves" and assault objectives, while our opponent Devon could shift around some of his Japanese units. There were five game objectives scattered in the green area of the board; these were worth 3 points to the Japanese player and 2 points to us - 3 points if we could get an engineering vehicle to them. Initiative was by platoon, plus a naval fire phase and an air attack phase for the Americans.

The rules are Jim's own homebrew, with I think squads repping platoons. D10s are used, with D12s for artillery scatter. Moves are turn-and-turn-about, by platoon (ie usually 2-4 sections or gun positions), so reaction to moves is possible - much better than UGoIGo, I felt. It kept our interest and the game was quite active. On a unit's move, it can choose two of a selection of options - move/shoot, move/move, shoot/shoot, disembark/charge, etc. Unlike some of the other games we've played with Jim as GM, there is no morale, pinning, etc. The Japanese are fanatics and the Marines are... well, the game is run by an ex-Marine.

Second Battalion, 6th Marines had:

• 12 LVT amtracs
• 4 LVT "amtanks", two with M8 howitzer turrets and two with M5 37mm turrets.
• Three platoons of Marines loaded in the amtracs, ten to a vehicle. Eight of these line infantry with machine guns, bazookas and rifles, three heavy weapon/engineer units with flamers, mortars, etc.
• Four scratch-built card LCTs, loaded with...
• 3 M5 Stuarts, two bulldozers and four trucks (the dozers and trucks counted as engineering vehicles).
• Three shots from offshore ships, and one airstrike (an F4F Wildcat, which I hadn't known was still operated by the USN at this point).

The Japanese defenders of 136th Regiment had:

• Two heavy and eight lighter guns
• Bunkers and emplacements.
• Six assorted light tanks and tankettes
• Three twin 25mm antiaircraft guns
• Four platoons of thirty infantry each (with light machine guns, grenade launchers, and a few katanas)
• Two heavy machine gun teams
• Two mortar teams

Japanese armor.

The infantry elements - US left, Japanese right.

A selection of US vehicles...

A classic F4F, replaced as a fighter by the F6F by now
but kept on as a support plane. The Brits used them into 1945.

And, as usual, lovely terrain pieces. (and a few toy trees,
but they match pretty well.) Walls stand in for trenches.

Turn 1:

Our three "naval-bombardment" shots fell and satisfyingly destroyed two guns and one infantryman. There is a scatter rules, so it's easy enough to pick a crowded area and still hit something.

Then the Japanese big guns went on overwatch for when we brought our transports on the table towards the beach.

Then the Wildcat destroyed an AA gun position.

The US assault was split - not a smart move, but we were aiming to keep out of the arc of fire of the biggest gun and hoped to sweep around both flanks. The table was laid out in a manner calculated to allow vehicles to reach the beach in one turn, then cross it in another, IF they double-moved. So we could go in slowly, firing as we went, or race forward and ultimately have less fire thrown back at us. We chose speed, despite having a dozen .50 cals to work with.

I started as far left (north on the tabletop) as I could, but was still barely in the fire arc and lost one LVT when it hit the beach:

Jim thoughtfully had destroyed vehicles prepared,
all with damage to their port sides, so the hits had to
spin the victims around.

I was disconcerted to be reminded that that had been overwatch fire in my turn, so an immediate second shot was fired and took out another LVT:

Jim ran out of these destroyed models pretty quickly...

So far I'd lost seven of the twenty men in these vehicles, though I had one sergeant and all the heavy weapons still to plaster the trenches with.

Then I moved the gun LVTs - move/fire - to no effect, and in response Japanese infantry fired into my survivors, twice, and killed five more of them.

Mark then moved our third LVT platoon onto the beach, and got blasted by overwatch, losing two of the LVTs and half the infantry in them. Then Japanese infantry took their turn and plastered the survivors. Mark moved up our fourth platoon and lost another LVT, but at least all our infantry was now on the shore. As the Japanese moved up their tank reserves, Jim double-checked the rules and realised he'd gotten the modifiers wrong, so a sixth LVT was added to the dead pile. That was fully half our transports! And the infantry survivors not in vehicles would have to slog across a clear beach...

More wreckage at the waterline.

Turn's end, with splashes for
the shots that missed.

Turn 2:

Mark decided to drop our three fire support missions on the Japanese tanks. They scattered, but still did plenty of damage - three guns, a tank and a dozen infanty. Then the Wildcat came in again and killed two more tanks with its 100-pound bombs. The Navy was doing more work than the Marines so far.

Close-up on a target.

And another.

I moved our heavy LVTs up to the beach, but failed to shoot any of the tanks in sight. Mark moved his own surviving transports up the beach and disembarked the passengers - but that was his two actions, and they could not then assault the bunkers.

"We're right here next to the opening! Why don't our flamers work?"

Then Devon characterfully assaulted us instead. It just seemed the thing to do.

"Banzai!"

As the LCTs hit the beach with their loads of tanks and trucks, there was a second assault. Marines won both, wiping out an entire squad. Granted, the rolls were basic, adding up points and rolling that many dice, and since Mark's units were the engineers and got ten points for their flamers, two for the MGs, etc agains one for a rifle, it was clearly more of a point-blank firefight.

After a couple more assaults and an exchange of mortar fire, the Marines had a toehold up and off the beach.

I threw my two surviving LVTs forward - 
one a double move but out of LOS of the tanks,
the other a move and disembarkation.

Turn 3:

The Navy took out a couple more tanks, a mortar and a dozen Japanese infantry. In exchange the one remaining tank destroyed yet another LVT, but then it was the Marines' turn again.

I've started reading Storm of Steel. It seems apposite.

Wildcat dives on the mortar team.

Tanks handled by bazooka, the flamer teams deal with the bunker.

At this point, there were almost no Japanese left, and they were all in the southeast corner of the board (opposite to where I'd started. With nothing left to shoot at us, I double-moved all our vehicles and started picking up objective markers.

View from the left flank. Note
the lightning-fast Stuarts (42"!)

Turn 4:

All over bar a few high-explosive shells, which we dropped on the building now sheltering ten Japanese. Since it killed nine of them, the building was obviously kaput too, so Jim replaced it with a representative handful of scrap:

Standard still bravely waving over the ruins.

In Devon's turn, one fellow charged the Marines and was cut down. Then the F4F dealt with the last three, including the last AA gun (the AA guys simply did not earn their keep this game). 

Turn 5:

Game not quite over yet, as technically the Japanese were still posthumously winning by objective points! So we spent the rest of turns 4 and 5 double-moving vehicles and grabbing them for the news photographers (read: Jim and his phone camera with an ending monologue for the upcoming video).

In general, a good game and good people to play it with. This was not a "fair" scenario, but rather the sort where the goal for the Japanese isn't to win, but to see how long they can hold out and how much damage they can do in the process. And they did do a lot of damage! It's just that it was only in the first two turns. Amphibious landings aren't fun at all and I for one was very discouraged by the casualties, ready to throw in the towel when I realised how far we still had to go under fire. But the Japanese took enough casualties doing it that by the time we made it off the beach, there wasn't much left to stop us. Praise to Devon for being a willing opponent with a few tactical tips. An enjoyable game all round.

As usual, Jim should have a two-part video up in a couple weeks. Til next time.