Saipan, scenario twenty: Rockets & Smoke

This is a real cave bluster scenario with the U.S. Marines searching out and controlling 3 out of 4 caves on the map, with enough Infantry, engineer units and other units such as the Mk-7 Rocket trucks from the 1st Provisional Rocket Detachment. Against them are some Japanese Infantry types with the only heavy asset being a 20mm gun and four caves to be placed anywhere in their setup area.

Saipan had numerous caves on the island and since AP wanted generic maps, my idea of cave counters was one of my better ones, not only because setup can be different each time for great replay value but they can be used again in the future on any map. With Saipan caves could have been anywhere, so this is ideal!

My attack with the Marines from the other map was dependent on the Japanese cave setup. As the Japanese I had to decide if I want to place them all together to support each other or spread them out, to spread out the Americans. I split the difference and place two on one hill and two more on another hill. This strategy didn’t work out so well for me, as the Marines achieved their goal of conquering three out of four caves within 18 turns of 24 with only losing 3 steps while the Japanese lost the scenario and 13 steps.

Next time, either setup the Japanese caves in four very different locations to really spread the Americans thin or bunch them all together to support each other and put the hurt on the Americans but not my strategy of groups of two, at least that one didn’t work for me. I did get a nice blast from those Mk7’s rolling a beautiful 12 against the Japanese position!