This is a good small battle to work with caves, jungle and hills. Japanese have 3 caves and an entrenchment, anyone not in one of those can be dug in. For me, everyone was in one of those 4 places. Marines come in from the west and need to take 3 of the 4 places, casualties aren't an issue but historically they were light for the Marines. I ran the Marine M4 down the road and the Marines split into 4 groups, with two big groups going north and south of the hill masses to assault the entrenchment on the north end and a cave on the south end of the Japanese defenses while the tank, two platoons with an LT and the two mortars went up the middle, with the mortars finding a hilltop that they could engage the entrenchment from. The Marine mortars got one round of ineffective fire before the assaults began, and became spectators after that. Marines assaulted the entrenchment and cave on the north side of the valley and more Marines assaulted the southernmost cave on the south side. Japanese die rolls did some damage, but not as much as the Marines did, and after 8 turns of assaults, the Marines took the 3 needed targets, with a few demoralized Japanese reduced platoons and leaders limping away. The 4th hex, a cave where the Japanese Major and Sergeant sat with 2 more infantry platoons, was never engaged and wasn't necessary for victory. An interesting scenario, and another one I look forward to playing face to face someday.

Marianas 1944, scenario #21: The Last Fight for Fonte

This only has 14 turns for the Americans to take 3 out of 4 cave and entrenchment counters and with not the largest of forces on either side. The Japanese player set two objectives on the eastern hill and two behind it. The Americans were able to take three of the objectives for the victory but not until the last turn and needed their FLM unit to achieve this. Without it, I doubt the American would have won, so take special care of your FLM/ENG unit in this scenario. The Japanese should have spread-out those four victory objectives in four different places and the Marines would not have had the time to concentrate enough forces to take even two objectives in 14 turns. Next time I’ll try this strategy.