Pacific Armor, scenario #6: Morning in San Manuel

This scenario played out differently than I thought it would. In the previous San Manuel scenario the Japanese defended in three major areas in this scenario the Japanese only have the town hexes on the eastern side of the maps to defend as the town hexes on the western side already fall into the American’s perimeter, from the previous days of fighting. So now the Japanese can concentrate on defending in only two areas that are almost close enough to support each other. The Ignore 60 & 80 meter elevations should say map 82 not map 83.

The Americans have two combat groups, as the 2nd Battalion is on map 100 while the 1st & 3rd Battalions start on the western side on maps 83 & 82. The Americans believe their forces are strong enough with off board artillery support to attack both town area simultaneously but didn’t count on such strong dug-in and entrenched Japanese forces. I thought this battle would be more about the armor but it turned into more about the Infantry and heavy support weapons. Sure, both sides lost some armor and the Americans got too involved in assault combat too early and didn’t wear the Japanese down enough.

The American only controlled two entrenchment counters and weakly contested two others when I decided they had enough and would have to regroup for another day of fighting, like historically. They were on the edge of the town hexes but controlled none, they to my surprise had lost 27 steps and 4 leaders to the Japanese loses of only 15 steps and 3 leaders. Many of the American Infantry were disputed, demoralized or half step units, my FLM Engineer unit was gone and my normal Engineer unit was a half-step demoralized unit, both critical in assaults. I maybe could have regrouped and maybe conquered two more entrenchments but the Americans still would have lost this scenario.

In hindsight, the Americans made two major mistakes, attacking two Japanese groups at the same time instead of concentrating with force one group at a time. The other mistake was pulling adjacent to town embedded, entrenched & dug-in Japanese units before wearing them down enough to close with them. Impatience doesn’t pay off in these type of scenarios. The Japanese on the other hand rolled well on the dice, protected their armor well, setup in prime defensive locations and had some good luck in assaults.

A fun scenario, that when I played it again, I will do better as the Americans. At this point in the actual battle, Japanese Brigadier General Shigemi was killed in battle leading an armor counterattack. Kind of neat to have and actually Japanese General counter in this scenario.