Pacific Armor, scenario #15: Escape from Lupao

This was kind of a surprising scenario, in that it didn’t playout how I thought it would this time around. The Japanese setup in their setup area, while the Americans try to make an encirclement, with the eastern edge a little heavier in units but to do this, they are pretty spread-out. The dice roll for LOS at night resulted in a one hex visibility, a huge benefit for the Japanese.

The Japanese don’t waste time and only leave a few less mobile units back in the entrenchments and hit the Americans thin lines with assaults, so the American then have to readjust their lines and chase Japanese and reinforce assaults and try to close up spaced in their lines. Most of the Japanese armor made it off the eastern edge of the map fulfilling one victory objective of steps exited and the Americans were trying to deny the second one of casualty differential but were behind, as the assaults weren’t going well and the Japanese were mostly avoiding combat to exit but for a couple assault hexes and one entrenchment. Very surprising to me, the Japanese won this casualty differential by on step, thus winning a major victory, not what I thought would happen. Next time, I will bulk up my American defenses into a smaller area and chase the edge rushers.

Side notes:

Of the eleven Japanese tanks that attempted to break through the lines of the American 35th Infantry that night, five made it to the foothills where they were found abandoned and much of the Japanese Infantry also melted away into the foothills east of town. The 35th Infantry secured Lupao that day without much opposition. The 2nd Tank Division lost 33 tanks, 26 truck and 3 75mm guns and equipment around Lupao, as well as 900 men killed, while the 35th Infantry lost 95 men killed and 270 wounded.