Kerama Retto 1945

Well, the blog has got a little behind itself, this game was a couple of weeks ago. Myself and the actual Neil played a Pacific game using Battlefield Evolution World @ War. The American force I recently made becoming part of my official collection by being christened in blood.

We tried the Beach landing scenario from the Pacific book. Neil choosing to land his forces in two groups. Due to a lack of suitable models the boats Proxied LVT4's, armed with machine guns.

The Americans swarmed onto the beach in a manner suggesting they expected on light defences. How wrong they were...

Two Japanese machine guns opened up on the beach and cut down around a dozen men, other fire supported a spirited defence. The Americans were forced to run for cover, and as they did so, some fell victim to a Japanese bayonet attack.

The US attack stalled on the beach, taking more and more casualties, only the slow advance of the LVTs and the Sherman tank, along with the arrival of air support, allowed the Americans to clear enemy trenches and risk moving off the beach.

However by this point almost two thirds of their men had been killed, wounded or forced to flee.

Once again the Lunge Mines of the Japanese proved deadly in close terrain, ambushing one LVT to devastating effect; by comparison American attempts to destroy the local Japanese armour proved ineffectual. Anti tank grenades serving only to tear off the track guards they were clumsily placed on!

Numbers of automatic weapons began to swing in favour of the Americans, but nevertheless with only about ten men left in fighting condition out of a landing party of over 40, it was apparent the Americans could not hold the beach unsupported.

By comparison the Japanese were attempting to use their armour and artillery to destroy the remaining advantages of the Americans (unsuccessfully it must be said). In the end though it was clear from the scenario rules that the Americans had failed in their mission and that the Japanese were on this day at least, victorious.

Though one could sense the arrival off shore of a battleship to shore bombard the defenses and clear the way, was not far off...

As a scenario, it is heavily weighted in the defenders favour. The landing craft mean the attacker has a force of effectively 2000 points to the defenders 1500; but the defences given for free seem to more than compensate for this. Be warned, this would be a tough, or lucky win for any prospective attacking player!