The invasion of Hawaii - fought in 6mm

 

Taunton, Somerset: 9th October 2008

 

The unbroken landscape - aerial recon from offshore

Terrain was very nice although I've got absolutely no idea what those funny hexagonal lines are that make it look weird...!

(you also get *loads* of cocked dice with these babies...)

 

 

Scenario: Amphibious Assault: Chinese forces = 5500 points, USMC = 2850 points

 

USMC had no armour or air availability - therefore it would be down to the dug-in and entrenched Jarheads, with some artillery & AA support, to repel the invading hordes.

 

USMC battlegroup:

CO, 2 x HQ, 2 x FAO

12 x USMC - all with Improved M72 LAW upgrade

3 x Javelin ATGW

3 x HMG

3 x Snipers (1 x .50 cal)

1 x M1097 Avenger AA (Hummer with Stingers on top - pic here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:M1097_Avenger_AA-System.jpg ) - used rules for Stinger 2 + truck (for mobility)

6 x 155mm Artillery

 

1 x Ambush

6 x HE Assets

18 x Trenches

3 x (dummy) Minefields

6 x Anti-tank ditches (which I forgot all about...)

 

2850 points, breakpoint = 10

 

Chinese battlegroup:

CO, 3 x HQ, 2 x FAO, FAC

4 x Recce Type 69

15 x Infantry (Regulars)

4 x Infantry upgrade (Type 89)

3 x Mortar (82mm, YW-304)

3 x Combat Engineers

8 x IFV (Type 86)

6 x Type 69 III MBT

6 x Type 80 MBT

3 x ATGW (HJ-8, Type 63)

1 x AA (ZSU-57-2)

3 x AA (SAM, HN-5)

3 x Artillery (Naval)

2 x Aircraft (Q-5 Fantan)

3 x Helicopter (Mi-8 Hip)

 

6 x HE Assets

2 x Smoke Assets

3 x Aircraft Ground Attack

3 x Aircraft Air Assault

 

5500 points, breakpoint = 29

 

Set-up: Having marked my assets onto the map & deployed my marked minefields (but forgetting all about the anti-tank ditches) Dean opened proceedings with some naval bombardment designed to act as recce & smoke out unit locations - which he was quite successful at, hitting & supppressing a number of Jarhead units in the edge of the woods by the town and on the ridge of the central hill.

 

A scheduled air assault also saw a load of Japanese (don't ask...) paratroopers (no, I don't know what they were doing in a helicopter either - you'll have to ask Dean...) establish themselves a third of the way up the table.

Dean also then made all his beach landings with no problems and then proceeded to march them out of the sand...while laying down a naval-sized swathe of smoke in the middle of the table

 

I should note here that Dean had paid for command upgrades throughout - this combined with the rigid tactical doctrine of the Chinese made them *very* reliable - almost a certainty of getting every formation doing at least the first two actions with no problems!

 

The frontline Jarheads opened up as the Chinese recce on the right flank encroached on their trenches - a rapid exchange of fire at close range saw the Marines reduced to a single unit, although they did manage to cause some damage themselves. (nb - that's a well-marked minefield that is)

Early scheduled artillery from the USMC was disappointing really - didn't manage to effect any significant damage and no suppression of *anything* meant that there was no disruption to the early advance of the Chinese hordes. This was problematic for the USMC as the battle plan was geared to a stalling action - keep them held up & pop away with ATGW at as long a range as possible...this simply didn't happen!

 

I need to send the three snipers back to sniper school as well - absolutely dismal dice-rolling on my part...I think they must have sneezed *every* time they pulled the trigger!

 

Anyway - early game ended up looking like this - beach-head established & hordes of Chinese ready to rampage through the lush Hawaiian landscape. Hula girls head for the hills at this point.

 

 

 

Time for the USMC FAOs to put in an appearance and see if they could have some impact & slow this lot down a bit...that's the FAO on top of the dormant volcano, looking down on a target-rich environment

 

 

Unfortunately the gunners continued to miss the proverbial shovel with the barn door (think about it) - with the advance continuing largely unchecked

 

 

 

More armour rolling, rolling, rolling...

 

 

 

My .50 cal sniper finally got his come-uppance - I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this tank could have got up this hill ;-)

 

 

By this point, with the hordes engaged in close-quarter firefights & knocking out the Marines with the weight of fire, the USMC CO called it off - he passed a breakpoint test on -3 but time was against us...the Jarheads disengaged and performed a fighting withdrawal to the waiting boats - to get further inland up-river and regroup to fight another day...

 

Endgame looked like this:

 

 

 

All this by the end of Turn 4 - of a potential 12-turn game!

 

A good battle as always - casualty count:

 

USMC:

9 x infantry

3 x snipers

2 x HMG

2 x Javelin

 

Chinese:

6 x Japanese Paratroopers

2 x Type 69 Recce units

6 x Type 69 III MBT

 

So - in fact, I knocked out more armour than Dean in this battle :-)