Quote:
Originally Posted by Ts4EVER
I rarely play scenarios in the pacific theatre because fighting the japanese is extremely frustrating at times. Often it comes down to endless slugfests with little in the way of maneuvre.
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Really. In a just-completed British LC delay scenario I decided to take a break from North Africa to see what Japanese troops were like during their flood tide of conquest.
It was April 1942 in Burma. My forces were mostly elite or high veteran and I expected a cakewalk. Set up most maneuver elements forward, with tanks and MGs waiting to catch enemy forces advancing through grass, with infantry in depressions, reverse slopes or trees to bushwhack any units that made it through the kill zones.
While their tanks were laughably easy to deal with, they had plenty of artillery and air. Jungle grass interfered with LOS on infantry advancing in the open as they just kept coming. It seemed they had special toughness and spotting abilities; when they got close to my infantry they'd move, occasionally take casualties and return fire from pinned status with seemingly uncanny accuracy. Meanwhile my guys wasted so much ammo with such little result that many ran out of HE before the battle was two-thirds over (there were fifty-one turns in all).
To make a long story short my forces lost about two of three companies of infantry, all six MGs, and two of four ATGs doing emergency rifle duty (they actually killed several depleted infantry units and a marksman before going under). A single Valentine rushed forward from reserve managed to hold off a gaggle of them with help from scouts and shrunken infantry squads but a breakthrough in another sector yielded several objectives, enough to allow the Sons of Nippon to suffer only a marginal loss.
While Andy says only Japanese experience and morale are affected the battle results screen for Player 2 displayed just fairly good
numbers, averaging maybe 75-80 for both. Apparently there are hidden variables which account for their potency and persistence in the face of supposedly overwhelming firepower (including repeated whacks from single 60-pounder and 4.5-inch batteries).
Needless to say survivors of this bloodbath are taking the next transport back to North Africa. They'll take SS fanatics over Japanese Supermen any day. Cheers!