Long Campaign - Japanese

[PatG]

Battle 8
1933
China Hills
Chinese Communist
Delay

I'm going to update this one post as I go along.

The Battalion Intelligence officer reveals that the Chinese will outnumber me about 4 to 1 in bodies on the ground. Specialist anti-armour troops have been raised on the Chinese side but should be readily identifiable by their new uniforms (PLA grenadiers vs grenadiers). He also tells me that recently captured documents show that Chinese platoon commanders usually command one of the rifle sections so any rifle group I see has a 50-50 chance of being the command group. Further, company commanders have an attached cavalry group for communication and local recce so an infantry group next to a horse is also good target. All of this I will pass on to my sniper groups.

A section has just returned from advanced sniper training so I now have four two man groups to deploy.

For my core forces, I exchanged the 37mms for AAMG after the last battle. The So-Mos have been swapped out for type 92 tankettes with 6.5 TMGs and 13.2 BMG they are as fast as the So-Mo and while not as well armoured, are much smaller and more flexibly armed. I have added a 150mm type 89 platoon for counter battery. It is my intent that the type 89s represent air power suppressing the Chinese batteries. I will have to resist the temptation to use them against ground troops.

The terrain is quite rough with multiple rows of hills running north-south. There is a crest line just forward of my setup line with a valley behind then a crescent of 3 high hills - the open end facing towards the enemy. The victory hexes are scattered over the north and south arms - all are weighted the same.

For support I purchased four groups of four marksman to act as small patrols and an Aichi recce bird.

The Plan:
My artillery will set up behind the crest of the hill at the base of the crescent. Well away from any VHs they should be clear of any artillery until they open up. A pair of mortars and the AAMGs have been positioned to fire into the crescent proper. Two groups of marksman are set up in the mouth of the crescent in mutually supporting positions and with cover they can retreat into if needed. The other two sniper groups start on on the deployment line crest and will advance over the central ridge onto the forward slope. The intent is that the marksman will slowly give way delaying the Chinese advance.

The main body lead by all my armour will advance along the southern flank. I will crush the Chinese right wing then roll up his lines by advancing north flanking the Chinese advance. My new sniper groups will provide flank support and engage high value targets. As always the bosozuko in their new tin cans will go looking for tubes to squash.

I hate mud. With the armour leading, my gunjin headed up the south flank. The marksman groups also pushed forward and took up fire positions. A massive Chinese bombardment fell on the empty VHs. By turn 5 the tell-tale lines of screening smoke appeared - with my marksman groups on the enemies side .

For the next 5 turns, the main force picked its way forward unopposed. The Aichi spotter bird picked up a few infantry and quite a few armoured trucks and a couple of borrowed Russian amphib tanks - so much for the encyclopedia test saying the Chi-Coms didn't have armour - they have more than I do! My marksman began to engage scouting elements - taking no more than three shots then pulling back.

Around turn 10, my main force ran into the first opposition in the south. About halfway across the board, the tanks shot up some cavalry. The flanking sniper groups saw a few infantry toward board centre and began suppression operations.

By turn 20, it was obvious I was going to be crushed - again. Faced with the usual mass of infantry, my attack stalled and began to be enveloped. A couple of snipers shot off their basic load and had to pull back. The Chinese artillery didn't get into the game but got enough rounds on target to be annoying. I used smoke and area fire extensively which proved moderately effective but still the Chinese waves crashed against my lines. Up north the marksman were performing very well, stalling the whole Chinese attack with minimal losses to themselves.

So again I flipped to auto-pilot. The Chinese were a solid bar of yellow 2-300 metres deep except for a small strip along the north edge. Multiple gun positions were scattered across his rear area like cherry blossoms in Spring.

At his point, I was not having fun and not learning anything so I terminated the game.