After prolonged pause from our Combat Commander Pacific (CCP) campaign – we played Bayonets & Tomahawks and other games – me and Dave are back to our favorite way of spending board-gaming time! It was already 6th CCP scenario for us – so we are half-way through the scenario book. As always, the creation of the late Chad Jensen gave us a lot of fun and satisfaction as well as ability to appreciate how deep and elegant the design is! Let us see how it went!

Combat Commander Europe campaign:
#1 Fat Lipki
#2 Hedgroves and Hand Grenades
#3 Bonfire of the NKVD
#4 Closed for Renovation
#5 Cold Front
#6 Paralyzed from the West Down
#7 Bessarabian Nights
#8 Breakout dance
#9 Rush to contact
#10 Commando Schools
#11 Hold the Line
#12 Misty Mountain
Combat Commander Pacific campaign:
#A Grassy Knoll
#B Ambush at Mogaung
#C Ichiki Attacks
#D Operation Cherry Blossom
#E West Tank Barrier

#F Stalemate is a very straightforward attacker vs defender scenario – with the assaulting party having truly “uphill struggle” to overcome. It presents one of my favorite Pacific War campaigns – the Peleliu landings in September 1944 (which I have already played in Fields of Fire and D-Day at Peleliu). Scenario features last clashes of this battle – attack on Suicide Ridge. The 1st Regiment of 1st Marine Division (Dave, US, attacker posture) is tasked with attacking well-entrenched and well-camouflaged opponents (Michal, Japan, defender posture), hiding in well-camouflaged positions!

The defender has an option to put 4 caves on the map; the special rule also links all those via tunnels, allowing Japanese troops to move between them with Advance order. The attackers starts in the jungle which allows him to hide the assault preparations. Both sides also had pretty significant mortar presence plus spotters. Which would mean a lot of indirect fire and smoke!

You can click on every image and enlarge it for better visibility.

Set-up of our Scenario #F – I am starting to the right, with my Japanese units occupying caves plus mortars outside of the US Line of Sight. That would be interesting approach!
Dave started with decisive and aggressive move in the north. That was immediately met with concentrated fire of Machine Gun and two mortars. The effect was devastating – both leader and squad were killed.
The jungle gives protection against small arms fire. But is a true trap when artillery or mortars hits it with air burst. The poor spotter and another squad stood no chance.
But Dave was not deterred and continued attack pushing leaderless units in the north. They were constantly harassed by mortar and MG fire, falling in couple of wire traps and just when they approached the cave and victory point, they were broken and eliminated.
In the end the US mortars started to lay a massive wall of smoke – which enable the US troops to approach central mountain. Just when it seemed that they will be able to break through, Japanese units advanced into the melee with two ambushes and wiped out the enemy.
In the end the US forces were so depleted, without leaders and with dispersed units that we decided to finish the game. The ridge held.
Causalities from the scenario – this time only on the attackers side.

Summary

That was very frustrating scenario for Attackers. The defending Japanese seemed to have enough Fire orders to pin down and eliminate one after another the initial assaulting groups. The deep defense – as you can see above caves were placed rather in the middle and back of the ridge – proved to be great choice, keeping the US troops at distance. Only once huge amounts of smoke appeared the advance was possible – but then a melee counter-attack by defenders obliterated last hopes of successful attack.

More reports to come!