This week, I found myself playing Bryan Register in ASL 72 Sea Of Tranquility. Trips to Bryan's place are always fun. He's got crazy cats, a zany sense of humor, and an appreciation for the history behind the game that we ASLers often forget. Last week marked the 59th anniversary of the battle the scenario is based on, and we spent a little time locating the island and establishing the larger context of the operation. It made the action in our game a little more meaningful. With that, on to the AAR:

Sea Of Tranquility takes place largely on the moonscape board 25, with 7 Japanese 4-4-8s, 6 crews, assorted SWs and guns hunkered down in 14 caves and 2 pillboxes. The luckless Marines who have to dig the Japanese out consist of 12 7-6-8s, a 10-3, 9-2, 4 Shermans, and 20(!) assorted SWs. Their job is to destroy or capture 7 caves in 10.5 turns or capture level four locations on both hills. As can be seen, the Marines have overwhelming strength, and the Japanese are simply playing for time.

With this in mind, the Japanese opted to set up a small five cave complex on the southern Hill 758, while the bulk of the defense was concentrated on the northern Hill 766. The pillboxes and one cave would be hidden in the jungle to the east to offer flanking fire on both hills.

The strength of this set-up is that Marines entering from the south would have to climb Hill 758, take out all the caves, and still tackle the meat of the defense to win. Entering from the east would put them closer to the VC, but would also expose them to a withering Japanese crossfire from both cave complexes. To complicate things, the Marine decision on where to enter had to be made without a single counter on the map as everything starts HIP...

Un-nerved by the sight of a blank board 25, the Marines chose the conservative southern entry. Taking advantage of G17.11, they deployed all but two squads to give the Japanese as many targets as possible. After all, the 3-4-8 Marine HS compares quite nicely to the Japanese 4-4-8 squad. It also meant that most Marines would only have to carry one SW as opposed to two or even three!

Thus, the game started with a tidal wave of Marine HSs pouring onto the south side of Hill 759. Japanese return fire was non-existent, and the tough terrain was the only real problem. The most exciting moment was a Sherman Improbable CH on an empty cave. Over the next two turns, Marines swarmed over the hill, revealing almost all of the 14 Japanese caves in the process.

At this point, hardly any shots had been fired, but the Marines had discovered most of the Japanese defenses and had them under observation. This was key, as it forced any Japanese troops moving into the caves to be placed on-board concealed, rather than being able to move and retain their HIP. We were now set for the second act, the attempted destruction of the cave complex on Hill 758.

The Marines were well prepared for this, with a 30 FP kill stack led by a 10-3, 3 FTs, and 9 DCs. The idea is to empty out a cave with the overwhelming FP and then place a DC on it. When the DC explodes in AFPh, a Final KIA destroys the cave. Since the DC gets a -4 DRM for the cave being empty, a 9 or less will seal the cave for good. Of course, the 8ML, step reducing Japanese are trying their best to ensure the cave is -not- empty, which makes for a very interesting face-off.

At this point, just to make things a little more interesting, a Heavy Breeze kicked up, stripping the Marines of any smoke protection. The Japanese took full advantage of this, breaking several FT/DC teams and flaming a Sherman with a rear shot from a 47L AT gun. The Marine 10-3 stack was doing lots of damage, though, and the Marines were able to shut several caves. This, of course, weakened the positions of the remaining caves, as the mutually supporting positions were slowly stripped away.

This sort of action continued over the next several turns, with the Japanese and Marines taking roughly equal casualties. Another Sherman was converted to scrap heap by a Tank Hunter Hero, while the Marines cleaned all of Hill 758 save for a cave in Z5 containing a 75mm gun. The Japanese positions on the northern Hill 766 were keeping up a steady fire, but the Marine 10-3 stack was more than holding its own, clearing out the pillboxes and isolated caves in the jungle to the east.

By turn 6, the battle of attrition had begun to swing in the favor of the attackers with the usual flipping of the Japanese vs. the breaking and rallying of the Marines coming into play. At the same time, the Japanese ploy of using Hill 758 as a delaying trip wire had worked well. Half the game was over, the majority of the Japanese defenses were still intact, and the Z5 75mm gun cave was causing the Marines major problems. It was time for the next act.

Things started off poorly for the Japanese when the wind died back down to a Mild Breeze, allowing smoke to be placed on the board again. Things only got worse when a Sherman and FT team ended up adjacent to the Z5 cave. In Prep Fire, the 75mm gun fired Point Blank and Double Acquired on the ITT into the hex. When the FT team laughed off the resulting 24-1 CH, the Japanese IF'ed and boxcarred the gun. The FT then rolled a 3 on its 24+0 DFPh attack, ending the gun's reign of terror.

That really freed up the Marines to attack Hill 766. Aided by plenty of smoke from the remaining two Shermans, FT and DC teams again pushed forwards. Amusingly, it was at this stage in the game that the Marines first used their inherent FP on the IFT. Before turn 8, all the IFT damage had been by the FTs and the 10-3 stack. Neither Bryan nor I had ever seen anything like it. The Marines have enough FP to get away with it though, as the Japanese were down to roughly 2 squads and a crew at this point. Although the Marines had lost four squads as well, they were able to smoke in the remaining Japanese and blast shut enough caves for the win.

In the post-mortem discussion, we decided that the Japanese were hurt by setting up the isolated caves. Away from a cave complex, the Japanese can't skulk and can't send new units into the cave. This lets the Marines capture the cave simply by walking past it, rather than forcing them to use a DC on it to be 100% sure its out of the game. Over in the main complexes, the Japanese also had a few opportunities to skulk that they passed on, which also came back to hurt them. Fire discipline is one of the toughest tasks for the Japanese in this one.

It was an interesting scenario, and a very good one for learning to play with caves, but it came up a little short in the fun area. I'm not a huge fan of scenarios where one side gets an overwhelming force and the other side gets the VC equivalent of "keep any unit alive somewhere in the VC area" and that's the category most cave scenarios seem to fall into. I personally prefer more even forces where both sides can really hurt the other and so caves don't appeal to me quite as much.

Having said that, I do think that cave scenarios have a very good historic feel. The Marines really have to follow a checklist of "locate, suppress, destroy" with specialized teams that felt very historical. Meanwhile, the Japanese mindset of "I'm helpless to stop them, but I can slow them and just maybe take one of them with me" also comes through very well.

Finally, the cave rules aren't nearly as complicated as rumor would have it, so if you are interested in trying them, don't get scared away. The cave scenarios may not be as fun as pushing panzers, but they really put you in the historic mindset. Moving the counters around with Bryan made me feel much closer to the men doing the actual fighting in the Pacific fifty-nine years ago.

Zeb