A Short, Sharp Shock – Burma, 1944 (again)

After a couple of weeks of work-related obstructions, Gareth and I were able to resume our usual Tuesday gaming night and did another run of Chain of Command. This time we'd do Mission 4: Delaying Action. The defender (once again, my Indians) has an objective in their half of the table, and whoever holds it at game end wins. Unlike most scenarios where the final countdown can only be triggered if the attacker has taken an objective, in this one the defender can start the clock if two turns have elapsed. In addition, the objective counts as a jump-off point.

Gareth had rolled modestly for support, getting a total of 9 points which he spent on an adjutant, an SMG, a ruse, a tankette, and a sniper. I got half his total rounded down, plus 1 for platoon rating adjustment, and spent my 5 points on a machine gun and an extra mortar.

The Game

Jump-Off Points and Objectives: Gareth had got quite a concentrated position and would be able to converge quite effectively on my left flank. In retrospect I perhaps should have placed my JOP further back and refused that flank more.

For his opening moves, Gareth brought out all his rifle sections and his tankette, clearly choosing a shock and awe approach.

A poor command roll on my part gave Gareth a free hand to rush his forces towards my left, covered by machine gun fire from his tankette.

Fortunately for me, I'd banked up enough CoC points to ambush his incoming forces with my MMG team at the start of a double phase, who started inflicting heavy losses and shock on his left section.

I then brought out my own infantry who immediately unloaded into his middle section to decent though not decisive effect.

Combined with another round of machine gun fire, things were looking shaky for the Japanese main attack. Was the battle over right as it was getting started?

Well, now came the Ruse in the form of a Banzai charge. Before his men set forth on their do-or-die mission, Gareth used all of the orders he had available, rallying most of his Shock with his sergeant and hurling grenades all over the place.

On his right, one of his grenades caught one of my MG crew, but much like my last game with James, his other one was fumbled right at the feet of the man throwing it, to similarly unfortunate effect. This now meant a close combat with him rolling just 4 dice against my 9, after all modifiers were accounted for.

Having scored exactly zero hits to Gareth's one, I lost the combat and the machine gun, and the crew dispersed. Oh dear.

Triumphant Japanese infantry after overrunning the Indian MG post

Still, we had the combat in the centre. Gareth's grenades had cost me another two men and wounded my corporal, but that still left me with 13 dice against his 9... and we drew. With Gareth no longer penalised for attacking cover while I was no longer getting a bonus for defending with an LMG, the numbers reversed, and I scored a single hit against his five.

The remainder of the section fled in terror from the Japanese bayonets.

The one small mercy for the Allies was that the sole casualty I inflicted during the charge happened to be the Japanese sergeant, killed in action during his moment of glory.

The situation after the charge.

After giving it a moment's thought I decided the game was all but unwinnable at this point. Although the loss of his sergeant would complicate the situation on his right, Gareth still basically had all of his manoeuvre elements in the field, while all I really had left were the objective and the forward position on the right, and both were going to be under fire from all directions now. I had lost two of my four sources of small-arms fire, there was nowhere to put my PIAT to threaten the tankette, and I was also down to 6 morale from my starting 10, while the Japanese were still at 8. At this stage it seemed appropriate to sound the retreat.

We'll probably do one more game of CoC before switching over to something else. Perhaps the Allies can score a win next time?