Clash at the Creek – Burma, 1944

To conclude our three-game run of Chain of Command in the Far East, Gareth and I played a round of the Attack on an Objective, which would give both of us the full run of our support options. We had a slightly later start than usual, and Gareth was unfortunately a bit drowsy while recovering fro some health issues, so (spoiler alert) we concluded a bit early before the decisive result.

For this scenario, the attacker and defender roll separately, with the attacker getting 1D6+10 and the defender 1D6+5 points. Gareth rolled a 4 and I rolled a 5, and with rating adjustments that meant the Japanese would get 14 points of support and the Indians 11. Making full use of his budget and possible options, Gareth went for a Type 94 tankette (3), a flamethrower team (3), a Red Die (2), a Ruse (2), and a mortar barrage (4) (I'd actually made a mistake when giving him his support list and it ought to have been 4 points, but he spent 1 point on an SMG he then forgot about so it all came out the same.) I had assumed he might bring in some heavier armour, so I went for a 6-pounder (5) and an entrenchment for it (1), an MMG (3), and a minefield (2).

The Game

The situation at the end of the Patrol Phase. Placing the minefield in the middle helped cover the inside flank of my rightmost position and essentially split Gareth's possible axis of advance down the middle. I was reasonably sure he'd push forward into the rice paddies, but what I wasn't sure about was where the actual attack would come in: on the one hand, it might make sense for him to forge straight ahead against my right, taking advantage of the open ground to move quickly with support from any armour he might have. On the other hand, I had quite an open left flank and I could see him trying to isolate the hut and then move along the road to attack what was essentially the rear of my position.

It seemed like Plan A was in motion: Gareth had gone for the old reliable Type 94 to cover his left, while bringing out infantry in the centre and the right. Little did I know that this was not Gareth's plan.

In no small part because I'm not sure he knew either. For whatever reason he decided it was vital to clear the minefield, and that it was better for the unit doing it to be in front of the one providing its covering fire, and to bring his flamethrower out before he had anyone in the area to cover their movement.

As the Japanese infantry worked out what on earth they were doing, I used a CoC die to ambush with my 6-pounder, to suitably fatal effect (though it is worth noting that Japanese tankettes are both small and low-profile, so I needed to roll a 7 on 2D6 rather than the usual 5. While 7 AP against 2 armour is basically fatal, smaller vehicles like this can lean on luck a bit more than their heavier counterparts.)

Still, Gareth's losses and positional errors weren't all fatal. The simple fact was that I'd spent over half of my support points countering less than a quarter of his, and Japanese platoons are big things with a lot of men in them. While I could bring out an infantry section to start laying down fire on his leading troops, Gareth could still concentrate a lot of force against my rightmost point, especially as the hut containing the objective only had one window looking out over the main Japanese approach. Considering the threat posed by the as yet undeployed Japanese knee mortars, I was wary of deploying anything there unless absolutely necessary, as any sort of high explosive attack would quite literally demolish it.

The good news was that fire from various sources was chewing up the Japanese, whose advance had become a bit of a piecemeal affair. The bad news was that Gareth revealed his last support choice, a mortar barrage. While his initial ranging shot veered off course, I now knew that my position on the right was in real danger.

And so it began. The bombardment would give Gareth some reprieve by allowing him to bring out his remaining infantry and also get his Senior Leaders to where they could start rallying off some of the Shock his men had accumulated. 

By the end of it, my infantry section on the left was down to just two submachine gunners and their Naik (corporal), and I'd lost a gunner and taken 6 shock on the AT gun, ensuring it would remain Pinned after the barrage was over. There was, however, one slight silver lining: Gareth had rolled a double phase, which meant that the effects of the barrage would clear at the end of his phase rather than mine.

In the meantime, my machine gun revealed itself on the left and scored a tremendously underwhelming two hits, but then Gareth managed to roll sixes for effect on both of them, losing two men from that section.

Although it had moved up in preparation to attack across to the AT gun, Gareth's left section found itself under fire from a fresh section of Indian troops, who inflicted enough shock to pin it, while the Bren inflicted some shock on the section now closing on its flank.

Nevertheless, things could go both ways. Gareth had brought out his grenade dischargers who had ranged in on my MG team, and I would have to either abandon that position or let it get bombed to oblivion. My losses had already taken my initial morale of 9 down to 7 while Gareth had only gone from 11 to 9, and he was coming in with another fresh infantry section as well as potentially being able to rally the shock his flamethrower had taken when I decided to fire some HE at it earlier.

True enough, the Japanese sergeant managed to use his one-off ability to take 5 shock off the lead section, and if Gareth wanted to trigger an end-of-turn he would be able to unpin his section while my AT gun would remain disadvantaged. It was at this juncture that, back over by the paddy, Gareth ordered another of his famous Banzai charges.

And, true to form, he managed five hits on ten dice, while I managed just five hits of my own despite rolling twenty-one.

That said, there is a fairly meaningful difference between four kills and one shock and four shock and one kill, even if in my case that kill was actually a wound on my Havildar (sergeant) that dropped my force morale again to 6.

On the second round, I scored eight hits against just one for the Japanese, wiping out the section. In our assessment, while the rules seemed to suggest the lone officer would flee back into the paddy fields, he took the honourable way out. Japanese morale had gone down to 7 with the loss of the section, although we decided that letting the officer die with honour rather than live in shame warranted not taking a morale check for him.

That said, regardless of whether the officer in fact lived or not, we'd hit our limit for the evening and called it a winning draw for the Allies.

As we wrapped up, we talked through our respective chances of success. In my view at least, it could still swing both ways: the simple fact was the Japanese had two fresh infantry sections in the field and the Indians were at serious risk of losing two more support units, which meant between 3 and 6 morale at risk between the weapons themselves and the junior leader on the gun. The Japanese were at some risk of losing their lead infantry section and possibly their sergeant in the process, but given the number of variables they could come out with their force morale still in decent condition. Nevertheless, having expended most of their supports and with the Indians still having some reserves, I can see why Gareth thought he probably couldn't make another attack successfully.

Lessons Learned:

This game and the last have really impressed upon me how decisive close combat is. To be frank, my dice rolling was utterly disastrous throughout, but for that reason both rolls this time were utterly nerve-wracking. But it's also got me thinking a bit about how the second edition of CoC has given quite a few more modifiers in favour of the defender that the attacker really needs to negate before closing in.

Plans for next week are up in the air but I'm sure there'll be something.