The Philippines, Fight #3

All,

It's 2130 on 20 December 1941, and following its ass-whoopin' at Horseshoe Ridge, 1st Platoon is moving Back up the slopes under the cover of darkness to recover its casualties.

Sgt Carlson: "Alright, here's what we're gonna do.  We're gonna wait 'til it's nice and dark, then we're gonna go get our men.  We'll set the gun and Cpl Duncan's mortar into the same exact positions, and I'll take 2nd Squad up the ridge.  1st Squad stands by down below, just in case.  We go up, grab our guys, then get the hell outta dodge.  If any shootin' starts, I want the mortar and MG to open up.  I want a wall of fire between the eastern side of the ridge and the west, keep the Japs from getting at us."

With that, the Marines of 1st Platoon moved into their start positions, ready to jump off.

The full table is still set up, but this is the contested area we'll be dealing with for this fight, east eastern slope of Horseshoe Ridge.  North is to top right, and you can see the Marine casualties lying in the open at center top left.  It's night time, but apparently the moon is pretty bright ;)

The opposing forces, with Japanese on the left and Marines on the right.  Don't worry, it's not as unbalanced as it looks, some of the Marines are just for decoration.

The Marines: the actual fighting force will the Platoon Sergeant (bottom center), Sgt Carlson, and the six Marines of 2nd Squad (right).  As a figure, Sgt Carlson is carrying a .45-caliber pistol, but for the game he's carrying a Tommy Gun (I have plenty of Tommy Gun figures, I just wanted his pose to stand out).

The MG and mortar teams are for decoration, scenario fodder.  The Marine fighting force is just seven men with Tommy Guns, a BAR, and Springfield 03s.

The Japanese force, a five-man outpost atop Horseshoe Ridge, all armed with Arisaka rifles.

For this smaller game, the boy and I are still playing co-op, but this time we're using an old favorite, Ivan's "Five Men in Normandy."  For the larger fights we'll stick with No End in Sight, for smaller ones 5MIN.  What I'm starting to worry about, though, is that soon we may not have enough Marines left to play NEIS, we'll be stuck with 5MIN!!!

The Marines cross the line of departure and move into position; on the left, PFC Brown's MG team (top left) and Cpl Duncan's mortar team (bottom right) occupy the same positions they'd used during the fight earlier in the day.  While not great operational practice, Sgt Carlson liked the idea as the crews were familiar with the area and already had the engagement area 'registered' from the earlier fight, a huge advantage in fighting at night.

Sgt Carlson leads 2nd Squad up to the line of departure.

Seven Marines, faces blackened, lightened load, gear taped down to avoid excessive noise.

The objective, the five Marine casualties lying on the slope of Horseshoe Ridge (top left).  At center you can see a small, five-man outpost occupied by Japanese riflemen.

Sgt Carlson and 2nd Squad cross the LOD, creeping forward in the cool night air (top left).

They fan out, coming on line.

Then begin silently making the climb (far right to bottom left, with Japanese at top center).

The Marines inch closer (bottom center to top left, Japanese at top right, Marine casualties at center top).

Sgt Carlson, halts (bottom left), having heard something.  Was it the enemy, or one of our men???  A head pops up.  From out of the darkness, Sgt Carlson hears a familiar voice, croaking from dehydration: "it's the Japs, Cody (Carlson), they're close."

Sgt Carlson: "Sir, is that you?"  A bit further up, he spots two shadows, then hears something in a foreign tongue...

"Open fire!!!"  Sgt Carlson (bottom left) cuts loose his Thompson submachine gun, .45 slugs tearing towards their target (top center).

Sgt Carlson's fire drops one enemy soldier (top left) and suppresses another (red bead at bottom right).

*Yeah, I got sick of not having casualty markers for the enemy, so, until I get my Peter Pig Japanese casualty markers I'm using Peter Pig Viet Cong...

Back in the southeast, PFC Brown (MG team, left) and Cpl Duncan (mortar team, bottom center), hear the gunfire and do their job, they offset west of the eastern slope and begin pouring mortar and machine gun fire onto the west end of the ridge, looking to keep any Japanese there from reinforcing the outpost on the east end so that Sgt Carlson and 2nd Squad can get the wounded and get off the hill.

Sgt Carlson continues moving up the slope, but a Japanese on the left (bottom left) spots him (center top right, with two Marines visible beyond him at top center) spots him and fires.  The Japanese rifle round sails by harmlessly.

PFC Harris, 2nd Squad's automatic rifleman (far right, the center figure of the three Marines) gets a glimpse of the enemy soldier (far top left) that shot at Sgt Carlson (top center left).  He levels his BAR and looses a burst.

Another Japanese soldier goes down (center left), but as Pvt Harris dashes uphill (top right), another Japanese soldier (bottom left) opens fire, suppressing him.

On the Marine right, Privates Rozier (center) and Eaton (bottom left) move up, passing Sgt Carlson (far left, Harris suppressed at top left) and nearing a suppressed Japanese (red bead at center right).  But the Japanese rifleman at top right...

Spots Rozier (top left) and fires over his suppressed comrade.  He misses Rozier, but the reminder that a friend is nearby was enough to rally the Japanese soldier at center.

But Rozier (bottom left) takes a knee and returns fire, putting his assailant out of the fight (top right; I hadn't taken the red bead off the Japanese guy that just self rallied at center).

The Japanese are now down to two men, one on the right, one on the left.

Over on the right, the Japanese rifleman there (bottom left, with Harris suppressed at right) doesn't have a great shot, but he pops a round at Sgt Carlson (top left), suppressing him.

A sudden lull in the fighting allows the Marines to move up.  PFC Pinkett moves up to Harris (top right) and rallies him, while Allen (center) and Cpl Dishman (bottom left) move up as well.  Sgt Carlson (red bead at bottom right) successfully self rallies.

But then we get just a little too froggy...

Cpl Dishman (far left) and Sgt Carlson (just to his right) look on as Eaton moves up to the crest (top center).  Meanwhile, Rozier (center) has his eye on a nearby Japanese (far right).

Being from Georgia, Private Rozier lets out a 'Rebel Yell' and charges!

But the Japanese infantryman (bottom left), a veteran of Manchuria, is not impressed, and calmly bayonets the young, flailing American (casualty figure at his feet).

And now the tables are turned.  With all the Bushido/Samurai resolve he can muster, angered by watching his friend shot...

The Japanese soldier leaves Rozier's prostrate body (bottom right) and charges Eaton (center), while Sgt Carlson (top left), who can't quite see, but hears a commotion, wonders what the hell is going on.

The Japanese soldier plunges his bayonet into Eaton, thinking, 'wow, this is easier than I thought.'

The Japanese soldier then turns on Sgt Carlson; the enemy rifleman charges again!  Sgt Carlson fires his Tommy Gun, but it jams!  He fumbles for his .45 caliber pistol...

But the Japanese soldier is on top of him!

The Japanese soldier bayonets the Platoon Sergeant!!!  Having downed three Americans in quick succession, the enemy soldier turns to pick and choose his next victim, but all the Marines saw Sgt Carlson go down, and they open fire!

The berserker goes down (white bead at center top).  Not dead, just down.  And yeah, I cheated a bit.  We should have had 1D6 in defensive fire, but I used three as 1) we had so many guys sitting there, watching this, and 2) this is a damn campaign, and I have to stop this a$$hole before he kills my whole damn platoon!

So, the fanatic is down, and can only get back in the fight via a friend coming up and checking on him.  The last remaining Japanese soldier in the fight (far left) looks on, thinking 'this is going to be quite a challenge.'

He fires at Pinkett and Harris, then takes off at a sprint, hoping to reach his comrade (center top left)...

But his rounds miss, and as he dashes to his friend (center), the Marines open fire with everything they have.

Dropping him (bottom right).  I placed a casualty marker for him and the other guy, as now that the only Japanese guy in the fight is dead, he is too since no one can bring him back.

The remaining Marines of 2nd Squad set up a hasty 180 degree perimeter (right), and the MG and mortar keep pounding the west end of the ridge, while 1st Squad comes up the slope to help with the casualties (top left)

The eight able-bodied Marines each grab a casualty and either help him down the slope, or carry him down the slope.

The mortar and MG (bottom left/center) keep pouring it on, covering the withdrawal of their buddies.

As 1st and 2nd Squads hustle down off the ridge.

Good grief, that got out of hand fast!  Here I'm thinking Rozier will dash up there and put this to bed, but he gets whooped, then the enemy fella goes and drops two more Marines after that!  A cool, quick fight, accomplished the mission, though more casualties then I'd hoped for.  Refreshing to play a quick one after the two monsters previously (each took about 3 1/2 hours).  I rolled up to see how the casualties from this fight fared:

Sgt Carlson, WIA, out of action for four days, return 24 Dec 41
Pvt Rozier, WIA, out of action for six days, return 26 Dec 41
Pvt Eaton, WIA bad enough he needs to be evacuated and is done for the campaign

Regarding the five casualties atop Horseshoe Ridge, I had previously rolled to see how they did.  There were three bad enough to require evacuation, and two walking wounded (including the Captain).  I thought about re-rolling since they'd laid out there all day, but decided against it as I wasn't going to let casualty do any better than the first roll, and I couldn't afford to have anyone do worse!  My platoon is rapidly shrinking; we're already down to a Plt Cmdr, Plt Sgt, a 2-man MG team, a 3-man mortar team, and two 7-man squads (down from three 8-man squads, and no sniper), and that's waiting four days to have the next fight in order to get five guys back from recuperating from their wounds, just to get there!  So now I gotta come up with a scenario fluff to justify why we're not fighting for another four days ;)

So, here goes.  First: Capt Moon: "Cody, I want to say thank you for coming to get us, not leaving us up there for too long.  And I know you didn't mean to leave us up there, you had no choice, but thanks for coming."

Sgt Carlson props himself up on an elbow, off his litter: "You bet, Sir, I appreciate ya letting me off the hook.  We were always coming for ya, but man it hurt leaving you guys up there.  I'm sorry.  Oww, man that hurts.  How am I gonna explain this, Cap'n?  Of all the damn things, get stuck in the ass!  I wasn't runnin', I swear!  I was reaching for my pistol, the damned Tommy Gun jammed!"

Anyway, the remains of the platoon fall back to the south, then slink off the west, dodging enemy patrols while trying to find the Company Command Post.  Of  course, they're not making it very far in their weakened state, plus carrying casualties.  Capt Moon was finally able to find some Filipinos willing to transport the badly wounded (four more men) back to Cavite; it was getting tough, what with the local population realizing 1) the war wasn't going well, and 2) their were Japanese between them and Cavite/Manila.

On 22 Dec 41 the platoon finally located the CP, only about five miles southwest of Horseshoe Ridge.  They got an update from Major Ford, who'd been wounded by an enemy sniper two days ago: "Boys, the situation is rough.  2nd Platoon has taken quite a pounding, and I ain't heard from 1st Platoon in two days.  I'd say we're surrounded, but I don't think it's actually quite that bad.  I've recently talked to the Army's Brigadier General Parker, in direct contact with him, he's in charge of the defenses on the southern end of the island, while McArthur has General Wainwright running the northern defenses.  On a side note, he didn't have any idea there were Marines running around in his back yard!  Turns out HQ didn't let him know we were out here training, and when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor everybody forgot about us."

"In any case, the Japs that landed southwest of us, at Legaspi, are pretty much gone.  Sure, there are rear area types running around here and there, but it seems like they landed and beat feet straight through us, on their way to Manila.  But General Parker tells me that Navy air reconnaissance has spotted more Jap shipping in the area, looks like they're going to land more troops at Legaspi.  And well, there's no use in us trying to fall back and catch the Japs headed for Manila, so General Parker wants to to block the northern route, he's going to have Philippine Army units cover the southern route .  You know what that means; back to Horseshoe Ridge, gentlemen."

"Now, I'm off to find 2nd and 3rd Platoons.  You can take a day to rest up, but I want you on top of Horseshoe Ridge not later than midnight on 24 December.  It should be a cakewalk, no Japanese there now, but just in case, General Parker is lending us a tank, one of those M-3 Stuarts they have.  Seems McArthur has two battalions of'em.  They were formed into a Provisional Tank Group, but this one had broken down before the war started and was being repaired in Manila.  Well, when the invasion hit, General Parker found the crew and ordered them south, and now we got'em!"

"Anyway, you and the tank take Horseshoe Ridge on the 24th, and I'll be following directly with 2nd and 3rd Platoons, as soon as I can.  Any questions?"

Captain Moon saw to it that his men got plenty to eat and drink, and plenty of rest.  Then they mounted up on the morning of 24 Dec 41 and began making their way back to Horseshoe Ridge.

V/R,
Jack