A Driving Charge - Phase One: The Approach to Battle

I've been teaching a good friend Chain of Command and over the last twelve months we've played several campaigns. I haven't been writing them up for the blog for the simple reason I’ve been too busy teaching to make notes and take pictures. We are also playing where the lighting isn't great for photography. That said, for our most recent campaign - A Driving Charge - I have been taking pictures, just nowhere near as many as I would normally. I think I have enough to put together a series of abbreviated AARs.

The setting for this campaign is Malaya in 1941 and I’ve enjoyed bringing jungle terrain back to the table (there is a post all about putting the terrain together here). Although I do have one confession to make. The campaign calls for quite extensive rubber plantations and I don't have enough of the right trees to represent these. What I do have is a lot of palm trees that were created for palm plantations and I'll be substituting those for the rubber plantations. They look nothing like rubber trees but at least they fit the Far East theme. 

A Driving Charge pits an aggressive and well trained Japanese force against a variety of British and Empire units as they attempt to stall the invasion of Malaya (note that for convenience I'll often refer to these forces as 'the British' even though they will represent Indian, Nepalese and British troops). I been playing the British and my friend Mark handled the Japanese.

The campaign is in two phases. The first is The Approach to Battle and covers the Japanese attempts to seize river crossings and maintain a fast tempo so their armour can advance rapidly through the British lines. What happens in this first phase of the campaign will influence the second stage where the Japanese confront the main positions of the Jitra line.

The first game is Probe At Changlun. Here the Japanese come up against a recruit Indian Army platoon trying to hold a bridge while engineers attempt its demolition. While it looks like an uneven contest - the Indians are green and poorly equipped facing a superior enemy - the Japanese appear to have few tactical options other than storming the bridge.

The river is impassable. Without the ability to conduct reconnaissance which would allow them to start closer to the river it is difficult to see how the Japanese can place any jump-off-points across it. They have little alternative but to take a fairly direct approach.  

In game terms the demolition of the bridge will take time. However, the engineers will stop work once Japanese troops are on it and it seems likely that will happen before the engineers are ready to blow their charges. I sense the defenders cannot place too much hope on a successful demolition during the course of the game. Their best hope is to drive Japanese morale down to zero and force their withdrawal allowing demolition to take place unimpeded.

The British force will rout from the table if their line of communications marker is captured or if their force morale drops to zero. A rout means the Japanese capture the bridge intact which speeds up their progress for the following games of the campaign. At the start of this game the line of communication point is reasonably secure as the only way the Japanese can reach it is by storming across the bridge (the truck serves as the LoC marker).

British start the patrol phase close to the bridge but their jungle rating is poor which means they must deploy their jump-off-points no more than 12" back from their patrol markers. That makes an aggressive patrol phase less appealing, so the British can expect the Japanese to move quite close.

In fact, as it transpired the Japanese did far better than I expected. They made use of an early war ruse (local guides) which allowed them to move a jump-off-point to an area of jungle thicket adjacent to the bridge. From there they deployed on to it immediately and from that moment on the engineers were unlikely to take any further part in the game. 

Given the limited options for approach the Japanese chose naked aggression over tactical subtlety. They charged across the bridge and reached the roadblock at the far end. In the process they successfully closed down one of the British jump-off-points near the bridge.

Only one of the Indian platoon's sections has an LMG team and they deployed into entrenchments covering the roadblock. A close range firefight ensued. The platoon lieutenant joined them and they hurled a flurry of grenades at the bridge. That was enough to inflict casualties on the leading Japanese troops and free up the jump-off-point they had just closed down. That then allowed a second section to deploy at the roadblock. 

They were armed only with rifles and despite targeting the Japanese in the open they failed to inflict enough damage to bring the move across the bridge to a halt. 

The Japanese persisted. They were prepared to take heavy casualties and the support squad that led the charge was wiped out, however in the process the following Japanese squads managed to storm the road block and drive off the defenders in a bloody round of close combat. 

In the fight for the roadblock several British leaders had been wounded, including the platoon commander. Casualties had been high and the entrenched section was soon close to breaking. 

In the end they were unable to resist the Japanese and their force morale collapsed to zero. The Japanese pursued a risky but necessarily aggressive strategy to force the crossing. The bulk of casualties were suffered by their support squad which meant the core platoon was left in reasonable shape for the following game.

As a result of the British rout the campaign moved directly to the third scenario - Gurkhas at Assun. Here the Japanese chose to delay a turn to carry out reconnaissance and wait for their armour support to catch up with them. This scenario features the Gurkhas holding another bridge along the main trunk road to Jitra. Once again they can attempt to demolish it, although this will prove difficult unless they can drive the Japanese back.

With time on their side the Japanese pause to carry out reconnaissance allowed them to fight across the table instead of along its length. Once again they could be expected to be upon this second bridge very quickly. The chance of being confronted by Japanese armour was high and so I called on a 2 pounder AT gun for support and placed a roadblock on the bridge. Similarly AA MGs were on hand, as I fully expected to undergo a pregame Zero attack.

The game started in a monsoon downpour that gave the Japanese two free moves at the start of their patrol phase (as if they weren't close enough to the bridge already!). It also limited line of sight to 18". 

The heavy rain turned the normally knee deep creek into one that's waist deep, making it a more difficult obstacle for the Japanese to cross. However their advantage in the patrol phase meant they had been able to place a jump-off-point on the opposite bank and so avoided having to cross it during the course of the game.

As I had predicted the British experienced the effects of a pre-game Zero Attack! so the AA MGs proved a wise precaution and would make that attack slightly less effective.

The Japanese had the initiative and were off to a good start with a double phase. Their following command roll included a 666. While a run of phases certainly worked in the Japanese favour the turn end did not. It meant the zero attack was no longer in effect and saw the lifting of visibility with the end of the downpour. 

Having suffered quite high casualties when storming the bridge in the previous scenario the Japanese had opened the game by trying a flanking move. A scout team deployed from the jump-off-point by the creek and worked its way into the plantation. That presented quite a threat, but an entrenched Gurkha section covering the plantation soon had them pinned down.

With the attempted flank move stalled the Japanese decided to make a push for the bridge. Once again a support squad was given the unenviable task of leading the assault. 

A Gurkha section deployed to the roadblock and immediately inflicted shock and casualties. It looked like this attack might also stall. Fortunately for the Japanese they had another double phase and the Gunso used his one-off ability to resort to corporal punishment to rally the men before leading them into an assault. Unfortunately he went too far and killed one of them. Things were not all going the way of the Japanese. The Gunso's brutality would prove costly.

He ordered the men to follow him. His decision to inspire them by resorting to corporal punishment had backfired. The shock they were suffering prevented them moving fast enough to make contact. They had used the crawlers ruse to send men forward with grenades to precede the attack, but once again fortune was cruel. Of the three grenades thrown only one hit the target and that managed to inflict only a single point of shock. 

With a short distance to cover they did finally make contact in the following phase, but the close combat was brutal. Japanese losses combined with the shock they were suffering put them at a disadvantage against the Gurkhas who were in better shape and defending hard cover. All the Japanese were killed, including both the squad’s Gocho and the platoon’s Gunso. The Gurkhas also took casualties losing five men, but it left the survivors holding the roadblock. The severe Japanese losses saw their force morale take quite a blow. 

Despite the setback the Japanese were determined to press the attack and a Chi Ha deployed onto the road. 

From there it could target the roadblock and provide supporting fire for another attempt by their infantry to storm the bridge.

This was the moment for the 2 pounder to deploy. While the first shot failed to knock out the tank it inflicted shock on the crew and took the commander out of action for the following phase. 

While all the attention was focused on the bridge the Japanese had not given up on a flank move. A squad deployed to join the scout team to see if they could suppress the entrenched Gurkhas in the plantation. 

The defenders were quick to react and the Japanese squad accumulated shock quickly.

The Japanese then made the mistake of allowing themselves to become bogged down in a firefight when they would have been better off moving instead. 

As the shock accumulated it was going to slow them down even further. The section guarding the flank had done their job.

The third Gurkha section deployed entrenched by the bridge to provide more firepower to counter any further attempts to storm across.

However the real damage was delivered by the 2 pounder which continued striking the Chi Ha. By the third hit the crew’s shock had risen to four and they bailed out. 

That took Japanese force morale down to four. A blow that saw them lose a command dice as well as the red dice. That made command and control increasingly difficult for them. 

The futility of a single squad trying force the bridge was becoming clear and so the Japanese chose to reinforce the flank. The grenade discharger squad deployed at the edge of the plantation and targeted the entrenched section but their initial round of fire had little effect.

The Gurkha section continued targeting the squad on the flank and succeeded in wounding the Gocho and wiping out the scout team. That brought their force morale even lower.

The Japanese had found themselves bogged down in a protracted firefight. The entrenched defenders at the bridge were also able to target the grenade discharger squad and casualties began to mount.

In the end losing a team wiped out was enough to bring Japanese force morale down to zero. A fine result for the Gurkhas who succeeded in repelling a superior force. While an aggressive approach to the bridge in the previous game paid dividends for the Japanese the same did not apply here. Instead it ended with heavy losses for no gain. With the Japanese driven back the Gurkhas were able to complete the demolition and withdraw in good order.

That now takes us to the second stage of the campaign where the Japanese hit the main defence on the Jitra line. While the defensive works are incomplete some do exist and the line is defended by troops that are better equipped and trained.