AP164 Sparrow Force

Paul S NJ

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Played this nice PTO scenario with Ron Duenskie this week. Took us four hours of game time. IJA has ten 1st line squads (four striped) defending a hut village on a hill. The defense also has a 70 INF gun and an MMG with crews. The crews give an extra squad of HIP as crews count for the HIP squad calculation, although they don't count for THH squad calculations. Leadership is good with a 10-1 and 8-0. Turn 3 an 8+1 and two 347's enter. PTO is infect but brush is still brush and huts have been flame-proofed by ssr.
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The Aussie attacker has 14 squads with three 51 mtr's led by a 9-2, 9-1,8-1 and 8-0. They enter on two sides of the hill, one which has some woods on the board edge but then about 3 hexes of open ground, and the other with several hexes of palm trees leading up to the hill. The attacker has to take one of two wooden buildings (not huts upon inspection) plus 8 huts. There is a second VC about taking both VC buildings and fewer huts, but that's extremely unlikely to matter. Aussies are allowed one banzai charge/turn.
I set up the defense with my ranged weapons (MMG, mortar, gun, and two 447/lmg) facing the open flank. I also used HIP for another 447 in the brush at the base of the hill. I figured the SSR's about banzai and better first shot mortar smoke (s9) would make the open flank enticing. I also used HIP for a 237 half squad trap on the palm flank. The rest of the palm flank was dummies and mostly flipped squads. During setup I noticed it was pretty hard to not show which stacks had the striped squads so I flipped them all to the good side, and wrote down which ones were flipped.
Ron split his attack fairly evenly with two mortars and the 9-2 in the palm trees. I tried to shoot up the woodline on the open flank and managed to break a few squads before breaking my MMG JT1, never to return. On the palm side the HIP half squad ambushed a 457/mtr, killing the squad and absorbing two 16-2 shots from the 9-2 before the broken half squad went berserk JT2. Meanwhile I advanced a concealed striped squad on the board edge and the combo of the two pests ended up preventing a couple squads from routing, who eventually they died for FTR.
Here is a photo of Aussie turn 2 start.
Turn 3 Ron got some smoke down on the open flank and got a squad into CC to kill the gun crew before dying the next turn in CC itself. On the palm flank Ron blitzed the 9-2 and 8-1 stacks on the board edge to the cluster of huts on that flank. My berserk halfie managed to kill another squad in melee before dying (melee is also mandatory HtH for the Aussies by SSR).
Here is a photo of Aussie turn 4 start.
Turns 4-6 Ron pushed across the open ground and around both flanks. I skulked back to the two VC buildings ending up having a concealed unit with a couple buddies in each. Turn six Ron managed to get two stacks next to each building, despite my 10-1 FPF'ing continuously. One building's attackers all broke, but the other building's attackers managed to get into a 1:1 CC. Unfortunately for Ron my concealed half squad gave me the ambush and I killed the attackers outright.
I don't think this one is unbalanced as Ron was in position for a win in the last CC phase, and it doesn't get closer than that. I would agree with Eagle4ty that this is a bit tougher on the attackers, but I'd play either side.
 
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