Battle of Piva Forks

It was time to dust off the Bolt Action dice and get some gaming in. This time, however, we would travel to the Pacific; Bougainville to be precise, and break the cherry on the IJA and USMC figures.

The actual scenario was inspired by real life events of 20th November 1943, when a patrol led by 1st Lt. Steven Cibik was tasked to hold the high ground along the Numa Numa trail on Bougainville. But instead of trying to recreate it exactly, we decided to use it as inspiration only and use the Maximum Attrition scenario from the rule book. It's a simple scenario: kill the other guys. Each side got one Victory Point for each unit they eliminated. 6 turns, with a 50/50 possibility of a 7th. Perfect for our purposes.

The table. In accordance with my new effort to have 'cleaner' looking tables, I eschewed lots of  'realistic' ground cover for what you see. Simpler and, I think, still giving the effect of jungle. 

I hope.

The Bolt Action crew: Chris, Tony, Nat and Ogre Dirty Dog with young Master Anthony in front.

The first squad of USMC enters the table and the game is afoot!

Tony and Chris wisely use one squad to shield their valuable flame thrower team in the advance forward.

The US strategy was to probe heavily on their left flank and hopefully outnumber any enemy resistance they may encounter. Here are several squads and a .30 cal machine gun advancing through the light jungle.

IJA grenadiers advance cautiously. Their 'knee mortars' would provide quite the punch in close support.

The Japanese players chose to enter across the length of the board, although they also sent two squads on a flanking mission. Here the 81mm mortar and sniper set up on the high ground on their left flank to support the general advance.

Their lone MMG also takes the high ground, but on their right.

USMC .30 cal redeploys into the dense jungle near the river.

The Marines begin to take fire from across the river. Several squads seek the cover of the dense jungle while a third covers the main attack force's right flank. The HQ stays centrally located to bolster the morale of as many attack units as possible.

The first Japanese flanking squad makes their entrance on the far side of the river. Unfortunately, they guessed wrong and were on the far side of the table from the US main thrust. (We had each side declare which side of the table they would send their flank march before the game began.)

From the Japanese left. The flanking squad is still trying to locate the enemy while the grenadiers with their HQ are about to enter the dense jungle next to one of the fords across the river.

The second IJA flanking squad appears along the near table edge. Things are definitely heating up as elements from both sides are taking (and giving) fire in the center. The light mortars have found their mark and Marines are going down. The US mortar has suffered several losses and is not long for the war.

Marines respond to the flanking forces of the Japanese as a squad and a .30 cal peel off to deal with them while the main attack force continues to bludgeon their way through the Emperor's finest.

Reminiscent of  what was happening elsewhere this same day at Tarawa, the Marines hunker down in what little cover they can find until they can bring their firepower to bear on the enemy all around them. At this point it was looking very sketchy for the Marines.

The grenadiers start to take some heat and a few of them go down.

The IJA takes out one of the .30 cal machine guns. One could say they 'Charleston Chew'ed' it up.

But the light mortars have zeroed in. Air bursts cause massive casualties and the Marines are forced to spring to the attack rather than sit and try to weather the storm. The HQ stabilizes the situation here where the action was fiercest.

One USMC squad heads for the far ford and, along with support from a .30 cal and the flamethrower team, reduces an IJA squad to just a few dudes. In the middle left, the USMC squad takes cover behind a hill to concentrate their fire on one flanking IJA squad at a time.

The grenadiers too, are whittled down. Coupled with the loss of their sniper and 81mm mortar, things are suddenly turning against the Japanese.

Forward! A USMC squad hot foots it toward the ford in the river through the hail of lead from the Japanese MMG from the hill in the upper left.

But their own MMG redeploys and offers covering fire in support. 

Assisted by the medic, and led by two BAR's, the river crossing is a success.

It's a full fledged firefight now as both sides engage along the length of the board. The Japanese are losing more men though, and it's the Marines who are initiating hand to hand!

Uh, just keep yer heads down.

The FT team also crosses the river and puts and end to the remnants of a IJA squad.

An overview of one half of the board. There's a lot less soldiers from both sides but the loss of the IJA MMG and the remnants of the squad to the FT really hurt the Japanese chances.

A look down the length of the river as the USMC sweeps forward.

"We must tell the Emperor"

"No, I alone will tell the Emperor"

And so it ended. The Japanese lost their 81mm mortar, the sniper, their MMG and two squads, while the USMC lost their mortar and one MMG for a 5-2 victory as the clock ended after Turn 6. It could have turned either way but for a few fortunate events for the Marines. For starters, who knew the IJA flank would find no one where they came in? If they come in on the other side, it's going to be ugly. Also, Tony's dice got red hot the last half of the game.

We've never used the Japanese before. They have some fun special rules and as one could guess, they are especially nasty in hand to hand and never back down from a fight. I would like to use smoke to cover their advance and then give the enemy the pointy end! 

We'll see next time. So long!