Fighting in the Muskeg
By Mike Bennighof, PhD
December 2007

Some of our Panzer Grenadier supplements represent projects I've wanted to work on for many years, like White Eagles, or similar obsessions from outside contributors, like Ottavio Ricchi's Fronte Russo. Alaska's War was neither of these. One day an e-mail came in from superfan Jay Townsend asking for it, and I thought, "I can do that." I wrote the scenarios in a fit of hypergraphia, and Doug McNair turned them into solid, fun exercises, and here it is.

It does represent something our VP and marketing goddess abhors: "Panzer Grenadier without panzers." All of the battles are infantry fights, with the Japanese usually holding the ability to hide in the frozen, rocky terrain and the Americans having to come get them. That's exactly what I wanted the system to model well, and Alaska's War shows off this aspect of Pazner Grenadier to great advantage. The scenarios are small, tense and usually play very quickly.

Scenario One
Alaska's Warriors
9 June 1942
The Japanese landed on Attu and Kiska expecting to find them occupied by American troops, most likely from the Alaska National Guard inducted into federal service the previous year. The Guard had just one battalion of infantry, supplemented by several units of "Alaska Scouts" recruited from the Eskimo and Aleut population - Maj. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner of the Alaska Defense Command frowned on including non-whites in the Guard proper.

Conclusion
While Alaskan politicians had urged a forward defense, Buckner kept his troops concentrated around key locations and the Aleutians were not defended against the Japanese invasion. There was one casualty, the husband of the local school teacher who was killed by the Japanese - it's unclear today whether he resisted or was murdered. All of the island's 40 inhabitants were carried off to Japan, where half of them died in captivity. After the war, they never were allowed to return to their island home.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Desert Rats, and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: I usually organize the scenarios in chronological order, so by luck of the draw that places the set's only hypothetical at the beginning. It's the only appearance of SNLF troops in the set, and places the Japanese on the attack with naval gunnery support.

Scenario Two
Gilbert Ridge
11 May 1943
The Japanese chose not to contest the initial landings on Attu, awaiting the Americans on higher ground. The constant heavy fog made the landings difficult, but also hid them from the garrison and the Japanese do not seem to have been aware of the invasion until the first Americans were already ashore and the American battleships began their bombardment. The first serious clash of arms came on the eastern edge of Massacre Valley, as the 2nd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment approached the ridge line there.

Conclusion
Japanese fire halted the Americans, and their subsequent attempts to take the ridge failed as well. When night fell the battalion commander ordered his men to halt and dig in, to try again the next day with the help of just-landed artillery.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Desert Rats and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: The Americans have a slight numerical advantage and better firepower, but the Japanese are hidden. It's a small but tense scenario.

	The 4th Infantry Regiment enters Massacre Valley (left), with Massacre bay on the right.

Scenario Three
Massacre Valley
12 May 1943
When the 2nd Battalion resumed its advance, it found it was much farther from its objective - Sarana Pass - than anyone had believed the night before. As the troops pushed forward to make up for lost time, they came under heavy Japanese fire from both flanks as well as their front. Regimental commander Col. Edward P. Earle went forward to maintain the battalion's advance through personal example.

Conclusion
With their colonel walking point, the American battalion began to make some progress. Things fell apart when he was killed by a burst of machinegun fire, and the day ended with the pass still in Japanese hands. The Americans had taken significant casualties but so far had not deeply penetrated the Japanese defenses.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Afrika Korps and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: I had to do this one just for the title alone. The American player has artillery support but begins the game tied to the track, until the Japanese try to push him off of it and the mayhem begins.

Scenario Four
Hill X
12 May 1943
First Battalion, 17th Infantry had as its initial objective a rise known as Hill X that dominated Holtz Bay. The height needed to be secured on the invasion's first day, but the troops became disoriented in the fog. The battalion commander claimed they had taken the objective, but it turned out to be the wrong - and much lower - hill. Alerted by the activity, the Japanese rushed to occupy the hill and quickly dug in.

Conclusion
The Americans had given the Japanese all the time they needed, and had great difficulties locating the Japanese fighting positions and digging them out one by one. When the battalion finally called off the attack and reported success to division headquarters, the Japanese still held the back slope of the hill and two more days of vicious fighting remained before the hill would actually be secured.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Afrika Korps and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: This time the Japanese are stuck defending a small piece of ground and can't use their skills at hiding to avoid combat. The American player might not be so happy to find them, though - they are numerous and fierce.

The American 7th Infantry Division had been clothed for action in North Africa when sent to Attu.

Scenario Five
Jarmin Pass
12 May 1943
On the left flank of the Southern Force, 3rd Battalion of the 17th Infantry had the task of breaking through the Jarmin Pass and allowing the Northern and Southern landing forces to link up for the final drive on Chichagof Harbor, the island's only settlement. The Japanese had other ideas; they do not seem to have prepared Jarmin Pass as a defensive line before the landings, but the terrain was such that they really didn't need to.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Afrika Korps, and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Conclusion
The American soldiers, suffering badly from the cold, spent the day first finding the Japanese fighting positions, and then assaulting them with little success. With the terrain on their side plus warm clothing and cold-weather training, the Japanese had many defensive advantages, but absolutely no hope of relief.

Design Note: The Arctic Hill hexes in most of these scenarios give the defender most of the advantages the game rules call "Dug In," without the need to actually do any digging or stay in place once dug in.

Scenario Six
Excess Casualties
14 May 1943
On the far left flank of the American Northern Force's landings, the 7th Infantry Division's Provisional Battalion (its scout company and recon company, without their vehicles) landed at the mouth of an isolated valley and marched inland. When they reached the pass leading toward Holtz Bay, they ran into fearsome resistance.

Conclusion
The American battleships Nevada and Idaho emptied their magazines of high-explosive shells on fire missions against possible Japanese positions in and around the nameless pass. Yet the Japanese endured, helped by the heavy fog and sheer stubbornness. When the battalion commander called off the attack by his exhausted men the Japanese still held the pass. "Japanese tactics comprise fighting with machine guns and snipers concealed in rain washes or in holes or trenches dug in each side and at varying heights of hill along narrow passes leading through mountain masses," reported Gen. Albert E. Brown, the 7th Division's commander. "These positions are difficult to locate and almost impossible to shoot out with artillery. They produce casualties in excess of casualties which can be returned." Unimpressed, Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner of the Alaska Defense Command fired Brown the next day.

Note: This scenario uses maps from Afrika Korps and Guadalcanal, and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: The American player can obliterate anything with his battleship guns - but thanks to the fog and coordination problems, he has little control over where the shells land. So the heavy guns are plotted before the game begins, and the Japanese player has to avoid the obvious positions or anyone there will be obliterated. But the American player knows the Japanese player knows this so . . .

	Holtz Bay's west arm, with Moore Ridge behind it.

Scenario Seven
Moore Ridge
16 May 1943
As the American Northern Force advanced toward the incomplete Japanese airfield at the head of the eastern arm of Holtz Bay, resistance grew even stronger. The new commander on Attu, Maj. Gen. Eugene M. Landrum ordered a change in tactics with a night assault. Because they lacked proper cold weather gear, the Americans had not attempted operations in darkness and Landrum hoped to catch the Japanese unawares.

Conclusion
Where Brown had failed (with the help of intrusive micromanagement from Vice Adm. Thomas Kincaid) Landrum now succeeded. For the first time the Americans rolled back the Japanese on their first attempt, breaking the ridge position and taking the airfield. The Japanese fell back toward Chichagof Harbor and dug in for a last stand.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Afrika Korps, and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: This one's a night attack, with the Americans having numbers and a wealth of artillery support and the Japanese having, well, night. It makes for a hard fight as each side has tough conditions to meet - despite their advantages, the Americans suffer from the nighttime cold.

Scenario Eight
Squeezing Jarmin
17 May 1943
The American assault on Jarmin Pass continued for several days with little progress. The Japanese slipped from position to position, and even with the landing of more of 7th Division's artillery the advance could not be resumed. Finally, the American success at the head of Holtz Bay allowed troops from the Northern Force to attack from the opposite side of the pass.

Conclusion
The Japanese could not hold against an attack from two directions, and with the Northern Force's advance the pass no longer held much strategic value. The Japanese began to slip away unseen, and withdrew back toward Chichagof Harbor undetected by the Americans.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Afrika Korps, and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: The Japanese have to hold as long as possible, and then get away with as many of their units intact as possible. The American player gets to squeeze them from two sides, but there is an awful lot of ground in which they can hide.

Scenario Nine
Yamasaki's Attack
29 May 1943
With the end near, Col. Yasuyo Yamasaki of the Adak-Attu Occupation Force gathered all of his able-bodied men for one final assault on the Americans. Apparently ordered to kill as many Americans as possible, the troops came out of their defenses screaming wildly with their officers waving swords. Though not really expecting a Japanese surrender, the reaction did catch the Americans somewhat by surprise.

Conclusion
The colonel apparently died in this first attack, along with a fair number of his men. But the survivors broke through the American lines and surged on to attack surprised rear-area elements. Still suffering from the cold and inadequate protection, the Americans reacted only slowly while the Japanese - warmed by the last of their alcohol stocks as well as better winter gear - killed as many surprised GI's as they could and ran on up the valley.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Afrika Korps, and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: Too many tactical games over the years have relied on "crazy suicidal Japanese" rules that model racial prejudice and little else. But this sort of thing did really happen, and the final act on Attu is one of the most extreme.

Scenario Ten
Engineer Hill
30 May 1943
Having broken through the American lines, the Japanese had lost most of their officers. The survivors slowed briefly, apparently to consider how best to end their attack (and with it, their lives). Spotting an isolated encampment of the American divisional engineer battalion, they raced towards it with new screams of fury. But engineers are always ready for anything.

Conclusion
The Japanese charged wildly up the hill, but the engineers were ready for them and shot down most of them before they got into the encampment. A wild close-quarters right ensued in which all the attacking Japanese were killed. Of the approximately 2,400 defenders of Attu, only 29 prisoners were taken.

Note: This scenario uses a map from Desert Rats, and pieces from Battle of the Bulge and Guadalcanal.

Design Note: I initially designed these two as one long scenario, but in practice found that the Japanese rarely ended up assaulting Engineer Hill without a stringent series of special rules - something I really dislike placing in games. We frequently poke fun at Brian Knipple's "I'm an engineer, I can do anything" mantra, and I didn't want to pass over this close-quarters fight of the combat engineers.

Take these scenarios into action...Buy Panzer Grenadier: Alaska's War TODAY!