This is one that did not make it in time for the last update.
viz: The Fight on Lake Toba
14 March, 1942
Lake Toba region, North Central Sumatra: The "main" island of
the Dutch East Indies, Java, has already surrendered to the Japanese. Stranded on the northern end of the large island of Sumatra, a large force of Dutch troops still hold out. On March 12th
the Japanese, mobilising from the newly captured naval base of
Singapore, land along the north eastern coast from Sabang Island
in the north, south to near Medan. The core element of this
invasion force is the vaunted Imperial Guards Division, with
experience in China and the fight for Malaya already under it's
belt. Quickly seizing the cities of Medan and Pematangsiantar,
the Japanese pursue the retreating Dutch forces into the undeveloped
wilds of north central Sumatra. The Dutch have planned to make
a stand in a series of semi-prepared fortified areas and wage
a guerilla type war against the Japanese until further outside
help can arrive from the other Allied powers. The rapidity of
the Japanese advance continues to confound all efforts by the
Dutch to organize an effective resistance. The reliability of
the locally raised troops is now becoming a serious issue as
nothing has been able to stop the Japanese onslaught, neither
the impreginable fortress at Singapore or the main KNIL army
on the island of Java, and local sentiment for the Dutch has,
by and large, never been good. The Japanese Kokushi Detachment,
of the Guards Division moves inland to the large, volcanicly
formed, lake in the mountains, hot on the heels of Dutch Major
Van Aarsen's troops who are trying to stabilize some sort of
position north of Siborongorong around the town of Balige and
further north at Porsea, on the south and eastern shores, respectively, of Lake Toba. On the night of the 13th, the Japanese, "blow through" Porsea, bypassing resisting Dutch troops and assisted by coastal boats which land troops behind the bulk of the Dutch troops in the Porsea area, move on toward Balige. On the morning of the 14th Dutch Lt Van de Ploeg gets permission to counterattack toward Porsea and rescue the surrounded garrison there and, by a series of ambushes along the only good road, try and stymie the Japanese advance.
About these early Dutch East Indies scens...the Allies must consider (1) do they fight?, (2) do they run?,...and "by God" if they do decide to do either...they must use ALL of the guile they can muster. Ed...it can be done...both ways, for a victory.
I've enjoyed a number of your Dutch East Indies scenarios. I've played a couple against the AI. The only one I've played H2H was "The Fall of Buitzenzorg." I played it as the Dutch, and it was really challenging. There was a lot of running on my part, but eventually I made a stand. As the Dutch, I always had the impression it was all done with shoe strings and thread.
You cannot kill all of the Japs. One must only win the scenario.
If you have lived...on a "shoestring and a thread"...you are much honored...and better than me...
...just don't find yourself in a propaganda photo...while being beheaded...sic(look it up yourselves...)...
The ability to kill any Japanese, much less all of them, was really difficult. It's a night scenario, and the Dutch have no starshells. Additionally, the Dutch have a hodgepodge OOB, and virtually none of them have a very high attack value. The majority of them have poor morale -- especially when compared with the Japanese (or any other H2H scenario). The Dutch had some artillery, but even that was minimally helpful because it was a night scenario. I had a mine-laying engineer squad that came in handy, and I got lucky keeping the Japanese engineers away from the mine field the engineers laid. I tried some delay tactics in the north where I had trenches and woods, but they got overrun surprisingly easily. (That's when I decided everyone else better make a hasty retreat.) Basically everyone else fell back to the south to the village/suburb/city hexes. I spent a lot of time making improved positions and just trying not to get pushed back too far too fast. I consistently voluntarily put space between the Japanese and the Dutch, and I guess the cost of movement at night, the inability to banzai for want of leaders, and added difficulty of extreme assault made it difficult for the Japenese to move me back as fast as the scenario required for the Japenese to win.
The Dutch forces are weak. The Japanese came in masses and looked like a tidal wave. Because the Japanese have high morale, getting Japenese units disrupted was tough, and they consistently regained nondisrupted status very quickly (like the very next turn), so they were usually in great shape to assault if the other conditions were there.
My opponent may not have liked the scenario as well as I did.
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