Checkmate on Kakazu Ridge - The Matrix Games version of Rising Sun

Kakazu, 8km NE of Naha, Okinawa: [Best played as Allied] On Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945, the last major campaign of World War II began with the American invasion of Okinawa with an enemy garrison of nearly 110,000 troops. Surprisingly, the landings were virtually unopposed. The Japanese had learned it was impossible to form an effective beach defense against the devastating firepower of Allied warships and planes, but they more than made up for this with extensive fortifications further inland. Through the 18th, US forces conducted a series of probing attacks against the enemy defenses in preparation for a major offensive. One such attack by the 383rd RCT to seize Kakazu Ridge from the Japanese 13th/63 Infantry Battalion, supported by artillery firing from inside the Shuri Fortified Zone, would be typical of the desperate fighting in the months ahead. On April 9th, as the 1st and 3rd Battalions started forward against the squat hill that had once supported lush vegetation, they immediately began to receive fire from mortars dug-in on the reverse slope. With inaccurate maps and poor aerial photographs, the assault companies had little intelligence on the intricate system of pillboxes, trenches and caves they were about to plunge into.