Malaya campaign in Memoir 44 #1

Not to give the end away but as most people reading this will be aware the Malaya campaign at the end of 1941 and start of 1942 was not part of the finest hour epic of British popular memory. It was described by Churchill as "the worst disaster and biggest capitulation in British history" and much opprobrium has fallen on the commander Percival for the surrender to Japanese forces.

It is true that the campaign was not handled brilliantly by the British commanders (especially the naval!) however it is simultaneously also true that any determined Japanese attack on Malaya was bound to succeed given the political decisions made by Britain in the years before which left Malaya largely undefended and Singapore a fortress in name only. As Hitler would later find out calling a town a fortress does not a fortress build. Ironically it was Churchill himself who as Chancellor of the exchequer had scaled back spending on Singapores defences in the 1920s and held back forces for Greece and the Western Desert campaigns in the early war. In the big picture it was a combination of strategic decisions to underfund and underman Malaya that lead to its defeat more than the actual battles. To defend it properly would have required a greater committment of both money and force than was available to the British in 1941 and probably would have resulted in losses elsewhwere.

The Memoir 44 campaign starts with the encounter at Sadao which is actually in Thailand and has a small Commonwealth force defending against the spearhead of the Japanese force which had crossed the Malay peninsular after landing on the Eastern coast of Thailand. The aim of the Japanese was to drive down the western coast of Malaysia simultaneously with an East coast drive after landings at Khota Baru.

The Commonwealth forces aimed at stopping the Japanese West coast drive beyond the the borders of Malaysia at a feature called 'The Ledge' (A on map) where the road clinging to the mountains could be blown but the Commonwealth troops prevaricated for some reason and were beaten back some miles short. A second column came into contact with the leading Japanese at Badao (B on Map) and it is this battle which is represented in game one Ban Sadao.

For those of you who are veteran Memoir 44 players I will say in advance that mistakes were made

On a point of nomenclature I refer to the UK Imperial forces by the anachronistic term Commonwealth as both sides were Imperial which could cause confusion and most 'British' forces in the campaign were not British. Commonwealth gets the right meaning across I feel.

The set up

The Commonwealth used one of their 4 reinforcement tokens to gain a lucky extra armoured unit of Lanchester armoured cars which count as tanks in this campaign. I'm not sure why as Patrol Cars (armoured cars) were introduced into the system the year before the campaign book but there we are with 2 figure tank units. The Japanese chose not to buy reinforcements as their roll was poor...

Ban Sadao is a 5 medal game and the Allies start with one for possessing Sadao where the artillery is based on the right side of the board. The Japanese unit with the flag represents "Brandenburger" type troops using Thai uniforms apparently which require rerolls to hit until they attack. Jungle terrain is a big factor in the game as it only allows close combat attacks into it if the unit starts adjacent. As it happens we forgot this at one point but to be honest it was not a crucial factor in the end.

For the British this felt like only lucky defence could get a win whereas the Japanese were going to be calling the shots. The Japanese opened with an Attack right to move their 3 units into the Jungle with a view to pinning the Brits in place and having a single die artillery shot which missed.

The Allies responded with an attack left to withdraw from the Jungle. This was a senseless move based on a misunderstanding of the Jungle rules and a fear of the Japanese 2 hex charge and extra dice at full strength. In my confusion I thought that if the Japanese charged I could move back into the jungle and attack.....In my defence I am an idiot.

Fortunately my blushes were saved by a lack of right hand cards for the Japanese who boldly advanced the "brandenburgers" along the road trusting to their borrowed uniforms and hoping that "all asians look alike" to Westerners. The armour moved up behind.

This belief was totally justified as after being forced by lack of centre cards the allies played a valuable Counter attack to stop the "Thais" making it to the artillery lines but after rolling a ton of attack dice they achieved nothing. Yep Nothing.

The "Thais" stood unharmed in the midst of the maelstrom!

As expected the "Thais" then launched themselves at the guns in an effort to reduce the artillery and claim the town. Sadly they had forgotten how to fight and completely whiffed leaving themselves surrounded by Allied armour and artillery. It seemed unlikely they would survive but stranger things have happened...

Though they didnt here.

They were wiped out with the play of a handy Assault Centre which also allowed the allies enough attacks on the furthest forward Japanese armoured unit to destroy it. Never mind eh?

That was some outstanding dice rolling for the allies and the Japanese player reconsidered the whole down the middle approach and played Attack left to get the infantry there into position.

Faced with this threat the allies did what they could and played 'Dig - in' as this got it out of hand for hopefully something more useful and gave a bit of a defensive buff. I often find 'Dig in' to be next to useless as you often do not have the time to lose playing this card in most scenarios after turn one.

It was here that we bodged big time as the Japanese played Infantry Assault and bombed the 3 units on the left into an attack against the dug in Commonwealth troops in the jungle. Obviously veterans will realise that this was not possible as they did not start next to the jungle but we will have to put this down to fog of war. Their rolls were not great and the Allies lost only 3 figures in total which could have been worse and on their turn bugged out back to the next jungle line

Things now turned for the Japanes as a Finest hour resulted in a tank, an infantry and 3 stars! It could not have fallen better to be honest. However the subsequent rolls were less impressive and in the end the Allies once again escaped relatively lightly losing 2 infantry and more seriously a unit of armoured cars. Things could definitely have gone worse.

With little choice due to a lack of centre cards the Allies played Armoured Assault, a card which would have been better if played when they had 3 units just one turn before.... Now the mighty Lanchesters crashed into the Japanese infantry in the hope of getting some kills.

And as we all know it's the hope that kills you.

Instead of crashing in they just meandered towards the Japanes and waved fiercely. Not a total write off as one unit was reduced to 1 figure but the other wasnt touched. That felt like a sort of turning point for the allies even as they were still 3-1 up.

In the excitement I forgot to take a picture at the end of the next Japanese card play of Recon in force but suffice to say a combo of armour, infantry and artillery removed another Lanchester unit and another infantry figure from the jungle bastion to the right of the road. In return a luckily drawn attack centre wiped out one japanese infantry unit and reduced another to 1 figure.

Things were unravelling fast now as Jafaar says to the flying carpet in Aladdin. Another Recon in force allowed the Japanese to pull the vulnerable guy out of immediate danger and let the armoured unit race up to close assault the remaining lanchesters. Unluckily they did not quite finish them off even on the follow up but the artillery pulled its weight by removing the last Commonwealth guy from the jungly bastion.

All now depended on the allies who needed only the tank kill for victory. Huzzah! In a desperate gamble a probe right card tempted the infantry from the cover of the jungle as back up to the certain kill by the tanks. What could go wrong? 5 dice minimum with a chance to follow up armoured overrun. Certain victory and home for tiffin on the bungalow veranda.

No tiffin I'm afraid. More like hell in a handcart as most attacks missed leaving the japanese armour on one tank and to make matters worse the Japanese replied with an Armoured Assault luckily eating up the Lanchester and the rash infantry who had left their jungle security. Game set and match to the Japanese 5-3! They were off on the road to Malaya with Gurun as the next game to be played.

In the post match wrap up the Allies lost and the Japanese gained a reserve token whilst the victory rolls panned out with the Japanese rolling two grenades and a star whilst the Commonwealth rolled a grenade and a tank. The next scenario would be Gurun.