The Last Battle (Okinawa) Scenarios

[MarkSheppard]

First up is an experimental one I've put together using SCENHACK and the built in features of the unit data editor.

Hell in the Night
(Best played as AMERICAN)

Date: May 1945
Location: Somewhere on Okinawa
Type: Japanese Assault vs. US delay

"All artillery personnel should receive additional training in scouting and patrolling and in setting up a perimeter defense, including the use of barbed wire, trip wires, and flares."

After Action Report, 96th Infantry Divisional Artillery, Okinawa.

This scenario is intended to represent a generic night-time defensive scenario of the type encountered by US artillery units during the Battle of Okinawa.

In addition to holding out in bypassed caves or pillboxes, Japanese troops would also launch night-time assaults against US positions.

It was during these assaults that a new piece of technology rose to prominence: Active Infrared Night Vision.

Almost all of the 1,700 Active Infrared (AIR) Scopes built by the Electronics Laboratory during World War II were shipped to either the Philippines or Okinawa, where they were used as weapon scopes on the M1 Carbine (Sniperscopes) or as stand-alone individual observation scopes (Snooperscopes).

They were first used in limited numbers by special teams to combat Japanese nighttime infiltration in the Philippines campaign; before being used on a large scale in the Battle of Okinawa, which saw III Amphibious Corps alone receiving 295 snooperscopes and 215 sniperscopes.

The effectivness of the new "Buck Rogers" weapon was rapidly proven, for during the first seven days of the Okinawa campaign, approximately 30 percent of the total Japanese casualties caused by small arms fire came from the still-limited number of Sniperscope equipped M1 Carbines.

References:
The T3 Carbine: First NVG-Equipped Fighting Rifle by Bruce Canfield in AMERICAN RIFLEMAN, 16 February 2020.

Weapon in Question

Other miscellaneous notes:

1.) The M4 Artillery Tractors are meant to represent the M5 tractors that the Army was re-equipping 105mm Divisional Artillery Battalions with; because they towed guns better in bad weather (rain/mud and across paddies) than the currently assigned 2.5 ton trucks.

2.) I'm still trying to find the best "mix" for early portable night vision; I first tried the vision values (14) off the Panther Uhu in the German OBAT; then lowered it to 6 in version 1.1 -- I think these may work.