ASL: Playing jungle clearance, trail breaks, bulldozers and corduroy roads
I’ll start playing the ASL Suicide Creek Campaign Game (SC) soon and I needed to review the clearance rules for paths, trail-breaks and corduroy roads in jungle, both light and dense, night and day. The campaign game is all about crossing a stream, but first you have to get your guys to the stream in order to be able to start crossing it!
The excellent SC map is covered in dense jungle, and when there’s jungle, paths may be cleared. Paths are important for infantry, as being on or adjacent to a path prevents straying in dense jungle (G2.22).
Straying happens when the coloured die of the Movement DR is a 6. Then lax units automatically stray, normal units stray on a white die of 3 or more, and stealthy units only on 5 or 6. Most Japanese troops in the CG are stealthy, hence straying won’t happen to them as often. But the Marines have a more difficult time, chances are 1 in 9 that they will stray. And this happens even during daylight hours and not only at night.
Having to spent only one movement factor to enter a jungle hex via a path, instead of the usual two, is an added bonus. Vehicles also possibly stray, so they benefit from the path as well.
In SC the American player may purchase armoured bulldozers, which he can use to break a trail or to build a ford (B20.8) across the stream. And as a third option, the CG allows the US player to buy four Corduroy Road counters for four CPP. Such a Corduroy Road may be placed anywhere on the map and fully-tracked vehicles expend two movement points to enter jungle or jungle debris via one. No bog check either. So this purchase seems like a no-brainer for the American player, in order to be able to get armoured reinforcements to the stream as quickly as possible. However, due to the high cost in CPP, it makes sense to keep the road as short as possible, counting the hexes from the edge of the map to the stream.
The American player should choose his avenue of approach wisely. As the Japanese are given eighteen pillboxes at the start of the game, the entire force will be hidden. The Yanks may hence forget about enemy disposition and judge his approach from the terrain only.
Infantry approach
At the start of the game the US player already has two paths as avenues of approach at his disposal. Knowing that the Japanese player knows this as well, he thinks they could be well covered in defensive fire. Sweating your own path through the jungle is an option to evade those obvious avenues.
Since the US player may buy road counters later, why else should he clear a path? I would most certainly try it, given that a path all the way to the stream is almost achievable during the first scenario, if you set your mind to it. I’d likely commit four leaders and half-squads to the task. Clearing a path requires a clearance action, hence one needs to roll two or less. Modifiers that apply are CX, leadership and labor. Using a squad instead of a half-squad nets no bonus (G2.7), so you might as well save the resources for other tasks. In the example below, the Marines entered via U1. Leader and squad in U4 double timed. Nobody strayed, but leaving U1, all units had to roll once.
At the end of their movement, these units declared a clearance attempt and were marked temporarily immobilised. At the end of the CCPh the US player will roll for clearance four times, left to right, a DR versus 3, 3, 3 and 2. Not too shabby for a first turn attempt.
Let’s assume none of the DR’s passed. During the Japanese player turn, during the DFPh, the US player announces another Clearance attempt. This time all units will be marked with a -1 Labor marker. Hence the US needs to roll 4, 4, 4 and 3. During the second US player turn, all attempts will be made at 5 or less. If committing the 10 -2 leader, chances could be 6 or less. I’m also thinking, that the Japanese could benefit greatly from a path once it becomes clear where the US attack will strike.
Armoured Bulldozers
The Armoured Bulldozers shown at the top can be bought starting with the second scenario. They can be used to clear wire and pillboxes, make trail breaks, or to build a ford. In this campaign game the bulldozers are an important resource. This reinforcement group can only be bought twice during the entire campaign. Getting bad strength rolls, two depleted reinforcement groups will give you only two dozers overall.
A dozer can clear jungle handsomely and create a trail break. However it needs to pass a bog check when entering a jungle hex. If spending all movement points, the bog check for entering jungle has no penalties, if using half of the vehicle’s movement points, it rockets to +3. In addition there’s a +2 penalty for entering dense jungle (G2.211), but this does not apply to bulldozers (G15.2). The only other modifier used is a +1 for the ground being soft across the entire map (SC1.3). When clearing, you’ll happily note by the square around the id letter that the dozer has low ground pressure, so no additional modifiers. Hence the dozer will bog on a roll of eleven or more. If going uphill while dozing, add another +1.
So the chance to bog is small, but in case it happens, it is a good idea to keep the second dozer around in order to be able to be able to help un-mire (D8.3). As a general rule, you might wait until the corduroy road is in place before bringing in the dozers, as the effect will be the same, but no chance for bogging.
Note that in the picture above, the dozers did not build the corduroy road, and there should be a partial TB counter in M5 which is missing. Corduroy roads can be bought between campaign game scenarios.
A trail break is still good for infantry, paying only one and a half movement factors to enter via a TB hex side. Do note the -1 Defensive First Fire DRM due to restricted movement options for infantry (B13.4212). Vehicles need to pay half of their movement points in order not to take a bog check. So a vehicle can move two hexes in a turn without a problem once the trail break is there.
Corduroy caveats
When the corduroy road stands, you can move fully tracked vehicles along it without taking a bog check. The CG allows the US player to buy a M3 GMC half-track. That one would need to pass plenty of bog checks trying to get to the stream, so I’m not sure about that purchase.
Also, looking at G7.31, a vehicle next to a swamp hex at the same or lower elevation needs to take a bog check as well. This excludes vehicles on a road, but it doesn’t talk about corduroy roads, so bog checks would apply.
Summary
I’m looking forward to playing this campaign game. Building roads and establishing infrastructure to support my attack or defence is a nice twist to the usual game. This will require careful planning. And we all know what happens to careful planning in this game!
To other worlds 