"The Battle of Asun 11 December 1941 Rapid Fire AAR" Topic

The second battle in my Malaya campaign is the Battle of Asun, where Gurkhas faced the Japanese onslaught, see how we got on my blog here:

link

Thanks for looking!!

Great looking board and figures. Glad to see any battles played beyond the wargamer standard of France after Normandy or Russia from Kursk on or the Bulge …

Thanks Legion4, glad you liked it, the campaign was inspired by a work trip to Singapore in 2007, I have been slowly building the forces to start the games!

Abwehrschlacht, Malaya 1941 is my bag! I so enjoy reading and seeing what you have achieved here. Excellent.

I have the all campaign notes from Michael Sayce ? But you have beaten me to the draw. I don't mind. Your work is inspiring. So good. Well done.

Hi Captain DEwell, thanks for that! I'm glad you liked the games.

Yep, the source I'm using is indeed Sayce's. Unfortunately I only have Volume Two and I think the others are out of print. Have you any idea where I could get copies from for the remaining volumes?

The Japanese are real tough nut to stop in the opening battles of this campaign, and the momentum they build up is frightening.

In the early battles certainly the Commonwealth are hard pressed to to stop them – as you've noted, a BOYS is all well and good but you need more of them.

Add to that the half trained nature of some of the troops committed to the campaign on the Commonwealth side..

Mind, the Japs had their achilles heel too – the 2nd Imperial Guard Division (iirc) failed to shine on more than one occasion here…

Nice AAR and, again, I'm glad to see Mike's work getting an airing.

I know I have the books you're after, but… I think they're in my shed (which needs a good sort through) and is at the far end of a morass which needs to dry out first… and as I'm UK based that's not happening soon…

Phil, thanks, yep, the Japs are giving my hard pressed brits a real going over. I knew it would be tough from the start and it was going to be a delaying action anyway. If only there was more Boys in the units it may even the odds. The difficulty is knowing whether to get them up front and put them in the firing line or hold them back and hope they can ambush the tanks.

If there is anyone out there that I could buy copies from or even get copies of the other source books, I would be eternally grateful, I'm sorry to hear about the shed, I assume you're affected by the floods, I hope it clears soon and there isn't too much damage if this is the case!

Not floods, just chickens…

Now, as to source books…

The National Army Museum in Chelsea do a very nice little campaign history of one of the Brit battalions present at Jitra – I forget which one, but they get merged soon after. it covers the Jitra battles, Gurun (more of a night drive with tanks), Slim River

There's a history of the Argylls in Malaya (Moon over Malaya) which covers Slim river too…

There are more than a few books on Singapore itself.. and there's also one from the Japanese side too…

Masanobu Tsuji was a staff officer involved (by his own account quite heavily) in the planning of the SE Asia campaigm, and he went along for the ride in Malaya.

From his account the Japanese are chronically undersupplied, so the commonwealth habit of, once the one road out is cut, abandoning all their kit to get the men out comes in handy more than once – he calls it "Churchill supplies".He also doesn't like the Guards, reckons they were soft compared to the troops that came down from China/ Manchuria for the campaign.

That's good to know, Phil!

Thanks for those resources, I have read the Frank Owen on the Fall of Singapore, and visited museums and battlefields in Singapore (which is where the interest came from).

I shall have a look out for the Tsuji reference, it certainly sounds interesting.

I was looking specifically for the Sayce books as he organises the units into Rapid Fire numbers, which is rather helpful!

You may want to pm me

phil 65 gray (alloneword) at yahoo com