Japanese Naval Army Project 28mm
Greetings and Salutations, friends!
Dean here with a hobby update as I look to finish my Japanese Naval army in preparation for a local event in Portsmouth (about a 20 minute drive from where I live!). This is also a project that Conor and I will be sharing as he cracks on with US Marines in what is my favourite part of the Second World War to research. The Pacific theatre!
This period saw the Empire of Japan expand its borders past the Korean peninsula into China, and further down south towards the Philippines and would even see the Japanese Empire occupy parts of Burma and India!
The part of the operation we’ll be showing comes from 1943, operation Galvanic. Which saw US Marines liberate the Gilbert islands. My force will be based on the defenders of the Tarawa atoll. Based on the largest island, Beito. Under the command of Rear Admiral Keiji Shibisake, who made claims that “It would take one million one hundred years (to conquer)” the island. His garrison of 2500 Japanese Special Naval Landing Force (SNLF for the rest of this blog) and 2000 Korean labourers would hold for 3 days of bitter defense against wave after wave of US marine advances where 3000 would be killed or wounded. Only 3 of the Japanese garrison would live and be taken prisoner.
I have decided to represent this force in Bolt action, where I will attempt to pick up the most historical force. The research for this project took me down many routes as I looked into Japanese defensive doctrines, island defences, and even the present gun emplacements. In Bolt Action, of course, we are limited to how we can represent these on the table. I separated the army into four platoons. An infantry platoon led by Keiji Shibasake himself! He takes the senior officer role and will (Hopefully) keep my boys in the fight for longer! He leads a junior officer and four tenacious squads of SNLF, all equipped with LMG’s. We also see an air observer representing the *limited* air support offered by Beito’s small airfield. Backing them up we have two type 92 medium machine guns. This would represent the heavier machine gun boxes fortified on the beaches, along with two knee-mortars that hurled projectiles onto the beach as the Marines attempted to push. In support, we have a few heavier guns and a few tanks! The guns are a type 1 47mm anti-tank gun that fired type 1 APHE and HE equivalent. I have also included a type 94 75mm light howitzer to back up the infantry. Finally, two Ha-Go’s which represent the thirteen present on Tarawa. Their guns were ineffective and outdated against US armour. But, one did disable a sherman with a lucky shot down the barrel!
Building and painting this army has been an interesting venture. Learning about Japanese defensive doctrines and how they went about building bunkers and pillboxes. Learning more about the SNLF has been an eye opening experience into the interbranch rivalry the army and navy had and how the Japanese would have fared if they worked better together (Although that would seem unlikely).
This force will see action during February and March and will be hitting your feeds soon! Conor and I look forward to sharing these forces with you and recreating the struggle for Tarawa, and I will also re-cap the event next month where you can see how good (or Bad!) I did! What are you all working on? And what draws you to those projects? Let us know!
All the best,
Dean
