Flags of Our Fathers, Game End
Debrief. I think after some back and forth, US has some slight advantage in this game, esp. with the lessening of the 3rd Marines penalty from 10 to 3 VPs.
The hammer of US bombardments is huge and should be used always. Also, when the Marines survive Def Fire, their concentrated firepower can easily take a dug-in area. Walking into supposed empty areas can lead to bad surprises. I think if Gary had managed to save some units to defend the northern parts of the island when I was stretching out to take as many areas as possible, it might have gone the other way.
I believe the delayed landing strategy worked well. In this case, if I had put enough effort into Suribachi early, I think I would have been on better schedule and wouldn't have had to stretch my units and expose them to JP Def Fire in turns 7, 8 and 9.
As I noted at start, this game is a "puzzle" with a bit of game theory tossed in for both players. There are probably some aspects of the game remaining to look into, but with 6 plays by me (3 as US and 3 as JP), I'm happy that I've got that much gaming out of this magazine game. Time to move on, esp. since now that I'm done with these AARs. 

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