Kokoda Trail

Japanese troops landed in northeastern New Guinea in July 1942, and quickly began a march over the forbidding Owen Stanley Mountains toward the vital anchorage and airfield at Port Moresby on the southern coast. They ran into Australian infantrymen of the 39th Militia Battalion, starting a three-month campaign waged in some of the world's most forbidding terrain.

An Australian militia brigade went up the trail to face the Japanese, who poured in reinforcements of their own. Next the veteran Australian 7th Infantry Division, the heroes of Tobruk, plunged into the jungles and finally stopped the Japanese attacks. While Australian soldiers fought on despite rampant malaria, Japanese troops hauled artillery shells over the mountains by hand and resorted to eating Australian prisoners of war. Finally in September 1942 the Japanese withdrew from one of the war's most brutal campaigns.

Kokoda Trail is a 64-page book supplement to the Panzer Grenadier series, focused on the fierce fighting that took place in the Owen Stanley Mountains in 1942. Designer Dave Cheever has crafted 30 new scenarios based on these battles, taking place on two new mapboards with artwork by acclaimed video game auteur Guy Riessen. And of course we have background articles on the campaign and the armies and weapons involved, and unit organization diagrams.

This module is not playable by itself, but requires ownership of Afrika Korps and Guadalcanal to enjoy all of the scenarios.