Author	wleonard1
Method	Solo
Victor	Ethiopia
Play Date	2020-11-06
Language	English
Scenario	COOE006

Four battalions of Italian colonial infantry enter in the center of the long north edge of a single board. One battalion arrives on each of the first four turns, if they make their die rolls. They have all day to cross a 40/60 meter Amba NW to SE ridge and exit ¾ of their units off of the west edge. A battalion of Ethiopian Imperial Irregulars, with a small stiffening of regulars are in the way.

The Italian forces begin to enter, see a dug-in Ethiopian force on the all-Amba ridge in the most direct path, and decide to take the long way around the ridge rather than try a full-on frontal assault. After two hours, the first Italian units are starting to crest the southeast portion of the ridge, but there are a fair number of stragglers who haven’t made their climbing rolls. An attempt to close with the Ethiopian defenders in the center of the ridge loses a few Italian steps and generates lots of disruptions and demoralizations. And the fourth battalion of Italian forces is an hour late and nowhere in sight. Ethiopia has thinned out the defense line on the northwest end of the ridge to redeploy troops to stop the Italian end-around.

The next hour sees one Italian battalion cross the southeast corner of the ridge and begin to slip past the Ethiopian line. But the Eritrean battalion tasked with pinning the center of the Ethiopian line has collapsed, losing eight steps to adjacent direct fire and ill-fated assaults; the survivors are mostly morale-impaired. And the last battalion of reinforcements still has not arrived.

Halfway through, the Lost battalion has finally arrived, and closes up to the left side of the Ethiopian line. A half battalion of Bande has slipped past the right flank, but there are a lot of troops still hung up trying to get across the Amba. And Italy has already lost twelve steps and dropped initiative to zero, while inflicting no more than a single disruption on the Ethiopian defenders. The end-around continues in the next hour, and a firefight with Ethiopian forces moving to the right flank actually inflicts an Ethiopian step loss. But the lost battalion’s attempt to pin down the center and left flank fails badly with heavy losses to direct fire and assaults.

As darkness begins to fall, the outcome is not in doubt. Italy will be able to exit about two battalions of troops off of the west edge, but that is well short of their victory conditions. The Ethiopians remain dug in and nearly unassailable on the crest of the Amba ridge. Although it is not part of the victory conditions, what remains is nevertheless an interesting tactical problem for both sides. Italy needs to rally and exit the stragglers, keeping enough of a flank guard to deter the Ethiopians from coming down off the ridge, and keeping a mobile rear guard that will still be able to exit by the end of the game. For Ethiopia, they are looking to pick off any stragglers, while not risking unnecessary losses. And with two Italian battalions headed for the west behind Ethiopian lines, it might also be a good idea to start securing their own retreat route – they don’t want to stay on the Amba forever. The last hour goes as expected. Italy exits about a battalion and a half; which was less than half of what they needed for a victory. Another battalion was on the way, but too many early Fog-of-War rolls kept them on the board. Both sides lose some stragglers to assaults. Ethiopia has a massive edge in losses – 27 Italian steps lost to 5 Ethiopian. It’s an Ethiopian victory.

Thoughts: This was the battle the Ethiopian army wanted to fight. If I played again, I might make some setup tweaks, but wouldn’t change the strategy. Lessons learned for Italy? Even with a 4 to 1 advantage, it is better to use maneuver rather than try a stand-up fight against a dug-in enemy in Amba. It would also be useful if I could have applied all of those failed Amba climbing rolls to morale checks, and applied all of those failed morale check rolls to Amba climbing instead.