Author	treadasaurusrex (Britain)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	CavDo
Play Date	2024-04-12
Language	English
Scenario	AfKo049

This was an 11-session, bloody, play-through that we began last September and finally completed as a DRAW, today. I led elements of the attacking British 4th 'Black Rats' Armoured Bridage in this overlong alternate history fracas in Libya. The cunning, Cav Do led the fearsome, combined arms Italian force in what a very fun to play battle, spoiled only be the oddly-written victory conditions and the stultifying, surrender rule.

As others have reported, this was a British attempt to intercept retreating, poor quality Italian troops by a probing force of the British 7th Armoured Division. The strength of the Babini Brigade's tanks make this one a relatively balanced scenario that is worth playing in both SHARED & SOLO modes.

The major challenge for the Brits is to use their superior mobility to set up crossfire, long-range, armor piercing shots against the relatively-slow, but higher quality, Italian tank platoons. This was a high maneuver game using the FOW, extended assault and excess initiative optional rules. For the bulk of our play-through, the Brits had better luck with combat & morale recovery die rolls, especially when the charging British armor finished crossing Map 2 and came to grips with the retreating Italian infantry & trucks. Both sides exceeded their required step losses by game turn 16. making a draw almost a foregone, somewhat disappointing conclusion. We lost track of the combat 7-die rolls, but they seemed to crop up whenever the Italians had maneuvered adroitly to setup cross fire situations against the rather crummy British tanks. There were a total of 19 FOW-shortened game turns and the step loses were high for the opposing sides.

This one needs a rewrite, a reduction in game length, and a more thoughtful set of victory conditions. The Italian infantry & the Brit light tanks are WAY TOO fragile, so casualties are bound to be high. I give it a 3, for the fun factor when playing with a challenging & unpredictable opponent and as a training scenario for those new to high mobility maneuvers, fighting withdrawals & meeting engagements in PG. However, it really deserves a 2 as published.