After Action Report, Desert Rats Scenario 4, A Hundred Years as a Sheep

This was played solitaire.

Historically, the Commonwealth’s attack on the Italian camp caused a whole-sale surrender of the Axis forces. I was expecting a similar result, given that the situation implemented the “Surrender” rule. Play went an opposite direction.

I almost immediately encountered ambiguities in the surrender rule. When could a unit demand surrender? Could any CW unit, regardless of activation call for surrender? Could a CW unit move and call for surrender as it moved? I posed the question to the Panzer Grenadier WWII Series forum on Consimworld and received multiple interpretations. My own interpretation: Any CW unit, could call for surrender, however this could only happen once per TURN, not Action phase, and only at the BEGINNING of an Action phase (not necessarily the first). AFVs could call for the surrender of any stacked or adjacent unit, demoralized or not. INF, HMG, etc, could call for the surrender of any demoralized unit stacked or adjacent to the calling units.

CW losses began to accumulate immediately, despite the surrender of several Italian formations. AFVs were particularly effective in calling for surrender, as they broke through the feeble AT defenses and dispersed to cause as many Italian surrenders as possible.

The dispersion of the British Matildas, though they caused a maximum of surrender dice rolls, proved costly in the end. Italian units who had survived their surrender checks, abandoned their Entrenchments and assaulted a couple of isolated Matilda units, realizing their complete destruction. This was enough to salvage a draw, which was actually a defeat of sorts for the CW side. Though the capture of all Axis entrenchments and the destruction of all Italian armor was assured, the CW losses exceeded the 10 steps allowed by the victory conditions.

This was an interesting scenario and evolved in a completely unexpected direction. Much fun, once the surrender rule was decided.