Panzer Grenadier Battles on March 28th:
Spearhead Division #15 - Dillenberg
Bersaglieri get tossed off the tracks but prevent a total rollover; a narrow victory for Britain.
Author Brett Nicholson
Method Solo
Victor Britain
Play Date 2013-08-18
Language English
Scenario CCV2008

This was a very close match, Britain winning it by a mere 3 V.P.s. Here's why:

The victory conditions have a loophole which gives Italy a chance to claim extra V.P.s, a giveaway possibly. The victory conditions state, for Italy: 5 V.P.s if neither track running from the South edge to the road is free of undemoralized Italian combat units and/or minefield points at the end of play. Well, neither the British deployment force or the reinforcements have ENG units in their rosters. So, unless the Italian player chooses not to place minefields on the track hexes, they easily gain 5 V.P.s at the end of the scenario. I suppose a way around this would be to allow normal British INF or HMG units to try to remove minefield points by making them spend 6 turns (twice the amount required for ENG units), undisrupted or demoralized. Most likely that wouldn't work either. In this case, those 5 V.P.s did not turn the tide for Italy however.

Half of the Italian force set up at a junction where the two tracks connect with the road, below the ridge, dug-in and place eight, randomly drawn minefields on most of the vacant track and road hexes surrounding them. The other half, along with the German armored units and artillery, set-up on the hill hexes. 47mm's and the 20mm are set-up for crossfire but up against Matildas, not much can be expected from them.

The British spend the first two turns advancing, undetected from the cover of the Southern hill areas. Extra time is spent later by digging-in the two 3-inch mortar units at the base of the hill for added protection as the mortars are the only fire support without OBA in this scenario, at least until reinforcements arrive with another 3-inch.

At 06:15/turn 3, the Italain 105mm's begin to fire on the advancing foot units who have left the cover of the hills but only disrupt one unit to start off and the British attack force stays together. At 06:45/turn 5, two units of German Sdkfz 231(6) armored cars take out two steps of British INF with opportunity fire, boosting Italian morale. At 07:15/turn 7, the British gain the initiative and retaliate by easily eliminating 3 steps of those armored cars with their Matildas before they are able to retreat back to limiting terrain. At 08:15/turn 11, one of the Italian leader character Tenentes is hauled off the battlefield for compound demoralization (gets lucky and is reprimanded). British superiority in numbers start to wear down the defending Bersaglieri morale and some actually begin to flee towards the hills.

At 08:45/turn 13, the British reinforcements begin to appear from the South but by this time they become more of spectators and for whatever reason don't go rushing forward to assist their comrades, who seem to have the situation under control at this time. So far, British losses have been very light and they prepare to make assaults. At 09:15/turn 15, the minefields have some effect and a few British INF lose steps and get demoralized. At 09:30/turn 16, the British begin their assaults and soon another Italian leader character Tenente is removed from play with a serious wound and will sit the last campaign scenario out, Halfaya Pass, hospitalized. By 10:00/turn 18, some of the mobile reinforcements had moved close enough to unload a 2-pdr and take out a step of PzIIs who had escaped the wrath of the Matildas earlier and at this point it was more of a clean-up operation for the reinforcements.

At 10:30/turn 20, the British deliver one more stunning blow to the axis by overunning the two 105mms and eliminating both of them and then time was up. The British win this one but not by much. The one thing preventing them from a major victory was one disrupted step of PzIIs who managed to not only survive but hold on to a road hex, depriving the Britsh of an extra 15 V.P.s and adding 10 V.P.s to the Italian total.

So ends Scenario 8 out of 9 in the campaign, which sits with the British holding 264 CPs and the Italians 206 CPs; the Britsh leading the campaign by 59 CPs. Likely, with the final engagement at Halfaya Pass, the British will have won this early Desert War campaign unless the Italians are able to literally wipe-out the entire British defending force there, as that is what it would require in terms of V.P.s and C.P.s. But then again, this is Panzer Grenadier so that feat is not entirely impossible, though quite unlikely.

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