After having played 60 Desert War scenarios so far the last year I have found this one to be the best tank battle yet. There was much more to it than just tanks slugging it out though, this one required a lot of manuevering and plotting from start to finish. 'The Tide Turns' is a very befitting title as it turned for both sides back and forth.

To begin with it looks like an easy win for the British simply because of the number of tanks available if you consider the reinforcements of 12 Stuarts adding to the 10 units of the Crusader Is but more important are the Repair Depot forces which can become available, providing Matildas and Valentine tanks to the lot. All of these together will outnumber German armor 3 to 1. But winning the tank battle for the British is not the most important thing. The British victory conditions require just one unit, any unit, to occupy any road hex by scenario's end along with 10 or more German step losses. Eliminating 10 German steps is the easier part.

Unfortunately, the British tanks have low A.T. firepower compared to most of the German tanks and usually with a shorter range. Setting up crossfire is essential for both sides. The British also have no indirect fire support whatsoever, not even a 3-inch mortar unit. This gives the Germans a little advantage with incredible OBA available to them: 1x20,3x16,2x12. Also, Crusader I tanks alone are very vulnerable to INF assaults and almost half of the Crusader I step losses in my game came from INF assaults.

So much went on in this game that I am not going to bother with too many notes, that would be too tedious.

In retrospect I didn't have the best British deployment, I had all initial forces dug-in, including tanks by the road. I should have placed at least half of the Crusader Is by the north edge to link-up with the Repair Depot forces right away. These Repair Depot tanks were a very interesting addition. The scenario rules state: Each turn, the British player may place one of these units anywhere on the North edge (note that they have no tank leaders): 2x Matilda,2x Valentine,2x Crusader I,2x Stuart. So without tank leaders they just sit there unable to move and most likely no German armor units are going to go near them as they are far from the road. So they are brought into play with other tanks with leaders driving to the North edge and moving them into battle. This becomes a struggle throughout the game, Repair Depot forces get moved but then the tank leading them gets eliminated and they get stuck unable to move until another unit with a tank leader can get to them and move them again -fun actually.

The tank battle kept shifting from one side having the advantage to the other but eventually the Germans lost almost all of their armor. Amazingly, at games end the German still had one reduced PZIVE and three steps of PzIIs left. The three German 50mm A.T. guns made a difference in making up for lost panzers because there was no British bombardment fire to knock them out; they survived until they were caught trying to move loaded on trucks and were all eliminated in one turn when an attempt was made to move them closer to the road-blocking units.

Close to midway through the game the Germans were gaining the edge by INF assaults against British armor more than panzers. But at 15:00/turn 15, the tide really did begin to turn. First, the British reinforcements of 12 Stuart units finally arrive but even more, a random event causes a German ammunition shortage and now neither side has any indirect fire capabilities.

As the game neared the end, all British foot units had been eliminated and most British armor units were pushed to the West edge, desperately hanging on for control of the road. However, demoralized and disrupted British tanks began to recover that had been left spread out all over the map and two reduced Stuarts were able to rally and dash towards the Eastern portion of the road while a Crusader I recovered, with a tank leader, and was able to get to more Repair Depot forces that were stranded. Eventually, three other parts of the road became occupied by British units and by scenarios end there was no way that the Germans, with just three mobile units left could catch up with or eliminate them all.

So that is how the British gained their victory, not through winning a tank battle but by being omnipresent. Again, it was strength through numbers, not firepower that won it. As far as the tank battles went the armor casualties were:

Germany: 1 step of PzII; 10 steps of PzIIIG and 3 steps of PzIVE.

Britain: 20 steps of Stuart; 2 steps of Matilda and 19 steps of Crusader I.

The Stuarts played a significant part in this victory even though they were almost all destroyed as they were the only tank that really had decent direct fire capabilties against German foot units. But really, if one looks at the statistics above, if this battle depended on armor step losses it would of clearly been a German win. But the British held on to the road in the end. Overall a brilliant scenario and the only reason I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 rating is that it is slightly biased for the British but this one is definitely worth playing again. With a better strategy and luck, the Germans could have done a lot better.