Panzer Grenadier Battles on March 28th:
Spearhead Division #15 - Dillenberg
Trieste Division's rearguard holds the line at bayonet's distance
Author Brett Nicholson
Method Solo
Victor Italy
Play Date 2013-09-17
Language English
Scenario DeRa038

This was a very intense scenario as I wasn't absolutely sure of the outcome until the last two turns and was enjoyable right up until the last unit's activation. Each side held the advantage at given times and it went back and forth that way but in the end, Italy prevailed.

With the Italian deployment I opted to place units close to the center of the map, slightly East, where there where the most upper hill hexes, North to South. I chose not to use the hedgehog pattern with the 45mms and kept all support units in the center of an inverted triangle. I chose instead to place HMG units stacked at each edge of the triangle, making it tough for advancing forces to encircle the Italian camp. There were plenty of Italian units to keep 11 hexes solid with 2 units in each of them.

The Commonwealth advance went smooth at first though a few units were disrupted from Italian OBA fire before reaching the ridge but they were quickly rallied and a solid formation stayed intact. Italian opportunity fire inflicted a few step losses early on but soon the front lines of the Italian defense took casualties of their own as well. Soon a few demoralized Italian units had failed recovery attempts and were piled atop the dug-in rearguard, three units high but were able to rally most of the time and able to redeploy and dig-in again; if not back to the front, at least to the center where there was room to blend in with support units. This activity occured a lot in the Italian lines and one HMG retreated, recovered and returned back to the front twice and was actaully able to dig-in again.

By 10:15/turn 10, the Commonwealth had a bad stroke of luck when their Colonel was eliminated through compound demoralization which also in turn broke the advance formation in half along with the subsequent catastrophic loss and decapitation results. By this time however, the Italian front lines were very weak and at 11:00/ turn 13, one of the upper hill hex positions was abandoned giving the Commonwealth forces the opportunity to get in the breach and initiate assaults. By 12:15/turn 18, the Italians abandon another front post before it can be assaulted.

At 13:45/turn 24, the Italian front lines are non-existent and the second line of defense begins to show signs of caving in. However, the left wing of the Commonwealth force begins to dissipate and it's advance is stalled while it's units and leaders attempt to recover and reorganize. The right wing of the attack however proceeds and has made it adjacent to the rearguard forces. By 15:45/turn 32, the Italian rearguard is the front line but it is solid and mostly in good order and time is running out for the Commonwealth forces as nightfall is not far way. There still seems to be some hope that one last push may succeed in breaking the last line of defense. There are no Italian AT weapon units left at this point and both Valentine tanks and ACWs have advanced from behind and the last defenses are totally surrounded.

At 16:30/turn 35, Commonwealth forces are poised to launch 4 final assaults though not under the most desired conditions but have no choice but to go for broke. At this point they have suffered 9 step losses so there is no chance of a draw. Of course these assaults don't go that well and with one turn remaining it is certain the last line of the italian defense will hold, and it does. At the scenario's end there were still 11 Italian units remaining on the upper hill area though over half of them were reduced, demoralized or disrupted but they remained.

These Italian forces in the 'Desert Rats' scenarios are not the "Surrender Monkeys" (As Shad would refer to them as) of 'Afrika Korps' and with my plays so far have the best record of all the nations involved at: 11 victories; 1 draw and just 6 losses. In this scenario the morale of 7/7 helped a lot with reduced units and was amazed at how many times the Italians were able to rally, regroup and bounce back. A very solid 4 of 5 rating and a great play in my opinion.

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