[SotM] 2012 August - Prepare for Battle!

[tlangston28]

Here is the accompanying photo AAR of Alem Hamza: Right Flank played against Vince Hughes. You can read the AAR Here: Alem Hamza: The Italian Hedgehog.

Picture 1: The Itailian setup. This utilization of the box defense on the narrow end allowed great coverage. The picture does detail which units were placed in what positions. Note that the placement of leaders was particularly good as I would watch a literal "spider-web" of activations cause all sorts of havoc...

Picture 2: Shows the Italian setup with ranges for different ordinance. This range was applicable even with an attack from the south.

Picture 3: Summarizes the commonwealth avenue of approach through the extent of the advance. Almost made it!

Picture 4: Shows the Commonwealth probe into the Italian positions by Turn 29. The minefield markers (including the "DECOY") indicate the assault hexes.

Picture 5: Details the units involved in each assault hex (noted by the corresponding minefield marker).

Picture 6: Shows the final positions of the attack. Note the many demoralization counters, caused at the hands of the Italian F-Ps!

[Hugmenot]

Good pictures, Tony!

What light source(s) did you use for pictures 4 through 6? I see you have the map under plexiglass but do not see any obvious light reflected.

[tlangston28]

Good pictures, Tony!

What light source(s) did you use for pictures 4 through 6? I see you have the map under plexiglass but do not see any obvious light reflected.

I took the first three pictures after the battle by resetting the Italians up after we had completed. That was with a Pentax K-X, standard 18-55mm lens with just the on-camera flash and "AUTO" setting. 4-6, believe it or not, was taken with my Galaxy S Android phone (which has a flash on it) during the battle. I tried several shots and found the right angle where the reflection wouldn't be as pronounced as a direct-on shot.

[vince hughes]

Tony,

I wish I could present AAR pictures like that. I particularly like the one of the Indian sweep across the desert. Pretty cool.

It certainly was a tough battle !

[zovs]

No kidding on the pictures, these alone is making me want to purchase both the Desert packs...

[tlangston28]

Daniel - it was a little late when I wrote that yesterday.

4-6 was with the smartphone.

1 was taken with the digital slr on macro setting slow flash.

2-3 were standard auto-pict shots with flash set to slow.

[Hugmenot]

Thanks Tony! I will need to experiment with the flash and indirect light setting I am using.

I am glad I saw picture 3 yesterday as I just pulled a smallish scenario with hidden units (White Eagles #01) and the annotations gave me an idea. I will explore and report back if it proves useful in my play.

[campsawyer]

Tony,

Great pictures of the battle. With your attack, I was wondering why such a long advance to attack the Vince's Italians?

[vince hughes]

Tony will probably answer but I did point this out to him at the END of the game (naturlich).

He said he was concerned about taking initial OBA, but that would have happened whenever he came into sight. Also with '8' morale troops with bags of leaders, 2 x 10 OBA is not something to worry about (usually). He may have had one more chance of a late try of once more unto the breach BUT that said, his troops were in a real tatty state with DIS & DEM all over the place and especially so in his leaders. So it may have all been academic anyway ?

Something we'll never know now ? It has come to pass.

[tlangston28]

As Vince said, I probably would have been better off charging straight up the hill from the south which would have given me more time. Hindsight shows that OBA was really a non-factor.

Also, trying to keep the units in cohesion across the desert took longer as well - somethng that would have been alleviated in the shortened area.

Would the result have been different? Probably not - when push came to shove, I was able to defeat the Italians in almost every assault, but a cleared hex would immediately expose those units to adjacent fire from all over the place, causing DIS and DEMs which required at least 1-2 turns of recovery.