Somewhere in the very convuluted mess of my mind I began humming "Runaway" as my Italian trucks and civilians tried to get away from the British tankers. With the surrender rule in force and civilian morale at 5 running was critical. The British, however, seem to have forgotten about the AT guns and ended up losing 6 tank steps to a variety of armored car, regular artillery and AT guns firing at close range.

The Italians correctly set up their combat forces so as to screen the masses of soft targets which littered the road. Those soft targets ran away as quickly as possible but they make poor runners in the sand, permitting the British tanks to close the distance. The Mark VIbs head for the right of the Italian line looking to breakthrough there while the A13s try the center of the line. Both groups of tanks take some hits from AT fire and only on the right do the British get a breakthrough. In the end, 2 Italian units fall to direct fire and 12 surrender. If you are counting that is 14, or one less than the British needed to get a draw given their losses.

I have to admit that the Italians had extremely good luck with their AT fire and that a draw seems eminently possible. On the other hand, we don't get a chance to try out any true pursuit battles very often in PG and this is one for the books. It was highly enjoyable and one which probably warrants a replay down the road. I give it a "4".

The British strategy was to rush in and eliminate or force surrender of the Italians. The Italian approach was to use the AT guns and maneuver to avoid being adjacent. In the end, the British were able to eliminate 27 steps, but accurate Italian AT fire resulted in the loss of 4 steps during the process. The short engagement ended in a draw, with neither side achieving all victory conditions. The British should have spread out their forces as they approached the column while staying out of range of the AT guns.

This scenario pits a mobile British Force against a strung out convoy, to which the Brits should have a distinct advantage. The problem was the Italians deployed their few tanks and guns interspersed in the column. This made a direct assault foolhardy with only light armor. The Brits attacked each end of the column and the Italians drew back towards the center, each flank fleeing while the center dug in and kept the British armor at arms length. The Brits did try to rush past, but lost 2 steps to good AT rolls. The Brits did manage to cause a 10step Italian loss, but in 7 turns it wasn’t enough, so it ended a draw.

I went ahead and play a scenario from Afrika Korps last night, Scenario #14 Beda Fomm Two. It is challenging for both sides as I soon found out. Only seven turns, with only the first three that have any Visibility as night set in for the remainder of the turns. The Italians and their Civilian mob set up on the road and I set them up in the unload position, as they can’t exit them in this scenario any ways and it easier to defend, also the scenario description makes it sound as though they were are ready settling in for the night. The British setup not far away, hexes ##07 or less. The British have very little time to waste to get their 30 eliminated Italian step victory condition met. Civilians only count if they surrender. L3/35 count as double but I think the AB41 armored cars are much more valuable as they at least have an AT ability. The Italian can win by losing less then 15 steps and eliminating 4 British steps.

Turn one the British closed fast as time is a factor, even if they should wait until visibility decreases as the Italian 47mm and 105mm guns do have some bite! I tried to avoid them by going around, out of AT range. Some Italian units start to dig-in but the Civilian can’t, so I setup the two types of units mixed up a bit and tried to defend helpless Civilian as much I could with Italian military units, usually moving them behind other units, to better defend them.

Turn two, stupid British 2-pdr Portee is eliminated with a Captain as well. I haven’t figured out how to us a short range truck mounted portee units in an offensive way yet. I had to close with it to be of any use in this scenario but I got too close and got burned.

Turn three & four, Visibility is a factor and both sides big guns: IT-105mm & BR-25 pdr aren’t much help at this point. Units are adjacent in many areas and a few will become assault next turn. Some casualties on both sides!

Turns five-seven, not enough time for the British, only fourteen Italian steps lost, two were the useless L3/35’s units, which totaled 8 steps in its self as they are worth double! The other six were a mix of civilian surrender points and military eliminated and surrender points. The British need about three more turns to complete this mission, at least the way I played it. They also lost two steps of Mk-VIb’s. At this point it is an Italian victory, as they have only lost fourteen steps and have eliminated 4 step, one Portee unit two steps of MK-VIb’s and one Captain. I think the Captain counts as a step in this scenario, at least I counted it.

This is a tough scenario for both sides and most likely could have been a draw, stupid Portee! Well I had fun playing it and that is the most important thing about playing, getting enjoyment out of it.

This was a 2-session, face-to-face, play-through with a rapidly improving, very determined opponent playing the attacking British side. I ineptly led the fleeing bits & pieces of the once-proud 10th Italian Army -- now hopelessly chastened by having been thrown out of both Egypt -- and now -- Cyrenaica, too. We used the smoke/illumination, consolidation and excess initiative rules, and skipped the FOW optional rule.

The Italian leadership draw was a fiasco and the Tommy's did much better with their draw. The setup created the strung out convoy of inviting targets mentioned by other authors, which was quickly under fire from the fast-firing-and-moving, British task force. While the Italians did deploy their best weapons systems with AT values to advantage, their combat and morale recovery die rolls were simply awful in each of the 7 game turns. The Tommies' headlong attack might have been a disaster, but it turned out far batter than my opponent expected, due to the inaccurate AT & direct fire fire that met the British pincers movements. All the Italian civilians were captured.

The Brits inflicted the required 30 steps of Italian losses on the very last turn! Only 3 steps of British steps were lost in this fracas. I give this one a 3, mostly because it was fun to play in-person with my gleeful and entertaining opponent.