This was my first scenario involving mass Italian surrender. They had a decent, though strung out line with some AT firepower. The Brit left swung around the Italian right. The Italians tried digging more troops in and moving troops from their left to the right to build a north-south line in the center, hoping to use their guns to good effect. It started well, taking out two Brit tank steps. It didn’t last though, and when one AT gun went silent and another assaulted, the Italian line fell quickly. British win.

The British strategy was to move in quickly and force the Italians to surrender. The Italians planned on getting some accurate anti-tank fire from the guns scattered along their defensive line. They also expected to be able to move back as the tanks approached.

The four armored British squadrons approached quickly resulting in a lot of Italian surrenders, but very accurate AT fire soon took a serious toll on the British. By 1500, the British had lost 10 steps. The best they could do now was force a draw. They needed to eliminate 40 steps; they already had 34 with a couple of hours remaining. Now they had Italians scattering to the north and the chase was on.

By 1530, the British had met their victory conditions, eliminating 40 steps. The Italians were in disarray and scattered. The British had broken the line, but sustained too many step losses in the process. They had achieved a draw.

It appears that the primary reason that the British did not achieve victory was that they took too much risk. The armored cars and MkIVbs were vulnerable to the Italian guns. They should have stayed out of range until the 25-lbr could disrupt the 75mm AT guns.

I blasted through AK scenario 17 in no time tonight. The British Hussars and other tanks have 15 turns to rack up 40 step losses on an all infantry force. I quit on turn 6, with 27 step losses already...and another 18 in surrender-rolling position for next turn.

pretty easy stuff. One thing I might try if I play again is have some Italians dig in. But the surrender rule, and lack of AT weaponry, really puts the Italians in run-run mode. Not much to do, although I suppose if the Brits are careless, in some location where you pass a surrender roll you could assault some tanks..even then you will need to roll a "1" result on assault to have any effect, so I'm not sure what you can do here besides creative running.

Fun historical scenario though...nice to see at ground level how ill suited for the desert the bulky Italian infantry divisions really were. It's like watching the real thing during a flyover.

This is a interesting scenario but needs some tweaks. The scenario is an automatic British victory, without a lot of luck for the Italians. The surrender rule really gives the British a edge that is too big for the Italian player to overcome and the defeat of the Italian will occur without help. What is interesting is stringing out the Italian setup end to end of the board, it was one big conga line or surrender line.

For my play the British entered both at eastern and western side of the south edge of the board. The Italians immediately went after the British guns with there guns and scored a step loss on the 2pdr AT gun and its truck, one turn later the Lt with them was double disrupted. The 25 pdr stayed in good order but its Lt was disrupted a couple of times. Meanwhile the tanks closed on the Italians. In a vain attempt to slow them, the Italians OP fired but failed to score any morale checks. The British started to call for surrender from their tanks and the Italians obliged. Within two turns 10 steps and 3 Tenenates had surrender the ones that didn't were hit with DF and disrupted. A couple of brave Italian INF's tried to assault the tanks, but were beaten back and surrendered too. The British continued down the line and the Italians continued to surrender in mass. One more Italian assault yielded a disruption on an A13, but they recovered the next turn. By turn 7 the British VC had been achieved.

This is an interesting scenario but the VC's need to be modified to give the Italians a chance, possibly not surrendering by turn XX or something like that. They have no way to slow them even with the guns that they have the British could easily take them out with with the better armored tanks. Possibly some lucky rolls the Italians may win.

In intense, frustrating, too long and rather flawed scenario. It was our first involving a number of demoralized Italian units surrendering when confronted. Not sure that there is a way for the Italian side to win this one as published, although they begin with a relatively well-laid defense along the the southern ridge of Map 1 (Landscape). The have no motor transport or even wagons to move what artillery they have, so once in-place, the guns stay put. I had to modify my existing map by hand-drawing the 20 and 40 meter contour lines since we played using the 4th edition rule set. Oddly, the Italians side did not begin dug-in and it was a judgment call as to which side of the slope their units actually occupied.

My opponent was his usual steadfast and playful self, and this looked like a sure British win right from the start. He had bad luck throwing dice, especially in assaults and morale recovery. Uncharacteristically, I had better die rolls, and fewer Italian units surrendered than expected . The final score was 25 for the British and only 11 for the Italians, resulting in a draw, since the Brits lost 6 steps of armored cars and 3 of light tanks. The UK got no where near the 40 steps of Italian losses required for victory. I suspect that if he had stood off and used more direct fire from 2 hexes or less, rather than getting into a substantial number of assaults, his tanks and armored cars would have sustained fewer casualties. For the Italian side, getting into assault fights was not a bad thing until one or more of the units involved became demoralized.

For better play balance, I suggest that the victory conditions be changed to require that the Italians eliminate at least 14-16 steps of British units, and that the Brits eliminate 26-30 Italian steps. It would also make some sense to replace the next-to-useles-in this-scenario, British 2-pdr AT gun & truck, with 2 trucks, another leader and some infantrymen. The Italians should have at least 2 wagons to move their artillery around if need be, plus one more HMG platoon. Twelve turns instead 15 would make this a more exciting scenario.