The Indian Force managed to get a good two pronged assault on to St Angelo. he Germans made no attempt to reinforce the town due to the open ground between St Angelo and Horseshoe Ridge. They banked on being able to support St Angelo by fire and arty and make the Indian Force pay. It didn’t go over well. The Indians managed to either eliminate or force the Germans out of St Angelo. The Indians suffered minor losses, with the Germans losing nearly the entire force from St Angelo. Without pushing on to Horseshoe Ridge, the Indians gained a minor victory.

Germans set up in Sant Angelo and dug-in on Horseshoe Ridge. The Allied forces concentrated first on taking Sant Angelo and were able to eliminate all German resistance in the town in six game turns. The Allies then turned toward Horseshoe Ridge but were initially thrown back with heavy losses by accurate German HMG fire. A few turns of maneuvering and softening up with offboard and onboard arty allowed The Canadian Shermans combined with a Staghound platoon to assault one of the hexes while Gurkha platoons assaulted another. In the end the Allies took one of the Ridge hexes and were fighting for another. The victory point total ended at 35-33 Allies, meaning a draw. This scenario was great fun and is well worth playing many times.

I played this just the night before but it was so much fun that I played it again. In my first playing I simply sent all of the Commonwealth forces forward without any real plan of action. The end result was a bloodbath for both sides. When I called the game the Germans retained possession of one of the town hexes. The CW was pretty badly beaten up and in no condition to continue. Horseshoe Ridge was never in any danger of falling to the Brits.

Today I played it with a bit of a scripted opening. In the first turn the Germans faced some real problems from the start. The German OBA was AWOL and the CW started off with 3 Action Segments. With that in mind I was a bit generous in "reversing" questionable moves that the CW made. IOW, I didn't want to start with a catastrophic result against the Brits. I can rationalize this by attributing this generosity to efficient pre-attack staff work. By turn two, I just let the game play out without undue interference.

With only 5 turns remaining I faced a situation eerily similar to my first play. The difference here was that the CW managed to evict the Germans from the town. Nonetheless, they still couldn't get into position to tackle the ridge. I ended up calling the game again with the same victor as last night. I'd play this one again in a heartbeat but the CW does face some long odds against the StuGIII. That thing's a monster in this scenario.

The Allied player made immediate thrusts to initiate assault combat both in the village of Sant' Angelo and along the line of blocking defenses that the German player set up to the north. German minefield placements on the north edge of the village provided an ample deterrent. Despite early successes, the combat dragged on to produce few results and ultimately the game ended in a draw. I'd like to play this one again.