Author	treadasaurusrex (Italy)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	OldPueblo
Play Date	2022-10-07
Language	English
Scenario	AfKo018

We finally got around to finishing this months-long, 5-session online ordeal. This was a real fight with a wily and skilled British Army opponent, who was getting used to handling a fast-moving, armor-heavy task force. We skipped the defense-favoring FOW rule, but used the excess initiaitive and smoke optional rules. As others have reported, the overall British strategy was to move rapidly to contact in the center of the dug-in Italian defensive line between the eastern hill and salt marsh. This was intended to force Italian infantry surrenders, and thereby create a viable gap in the Axis line, allowing an eventual mass move to take Hill 2008. I played the defending Italians and hope to catch as many Allied AFVs in AT crossfires as possible, while slowly backing the infantry to positions closer to the hill and Hex 2008. Surprisingly, this strategy worked.

It took the Tommies about 4 turns to break through the initial Italian positions, and start a cascade of Italian tactical withdrawals aimed at delaying the armored onslaught as long as possible. Luckily, Italian artillery fire was effective and British armored cars and light tanks began to brew up under AT fire, which helped the BERS infantry of the Arditi Company to fall back successfully to where the Italian tankettes was holding. Oddly, there were fewer than expected surrenders of the dug-in Italian units, although there were many disruptions and morale recovery failures.

Seven turns in, the more mobile Tommies had surrounded the Italians on the hill and the Arditi infantry units and tankettes were slowly being ground down. This led to 6 turns of brave, but unsuccessful, close assaults by MK-ViB light tanks, who dearly needed some supporting infantry and OBA. British Cruiser tanks showed up on turn 8., and quickly managed to force surrenders of a good many Italian units, but Axis delaying tactics and difficulty in coordinating attack sequencing undid the overall battle plan for the Allied side, resulting in an unsatisfying drawn game.

I give this one a 2.