This was an enjoyable, but frustrating for the Allies, 5-session, face-to-face play-through with the redoubtable, and rapidly-learning, Tubac52 leading the defending German side in yet another of the interminable series of Siege of Tobruk "over the top and take the entrenchment" scenarios. I played the attacking Australians & British who randomly drew a very poor set of random leaders. We played with the defense-favoring FOW optional rule, as well as the excess initiative and smoke-illumination optional rules.

My lucky opponent managed a much better leader draw and the Axis reinforcements appeared on the second turn. This is an odd-scenario, as the initial fighting consisted of firing from one set of entrenchments at another. The encounter rapidly degenerated into a die rolling contest, punctuated by the occasional Australian success in taking a position only to lose it in the inevitable German counter attack, while trying to recover morale. The S3 entrenchment in hex 2214 traded hands twice. At one point the Germans had lost 3 of their posts, but two were eventually recaptured in close assaults. Fortunately for the Aussies, the only German tank platoon was eliminated in turn 14 by a pair of successful close assaults, but at the cost of 3 steps of overextended & exhausted Digger infantry. As others have reported, the entrenchment in hex 1718 was a very hard nut for the Australians to try to crack. The sky high German morale was a key factor in this scenario, as was the impact of fighting at night.

By the end of our last session of this play-through, the Allies had only managed to take and hold a single entrenchment, and at an unacceptable (24 steps and 6 leaders) cost. The Germans lost only 16 steps and 4 leaders. Twelve of the 27 turns were FOW-shortened, which hurt the attacking Allies far more than the defenders, by derailing the attack sequence. This was a hard-fought German victory, won by a determined and gracious opponent.