In this scenario an Italian regiment must assault an entrenched NKVD force on a ridge outside of town, kill Russians, take entrenchments and exit units while experiencing less than twice the losses of the Russians. In reality, after a tentative assault during which the strength of the position was determined, the Italians decided it was cold and the hill was high or the sun was too bright, or whatever. In any event they halted the assault.

But this is why we play the scenarios.

The NKVD heavily fortified the ridge and left both of their wings open to flanking columns, surrendering the exited units points which could not win the scenario for the Italians, forcing them to attack. The short (19 turns) sceanrio argued against fancy maneuvers and called for a direct assault which the Italians promptly delivered. The sent one and a half battalions to the north end of the ridge and one to the south end to try their luck. Both columns were tasked with exiting units so that neither would lose any serious impetus to loss of strength to exiting troops.

For the first hour and a half the results were as expected, Italians piled up in the expected rows in front of numerous machine gun pits. At this point, however, the one Italian advantage began to tell. They have a lot of artillery. Not necessarily good artillery but a lot of it. They got some demoralization results on a hill top entrenchment and were able to pass enough morale checks to get troops in position for an assault. Some of the NKVD were able to recover but others ran away giving the Italians a chance in an assault. They were not able to take the entrenchment on the subsequent turn so the NKVD moved up reserves and then decided to hit the hex with their OBA, counting on the entrenchment to save their troops which it did. Unfortunately they rolled crappy on the attack so the Italians were safe as well. Worse, however was that the OBA hit their own troops in the adjacent hex much harder, causing losses and demoralizing the troops.

By turn 8 the Italians had exited units taken the entrenchment and caused sufficient losses to have met their victory total and now had to absorb the NKVD assault to see if they could avoid losses that would color the final result. Bringing up the reserves was the Lt. Col, the ranking officer of the NKVD force. He was immediately shot down by direct fire and in the ensuing two turns of non-movement (decapitation rules) the NKVD forces in the open were obliterated.

This one was a huge win for the Italians as no such win was expected. The scenario itself will not often play this exciting, the NKVD rolled hideously for morale checks while the Italians rolled stunningly well in similar circumstances. I give it a 3 grudgingly as it may deserve a four, but I can't give it a 3 1/2.