A battalion of Italian M13/40s is given the task of destroying some gun emplacements on two widely separated hills. As noted in other AARs the Italians must decide whether to go after a complete wiping out of one hill or to take out the heavy guns on both hills. The South Africans have a battalion of infantry and some AT support to help. The scenario is short (12 turns) so there is little time for the Italians to change their mind. The M13/40 has only 6 MPs so movement off road will be slow.

My Italians chose to split their force with the concept of completely wiping out the smaller hill (with only an AT gun, 1 INF and 1 HMG along with the 18 pdr), sending 5 platoons of tanks there with the remaining 3 platoons maneuvering to get a crack at the gun on the southern hill.

As others have mentioned there is a glitch in the scenario. The Italians are given a substantial amount of OBA (3 10-factor packets) but no leaders to sight with. I chose, as others did, to permit tank leaders to spot.

For those looking at the title of this AAR and the winner you can guess what happened. By the end of turn 4, three complete platoons of tanks were eliminated and two were reduced and demoralized. The Italian attack was in shambles and the tanks were pulled back. I do not believe that this was the result of a poorly designed scenario but rather very high rolls by the South African AT gunners and equally high rolls from the a8 pdrs. In two cases a modified 13 or higher came up eliminating a whole tank platoon with one shot.

Add to that the fact that the Italian OBA was ineffective, not due to lack of results but due to good morale check rolls by the S.A. guns.

Still this one was over quickly and I left feeling somewhat cheated. I will probably play this one again to see if reasonable rolling would give a different feel.