In short, this was an all out slugfest in desperation for hill control. The British begin dug-in on the ridge, surrounded by 10 hexes of randomly drawn minefields for an opening advantage while the Germans advance without cover but with greater numbers and better leaders overall. Both sides have deadly OBA: the Germans get 2X24, 2X16; and the British with 3X16.

To shift the balance, the British receive reinforcements anytime on or after turn 4/08:45 with more foot units along with much needed armor and additional 6-pdr AT guns to counter a volatile mix of German panzers. In this case the British reinforcements arrived on turn 6/09:15 and had sufficient time to dig in behind and slightly south of the initially deployed forces.

A nice little tank battle ensued on the sidelines but the British caused a lot more damage with the 6 and 25-pdrs than the actual tanks before most of them were eliminated from OBA. By the battles end, remarkably, both sides still had armor steps left. British rearguard foot units actually disrupted surviving PzIVEs, preventing them from chasing down the sole step of Crusader Is, which dug-in further north after outrunning the panzers.

German step losses stayed about ten points higher than British losses though there were times when the difference was closer to only five. German assaults took positions in the front and secondary British lines but reached no further. Minefields inflicted a lot of damage especially when artillery barrages jumped bombardment fire up to the 55+ column in those hexes. German engineers were able to remove two minefields however and even at point blank range did not take any step losses the entire battle surprisingly enough.

The battle was one big push and pull struggle for territory and in the end, both sides controlled equal amounts of hexes (12 each) but the step losses were the deciding factor for victory and the Germans lost 11 more than the British.

British leadership also suffered a major blow when one of their leader character Captains deserted after rolling a '12' on a recovery attempted. No reprimand was given by higher command and the British lose their first leader character. The two surviving British LC Captains racked up a lot of LPs though and both were able to increase attributes and skills after the battle. German leader characters all survived and one LC Lieutenant actually earned his infantry assault badge but failed to get promoted. For once all German LCs emerged with positive LPs and no casualties.

In the campaign scheme of things, quite simply, the Germans are losing and doing a lot worse overall than the Italians did in their campaign after six scenarios. The British hold 227 CPs to the German's 156, giving the British an overall lead of 71 CPs. At this point in the Early Desert War campaign, Italy was only down by 42 CPs and that was after a victory. So Germany has to win the last two battles and win big so as not to be outdone by their axis counterparts. For the record the casualties were:

Germany: Major(9-0-1);Captain(10-1-0);Lieutenant(9-0-1); 17 steps of INF; 5 steps of HMG; 6 Spw251; 2 steps of PzIIIF; 6 steps of PzIIIG; and 2 steps of PzIVE.

Britain: Lieutenant Colonel(9-0-1);Captain(8-0-1);Lieutenant(9-1-1);Sergeant(8-0-1); 10 steps of INF; 5 steps of HMG; 3 3-inch; 1 40mm; 2 6-pdr; 2 25-pdr; 5 steps of Crusader I; 2 steps Crusader CS and 2 trucks.

In terms of play, this was probably the best scenario so far of the Later Desert War campaign and rate it a '4', borderline '5'. Once again I believe that the British do have a slight advantage as defenders, especially if their reinforcements arrive on time but in any case a damn good battle. After play, looking at the remaining steps on the map, it looked as if neither side could really claim a decisive victory, even if there were more turns left. It was a close and bloody struggle.