This was a standard Australian desert trench assault gone wrong again. It seemed like a lot to ask of the Diggers to take five entrenchments in just 3 hour's time. The advance did have the cover of darkness to start but immediately tragedy struck before the main Italian lines were reached when one of my Bren carriers ran smack into a 45mm AT gun. This initial loss was very unnerving as a whole loaded platoon of HMGs were also wiped out. Playing with hidden AT guns and a visibilty of one hex is a very deadly combination but does add a bit more realism to play. No-one's fault but mine as drove right into a well-sprung trap. Then Vince sent one of his annoying forward observers into my advancing line to get some OBA in on my advancing linear formation which succeeded in diverting my attention. Activations got burned up trying to sort the spotter out and reorganizing mobile units when fog of war struck. A whole turn was wasted that should of been used to get in close to the trenches before sunrise. My overall personal morale was seriously damaged from that point early on but still attempted to muster something resembling an attack. Vince and I mostly played the attrition game pounding each other with artillery barrages early on but I was losing an average of two steps to every one of his while the Italian lines continued to hold. With time running out very quickly I got my blood up and did make an assault on the left flank of the lines. One dug-in position was breached but the sole trench attack failed miserably. With nothing to lose Vince poured OBA fire into the assault hex with Aussies atacked three high while his units benefited from the entrenchment defenses. What I did manage to do was even the losses somehow by taking out a lot of soft targets and all field pieces of artillery, the AA gun and all but one of the 47mm AT guns was eliminated. But each held entrenchmant was worth 2 VPs each for Italy and in the end that is what counted. Though this was an Italian victory the losses were exactly 50/50; 13 steps each. It was a Commonwealth failure but I believe that I managed to not lose too badly; I expected things to turn out a lot worse in the end. This campaign is still far from over for Vince and I. Italy is in the lead but only by 13 CPs. So far the first three scenarios of this early desert war camapign have panned out the same as when I played them solo with the leader characters except that Britain is losing a LOT more units than it did before. When I played this before one not Italian entrenchment was taken that time either. It was a nice challenge and feel that I was able to keep my wits together the second part of the battle and at least broke into the Italian lines instead of just continuing to trade back shots of artillery and direct fire. It's a tough one for the Aussies but not impossible to win so it gets a standard "3" rating this time around.