Before the short report, let me just say that this one had to rank as possibly one of the most tedious scenarios I've played. As usual, it was played face-to-face.

It's a 48 turn game and has the AK spread thinly across a desert map and with a restriction of always leaving a unit in an entrenchment otherwise they lose the entrenchment if vacated. This is a problem as 2 entrenchments lost counts as a draw, more than 2 is a loss !

What occurred was a two battalion Aussie attack, one battalion either end of the map and the Germans having to shift reinforcemnts, albeit paper thin from location to location. It really did drag (3 session game), and in the end, only an all out Aussie assault on turn 40 finally captured a 2nd entrenchment. This maybe OK to play solo but not a great ftf game !

Here's the short report of this marathon where little occurred.

‘A Costly Attack’

Afrika Korps Scenario No.39

Tobruk 3rd May 1941

Scenario played : 24th October 2009

From the start several officers objected to Moorhead’s attack plan. Many preparing to take part in the attack on the German held posts, S7, S6, R7, R6 & R5 saw it as a futile undertaking. The Germans were known to have planted mines and booby traps around their perimeter and posted machine-guns and guns to cover them. Nonetheless the planning went forward and on the 3rd the attack was launched.

The attack consisted of two Australian battalions from the 24th Brigade, given extra MG support by English soldiers from the Northumberland Fusiliers. The attack force were split into their battalions and was launched on a wide front against the spaced out German entrenched locations. Initially, things went well as one enemy entrenchment area fell quickly though nearly 100 allied losses had been sustained in the first hour. The Australians learnt quickly from this, and as they approached their next objectives, they made sure to approach in a steady and self-supporting line. Meanwhile, the Afrika Korps defending these locations had to shuffle men to and fro to optimise each entrenched location.

As the allied troops advanced they were able to reduce enemy gun locations, but begun to come under some stress once they had taken position opposite enemy trenches to the east. This was because German artillery had zeroed in and was hitting the Empire troops with some accuracy. Despite a considerable amount of fire being flung at the enemy, the Aussies could not break them and felt they had to stay at some range still before launching any attack to assault.

The battle now bogged down and dragged on and on for 7 hours with little change in the situation other than the Australians probing at different points. Finally though, the two battalions bore down on a central location and began to put much pressure on their enemy. Despite this, whether due to poor offensive techniques or just sheer German determination, only one more trench position could be taken. This particular trench, once taken was found to consist of just mortar and AA gun crews.

Neither a failure or success, the nine and a half hour battle ended with honours even. Perhaps the attack lost all heart when one Australian company attacking an AT battery were ambushed by it’s crews that had left the guns and set up a defence, holding off their attackers with just schmeissers and rifles. This location was eventually taken, but had taken the infantry company a whole hour to do so.

Despite the Australians disappointment, they had inflicted around 480 casualties on the Germans including the loss of 5 AT gun platoons. Australian casualties came to about 260 men. The two sides would have to continue the fight another time.