An Army At Dawn, scenario #34: Kasserine Pass: Duel at Dawn

A fun scenario to play, where the mixed German & Italian forces have three victory objectives and the Americans must stop them. As the Axis I have to figure out if I should go for all three objectives and as the Americans how to defend this large desert area terrain. Both sides have kind of a cool mix of odd units, which makes this scenario very interesting. The Germans have: INF, MTC, SK231/8, SK233 & SPW251s, the Italians have: BERS, 81mm, AB41, M14/41, SEM 47/32 & Trucks, the Americans have: INF, M3/81, M6, T30, STUART & M3s.

The Americans decide to defend a thin line across map 77 and adjust according to how the Axis units enter the map. The Axis are able to isolate one group of American units pretty much destroying them before the American can react, thus creating a large hole to exit unit off the west edge of the map and destroying enemy steps. The American reaction force including Stuart tanks & an assortment of AT trucks and halftracks are pretty easy pickings for the Italian M14/41 tanks which are better armored and the German SK233 and Italian Sem 47/32 have a nice bite as well, against these weak American armor units.

In the end the Axis exited 34 steps off the west edge of the map, eliminated 18 American steps and only lost 6 steps for a Major Axis Victory. The Axis only lost two steps of Sem 47//32 which counted as double and one German MTC step and one Italian 81mm step. But even though it was a major Axis victory, this was a fun scenario to play. I feel if I hadn’t spread-out my American units so far and maybe bunched them into one large attack group, they would have had a better chance. I’ll try this one again someday, to see?