Brett & Vince's C&C Kings Officers 1940-41 Campaign Diary

[vince hughes]

Scenario 4 "Tobruck" - Session 2 Turns 8-13

The misery continues for the Italians in this rather depressing scenario

The Australian troops continue to (easily) launch their attack on Italian positions. The 'forlorn hope' defence of the 'tracks crossroads' has been whittled away completely and the surviving Italian platoons here have become a small group of individual platoons trying to hold up for time against the Australian incursions. There was one funny part where an Italian INF platoon demoralised a Matilda platoon that decided to casually drive past. Their rifle fire must have made the tank commanders heads retreat into their cupolas thus causing some confusion. But to all intent and purposes, this line is a 'has been'. The Austalian forces are too strong and are supported by excellent leaders making them even harder to break down.

The main Italian defence will rest on the road at the end of the board. Surrounded by mines and ringing some better moraled BERS units plus artillery not to mention a decent leader or two, the Aussies will have to work slightly harder to break this down (one hopes !!!).

Losses so far have been Australians 2 steps, Italians 8 steps. The Allied loss is so disappointing for me. There have been 13 turns of 42 or 55 col On Board artillery bombardments and just one X has been inflicted. This is a very poor return and also missed the chance to destroy Bren-Carrier borne units in their entirity.

Still a massive 17 turns to go, so only more Italian misery on way is all I can see in this one.

[Brett Nicholson]

I have no doubts about the Australians winning this one as long as they are able to retain control of the tracks. In order to do that every Italian unit that has been scattered from the first defensive line has to be eliminated, especially the M11/39s, to prevent them from hopping back on to the tracks at a later point in the battle. However, still being down 13 campaign points overall I will likely have to send units across the minefields to gain more VPs from eliminating enemy steps as soon visibility will be reduced to just one hex with night falling. If this were just a one-off game then I wouldn't be too overly concerned about trying to prevent the Italians from keeping control of the road. My remaining engineers have to at least try to remove the one mine there and that is sure to be costly. I'm going to have to be very careful with not putting too many units in imminent danger. What also bothers me is that I have failed to knock out any of Vince's on-board artillery which will continue to be a menace I'm sure. However, if I am able to break through the rear lines and minefields followed up with some assaults then things should get real interesting. I both anticipate and dread what may occur with the upcoming night turns as my luck has been very good with the Australians thus far. I was really worried when a platoon of my Matildas not only got hit but became demoralized when brushing by some of Vince's brave Italian units but luckily was able to avoid having that unit assaulted and eliminated. It was quite a scare but that one Matilda has finally improved back to disrupted status. Actually am ahead by 3 VPs right now as long as I keep his upstarts off the tracks. There will be tough decisions to make whether or when to play it safe or to go for more blood. I need to win this one by at least 14 VPs to have a lead in the campaign. Whatever the case it is far from over, for better or worse.