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

[Brett Nicholson]

Not only were the Italian 20mm AA guns effective in mowing down advancing infantry but because of their range of 8 hexes they have forced one demoralized unit to flee quite a distance back for the safety of the southeastern hill area. That range alone could cause a lot of problems with units failing to rally from demoralization in the future. This is prompting the British forces to spend a lot of activations in keeping units at the main assault area in at least disrupted status or better. The fog of war has been very unpredictable at times as well, at least twice in this session halting British activations quite abruptly.

The going has been slow and tedious for the attack but most of the advancing forces are more or less where I originally intended them to be. At the start of the 6th turn I had THREE chances of running down Vince's forward observer with some A9 tanks and each time the upstart Tenente slipped away evading capture, continuing to be able spot for the massed Italian artillery batteries at a safer distance, being able to outrun the slower moving British armor so far.

For a while it was very tense and I had a hard time in getting any decent shots in but by the conclusion of turn 9 the British were able to balance out the step losses after being down by 3 for some time. The smaller, southwestern hill's defenses are finally, slowly being whittled down after many painstaking turns of virtually little or no results from a lot of firing. But now the overall attack is starting to show signs of gaining momentum. Also, the first tank v.s tank engagement has begun from a long range away but the first 6 volleys from the A9s have only bounced off the L6/40 tankettes so far. A British win still seems highly likely though it will be very tough to make it a decisive one. I really like the way this one is going though the going has been a bit slow -there are quite a few units on the map. I feel a little more confident in this battle so far than in earlier ones and feel that I have learned a lot from my previous 7 shared plays through a lot of trial and even more error.