|
AAR x 2: SoI#21: The Coastal Highway
SOI#21: The Coastal Highway
Rating: 2
Israel vs. Egypt
Battle Type: Enter & Exit/ "Bridge Control"- Hex Control
Played: Solo
Winner: Egypt (Play#1), Egypt (Play #2)
Played this one twice and working on a third time to see if patience pays off.
Summary: Challenging dilemma and an attacker's nightmare; having to advance lightly armored mech force across open restricted avenue of approach, under the long range guns of dug-in T55s in limited terrain. Hard to see how the Israelis can win this without the Egyptian player being inept; not to say it is impossible, but extremely challenging for the IDF. The Egyptians are on a thread too. If the IDF can find a way to limit exposure to T55s and get the T55s to expose themselves for Israeli airstrikes, or massed IDF tank fire he might collapse. But not this time...
Situation: An Israeli Light Armor/Recon task force must force its way through a restricted,marshy avenue of approach with little cover and not much time.
Victory Conditions: Exit 30 steps off map OR clear all good order Egyptian forces within three hexes of 0805 (choke point out of the marsh).
- Issue#1: Israelis only have 32 steps in their force, if they lose 1 x platoon, they must close with the Egyptian force for the near fight. Hard to see how they can bypass.
Terrain: I am not a fan of "pretend the terrain is something different than the map" scenarios. But this one works. The large hill is a marsh with a road running east west through it and some palm groves too. The means the IDF has three avenues of approach - center, where they stay to to the road, OR bypass on the north or south sides, requiring they risk going through 2 x marsh hexes. ANy of these avenues will be under observation.
Israeli Set-up: The Israelis have phenomenal leadership. In Game 1 The majority of the force planned to bypass through the southern route. In Game 2 I split the forces to hide them on the limited terrain of the two eastern hills and try and take out some Egyptians before picking an avenue of approach. Furthermore, the Israelis, have limited personnel units to conduct town assaults if they are attempting to clear around 0805.
Egyptian Set-up: The Egyptian had OK leaders in Game 1 and good leaders in ame 2. Normal set-up was to put T-55s dug-in on the northern hill, in the center town, and in the southern town. They could remain unspotted and range most of the board. The Commandos were dug-in around on the hill, with the tanks, and occupying the olive grove and towns where they could range any tank entering 0806 with their AT value. Also the Egyptian flanks were well anchored with commandos in the southern town and northern hill able to range any forces attempting to bypass.
Game #1: The IDF attempted to move toward the southern bypass and by turn 4, they had lost 7 steps and it was assessed had lost too much combat power to proceed and win and they had not finished crossing the marsh. They disengaged
Game#2: This time the IDF would attempt to damage the Egyptians from a distance to try and lower their morale and shape the battlefield before they processed into the engagement area. Turn 1: massed AMX 13s shot and destroyed
a CMDO PLT dug-in the open, but T55s answered the exposure and destroyed an AMX 13 company. Turn 2: Egyptian air entered, survived AA fire and destroyed the AMX-13 platoon with the RAV SEREN, causing disruption in the surviving tank platoon. By turn 4 Israeli air had failed on 2 attempts to impact the T55 on the hill. Attempts to move forward were thwarted and the IDF lost 9 steps to A/T fire before ever reaching the marsh.
Game#2: Formation #2: A Company: 1 x Rav Seren, 1x Seren, 3x AML 90
Dug-In on South Crest. Task: Guard in order to protect Ambush force
B Company: 1 x Segen, 1 x Samal, 2 x Jeep, 2 x RCN, 1 x Jeep 106. Dug-in on lower south hill face along with overwatch of road. Task: Cover north/south road to deny enemy escape from or reinforcement to ambush engagement area. The Isreali's disengage again.
Summary: This scenario is a bit maddening, forcing me to play it one more time. This third time the Egyptians are staying concealed and the Israelis are going to really try and let the air force work over the Egyptians before proceeding. But unsure how that can work.
|
