I think this is a nicely balanced scenario, and I finally discovered that there is an 'optimum' defensive set-up for this scenario, but only after the event when it was too late. I won't give it away here as this is a fairly neat, fun and thinking scenario if 2 players do not want too many counters to mess around with.

Here's a short report on how it went :

‘Operation-BREVITY : The Rifle Brigade’

Afrika Korps Scenario No.31

Halfaya Pass 15th May 1941

Scenario played : 20th November 2009

To secure the lower end of Halfaya Pass a force made up of S Company, 2nd Battalion, The Rifle Brigade set out to attack the Italian held coast shelf with significant artillery support. The riflemen were to cut the coast road and block any advance by Axis reinforcements.

The advance got underway around 0545 hours and was little hindered by any enemy action. As the infantry force pushed ahead to their objective, 4 x batteries of 25pdr guns unlimbered in positions to support the riflemen. When the attackers came within sight of their Italian enemy, they soon found themselves under sporadic mortar fire, which, in the main was ineffective.By 0645 hrs, the enemy mortars had been silenced by the British guns.

Over the next hour, as the Riflemen engaged their Italian counterparts in a 500m range small arms battle, the 25pdrs gave ample support, and once zeroed, were able to account for at least 50 Italian losses.These losses in the Italian line helped create a breach that the British now concentrated upon. Purposefully advancing along and up the craggy ridge, they were able to place the Italians under a lot of pressure. This boiled up so much that a battery of Italian AT guns and 50 odd or more Bersigliari offered themselves as POW’s, abandoning their ridgeline dug-outs with their arms very much skywards.By 0845 yet more of the vaunted Bersigliari had surrendered and now,just one entrenched position remained and blocked the narrow passway the Riflemen had set out to capture.

A Final assault was launched when once more, the British commander allowed his artillery to soften up the target.Once the Italians had seen that the bayonet tipped riflemen had entered the trenches yelling with a blood-curdling hurrah, the final elements of Italians, including machine gunners surrendered.

In all, the battle had lasted just over 4 hours in which 65 Italians were killed or wounded and 125 prisoners were taken. British losses were negligible. This made for a very useful and well co-ordinated British victory.

Author	treadasaurusrex (Italy)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	Reconquista
Play Date	2022-11-23
Language	English
Scenario	AfKo031

Played this small-scale, relatively balanced scenario in 4 online sessions with a rapidly improving newbie player as the Australian Commander. I played the defending Italians in this example of the Africa Korps series devoted to the fighting in and around Halfaya Pass during May of 1941. This one ended in a hard-fought draw as we inflicted a very large percentage of casualties on each other in the course of the, too long, 24 turn scenario. As always, the optional FOW rule was instrumental in what surprisingly turned out to be a successful Italian defense, as 9 turns of this play-through ended prematurely. We also used the smoke and excess initiative rules. Both sides had miserable luck drawing leaders, and all 5 Commonwealth Lieutenants and the commanding officer were eliminated in combat, causing a great deal of havoc for the attacking side.

As is frequently the case, the Tommies' formidable 25-pdr guns were deadly in support of the attacking Australians. The Italians were barely able to hold off the company plus of Commonwealth infantry, but benefitted by a number of lucky combat and morale recovery die rolls -- and only a single Italian combat 7-die was thrown. Also, unexpectedly, only a single Italian artillery unit was forced to surrender in this one. At the end, virtually the entire collection of units & leaders for both sides were either disrupted or demoralized. It was welcome fun for me, not be playing with an obsessed "rules lawyer."