I wanted a scenario where I could put up Grant tanks against German Panzers: PzIIIG, PzIIIJ's, PzIVE's and so on and this was it. I did enjoy the play but can't remember the details to well except that can't overlook the other units involved or you will lose. I played this one twice and first had a British victory and the second play I had a German victory. Kind of fun in the big open space but you must have room for two full size desert maps.

Another rather large armoured meeting engagement where the British have about twice as many tanks as the Germans; half of them the capable Grants but the other half of them being only Stuart light tanks. To swing the firepower further to the axis side the Germans also have 2 batteries of 88mms and 3 50mms along with incredible OBA of 1 x 24, 4 x 16 compared to Britain having 2 x 6-pdr AT guns and zero indirect fire support, on board or off.

The scenario requires both 'Desert Rats' maps but since I was playing solitaire I only needed a portion of map 4 as I knew in advance that wherever one side entered first (Germany/south/map 5), the other would enter accordingly from the other direction(Britain/north/map 5). Only a few hexes of map 4 were used in this play to accompany some fleeing units temporarily.

Without getting into lengthy detail of how the 40 turns panned out I will just state that after the first 10 turns it was clear that Germany was going to claim a decisive victory. It didn't start out that way of course; it never does with my many British blunders in the desert.

The first mistake I made with the British was that I allowed the foot units to advance too far and too close to the Germans before digging in, after 4 turns of movement. This made it easy for a German leader to get within the 12 hex spotting range for the deadly OBA. For this error both of the 6-pdrs were eliminated soon after unloading and they were quickly eliminated before ever getting a chance to dig-in or fire. The next mistake made was with sending all the Grants out first while keeping the Stuarts in reserve. On the first round of the tank battle at 09:45/turn 6, the British actually got the initiative with two activations before the Germans could respond and had good range with the Grants. The first volley claimed 3 steps of PzIIIGs and the second volley eliminated 2 more steps of PzIIIGs. The German return fire only managed to eliminate 1 step of Grants. That would be the British high point of the battle as everything would go downhill for them from there. The thicker skinned and slower moving PzIIIJs and PzIVEs had not arrived on the scene yet and once in place, along with the one platoon of the deadly PzIVF2s unscathed, the battle quickly turned in Germany's favor. The PzIIIGs were just a lure.

In retrospect, I probably should of sent the faster Stuarts out first and saved the bigger guns, the Grants for later. Maybe that would of made some difference with the tank v.s. tank battle. But the 88's and 50mms also helped the panzers quickly turn 4th Armoured Brigade into a heaping, burning, metal scrapyard. The British did manage to eventually destroy the whole platoon of the PzIVF2s but that was their last punch. Soon there were still 20 turns left to finish off, though if this were a shared play, no doubt the British player would of conceded by the conclusion of the first 20 turns. Instead I played it out till turn 40, just out of curiosity to see if the entire British force could be eradicated. It turns out that the foot units were quite defiant and unwilling to surrender until literally the last man. In this case, one good order British INF platoon, dug-in, held out along with a disrupted Sergeant until the bitter end in an assault. All other British units and leaders were eliminated. Interesting enough, though the Germans did suffer losses, not any of those losses were from foot or support units -all vehicles.

German losses were: Captain(10-2-1), 1 x SPW250, 2 steps of PzII, 11 steps of PzIIIG, 1 step of PzIVE and 2 steps of PzIVF2.

I think,or rather hope, I have learned something from this meeting engagement. The next 'Desert Rats'scenario up, #44-"Road of Slaves", is almost identical with the units involved and victory conditions. Those victory conditions are very simple -whoever eliminates the most enemy steps wins or basically -kill them all. In this battle the Germans almost did just that. I also believe that this would be a much better scenario in a shared play rather than solo so because of that I only give it a '3' instead of a '4' rating.

This scenario was played as a team event by my gaming group. I act as moderator and facilitator for each game, and I do not participate directly as a player. My listing of “winning” is based on the PG HQ site cannot support a neutral role in AARs.

I examined the forces in this scenario prior to play, and figured the Germans had an advantage. Even though the Brits had twice as many tanks, the German tanks were all solid excepting the PzIIs, and the Brits had 50% Stuarts. Add two 88mm and three 50mm ATGs versus two Brit 6 lbers, and the Germans just seemed to have a distinct edge in forces. Based on that, I eliminated the 88 or so points of German OBA. Anything that stepped outside a Bren would be vaporized with that much arty available, especially as the Brits had absolutely nothing.

The Brits entered around center board, and the Germans came in on a corner. The Brits wheeled to face the Germans, and the Germans quickly dug in and placed tanks on the flanks. The Brits initially looked like they would try to go for a double envelopment, but instead crashed directly on the flanks of the German line. The Brit tanks tried to go head to head with the German tanks, facing off in a line like the movies. Grants or Stuarts, it didn’t matter; just line up and shoot. At first it looked promising, as the German PzIVF2 took a quick step loss for a couple Brit steps. If that kept up, the German tank force would be too weak to protect the line. But it didn’t. And the German tanks, coupled with the ATGs, began to ravage the Brits. In nine turns, the Brits lost 75% of their tanks, and three loaded Brens as well, in exchange for the one step of PzIVF2 and three steps of PzIIs, plus two empty SPW251s. On turn 10 the Brits had enough, and ran for the barren wastelands. A total slaughter, with a score of 83 to 10 Germans over Brits.

Anticipating Road of Slaves in a couple months, a similar scenario, we had a desert tank combat tactics discussion to better prepare the Brits for the next time. Still, it was a fun scenario with plenty of combat shooting. With pretty much all the combat being AT (the Brit infantry did not reach the German line), the scenario moved a good speed, everyone had mobile forces, and nothing was slowed down by repeated large scale morale checks. I am really glad I removed the OBA, though. And I think the next scenario will be all the better for the lessons learned here.