Author	treadasaurusrex (Italy)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Britain, India, New Zealand
Participants	OldPueblo
Play Date	2022-12-01
Language	English
Scenario	DeRa003

This was a 5-session play-through of the attack on the Tummar West encampment manned by the colonial infantry of the 2nd Libyan Division of Graziani's Italian 10th Army in Egypt. It looked to be a much harder pull as the outnumbered, overstretched and unarmored Italian side, so I played their commander, against, the hard-fighting, OldPuebo, commanding elements of the powerful 4th Indian Infantry Division during Operation Compass in December 1940. We used the excess initiative, smoke, consolidation, optional rules and ignored the FOW in this introductory scenario. The Italian leader draw was unfortunate, while the Indian/British side drew much better tactical leadership.

The Italian entrenchments and dug-in colonial infantry positions were placed on the lower terrace of the hill with the few available AT-capable artillery & machine gun platoons distributed at that level. Above them on the higher terrace, were the Italian heavy artillery, senior leaders and mortars. The Indians approached following a loose formation of Matilda tank platoons. As others have reported, Italian AT gun units were mostly useless against the marauding Matildas, but were eventually to prove lethal in close assaults with entrenched units in support. Nevertheless, a number of ACW armored personnel carriers were eliminated fairly early on this play through -- often with their mounted infantry and leaders aboard. As the Commonwealth attack came in two large masses, it was their HMG units and OBA that began causing casualties and disruption among the defenders. As additional British and Indian troops began decisively engaging the dug-in Italians, their step loses began to mount, while the PG Fates seemed to favor the morale recovery rolls of the Italian side for most of this play-through.

Inevitably, the surrender rolls against the Axis troops began to tell, though in many cases, demoralized troops were able to rally. By the end of turn 10, two of the five Italian entrenchments had fallen, and several dug-in positions had been overrun. The Indian soldiers went on to take all 5 entrenched strong points by the end of session 5.

In the end, this was a more-balanced-than-it-seemed scenario. It was truly a hard-fought engagement that I think easily merits a 3, as it was darn hard for the Commonwealth side to avoid losing the required 10 steps of Indian troops needed for an Italian victory. In this battle, they lost 9 steps, and the Italians lost 15 steps by the end of turn 20.