I’m working my way through the AOI battle game covering Italy’s invasion of British Somaliland. In scenario 17, Observation hill, things went pretty much according to script, as the Italians with plenty of tanks and air support rolled over, around and through the Commonwealth without too much trouble. In this scenario, the Brits and their friends are again on a hill, and the Italians again have to throw them off. This time, however, they have no tanks, very little artillery, and their chance of getting air support drops 50%.

The Commonwealth troops dig in on the slopes and set up a conventional defense, running roughly northwest to southeast along the ridge.

With no real hope of softening up the defense, the Italians go right at them, hitting the SE flank of the Commonwealth line and steadily driving up the ridge. But then a British HMG took over. Sighted on the western side of the line, it demoralized all three Italian MIT (machine gun) platoons trying to tie down the Commonwealth left flank, and then topped that by taking out a couple FAN steps a couple turns later. This enabled the Commonwealth to filter troops eastward and stall the Italian advance. A couple Italian platoons made it to the reverse slope, but in danger of being cut off and time running out, they broke off the fight a fell back. The game ended with relatively light losses on both sides ( four steps to three) and everyone pretty much back wheee they started. Allied victory!

It was interesting playing scenarios 17 and 18 back to back, as it illustrates the difficulty in taking even lightly held positions without armor and air support. A fast moving game that I feel the Italians could win, but their margin for error is very skinny. Being part of a battle game also affected the outcome. The Italians had enough strength for one more try, but rather than risk a battle game victory condition for avoiding losses, I decided they needed to call it a day.