The draw result attained when the Italian side determined it had no hope of victory and fled having captured only one entrenchment.

Italian approach and assaults failed miserably due to morale failures brought about by OF or OBA. I'll concede that I didn't coordinate the armor and infantry for the Italian side particularly well here, but with no IT leaders with a combat bonus, the only means to get any significant DF (against entrenchments) was to stack in threes. This, of course, lead to critical +1 col shifts. I should add that AUS "first fire" results were very good (5 or 6 on the 13-col due to leader + superior morale) with fairly horrid results on the resulting morale checks for the Italian side. The Australians suffered three step losses, but those were all due to on-board or OBA hits against units that had not yet become entrenched.

Italians lost six steps and had four units DEM (having captured only a single entrenchment). It was time to call it an evening before the entire battalion was destroyed (i.e. the AUS gaining their victory condition). The AUS might have pressed a counter-attack (in FtF play), but their position remained secure and they were content to allow the Italians to retire.

Author	treadasaurusrex (Germany, Italy)
Method	VASSAL
Victor	Draw
Participants	Reconquista
Play Date	2023-01-04
Language	English
Scenario	AfKo032

This was a frustrating 4-session draw that resulted when both sides were able to achieve their victory conditions. I played the attacking Axis side, and the boldly resolute, Reconquista, was the Commonwealth Commander. We used the FOW, smoke/illum, excess initiative, consolidation and extended assault optional rules. There were 8 FOW-shortened game turns in our play-through which materially aided the defending Australian & British side. As others have suggested in their AARs, we replaced the regular Italian infantry with the correct Bersaglieri infantry and HMG units in this poorly play tested, flawed scenario. Both sides drew crummy leaders in this extended brawl. The 2 turns of Italian air support proved completely ineffective. A combined total of 16 combat 7-die rolls were thrown in our play-through. Nearly all the OBA rolls for both sides failed to yield enemy casualties, but a number of demoralizations were achieved.

The less-then-optimal Italian unit morale caused endless trouble in terms of attack sequencing and perserverance on the 6 Commonwealth entrenchments. Nevertheless, the Axis side was able to take 4 of the 6 entrenchments at the cost of very heavy casualties and numerous morale failures. Final step losses were 16 for the Italo-German force, and 14 for the defending Australians & British.

This unfinished scenario is best played solo, but with the amendment to the Italian force mix that I and others suggest. I gave this one a very generous 2, but it truly deserved a 1, at best.