The Italians "should" have no chance in this one. Despite the fact that they are in entrenchments and don't have to run away when they fail recovery, the Polish have a morale advantage and sappers. This means that most of the time when they assault, even the entrenchments, they will have positive column shifts. Since they already have a firepower advantage, this really shouldn't be much of a game.

Unfortunately for the Polish, this wasn't how it turned out. This ended up being a grusome, grinding battle where each entrenchment was assaulted turn after turn seemingly ad infinitum. The Italians had plenty of steps (As of turn 17 when I called it, they had lost 38 steps and only had scratch forces in two entrenchments left) and made the Polish fight for every victory point. As of turn 15 (of 24) the Polish had finally developed a 2 point lead but the losses on the Poles were of concern (14 steps). The only chance the Italians had was a counterassault on turn 18 which failed to net any step losses. After that attempt the Italians threw in the towel.

My Italians fought quite well in their box. I set them up in a mutually supporting, somewhat rectangular entrenchment. They didn't have as many options to reinforce assault hexes but with the entrenchment that is less of an issue than normal as no units will end up fleeing the assault hex. The Poles peeled off and hit the Italians on the north end of the box which was slightly less powerful than the southern end. I had hoped to have very light losses and force the Itlaians into a counterattacking proposition but my losses were just too high. I had to push on and take more entrenchments.

All in all, a pretty enjoyable evening. I give it a "4" as the Italians are able to put up a pretty strong fight before they tip over.

This is a standard attack/defense scenario with the Italian's defending prepared defense.s against what is supposed to be a Polish feint attack. The Italians decide to set up in on corner of the map in a fortified box the idea is to make the Poles have to march some distance to engage the Italians. It may have made some sense to divide the Italian forces into two separate groups thus forcing the Pole's to make a decision whether to do likewise or concentrate all forces on one Italian box overwhelm it and then hope to have time to overrun the second Italian force. That will be for some else to try. In my game it took 90 minutes for the Polish forces to get into position for the attack but once done so it was than a bit of a slaughter. The Polish commander positioned a large WPNS force under the control of an excellent leader which swept the Italian entrenchments with a hail of fire and the RIF units supported by SAP units attacked the Italian flanks. Losses were even for the first 30 minutes of the assault but by 0900 Italian forces were surrendering in droves after taking heavy punishment. With only two entrenchments left in Italian hand and these surrounded and out numbered the Italian COL threw in the town and hoisted the white flag. Italian losses were 36 steps to the Poles 6 step. Good Polish leadership and excellent morale made this a very unbalanced scenario hence the low rating

Played solo in 2.5 hours.

I posted images of the Italian initial setup in link text. I was inspired by a suggestion made by Wayne Baumber in his AAR and decided to give it a shot.

The Italians set up in two groups of about equal strength, one in the NW corner and the other in the SW corner. The idea is to force the Poles to split their force and hope one of the groups will offer strong resistance.

It did not work.

The Poles split their attacking force in two groups and move in quickly in assault positions. The group in the SW corner starts its assault at 05:45 and one hour later, the Italian position is crumbling. The group in the NW starts its assault at 06:30 but fail to make much progress due to stiff Italian resistance.

The SW group finishes mopping up at 08:15 and I called the game at this time, with the Poles already ahead 32 to 16 and the Italian mostly disrupted and demoralized.

Polish major victory.

I rated this scenario a "2" because the issue was never in doubt; the Poles are just too strong.