I set up the Italian Libyan allies mostly on the lower level of the hill, facing the eastern edge with the forts and dug in positions on the left coming back in a 'refuse the left flank' setup, AT guns spread out with HMGs in the hex with them and entrenched, Italian leaders in entrenchments and in as many dug-in positions as I could manage with the Italian commander taking up station with the artillery on the second level of the hill. The British and their allies came on in 3 groups following a line of Matildas. The Italian AT guns are useless against the Matildas but proved to be their undoing in a couple of assaults when I thought the Matildas and accompanying infantry would have no problem taking the position. The first casualties for the Indians were a stack with a ACW troop carrier still loaded and carrying a Subadar. This lead me to dismount as quickly as possible, and advance the majority of the line on foot, with the majority of the British infantry, HMGs and Mortars coming up the Italian left in the Carriers. Italians started taking casualties among the dug-in positions as Indian HMGs got into range where the Libyans couldn't return the fire. Still, as more and more British and Indian troops came into close combat, the Italians started holding their own pretty well. All but one surrender roll ended in nothing, and demoralized troops didn't seem to have much trouble regaining their morale. With all that, the death toll on both sides rose, with 22 Italan/Libyan steps lost (the Lancia was actually the first to go when it got into range of the Matildas too early) to 16 steps of British/Indian forces. The British and Indian troops managed to take 2 of the entrenchments and 3 dug-in positions but lost 4 steps of Matildas in the process. With nearly all the British and Indian troops disrupted or worse, and still having taken only 5 steps of Indian troops to prevent an Italian win, the game ends in a draw. Hard fought and interesting battle.

Introduction

This was my first game of Panzer Grenadier, and I had to be blackmailed into playing it. Having been soundly beaten at infantry combat by my brother for all of our childhood, I was not looking foreward to more of the same. My willingness to depend on fair play cost me some important experience early; my opponents were of the opinion that exploitation of the Rules---to put the best face on it---constituted a fair exercise of command. As a result, in this and all the games I played during 2010 in Desert Rats, Afrika Korps, Eastern Front, and Road To Berlin, the column shift for higher Morale units and the use of the Surrender Rule were not employed.

The Plans

The Italian Player's choices are limited to deployment options, as setup restrictions put him in the hill defined in the scenario (level one at 1522 & and level two at 1526). The Commonwealth Player's choices are more complex. Twenty Turns are sufficient to attempt a flanking manoeuver against the Italian fortified position, but the Italian camp is closely-ranged, which means that the Italians could probably manage to manhandle their Anti-Tank Gun batteries into position before the flanking forces could mount their attack.

The Italians

The two 65mm howitzer batteries, the 105mm howitzer battery, and the two 81mm Mortar platoons, are all dug-in in the midst of the camp (the L2 Hill hexes 1626, 1627, and 1526). The two 47mm Anti-Tank gun batteries, the two Mitragliere (MIT) platoons, and two Fanteria (FAN) platoons, are disposed in two entrenchments forming the anchors of the Italian position at 1728 and 1725. Two Fanteria platoons each occupy entrenchments in hexes 1525, 1427, 1528. The remaining 8 Fanteria platoons are dug-in between the entrenchments, 1727, 1629, and 1625, each having two platoons, 1726 and 1426 having a single platoon each. The Lancia is deployed in 1819 to provide early warning of Commonwealth assault from the Northeast. Leaders are disposed to provide subordinate activation, with the howitzers and mortars able to fire in combinations (either all the howitzers, or one set of howitzers and the mortars).

The Commonwealth

The Commonwealth Player decided to take advantage of the Italian concentration by making a two-pronged attack from the Northeast. After entry, the Commonwealth forces would divide into a Fast Force and a Slow Force. Fast Force comprised eight Rifle (INF) platoons, two 3-Inch Mortars, three Weapons (HMG) platoons, all of the 6th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (6RF), and the New Zealand lorry drivers, the whole force mounted on Bren (BREN) and India Pattern Carriers (ACW). The six Mathilda troops of 7th Battalion, The Royal Tank Regiment (7RTR), would accompany Fast Force. Slow Force thus comprised four British Rifle platoons of 6RF, the eleven Rifle (INF) platoons, three Weapon (HMG) platoons, and the one 3-Inch Mortar platoon, of 1st Battalion, 3rd Punjabis (3/1 Punjabis), the whole on foot. British Officers were concentrated in the Fast Force, with only sufficient junior officers present in Slow Force to lead the 6RF detachment and direct the overall movements of Slow Force, and provide spotting for the British Off-Board Artillery Factors should that be needed.

The Battle

The Commonwealth plan had some very serious flaws in it, and these very quickly revealed themselves. The desert terrain worked against the conception of two coordinated attacks on the Italian camp, as did the Italian Lancia, which quickly spotted the two Commonwealth forces. The Lancia harassed the Slow Force as it proceeded to crawl along the escarpment running along hex row 18xx, while the Italians, true to expectations, manhandled their 47mm ATG from 1725 to 1625 and from 1728 to 1427. The Lancia proved nettlesome, impeding the progress of Slow Force rather more than expected, but the real problem was the effect of the Italian howitzers and mortars on the advancing infantry. Between them, these greatly disorganized Slow Force, permitting the Italians to focus on dealing with the over-powerful Fast Force. The vulnerability of infantry in Carriers was brought home when the 47mm ATGs opened up and two rifle platoons vanished, wiping out four of the ten steps the Italians needed to wipe out. Two more had already been lost to Italian fire on Slow Force. That the Commonwealth would lose four steps taking the hill fort seemed highly probable. The Mathildas fired back, and British OBA was finally brought down on the Italian positions---though the howitzers and mortars remained protected at this point (two hill lines). Fast Force dismounted and advanced in company with the Bren Carriers and Mathildas, receiving plenty of concentrated Italian fire in the process. But the Bren Carriers also pack a whallop, and the Mathildas were designed for infantry assault, so the ferocity of Italian fire quickly slackened. The first entrenchment was taken, and with it one of the two 47mm ATGs. The Mathildas then surged into the camp, wiping out the Italian artillery amid a rain of British OBA which kept the 105mm howitzer crews from effectively countering the Mathildas' advance. Desperate hand-to-hand fighting raged in the trenches, but the Italians were able to cling to two entrenchments to the bitter end, and the unexpected loss of a Mathilda in one of the final assaults sealed the Italian victory.

Conclusion

This battle would probably have ended in a Draw if the rules had been followed, as the column shift for superior morale would have made it possible to spread the assault forces more widely, and the Italians only just managed to hold their last two positions. But there is no getting around the poor planning of the Commonwealth Player, which squandered numerical superiority and forfeited concentration for pointless subtlety. Played now, I cannot conceive of how the Italian player, hemmed so closely in the L2 hexes, could survive. And that is rather a fine comment on the game system itself, I think.

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.

The Italians set up a "best as could be expected" defense of the hill, but it was no match for the assault(s) of the Commonwealth forces. The initial assaults were in the Northern quadrant on the hill and comprised the armored portion of forces available. The Infantry and sundry foot forces attacked the South East quadrant of the hill to preclude the Italians from reinforcing the Northern flank. It worked!

Author	triangular_cube
Method	Solo
Victor	Britain, India, New Zealand
Play Date	2022-12-09
Language	English
Scenario	DeRa003

I think the balance of this one is heavily weighted towards one's interpretation of the Surrender rule. Those playing with the South African Surrender rule will likely tend towards a draw, those playing with the actual Desert Rats (me) are going to see a quick rout of the Italians. I don't apply the liberal interpretation, that tanks merely need to drive by enemy units to trigger surrenders, but at the time they could by parking by them. It does give me pause that the Brits have no assigned tank leaders as written. A posted errata added some, but I didn't go back through the old CSW archives to see where this was sourced. Maybe the tanks ARENT supposed to be able to close until the Italian guns are gone afterall?

Digression aside, close is what they did. They drove up to the Italian lines and the Italians rolled disasterously for surrender over 3 turns. Made quick work of everything and I packed it up. Based on my play with RAW near as I can tell, I'm tempted to rate this one a "1" which i very rarely do for balance reasons alone. RAW, i think the only way the Italians get anywhere close to where they need to be is if the Allies are extremely careless with their abundant APCs and run them into the guns, which they don't need to do, cause the invincible Matilda's do the job. Having played through Afrika Korps with the RAW surrender rule, I'm concerned at how Rats will work out. AK often had surrender, but with long stretches of entrenchments, with scarce Brit tanks to call them out. This scenario forced the Italians to set up in a tight singular hill, and gave the Brits 6 tank units... you just close the net really.

Italian desperation counter attacks were able to knock out 1 step of Matilda's though, so gold star for those guys. They surrendered shortly after though. Funnily enough, the New Zealand teamsters got demoralized from OP fire and took off. They were supposed to be the heroes here :).