This scenario was a beast to play with so many counters eventually condensed in one small hill area and took me almost 4 days to complete all 36 turns. It was a determined slugfest for both sides and both equally took in heavy, unacceptable losses.

"Ariete" Division had it's best tanks available and many of them for this hill assault; M13/40s, M14/41s and the formidable Sem 75/18s. The tanks also had brilliant morale at a 9/8 rating. Unfortunately tanks alone could not complete this task but they tried as it was mostly left to them as most Italian foot units had been scattered from demoralization by the battle's end. The Indian force has not only the high ground but six entrenchments to protect them. With the Commonwealth I set up 5 entrenchments on the outer, lower hill areas in an inverted crescent and placed the 6th one on the upper hill with 2 HMGs surrounded by dug-in INF, 2-pdrs and 3-inch units. Of course "Ariete" had a long trek to reach the hill without any cover and Commonwealth OBA immediately began to pick easy targets, very quickly eliminating one 90mm AA gun after it unloaded and before it could dig-in by 07:15/turn 4 for the first Italian step loss. All the Indian force had to do was keep one entrenchment under control and/or inflict 12 step losses on the Italians to win this one -they met both conditions. Commonwealth OBA alone inflicted over half of the Italian step losses on foot units.

Early on it didn't look good for the defenders and "Ariete" did a lot of damage, rolling over dug-in positions on the northern portion of the hill but 5 out 6 entrenchments held out and 2-pdrs succeeded in knocking out a few armored units before they were all eventually destroyed. Italian foot units did manage to take one entrenchment but that was their peak. Armored units found rolling over dug-in positions easy but when the same was tried against entrenchments they failed miserably. I played out all 36 turns even though India inflicted the required 12 step losses by 12:45/turn 26 to claim a victory, just to see if "Ariete" could meet it's victory conditions. It was a very intense fight until the last die roll. I think this is a very tough one for the Italian player despite the written, historical outcome. You may be able to cause a lot of devastation with the Italian force but there's no stopping OBA from grinding up foot units. The first half of this scenario I was prompted to rate it high and it was a lot of fun but midway I slowly began to lose interest. So I give it a balanced '3'. Maybe with better luck and plotting the Italians could of at least taken all the entrenchments but to do so without losing 12 steps seems quite a task.

Losses were:

Italy: Tenente(9-1-0),7 steps of BERS, 3 steps of BERS HMG, 1 90mm, 5 steps M13/40 and 2 steps of Sem 75/18.

Britain: Major(9-1-0), Captain(10-0-1),(9-0-2),(9-1-0), Lieutenant(1-9-0) and 2 trucks.

India: 17 steps of INF, 7 steps of HMG, 2x3-inch and 4x2-pdr.