Disposable Heroes: WWII North Africa Attack

Howdie.

Just this week, I broke out my 15mm Old Glory Italians and had a dust up with a friend's BF British.  Enter.... the Desert of Blood!  The Italians are holed up with stores in an underpopulated town... a rifle section makes camp in the adjoining date grove, while the rest of the infantry and Semovente 75s hunker down in a 360º defensive posture for the night.

The nefarious British approach shortly before dawn, a partially motorized platoon, led by an M3 and 2 Shermans.

The British player uses green tokens to put some of the Italians "to sleep"... they will have to waste a turn waking up, and will wake up in Pinned status.

For the first three turns, it is dark, which greatly affects our firing, especially at range.  The British roar into the attack, trying to gain ground before the Italians are fully functioning...

The Italians get lucky early, pinning 2 British sections.  This Semovente crew never wakes up...

During the game, a British squad engages the Italian rifle section in the date grove, at close range.  The Italians hold out for 5 turns before being eliminated... though they were able to eliminate an entire Brit section before that, stalling the British advance drastically.

With sunrise, the battle turns deadly.  Italian and British infantry go down beneath withering fire.

Both remaining Semoventes are hit and immobilized... one is reduced to a single crewman.  They fight on, watching their repeated hits (like 5 or 6 total) bounce off the thick British armored hides.

 

 

 

The British rush forward in assault, in a last effort to take the town...

But the Italians drive off the attacking infantry.  At the same time, the British armor begins scouring Italian infantry positions away with hosing machinegun fire.  The Italians can not stand, and begin to slink away from their forward positions, looking for good ambush spots for the inevitable armored assault.

 

At this point, we called the game.  What was left of my Italian infantry was indeed trying to find places out of line of sight of the hideously lethal Lee and Shermans, places where I might attempt improvised close assaults if the tanks tried to claim the stores.  The British infantry had been nearly annihilated, but their armor was nearly impossible to defeat (I did get one penetrating track hit on the Lee, for no damage except 1 PH).  We called it a draw... a race between the tanks searching out my last infantry before reinforcements (hopefully German tanks with decent guns) showed up to save my macaroni.

 

This was a good game, a lot of fun, and a challenge for both of us... especially during those first three turns of darkness.  We'll try something like this again soon, I hope.  Ciao!