[RERomine]

Marginal Victory!!!!

Turn 29

The British say, "No mas!"

Alpha moving four squads toward enemy A10. Enemy artillery hit west of the gully making life miserable for Alpha refuges. A mortar also dropped rounds into the gully hitting one of the four squads moving forward.

Maneuvering Bravo infantry to surround immobilized Matilda II. Supporting Matilda Is are bugging out. Shifting three tanks to come around behind the tank once attack started, but the battle ended before everyone was in position.

Squad in Charlie sector sent running. Another one showed up and sent packing, also.

Scratch one more Matilda I. There is one left in Delta's sector. Pushing Delta and Echo on line and moving forward, supported by five tanks. There was a lot of small arms fire back and forth, with casualties on both sides. Foxtrot solidified its position in the wadi and continued to cover the ground outside the salient. Two enemy trucks were moving up and destroyed by two tanks in this area. Three friendly mortar sections hit the enemy line and in the gap between wadis. This sent them back in groves.

Casualties

Friendly: Estimated 10 casualties.

Enemy: 1xMatilda I tank destroyed. Estimated 15 casualties.

Total Casualties

Italy

Men: 399
Artillery: 1
Soft Vehicles: 0
APCs: 0
AFVs: 19
Air Transports/Helos: 0
Aircraft: 0

GB

Men: 814
Artillery: 0
Soft Vehicles: 8
APCs: 17
AFVs: 71
Air Transports/Helos: 0
Aircraft: 0

Score

Italy: 7252
GB: 1001

Final Comments

This is one of the toughest battles I've fought, mainly because of the Matilda IIs. Obviously, I came up with a way to kill them, but it wasn't easy. To start with, they had to be separated from their infantry support. My tanks are vulnerable to the British infantry AT weapons, so I couldn't risk pushing my tanks into uncleared areas. Then I had to make the area smaller with smoke. Next, pound the Matilda IIs with small arms. This suppresses them and causes them to respond, soaking off shots. Finally, my tanks scoot to the rear of the Matilda IIs, put the gun right on the armor and shoot. This all takes time to pull off and the right terrain helps. I need to give some careful thought to how I refit my core.

The Matilda Is were only difficult when they were close to Matilda IIs. My tanks still needed to be close and square on to one aspect, but could destroy them from even the front at 100m. They really aren't very good tanks. The armor is nice, but without a tank killing gun, the are fairly easy to deal with.

I've been critical of the AI's artillery use and while it did finally start spreading its off-board artillery out some, it really didn't use that massive power it had effectively. When it finally did hit some of my strong points, they started to come apart. Had it done this more often, my line would not have held. During the course of the battle, 25-pdrs hit Alpha's main line once, Bravo's strong point once and the Echo and engineer's attack once. The rest of the fire seem to be scattered at targets that were either no longer in the battle for one reason or another. There were some attempts to hit positions that would have been useful, but they were off target. That's fine, because everyone has fire that is off target once in a while. It is possible that I'm assuming the AI knew more about my position than it really did. What the AI really knew is anyone's guess.

Overall, I'm pleased with how this battle turned out. Getting a victory, marginal or otherwise, is still a victory. Achieving it with the totally outclassed Italian force makes it that much better. My line bent, but didn't break. You can't ask for more than that.

Time to refit. I'm going to take my time an and try to figure out what is best. With 19 tanks knocked out in this battle and a few more in the first one, I've got a lot of stuff to replace.

Attached is the save just before the game ended. Enjoy!