The battle against the entrenched Saudis raged on, and the initial mistake of deploying AK-47-armed People's Army units in wide-open terrain became more glaring as the fight progressed. Since the AK-47 company was also the southern-most company, the ended up advancing into the teeth of several Saudi platoons that could shoot them from 600m with impunity (AK-47 has only a 400m range) and, on top of that, there were no friendlies on their left flank. I ended up withdrawing them until the northern two companies, assisted by the mountain platoon, could punch through the Saudi defenses in front of them.
The only late-game surprise came from two MG sections positioned behind a small hill that protected them from head-on fire, but allowed them to harass my units from the flank as they advanced. It took a few turns to defeat them, but they could not turn the tide.
Overall, the first high-visibility battle was also the first battle where the Marauders inflicted more losses than they took. The Saudis brought just over 3 companies of infantry and nothing else to the battle.
Lt. Col. Mustafa has grown quite nicely in the last few battles (I apparently wrote over the saves from the 1st battle, so I don't know what he looked like at the beginning of the campaign). Huge growth in Morale and Arty Command (which makes sense, as he calls in all the arty strikes). Now, the manual states that the Sniper class has a built-in accuracy bonus. I don't know if the HQ class has any built-in artillery bonus, but I won't be purchasing a FO for this campaign anyway. I should note that Lt. Col. Mustafa has never even stood next to a tank in his life, much less commanded one, so I can't explain the Armor Command increase.
Sniper Kattib doubled his kills over the last two battles, and his experience and morale has also grown. He will not be the first Veteran among the Marauders (a 12.7mm HMG section took that accolade), but he's doing fine. Sniper Saqqaf has his work cut out for him if he wants to catch up. The HMG unit that acquired veteran status has only two kills - so kills really aren't that essential for good experience growth. I'm guessing the real consideration here is simply shooting the enemy a lot.
Aside from that HMG section becoming Veteran, there are no seismic changes in terms of overall experience advancement for Mustafa's Marauders. Their next battle will be a "meeting engagement" with the British, where all the VP clusters are on the British side of a river. But that is another story....