As is the way in IABSM two very short “turns” were followed by one where every last card had to be played through. On the Italian side more infantry were spotted or voluntarily deployed (including finally the Big Man D’Avanzo himself), some shock was removed from the gun crews, who were suffering terribly out in the open, and they were all but silenced by concentrated British MG fire. The remaining L3s emerged on the western side of the laager and opened up on the MK VI opposite (the retired MK VI was making slow progress in recovering from its head-long flight – Lt Seymour-Evans was furious at their conduct!) to no effect.
From here we played through to Tea Break Ten, when the real-life clock meant we had to bring the game to a close. The remaining L3s were shot up badly, one had a turret jam and engine damage, another was immobilised and abandoned, the third knocked out in the dual with the Mk VI’s of B Troop. The HQ MARC and Mk VI together with the remaining A9 concentrated on sweeping the enemy guns (who quickly disappeared) and infantry causing considerable losses.
Long before we actually ceased playing it had become very apparent that there was absolutely nothing the Italians could do, although it was quite surprising how long it was taking to break the Libyan infantry, even with only one D4 Big Man to assist. The armour was reluctant to close into close range as the resultant infantry fire all too often caused a retirement which ate up time and dice, so most of the engagement was conducted at effective range – the A9 though we discovered could really lay on a hideous amount of fire with all three MGs (it benefitted on several occasions from the Armour Bonus card to move and then activate and remain stationary on its own card, which allowed the third, driver’s, MG to be used).
Comments
Well it was an odd game – in that it genuinely reflected the hopelessness of the Italian situation the scenario should be considered accurate, however as a game it was less appealing – once the guns were silenced there just wasn’t a game to be played anymore and credit goes to both players for persevering through what had quickly become an academic exercise. That said the Italians did knock out an A9 thus diminishing the quality of the British Victory and with better dice when the guns were revealed could have caused acute embarrassment.
So as a historical scenario it was fine, but as a game I’m not so convinced – if (and that’s a big if!) I were to play it again I’d be seriously tempted to allow the L3s to have their normal MMG factors; this would at least allow them to engage the British armour. On the other hand the concealed field gun ploy couldn’t have worked better – and if they had hit four times instead of missing four times when revealed (it sucks not to get a single 5 or 6 on 24 dice!) this AAR would read rather differently.
Given that we played in 6mm on a 6’ x 4’ table – I do wonder (despite this being accurate scale wise) how much of a different game it would be in 15mm. Not least the footprint of the Italian laager would be very considerably larger – I managed to fit 16 trucks, 1 car, 2 field guns and 14 sections into a 6” or 7” square, which meant quite a lot of manoeuvre room. Not sure how big a square 16 15mm trucks would be but I’d expect it would comfortably fill the centre of the table!
We did make some errors, for which I take full responsibility – this mostly involved the ‘desperate straits’ small arms attacks by infantry weapons to force morale effects on armour. Given that the L3s had been degrade to LMG so had no AT capability, I had decided to allow them to roll for the morale effect at whatever range – this at least allowed them a use, and I figured the British had no way to know that the fire couldn’t penetrate...unfortunately, somehow, we managed to translate this to the infantry fire as well and it wasn’t until the after-game analysis that we realised/remembered that it should be limited to close range! And this despite several comments from all involved during the game that the effect seemed odd!
Oops, mea culpa! Not that this had a ‘major’ effect but I think it did extend the game a bit as the British armour kept having to make up unnecessary ground – anyway it wouldn’t be IABSM if we didn’t screw something up!
Zippee
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