Steve, Luke and I gathered for a mid-week game. We decided to try out the Beda Fomm scenario from Wargames Illustrated as with Steve's BEF tanks we could virtually do the exact forces. The British Combe Force deployed across the road while the Bersaglieri deployed at the far end ready to try and make a breach for 10th army to escape through (below).
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The Bersaglieri advanced valiantly against a storm of British artillery fire (above), while the British armoured cars attempted to flank them, but were driven off by the Italian tanks, who then swept on as the British armour arrived behind them (below).
However the British opening volley failed to take advantage of this position and the return fire decimated them, as the rest of the Italian armour arrived (above). meanwhile the infantry had continued to push forward, taking heavy casualties, but managing to hang around and even attempted a very unsuccessful assault on the British lines (below), before finally faltering under the massed fire and breaking.
The British MkIVs has also arrived by now (below, cunningly using the mirrored wall to enhance their numbers) and began to attack the Italian artillery. Although this quickly proved fatal for them, they destroyed enough gun crews to seriously hamper the Italian supporting artillery fire for the main attack. The heavy losses to the British armour meant that if the Italians could break one of the defending platoons they could win, but the dug in infantry was going to prove too tough for them, and the Italians eventually broke after many turns of tough fighting, resulting in the destruction of the 10th army.
This is a really tough fight for the Italians and I think we were all surprised how close I actually came. I was even more surprised when I saw the following weeks Wargames Illustrated and found they had changed the scenario after more play-testing and made the Italians just have reserves rather than delayed reserves so they arrived much earlier, which could prove decisive. We will now have to repay it with the revised scenario and see if I can manage to save the Italian 10th army!
The Bersaglieri advanced valiantly against a storm of British artillery fire (above), while the British armoured cars attempted to flank them, but were driven off by the Italian tanks, who then swept on as the British armour arrived behind them (below).
However the British opening volley failed to take advantage of this position and the return fire decimated them, as the rest of the Italian armour arrived (above). meanwhile the infantry had continued to push forward, taking heavy casualties, but managing to hang around and even attempted a very unsuccessful assault on the British lines (below), before finally faltering under the massed fire and breaking.
The British MkIVs has also arrived by now (below, cunningly using the mirrored wall to enhance their numbers) and began to attack the Italian artillery. Although this quickly proved fatal for them, they destroyed enough gun crews to seriously hamper the Italian supporting artillery fire for the main attack. The heavy losses to the British armour meant that if the Italians could break one of the defending platoons they could win, but the dug in infantry was going to prove too tough for them, and the Italians eventually broke after many turns of tough fighting, resulting in the destruction of the 10th army.
This is a really tough fight for the Italians and I think we were all surprised how close I actually came. I was even more surprised when I saw the following weeks Wargames Illustrated and found they had changed the scenario after more play-testing and made the Italians just have reserves rather than delayed reserves so they arrived much earlier, which could prove decisive. We will now have to repay it with the revised scenario and see if I can manage to save the Italian 10th army!
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