Club Sunday 4th March

We finally managed to reschedule our campaign finale for Operation Crusader. With the British attempt to break out from Tobruk a failure it was already an Axis victory, but now I launched my forces in a final attempt to take the city against their reduced defenders.

To make a proper finale Luke came up with a 3 linked battle scenario. A force of Italian Bersaglieri had broken trough the lines and where in a cauldron scenario, whole another force launched an all out assault on another part of the lines, while my RECAFM force of armoured cars and light tanks launched a break through. The idea was that the breakthrough table led into the Italians side of the cauldron table, and the British side of the cauldron table led it the rear of the defences on the all out assault table. Forces could only move off one table to the next once they had won their table and took a full turn to arrive (the dust and noise signaling their potential arrival). In addition all undeployed troops formed a reserve pool and could be committed to any table, although no table could receive more reserves than it rolled to arrive.

I took my RECAFM force against Steve, while Luke commanded the defences against Scott's assault and new member Colin took the Allies against Rick on the final table.
I started with my usual recce moves and then smashed into one flank of the defenders and began rolling up their line, while on the other flank I chose not to dig my guns in and to use their full ROF to remove all threats. This very nearly worked, I certainly removed most of the anti-tank threats to let my armour roam free, but failed to knock out the MGs that then caused massed casualties among my artillery.
Meanwhile my vehicles swept around the flank and pushed on towards the objective. On the main assault Scott was pushing forward , while Rick had destroyed the immediate threats to his positions, but was coming up massed artillery fire and was unable to respond effectively.

As reserves began to arrive, we committed the mobile forces to my table and my motorcycle infantry joined in on the attack on the objective, while pioneers supported the main assault. With a secure position Rick received very few reserves. On the allied side Luke was left holding his defences with only the few units he started with, while Rick found more and more artillery added to his opponent and I faced all the light armour and anti-tank they could muster to stop my armoured cars.
Gradually numbers told and my force broke, while Rick had been pounded and with the arrival of Steve's forces was in an untenable situation. The bright spot for the Axis, is with no reserves Luke was in an increasingly stretched position and Scott finally became the first player to breakthrough and win an all-out assault.

Despite losing two and the three games and so losing overall, it was a Pyrrhic victory for the Allies as they had ultimately lost and their offensive had been repelled.