Another Silly After Action Report

In 1941 Mussolini was riding high.  His military had set new standards in ineptitude and humiliation and he had backed it up with a political performance worthy of a retarded gibbon.  He felt he was ready for the big league.  Imagine his outrage then when Hitler sneakily invaded the Soviet Union without telling him.  Desperate to cock up mightily on the biggest stage of all he implored Hitler to allow the Italians to take part in the "Crusade Against Bolshevism".  Hitler's smile grew a little fixed and sweat sprang out on his forehead.  Behind Mussolini's back Hitler's generals were making desperate throat slitting gestures with their hands but ultimately fascist sentiment won out against common sense and Hitler graciously permitted the Italians to join in.

Vaguely aware that the Soviet Union was rather big the Italian high command dug around in the dustiest corners of their order of battle to see if they could find some troops that were mobile.  They gathered together the 3rd Celere division and two "truckable" infantry divisions, the 9th Pasubio and the 52nd Torino.  A celere division was made by combining not enough motorised infantry with too few tanks and padding out the numbers with a horsed cavalry regiment.  The result had the weaknesses of an armoured unit (not enough supporting infantry), the weaknesses of an infantry unit (insufficient supporting armour) and buried them both knee deep in horseshit.  Another problem immediately became apparent with the infantry divisions.  "Truckable" it appears didn't actually mean "trucked" just that the division was capable of being trucked.  In actual fact between them the two divisions had enough trucks to truckable just one of them.  The Pasubio drew the short straw, gathered all the available transport and with the 3rd Celere became the point unit of the Italian advance.  In the early days all was smooth, the Soviets were retreating and the Italians followed just quickly enough so that they didn't catch them.  From time to time, however the Soviets posted a rearguard to cover the withdrawal of other elements and on the 12th of August the Pasubio walked face first into one.

The ensuing battle cut up the Italian vanguard and killed their commander.  The Italians were up to the challenge.  Swiftly reorganising under a cover of skilfully contrived incoherent chaos they dialled in some artillery support and attacked again.  This is Scenario TAC 54 "In the Name of Rome".  I shall command the Italians in their renewed attack on the village of Jasnaya Polyana while Jeremy Dibben attempts to defend this little patch of Mother Russia (the Ukraine actually) from its less than enthusiastic attackers.

Jeremy had a dozen first line Soviet squads to hold the line.  They have a pair of medium machine guns, a pair of light machine guns two rather cute little mortars and a honking big mortar.  Leading this force are three officers including an 8-1.  A radio holds out the promise of artillery support for them as well.  Six foxholes allow them to cover some otherwise difficult to defend areas.  As for me, well what the Italians lack in coordination they make up for in numbers.  I have four bersaglieri squads and seven ordinary first line squads on the board at set up looking uneasily at a fair chunk of open ground that needs to be crossed before they get to the buildings they have to capture.  These squads have a pair of very small mortars, a trio of light machine guns and a heavy machine gun.  They also have a mortar of equivalent honking bigness to its Russian counterpart.  Then there are the reinforcements.  On turn one four more first line squads appear on the western edge of the playing area (the objectives are all in the east) dragging a pair of dismantled mortars and a medium machine gun.  On turn three six elite squads (exactly equivalent to the Soviet first liners I'm facing) turn up from the south and on turn five a pair of first line squads wander in from the north.  On turn two I also get artillery support with a guaranteed fire mission.  This is absolutely vital because without some smoke cover the Italians aren't going anywhere.

The target village is in the northeast quadrant of the map and I had to take fifteen buildings while not losing more than twenty five CVP in doing so.  To the south the village is flanked by forest and then wheat fields but to the west there are patches of open ground interspersed with orchards and more wheat with a few outlying buildings which seemed ideal for a delaying position.  One problem I had was that the Italian attack pretty much started from where the last one was stopped which meant defensible terrain was thin on the ground.  In the north was a little forest but for the rest I would have to hide in orchards and try and look like a fruit tree.

Jeremy had set up his defenses to cover both the front and his southern flank where he could expect my elite reinforcements but he had set up one squad a little too far forward without support and placed another couple of units in and around those outlying buildings previously mentioned.  My plan was to use my big mortar to try and drop a little smoke to cut down his lines of sight and then smash his temptingly forward squad with a hmg position while my baby mortars at least attracted the attention of his more southerly defenders and the remainder of my infantry edge very carefully forward.  My turn one reinforcements would sidle up on my right (south) taking advantage of intermittent patches of trees to hopefully get near the battle without harm (failed).  That was it, hopefully when I got my artillery in turn two I would be able to convert this into a full blooded attack under decent smoke cover.

Things actually went rather well in turn one.  My hmg smashed his isolated squad which turned out to be nursing both a lmg and a mortar, neither of which Jeremy saw again and a well placed smoke shell from my mortar managed to create enough of a hindrance for me to scoot a couple of squads forward and take his squad prisoner.  From there slinking behind grain would help them ease along the northern side of the board towards his main defences.  I pushed forward modestly in the centre while my baby mortars did no harm but at least reminded Jeremy they existed.  My reinforcements, having asked for directions to the shooting headed in that direction with varying degrees of enthusiasm.  Jeremy set up a well placed firelane with his medium machine gun which broke a squad and led to some balletic manoeuvres as I attempted to find a way past it.  In his turn Jeremy called in his artillery and let his intentions be known by targeting the very woods hexes I had hoped my reinforcements might use to get to the fighting.

Turn two saw my artillery arrive but rather than help the front which I thought was doing OK I dropped a smoke concentration around some of his southern defenders hoping to ease the path of my elite reinforcements.  Jeremy whose artillery had to make do with mere high explosive smashed two of my reinforcing squads (although others survived the metal rain without a scratch).  My onboard force in the south (now consisting of one squad) moved up to the outlying buildings in the southern area of the village while the bulk was scooting behind the grain heading for the village proper.  One squad scooped up his abandoned lmg and looked to add some firepower to the rather lean force hoping that grain would provide adequate protection from mmg fire.  Fortunately at this point Jeremy broke the machine gun and what was left of my reinforcements edged a little closer to the action.  My large mortar had broken a squad in the outlying buildings and odds there were now almost even.  Minor disaster was approaching in the north though.  One of Jeremy's defending units firing at long range, through wheatfields naturally gained a snake eyes on my leading units.  In response I rolled boxcars.  A leader dead and subsequent rolls broke the squad as well.

Still turn three didn't look too bad.  I had a shortage of troops in the south but the north (despite the bloody nose) was looking strong and my elite reinforcements were due.  Not before time.  Jeremy revealed his big mortar and promptly gained a critical hit on the long suffering turn one reinforcements who had just managed to struggle out of artillery fire.  An officer and a half squad were killed and the remaining half squad was reduced to a broken conscript but then something wonderful happened.  Following up that shot with another he inflicted another morale check on the half squad.  The result was a heat of battle roll.  The result of that roll produced that most beautiful of things, the beserk Italian conscript halfsquad.  There is nothing more expendable on the battlefield and with a morale of ten it takes quite a bit of expending.  Just for artistry I placed another smoke concentration to cover more of his southern defenders and then I brought on my six elite squads.  Since my southern front was in tatters (beserk halfsquad not withstanding) I sent a couple of squads up through the grain to support them but the other four I brought on with their leader as far east as I could.  Now Jeremy's flank protection was choking in smoke, his front was holding but definitely occupied and I could slowly ease forward in the north. 

In my opinion Jeremy had made an error.  He had put a delaying force up front but then left quite a gap between it and his village garrison.  This allowed me to attack the delaying force without his extra troops in the village being able to help.  Considering the casualties I took without that assistance their presence might have been decisive.

Turn four started with me looking good in the north, threadbare in the centre (but with a beserk halfsquad ready to cut loose) and my troops ploughing through the grain towards his almost impotent southern flank.  The combined firepower of four elite squads broke the only defender not wreathed in smoke and I pushed into the woods covering the south of the village.  The beserker covered itself in glory charging towards an enemy, soaking up a mass of firepower and allowing other units to move before finally succumbing to the weight of bullets.  My two elite squads finally came up on my south centre and my baby mortarmen abandoned their charges and moved forward to fill the gaps in my ranks.  In the north I finally mustered the firepower to start breaking some of his village garrison and Jeremy had to shuffle troops north to stop a breakthrough.  Things were even looking better in the centre. I had one squad in one of the outlying buildings, Jeremy had a squad in another and I had another squad adjacent to his one hiding behind a wall.  The wall had writing on it so rather than wait I plunged into close combat and a miracle happened.  A lax Italian squad managed to ambush its Soviet target.  I promptly withdrew into another building and now I had two (of three) outlying buildings and the combined firepower of my two guys would drive him out of the third.

Jeremy's artillery amused itself pounding a collection of my broken units in the trees but couldn't actually do them any more harm.  Thanks to the attention of my two elite squads I had driven off his medium machine gun squad and seized the weapon for my own.  The last surviving element of my first lot of reinforcements (those guys took a dreadful pounding) pushed through and captured the first of my buildings in the village proper.  My other elite troops swept through the forest and were poised to capture buildings in the south.  My troops in the north were now in a pinning role occupying the attention of Jeremy's survivng forces which meant that when the two squads that made up my turn five reinforcements turned up and started moving towards unguarded buildings there wasn't a lot he could do about it.  Jeremy conceded at that point and while there were still three turns to go it was difficult to see what he could do.  I had three forces poised to occupy buildings and he had the wherewithal to stop perhaps one of them.  Despite the way it turned out I was nowhere near confident of victory until the beginning of turn five as I realised Jeremy had no way to stop my reinforcements.  For the first three turns I pushed forward aggressively and lost a lot of men in doing so.  At one point I wondered if I would have anything left to actually occupy buildings once I got there.  In turn four pressure (and smoke assisted flanking) began to tell and I was able to breathe a little easier.  Thanks to Jeremy for a great game and for putting up with my swearing, particularly when he insisted on rolling snake eyes.