In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia. Italian propaganda announced that they were bringing European civilisation to the Africans and there was a lot of truth in that. Semi medieval African empires rarely develop mustard gas and the Italians dispensed this and similar civilised creations with a lavish hand. Despite this the invasion wasn't a walkover, at least in the beginning. The Italians invaded Tigre province and then stopped to reorganise. With Mussolini sweating buckets and demanding action the Ethiopians decided on a counterattack. Feeling a little isolated in his position as one of the foremost Italian outposts a Major Criniti called for armoured assistance and received it in the form of several L3 tanks. Then he received several thousand Ethiopians intent on killing him. Deciding that running was the better part of valour Criniti went into full retreat to discover a couple of thousand more Ethiopians between him and safety. This is ASL Scenario SoN2; Criniti's Escape. Here I shall command a vast horde of poorly equipped Ethiopians attempting to prevent Mark McGilchrist's Italians from fleeing the scene unscathed.
To stop the Italian retreat I have twenty four Ethiopian squads (each of which has about half the firepower of an ordinary one), a trio of light machine guns, four officers, a single horse and a sword wielding Ethiopian tank hunter hero. This last is to simulate a historical event in the battle where a sword armed Ethiopian soldier leapt onto a moving Italian tank, hammered on the hatch shouting "Open up" in Italian. The Italian crew did so whereupon he ran them through with his sword. Facing my large but unruly legions are five L3 tanks, thirteen squads of Eritrean colonial infantry (three of them on horseback), three trucks, three light machine guns, a dismantled medium machine gun and four officers. This mighty force enters on the west edge of the mapboard and has to make its way through the teeth of Ethiopian resistance to exit off the east board.
In order to win Mark had to exit 32 victory points worth of troops off the eastern edge. Each tank was worth five, each squad two. The officers and trucks made up a few more. Somehow I had to dispatch enough of this force to prevent Mark achieving his goal. Below is the battlefield, Mark's forces will enter from the top while my forces are lurking modestly behind hillocks and deirs.
As you can see there are hillocks in the centre and on the left and right. I posted a force on each hillock the theory being that which ever one was hit could hold the attack while the two remaining groups rushed to reinforce. Unfortunately I cocked it up. I posted strong forces in the centre and on the left but the force I placed on the right was weaker. Guess which one Mark chose to attack. The tank hunter hero was hidden dead centre in the hopes a tank would trundle conveniently by.
Mark brought his forces on on the right and centre and promptly starting attacking my right position in the hopes of pushing through the gap between the centre and right hillocks. My defenders did little to stop him, in fact the most danger Mark was in was from himself. Like any dice based game there is always the possibility that a ridiculously lucky or unlucky roll will invalidate the best defence or well planned attack but the sheer volume of dice rolls means that usually this averages out over time. This was certainly true in our game but instead of a lot of average rolls with the occasional very lucky or unlucky one each of us rolled either ridiculously successfully or with tragic incompetence. It was like a war game for a manic depressive. Pretty much every roll of the dice was greeting with hysterical cursing or unbelieving delight depending on which of us had beaten the odds this time.
Mark started as we both went on by breaking the main armament of three of his five tanks and two of his light machine guns in the first turn. I reciprocated by having one of my few officers accidentally shoot himself while attempting to rally. Mark left a squad with the medium machine gun on the left to stop my force there from assisting the comrades on the right. Fearing the automatic fire I kept them silent for two turns. When I finally decided to risk it Mark promptly broke the gun and then ruined it completely while trying to repair it. Faced with half a dozen suddenly bold Ethiopian squads Mark pulled his guy back allowing mine through.
The real action was on the right, here despite various weapon issues Mark managed to crush a good number of the defenders under his tank tracks while my poorly armed troops could make little reply. He captured one of my few machine guns and promptly broke it trying to use it. Still his tanks bulled forward with infantry following, somewhat to the rear the truck and horse mounted troops moved forward slowly waiting for a path to be cleared to make a dash for the exit.
In the next picture you see the situation at the end of the second turn on the right flank. Mark has overrun my forward position and is gearing up to sweep the right hillocks of troops. My centre troops are edging rightwards in an attempt to bring succour to my doomed right garrison. The purple counters indicate tanks with broken weapons.
In response to this triumphal advance I could offer little resistance (although my sniper did shoot one of his officers dead) but as he started to bring up his infantry my feebly armed troops put up a spattering of fire and with his tanks in range my tank hunter hero broke cover and charged for the nearest. Sadly he was not to reproduce the heroic efforts of his real life counterpart. Near the tanks I had taken a very unlikely shot at an infantry squad and officer. My roll was ridiculously low and inflicted a morale check. Mark's corresponding role was equally ridiculous and rather than breaking a tubby Italian corporal with less interest in the war than penguins in Antarctica suddenly went berserk. What's more his Eritrean troops (who could have been forgiven for thinking they had picked poorly in the colonial oppressor stakes) were inspired by his example and went berserk as well. The nearest of my soldiers was the lone tank hunter now sitting on top of a tank but any hopes of hurting the metal beast vanished when a pack of kill crazy Eritreans lead by an Italian who was positively foaming at the mouth overwhelmed him. My secret weapon was gone. On the other hand Mark hadn't really wanted his soldiers that close to my troops either and I would cheerfully shoot at them for much of the next turn.
With broken troops cringing behind the hillock and Mark sweeping the right I was in trouble. I held the centre solidly (and my left hand troops were now moving up behind the Italians but with my poor firepower and the right nearly cleared Mark could start looking to the exits. That's when the cavalry charge happened. With only a single intact Ethiopian squad remaining on the right Mark decided to clean up the broken guys with a cavalry charge. It worked well, broken Ethiopians died all over the place but he got a little eager and charged right next to the one remaining squad, which promptly killed the horsemen and his best officer. Now too my meagre firepower which had been unable to harm anything finally managed to immobilise a truck and break another squad.
Five tanks, even if some of them had broken guns made an impressive victory point total and with one of my flanks gone Mark gunned them towards the exit relying on some of his infantry being able to follow. Now finally I hurt a tank. I didn't kill it of course but one of my machine guns stunned it and brought it to a shuddering halt. The next turn I stunned it again, then one of my officers went berserk and promptly charged it. Sadly the man died after noble attempts to destroy the vehicle with his teeth (apparently he didn't speak Italian). Meanwhile with his armour having moved off the board suddenly the trivial little low odds shots that were all my troops could muster managed to break about five of his surviving squads in the space of one fire phase. Now Mark was starting to sweat. The likelihood of any of them rallying in largely open terrain was low which meant that he absolutely needed to get that final tank moving. I absolutely needed to stop it. With its platoon mates gone the tank failed its independent movement die roll and remained where it was for another turn while Ethiopian soldiers gathered in numbers. I made one attempt to rush it but was sent reeling back in bloody rout. The next turn I tried again, got a squad in there but couldn't harm the tank in close combat. On the last turn Mark managed to start the tank and trundled towards the board edge and victory with my machinegun bullets plinking harmlessly off its armour.
So a defeat for the Ethiopians, sadly. Both Mark and I were the recipient of outrageous luck both good and bad. Not a turn went by without a shriek of disbelief or hysterical laughter from one or the other. I guess it all worked out in the end though. I didn't garrison the right strongly enough and Mark's strategy though greatly hampered by fate (and a rather silly cavalry charge) proved sufficient to get the bulk of his troops through.
the many failure of Sgt Tonelli shall be remembered. His failure to pack machine gun ammo, his flight after being winged, leaving his men in the lurch.
ReplyDeleteThis was a good close game, and I was cactus if I couldn't start the tank.