Silly After Action Report Part Two: Little Cans, Mobile Coffins and Whatever the Hell an M11/39 Is

Friday arrived before I was ready for it and suddenly I was facing Ivan again who was smiling confidently.  I couldn't see it because we were playing on line but I knew the confident smile was there.  Fortunately for me his turn passed without any further destruction of my suddenly vulnerable forces and I pushed my remaining tanks forward.  I was closing up to his defences now and as my tanks approached Ivan changed tactics.  Rather than try and kill them he started dropping smoke rounds between us to spoil my aim.  It certainly did that but it also spoiled his.  It also gave me some handy cover to start moving my infantry up behind my tanks.

As things got desperate the Italians threw every unit into the fight.  Here the Italian army synchronised swimming team prepares to attack.

I made a mess of my artillery request and lost the guns for the time being but my armoured warriors surged forward through the smoke and stopped pretty much right on top of his defences.  Meanwhile my gun trucks
started pounding his eastern defences with little effect but at least giving the defenders something else to think about about from ripping up thin skinned L3s ("little can" was one of the more printable Italian nicknames for them).

My M13s plough through the smoke.  Sadly one of them has bogged in the sand.  That might not be good.

 As my tanks drew closer Ivan suffered disaster.  He broke not one but both of his twenty five pounders shooting at my tanks.  Unless and until he repairs them my M13s are the queen of the battlefield despite their cheery nickname "mobile coffins".  Sadly thanks to injudiciously running over some soft sand I currently only have three that can move.  While the tanks did the hard work of shooting up his defences I took advantage of the smoke to bring my infantry forces up behind them and started to kick them off the trucks.  Whether they will contribute to the battle in any meaningful way remains to be seen but at least Ivan has something else to think about.

While all of this action was taking place in the west in the east my L3s were covering themselves in glory.  Having reached his foxhole line I sent one platoon to outflank it while bringing the other forward.  There was quite a cold blooded calculation to this.  I was certain (correctly for once) that Ivan would have littered the ground between his foxholes and the edge of the board with antitank mines.  My L3s rolled forward to find them in the only way they could.  The purpose being to find a clear path to bring forward my L3 flamethrower.  Not only did the L3s succeed spectacularly so far none of them have succumbed to mines (although they are by no means out of the woods yet.).  Having approached in relative security the flamethrower then toasted a broken halfsquad and gave me another much needed victory point.

A blurry (and unattributed) picture but you get the general idea.

 Should the L3s survive they are well placed to take his eastern defences in the rear.  While they're doing so my gun trucks and some surprisingly durable M11s are knocking at the front door.  Trying to capitalise on this unexpected success I have send my bersaglieri in that direction with slightly gruesome results.  A squad of motorcyclists rode boldly through a firelane set up by his medium machine gun.  They are now a conscript half squad trembling in the scrub hoping to be unworthy of further attention (likely correct).  The remaining bersaglieri are rolling up behind the squad you see in the picture below hoping to capitalise on any further success the L3s have.  I'm getting quite fond of the L3s.

L3s laugh at mines.  Slightly hollowly but laugh they do.  In the centre even the M11s are getting into the action

 Over in the west my outflanking manouvre has run into sand which has brought a tank to a shuddering halt.  Fortunately in a good position to shoot up one of his mortar crews which is now limping slowly for the rear.  My other two M13s had results that can best be described as mixed.  On the one hand pointblank machine gun fire broke a squad with a medium machine gun.  On the other the same shot resulted in his 9-1 leader becoming heroic.  Hopefully its not infectious.  For right now though the squad has run away.

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In the west everything (including my tanks) is covered in smoke but my infantry had better deploy before it dissipates.

Its now the beginning of turn five.  I have started levering Ivan out of his defences and if the M13s hold together might be able to start beating up on his armoured cars.  I dearly need to build up some victory points before his guns get repaired.  Fortunately for me I have woken up my artillery spotter and hopefully he can help shoot my troops forward.  My infantry have started to assemble mortars and machine guns and as soon as the smoke clears, well the British will probably shoot them to bits but one can hope.  I also have an armoured car that I need to figure out what to do with.  To be honest I didn't actually expect it to last this long.