Silly After Action Report - El Hemeimat Ridge

 It takes a certain type of mentality to jump out of a perfectly functional aircraft.  One needs courage, determination and a deep desire to avoid having to pay duty on that second bottle of alcohol you brought onto the plane.  The soldiers of the Folgore paracadutisti division were such men.  Hard eyed, lean sinewed, tight fisted.  Trained in the finest customs avoidance techniques by the German Wehrmacht these Italians were a battle hungry elite prepared to hurl themselves into combat from the skies.  The Italian high command took one look at them and sent them to occupy foxholes in the desert.  Given the quality of their weapons it wasn't so much "death from above" and more like "the possibility of injury from round about knee level".

I plundered LFT's offering on Italians to come up with this one for Dave Wilson and me to play. Scenario FT238 El Hemeimat Ridge.  I, of course, shall command the Italians.  And what Italians!  Such Italians haven't been seen since the days of the Roman legions.  447 elite squads are not enough for these boys, they insist they are 448s with no lower broken morale and a +0 on their HOB die roll.  I was lightheaded with delirium at the thought of commanding such troops (also delirious was VASL which couldn't handle the concept at all so we had to make do with 447s which we had to remember were Italian supermen).

I have eight of these battle happy bullet magnets plus three equally steroid pumped crews to man a 47mm gun, a 20mm AA gun and a hmg.  Here reality intervened because the support weapons were the usual collection of malfunction happy Italian rubbish.  There was also a medium machine gun, a light machine gun and a heavy antitank rifle.  Three more than usually inspiring Italian officers commanded this small but doughty force.  To shelter them from the hail of fire soon to be heading in their direction were four sangars, six trenches and a pillbox.  Eighteen minefield factors and twelve dummies added to the confusion.  On turn four, should I survive that long reinforcements would arrive in the form of another seven squads, a pair of officers, two more light machine guns and (trying to show they're making a contribution) three German armoured cars.  My job was to defend the ridge identified in the scenario title.  The Italians win at game end if at least four squads (or AFV) are on level 3 hill hexes.

Preparing to sweep the ridge of Italian life and gain revenge for the capture of Menton are Dave's Free French.  It isn't the only the Italians who are elite in this one.  To take on the Folgore the Allies have sent in the Legion.  Dave has nineteen squads thirteen of which are elite and two of which are elite elite sappers.  Five officers including a pair of 9-1s lead the legionnaires forward.  They have two medium machine guns, four light machine guns (although two are of inferior French design) and three antitank rifles plus a demolition charge.  Supporting the human material are a British 76mm mortar, two French Conus armoured trucks toting 75mm artillery pieces (smoke, for the purposes of) and a solitary bren gun carrier which must have been sitting around some British headquarters when a light fingered legion detachment wandered by.  There would be a LV hindrance for the first three turns to simulate the dawn's early light (or, more accurately, the dawn's early dark) to give the intrepid legionnaires some cover as they crossed the open desert to the Italian positions.

Below is my at start set up.  On the left my line would be anchored by the 20mm, in the centre by the 47mm and on the right by the mmg guided by a 9-1 leader.  My hmg would set up in the pillbox behind the ridgeline to deal with any legionnaires who survived the no doubt vicious battle for the forward positions.  I was mindful that both his gun trucks and his mortar had generous quantities of smoke and the hope was that by spreading out not all of the defenders would be blinded.

 

Well to be fair not all the defenders were blinded.  Still no fewer than three smoke rounds blocked the lines of sight and air passages of my troops but in return one of his gun trucks would run out of smoke and break its MA into the bargain.  Shrouded by smoke and the dim light the legionnaires began their advance.

End of Allied turn 1

It wasn't long before both Dave and I started to have serious concerns about the quality of our so called "elite" troops.  Despite having morale of at least seven (and usually eight) Dave's troops proved spectacularly disinclined to pass morale checks.  The only reason why this wasn't a serious issue for him was because my Folgore proved to be incapable of hitting the side of a barn.  In a direct mirror image of this my troops rolled low on morale checks but Dave rolled even lower on fire shots with the result that my troops failed a number of 1 & 2MC checks with what were decent rolls.  If nothing else this added to the tension as for the first three or four turns both of us was convinced that the other was winning handsomely.  Despite the apparent hesitation of his troops Dave's forces moved forward in the teeth of wildly inaccurate Italian fire and reached the base of the ridge.  Victory would lie at the top.

For the first couple of turns the prize jewel in the Italian armoury was its sniper.  While the Folgore were apparently firing up into the air and shooting their own feet off (it takes skill to do both simultaneously) my sniper went on a one man vendetta against Dave's supporting firepower.  He started by breaking the mortar crew and went on to force the recall of both gun trucks before reluctantly redirecting his attention to an inoffensive 8-0 whom he first wounded and then (in a clear violation of the Geneva Convention) shot dead while he was having his wounds treated.  The mortar crew would rally but at least some sources of smoke were lost to Dave.

And this was good because my forward defenders had been swept away in a hail of advancing fire (which among other things generated the sniper shots) and Dave's gallant legionnaires started climbing the ridge.

The French are coming

As can be seen from the picture above Dave is threatening on both flanks and is advancing towards the heart of my resistance.  The centre, for the moment, holds firm simply because Dave hasn't managed to get anyone near it.  In point of fact it was the terrain which was Dave's principal enemy at this point.  This ridge line is an absolute bitch to try and climb and isn't helped when you have a bunch of guys who are shooting (however inaccurately) at you every step of the way.  Dave's situation wasn't helped by the fact that on the rare occasions that my Folgore shot straight his troops would invariably break.

Dave got himself into a handy position on both flanks but had difficulties effectively exploiting it as my remaining troops held their ground sternly.  In the centre his forces slowly scrabbled their way up wadis and through crags to reach positions from where my defenders, still shrouded in smoke thanks to his rejuvenated mortar, could actually shoot at them.

The battle for the ridge begins

Things hung in the balance like this for a couple of turns as Dave struggled to turn his initial gains into a decisive advantage and I clung on by my eyelids and looked anxiously for my reinforcements.  And I needed those reinforcements.  The Italians need four squads on level three hill hexes and thanks to the casualties so far I simply no longer had them but every one of my remaining units that survived made the reinforcements job easier.

The decisive moment really came when Dave succeeded in turning the left.  I should perhaps have put a little more force there to start with and breaking the 20mm gun didn't help matters much although since the crew died shortly afterwards perhaps it didn't have too much of an effect either.  On the centre right I was holding firm thanks to the heroic actions of an mmg team under the direction of a 9-1.  These guys dominated their little patch of the battlefield and, when Dave finally got troops into their location, cheerfully picked up bayonets and dispatched the intruders before going back to shooting.

Things are not going well.  Frankly that should be my battlecry

Which was good because my 47mm gun in the centre proved to be a distinct disappointment.  It's crew got off one shot before a WP round terrified them so much that they lost interest in proceedings for a good while.  To add insult to injury Dave would eventually capture the gun and use it to destroy a German armoured car.  Still the terrain was hampering Dave's attempts to close up on the ridge and on the right my mmg team ruled the battlefield.  About my hmg team in the pillbox not much can be said.  When the legionnaires poked their heads above the skyline they opened fire and were swiftly broken.  Once they recovered they celebrated by breaking their own weapon.  Apparently more concerned about the threat they posed than their performance to date would justify Dave drove his carrier into the hex and parked it preventing them from firing out.  This allowed my hmg team to do the only useful thing they did all day.  Sallying forth in CC they tore the tracks off the carrier and beat the inherent crew to death with them.  It has to be said that CC was the Italians friend in this scenario.

As my reinforcements waited in the wings rehearsing their lines and overcoming stage fright things weren't going well on stage.  I did have four squads on level three hexes unfortunately two of them were prisoners of the French and another was broken.  But Dave had his problems too.  His forces on the left were in good positions but were not numerous enough to truly interdict my reinforcements.  In the centre another squad had died in CC and a squad that went berserk was shot to pieces approaching the Italian positions.  My mmg crew held the right.  If stasis could be maintained for another couple of turns the reinforcements would be in position and there might be a chance for me to pull off a win.

An now my reinforcements had arrived!  Racing forward under the dubious protection of the armoured cars they panted towards the battlefield.  Unfortunately one of said armoured cars rolled past a hammada hex and tore its own wheels off.  That left two.  Up on the ridge Dave had finally managed to capture the 47mm gun which proved itself far more capable in the hands of its new owners and killed another armoured car.  Still the infantry was pushing forward and the remaining armoured car was mounting the hill (I apologise for any disturbing visuals the preceding sentence may have produced).

I still have faint hopes

Unfortunately stasis couldn't be maintained.  I had so few troops left on the ridge that any poor roll would lead to complete disaster.  A fanatic Italian squad in a trench failed a lowly NMC and suddenly I was virtually out of defenders with my reinforcements just barely setting foot on the other side of the ridge.  I was also almost out of time which led to me rushing my reinforcements forward and paying the price.  I conceded in turn six with the bulk of the ridge in French hands (although my gallant mmg position held out to the end) and my surviving reinforcements facing the prospect of attempting to recapture in one turn what had taken Dave four to achieve.  Congratulations to Dave whose skillful use of smoke and positioning compensated for some frightenly fragile troops.  Fewer congratulations to me who mishandled my forces on a couple of occasions.  In retrospect perhaps setting up more defences on the left is the answer since that's where the reinforcements arrive.

And now those faint hopes are gone

 Tune in next time when it is my turn to command the Free French (we'll gloss over the game we played in between where I lost in such an embarrassing fashion that it isn't worthy of an AAR).