Capitano Verdelho Frascati stood bolt upright in the turret of his M13/40 and struck a heroic pose as regulations demanded. Around him the air was full of the sound of diesel engines doing their best. Ahead little L6/40s, pilot fish to the mighty M13 sharks, nipped and weaved as they ploughed forward across the sand. In Frascati's wake trucks hauled guns and infantry, dropping slightly behind but eager to be in at the kill. Frascati adjusted his jaw to an appropriately Mussoliniesque angle, breathed deeply and promptly started gasping, coughing and retching.
At a rest break fifteen minutes later he was still gasping and choking. Tears had transformed the dust on his cheeks into muddy channels. It was difficult to attempt a heroic pose when you were doubled over retching but he did his best. The maggiore was unimpressed.
"What the hell did you think you were doing Frascati?" he demanded.
"I was striking a heroic pose," wheezed Frascati, "to encourage the men."
"Well congratulations, you've sprayed your "heroic pose" all over the turret of your tank. I think you can consider your men encouraged. I've never seen a crew leave a vehicle that quickly. Now get a squeegie and wipe down the gun mount we're moving again in five minutes. And possibly you've learnt a lesson about not striking heroic poses in a dust intensive environment. I suggest you go buttoned up from here like the rest of us."
"Buttoned up?" muttered Frascati glancing at the rather messy interior of his tank.
"Buttoned up," confirmed the maggiore. "It's a good thing your men are so well encouraged. You couldn't pay me enough to get into that particular tank right now."
At my increasingly pathetic pleading Dave very kindly agreed to play Scenario J47 - They're Here! Reverse! a scenario which has the highest ratio of exclamation marks to words in it's title that I have ever encountered. I of course desperately wanted to play the Italians and Dave (who likes winning) was happy to oblige. He even gave me the balance which added another two L6/40s to my OB. This was almost a mistake as those little dinky toys punched well above their weight.
It is pre-Rommel north African desert and what's left of the Italian army is in fast rewind desperately attempting to get to Tripoli before the British do. Unfortunately the sneaky British have cut across behind them and are now waiting in ambush. There is intense heat haze, there is dust, there are smoke tanks. What more could a man want? I command an Italian tank force that is either attempting to clear the path for follow on troops or (more likely) stampede past the British and keep on running. To do this I have to clear one of two hillocks of all British troops. Standing in my path is Dave's doughty but outnumbered force.
It has to be admitted I have quite the force. Thanks to the balance I have four L6/40 tanks, a dozen M13/40s and a pair of AB40 armoured cars. An 8-1 armour leader commands. I also have ten squads of bersaglieri commanded by a pair of deeply mediocre officers and carrying collectively a medium machine gun and a pair of hernia inducing 20mm antitank rifles. Four trucks prove insufficient to cart all of these forward, some would have to march. I also have three antitank guns, two 37mm and one 47mm all towed behind smaller trucks barely capable of carrying the gun crews. This is the force that must sweep the British aside and gain Italy an unlikely victory.
For his part Dave is short on numbers but high on quality. Nestled in sangars on the desired hillocks are six first line British squads equipped with a mmg and an antitank rifle. They are led by a gallant 9-1 and a less than enthusiastic 7-0. But Dave's real power lies in his armour. He has four A13 MkII tanks carrying a 40mm gun, easily the equal of the 47mm mounted on my M13s and a pair of A13 MkI tanks with the same armament but sadly deficient in the armour department. He also has a pair of A13 MkII CS tanks which fire smoke. Just that and nothing else. To ram the message home on turn four he receives another pair of smoke tanks. At least they have a machine gun. Possibly the most potent weapon Dave had was the 2 ROF on his A13 tanks. A mild breeze is blowing across the battlefield and intense heat haze is in effect.
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| Here is the start set up with a horde of Italians waiting to enter |
Despite the appearance of the map I had set up to hit the smaller, easternmost hillock with the bulk of my force while a group of tanks made threat displays towards the other hillock generated dust and generally attempted to divert the attention of his tanks on and around the other hillock. L6/40s would lead the way and hopefully protect their bigger cousins with some dust.
The Italians obviously have a much larger force but the likelihood is that they will lose a decent chunk of it along the way. The Italians are on the move making shooting difficult while the British are hull down behind hillocks (if the British have any sense) and the first couple of turns are a shooting gallery as the British try to whittle the numbers down while the Italians think dustlike thoughts and hope for the best.
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| End of Italian first turn |
This was pretty much the situation for the first couple of turns. Dave started as he meant to go on with one of his A13s getting rate and smashing up a couple of flanking M13s. Burning wrecks would add to the amount of hindrances in the air. There was so much dust it looked like a scene from The Mummy (the cool one with Brendan Fraser not the slobbering bucket of godforsaken crap with Tom Cruise). Within that dust my surviving force ploughed doggedly onward. Up front my faster moving armoured cars positioned themselves ostensibly so that they could start shooting up his infantry but actually so that his tanks would shoot at something less valuable than the M13s. They were only partially successful in that regard.
By the end of Dave's first turn another M13 was knocked out and one of the armoured cars was ablaze. The other had been shocked by a squad with an antitank rifle but at least it had lost concealment. In my second turn I had pretty much reached the hillock and could start attempting to inflict some damage myself. A trio of L6s surrounded his forward squad with the atr, admittedly one was immobilised and another had broken its MA but they were there goddammit. M13s started to circle around to the east trying to find dust free shooting positions and my long suffering infantry gasped and stumbled towards the battlefield in support. The trucks hauling my atgs were grimly battling through the dust as well. I gained my first kill when I blew up the tank holding his armour leader and more smoke drifted across the battlefield effectively shrouding his mmg team and best officer. Little did I know it them but that smoke was to prove my nemesis.
Incidentally how good are the L6 tanks. They're nippy, they can place 6FP on infantry targets and that boxed 3 frontal armour makes them actually harder to kill through the front than the M13s quite apart from the fact that they're a small target as well. They all died eventually of course but "they all died eventually of course" is basically the autobiography of any armour under my command.
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| End of Italian turn 2. More dust, more smoke |
In Dave' second turn a pair of L6s met their nemesis. The atr killed one and another on the far west was immobilised. Destroying it proved difficult but repeated hits eventually forced the crew to flee. On top of that he shocked a pair of M13s and one which had broken its MA in the previous turn decided, wisely, to flee for the rear rather than take any further part in proceedings. Meanwhile Dave had finally found a use for his smoke tanks. We had spent much of the game to this point wondering what possible use they could be, now Dave proceeded to demonstrate. He sent them forward into my rear and started shooting up my long suffering infantry as they attempted to catch up with the armoured spearhead. I had disdained to shoot at them when I had the chance and now I paid for it as they made play in the backfield.
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| Suddenly the smoke tanks are useful after all |
My third turn was one of ups and downs. I killed the second tank on the hillock thus leaving only a pair of infantry squads between myself and my goal. On the other hand armoured leadership was having a bad day. Dave's armour leader was burning inside a tank and mine managed to break the MA of his tank taking a shot. The tank would die before it was repaired. One of my shocked tanks recovered but the other was killed by an A13. On the target hillock Dave had been driven out of the first sangar and the smoke from his burning wrecks was hampering the efforts of his mmg team to gain useful results. Such of my infantry as had ridden to the battle on trucks now pushed forward to the hillock but the stragglers were prey to his smoke tanks. Foolishly I sent one of these squads into CC with a smoke tank and had to watch in disbelief as not only did I not get a result but the tanks return fired wiped out the squad. A squad with an atr now felt obliged to linger in the rear to deal with these guys and I unloaded a 37mm atg as well. The other 37mm was right up at the front on the east side of the hillock The 47mm also unloaded to try its luck against his other tanks.
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| Casualties have been high but I seem to be getting somewhere |
Things brightened up when my atr team shocked one of his smoke tanks and the other broke down while attempting to start. Unfortunately the shocked tank recovered the next turn while the infantry I had at the front was insufficient to truly challenge for control of the hillock. Still I was hopeful. I had a pair of M13s behind the hillock and now the hulldown status would start to benefit me as well. If I could deal with the remaining infantry Dave would have to attack and I hoped that what little remained of my armour could beat off any such effort. Rather surprisingly he brought his surviving MkI (with the thin armour) closer up onto the road where it rapidly gained an accumulation of acquisition counters from what little remained to shoot at it.
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| Foolishly I'm starting to feel hopeful |
My poor little L6s didn't survive the sudden renewal of attention on them now that the bulk of the M13s were gone. In return my 37mm atg set his MkI ablaze thus providing more smoke while in the rear his smoke tanks dropped down smoke rounds rendering the other two atgs pretty much impotent. Dave's reinforcing smoke tanks rolled forward and headed straight for the hillock. Smoke and dust now shrouded the hillock to the point where it was almost impossible to see anything.
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| The reinforcing smoke tanks have arrived. You just can't see them under all the dust and smoke. |
In actual fact the term "almost impossible to see anything" turned out to be an understatement. What with smoke from burning wrecks and vehicular dust it was impossible to see anything. I rolled my remaining platoon of M13s up adjacent to his surviving sangar dwellers only to discover that even at point blank range they couldn't see the defenders in the next hex. Dave moved his smoke tanks into the hexes occupied by his infantry to create more dust and make it impossible for such of the Italian infantry as was left to completely clear them out even assuming they passed the 1PAATC required to even try. With five turns down and time getting late I gave Dave the concession. I had been brought to a standstill. The plethora of smoke and dust meant there was very little chance of his tanks inflicting any more harm on me but I could not get forward the final hex or so I needed for victory.
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| Literally no-one can see anyone else |
This game would be appalling to play face to face. As Dave put it, it was counter clutter from Hell. On line however I found it enormously enjoyable. I am deeply grateful to Dave for playing what was certainly not his first choice. So victory to Dave and my surprisingly gallant Italians coming up short at the last.
"Well I see you manage to survive Frascati," noted the maggiore. "I was hoping, sorry expecting you to find a hero's death on the hillock like so many of your comrades."
"I'm sorry sir but the dust and smoke were so bad that I couldn't see anything at all."
"You managed to see the exit clearly enough. And what the hell did you do to that gun?"
Frascati glanced with embarrassment at his tank where a team of mechanics with rather nauseated looks on their faces were attempting to "repair" the main armament. Finally one of them got a high pressure hose and simply sprayed the inside of the tank. Finished he gave a thumbs up.
"Just needed to clean out the dust and organic matter," announced the chief mechanic. "Where did you find organic matter in the desert anyway?"
"I believe Capitano Frascati provided it himself."
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