Silly After Action Report Part 3 - Two Words "Truck Overruns!!"

The third part of what is turning into the longest running epic since Gone With the Wind occurred last night (delayed because of the tennis).  I started the fifth turn with a powerful force of armour ready to unleash death of Ivan's infantry crouching in their foxholes.  My infantry was slinking up behind the smoke hoping not to draw attention to itself.  In this at least it was largely successful.  My guntrucks pounded his foxholes in the east with modest (ie "no") success but then it was all movement.  Of course some of the movement was very brief and punctuated with explosions.

Disaster struck in the east.  My little L3s that had so far proved themselves invulnerable to mines got a sudden reality check as first one and then a second exploded trying to extricate themselves.  Tragically one of these was my precious flamethrower L3 for which I had big hopes.  With the tears hot on my cheeks I turned my attention to the survivors.  One pair of L3s escaped the minefields and I sent them rolling towards the backfield hoping to take out the crews of the 25 pounders before Ivan managed to repair them.  The other remaining L3 rolled next to a foxhole filled with broken soldiers; these guys would not be permitted to rout.

I have discreetly excised the shattered L3s from this propaganda photo

Risking mines and sand bogging my M11s rolled over the dunes and positioned themselves in the rear of Ivan's defenders.  I'm awesomely impressed with my M11s.  I don't think they've achieved anything yet but their survival has been nothing short of miraculous.  Now they would play their part in denying rout paths.  There's also an outside chance that they might kill an armoured car but let's not get too silly.

Sadly the mixed results in the east were overshadowed by poor results in the west.  Since one of my M13s was bogged I attempted independent movement for its comrade and of course failed.  The bogged M13 then passed its independent movement die roll but promptly used all of its movement unbogging itself, the end result being that they didn't move at all this turn.  My infantry assembled mortars and inched forward through the smoke slowly getting closer to Ivan's surviving front line infantry in the west.  The cautious moving wasn't enough to save first one squad and then a second being broken by some keen eyed mortar fire but the remainder are slowly shaking themselves out and preparing for action.

Which just left the centre.  My pair of M13s started up and rolled straight at his last major stack of troops.  Three concealed squads nestling in a foxhole.  Some pointblank fire would soon soften up those babies.  I might have been right if Ivan hadn't gained a critical hit on one of the M13s with an armoured car antitank rifle.  A third M13 destroyed and firepower significantly reduced, again I wept for my noble armoured troops.

But all of that was just the preliminary.  With it out of the way my surviving armoured car rolled down the road heading for the most convenient of his 25 pounders.  Behind it came a fleet of trucks now free of responsibility for the infantry.  I had warned Ivan at the start that I intended to undertake truck overruns whenever possible, now the threat was becoming reality.

In the next turn Ivan repaired one of his 25 pounders and destroyed the other, a nice even handed result I guess.  The immediate upshot was that he put a nasty hole through my armoured car and another blazing wreck was added to the battlefield.  The armoured car was gone but a panzerkeil of trucks was bearing down on him.

Italian soldiers were brave but their tactics were a little outdated.  Here the 2nd Libyan division assaults a British position

Back at the real battlefield my surviving M13 proved incapable of so much as stripping concealment from his three squad stack but my guntrucks once again pounded his troops in the east, or at least one of them did.  The other broke its main armament.  A roll of three broke more of his infantry (which, being virtually surrounded by tanks, would die for failure to rout) but also generated a sniper.  With unerring aim the sniper targeted the truck with the broken gun removing it from the game.  Talk about taking one for the team. 

My M13s have proved a little disappointing.  One of them scored a hit on an armoured car resulting in nothing but a shock (honestly, 10 to kill facing 0 armour).  In the centre the surviving M13 still couldn't produce good results against his infantry so I swung my back field L3s back to help.  Now there are three tanks nose up to the foxhole and a shot from the M13 finally stripped concealment.  In despair (at least I'm going to interpret it as despair) Ivan attempted to close combat a pair of my tanks but failed the PAATCs which was a relief since I'd completely forgotten about that possibility.  In my next turn I would break a squad and an officer who would also die for failure to rout.  Ivan's force is slowly melting away, the trouble is I suspect its melting a little too slowly.

Down at his remaining 25 pounder Ivan faced his first truck overrun.  He survived (it is a 1+2 shot after all) but there are six more trucks lining up to take their turn.  Ivan can shoot at them if he wants but that does mean he isn't shooting at more valuable targets (ie, anything).  Or he can ignore them and run the risk of going down to a 1+2 from a truck.  My infantry have finally got their act and are ready to start pounding his surviving troops in the west, who are however defended by minefields and sheltered behind more of my trucks (guess how I found the minefields).

In the east my surviving tanks are monstering his infantry, not a bad achievement for vehicles that couldn't survive a bird strike.

Meanwhile a horde of vengeful trucks is bearing down on his gun position.

The end game fast approaches.  Ivan's infantry are dying like flies but my tanks are dying like, well, like metal flies I guess.  Nemesis approaches Ivan's 25 pounder in the form of half a dozen trucks with a deathwish but my number of functional tanks is diminishing and I still haven't managed to kill a single damn armoured car.  It is Ivan's turn six coming up and I wonder how many of my tanks will survive it.