"Men, how are your dispositions?"
"Fair to middling," replied a voice he recognised as belonging to one of his corporals.
"Are the machine guns pointed in the right direction?"
"Damned if I know sir. It's the dust, we could be in Rome right now for all we know."
"No," disagreed Forghetti, "the traffic would be worse," he gulped a lungful of dust, "and so would the air quality. Are the mortar crews there?"
"Yes sir," came a voice from off in the murk.
"Got your target locations bore sighted?"
"Well, we registered on some dust and hoped for the best."
"Great, that couldn't go badly wrong."
"There's something moving out there," shouted another soldier from inside a dust clogged foxhole.
Forghetti stared into the distance but saw nothing through the dust except more dust.
"What does it look like?" he asked.
"Like a bunch of really pissed off night club bouncers," replied the soldier.
"28th battalion, New Zealand division," said Forghetti. "Wait until you see the whites of their eyes."
"So we can shoot them?"
"No, so they can see you when you surrender."
This week David Wilson and I are rocking it old school playing scenario ASL 51 - The Taking of Takrouna. In this scenario I shall take command of the Italians defending the Tunisian village of Takrouna from David's attacking Maoris. This couldn't possibly end badly could it? The scenario title is probably a clue. It isn't called The Heroic and Thoroughly Successful Defence of Takrouna is it?
To hold a piece of North Africa that I have doubts even the indigenous population was particularly fond of I have a dozen first line squads, a pair of half squads, a bunch of useless light machine guns, two crappy little 45mm mortars and a medium machine gun. Leadership, for want of a better word, is provided by a 9-1 and an 8-0.
David's attacking force consists of six elite squads of battle hungry Maoris with a pair of half squads to make up the numbers. Leadership is provided by an awesome 10-2 and an only slightly less immortal 9-2 plus two heroes. A couple of light machine guns and a pair of 51mm mortars make up David's forces. Numbers are on my side, pretty much everything else is on David's. There's only one objective; for reasons in which sanity cannot have had much involvement the inhabitants of Takrouna built their village on the top of a cliff. David has to punch through my, no doubt, fanatical defence, shimmy up the cliffs and take the cluster of buildings at the top. If I somehow manage to prevent this Tenente Forghetti will get an iron cross from Rommel himself and probably a wooden cross from the graves registration unit. A blanket of dust hangs over everything providing David with a modicum of cover and meaning my poorly armed troops are even less likely to inflict any casualties.
After having examined all of the options I just decided to surround the victory location with troops. Man for man my boys can't match the Kiwis for firepower, range, morale or leadership. I figured my only hope was to set out layers of troops so that David would have to wade through them all. Hopefully by the time he reached the cliff he would be short of time to actually get up it and clear out the village at the top. I put a squad with my 8-0 and an lmg up there to make the clearing a little harder. I didn't put the mmg there. Yes, it's the prime location but its also about the only hex that can be seen from everywhere on the board. I was pretty sure that one of the first things David would do was drop some mortar smoke on it and blind the occupants (correct).
Intead I set the mmg with a squad and the 9-1 up in a foxhole next to the cliff. Then I surrounded the cliff with as many bodies as I could find. One of the mortars went off to the left to bore sight a likely approach route (no one went that way). The other sat back where it could hit the ridges on the right. Below is my original set up, apologies for the crappy photos.
As you can see David will have to wade through pretty much the entire Italian army if he wants to get to Takrouna. For a while it looked as though he didn't want to get to Takrouna. The first turn went very swiftly as he didn't actually bring his forces on until the advance phase. Useful for avoiding fire but it did mean that one turn had gone by without him getting appreciably closer to his goal.
David chose to bulk up in the centre and on my right, looking for a flank. Over on my left a solitary squad with a hero was left to draw my attention. In a sense these guys accomplished their mission. They strode bravely forwards and since everything else was lurking under concealment counters they received a barrage of fire which CRed the squad and wounded the hero. My left flank was safe. Which was helpful because David threw the bulk of his force at a couple of speed bump squads I'd left out on the right. His mortars were in the centre and did indeed drop a shroud of smoke over Takrouna itself. This was about the last useful thing did though. I attempted to back pedal my speedbump squads but they both wound up dying. One in close combat and the other when the brutal Maoris refused to take a bunch of terrified Italians prisoner.
In the centre David sent forward a squad to challenge my forward defenses. Unfortunately for him his wounded hero was incapable of climbing the difficult terrain he was presented with and spent most of the game sulking impotently. Gunfire rang out across the battlefield as squad fired on squad. The other thing that rang out across the battlefield were hysterical curses as the prevailing dust made it virtually impossible for either of us to hit the other. There were a couple of breaks here and there but most of the casualties would come from close combat.
Meanwhile the relentless up and down of the terrain meant that David's flanking attack took a heck of time to get into position as they always seemed to be going down into gullies and then climbing back up the other side. My movement was sparse. I was hunkered down in foxholes and a thick layer of dust and I simply invited David to move forward and throw me out.
Eager for blood David plunged into what would turn out to be an epic close combat in the centre of my position. Each of us would reinforce this battle which went on for several turns and at the end it was the Italians who emerged victorious. I lost a pair of squads in doing so but David lost a squad and a half plus a hero so the ledger was definitely in my favour.
Over on the right his 10-2 had set up a firebase with which to pound my defences only to discover that a combination of dust, foxholes and concealment counters could reduce a 10-2 to virtual impotence. Not that my own shots were any better. One of my 45mm mortars spent virtually the entire game shooting at that particular kill stack without result. With the assistance of the ever present dust David waltzed a unit through a bore sighted location and took a to hit shot with a -4 modifier without being touched.
Despite the disappointing fire results David's forces were slowly inching closer and he managed to start pushing in my front as well. A single squad in a forward foxhole stopped him for a while but he eventually managed to butcher them and take the location for his very own. The close combat in the dead centre raged on as we both fed troops into the mincing machine. Finally despite the dust he managed to get a morale check on my mmg team and they promptly crumpled like wet cardboard. Unfortunately for him he couldn't get any troops into the suddenly abandoned foxhole and the next turn I was able to reclaim the mmg. This mmg incidentally didn't roll lower than eight for the entire game and the only thing I achieved was rolling an eleven and breaking the damn thing. Nevertheless its presence made David nervous, until I broke it. After that he was ok.
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| About halfway through. Still plenty of arms and legs for David to get through |
David finally managed to rally the halfsquad that was all that was left of the forces on my left and married them back up with his wounded hero. In a burst of utterly misplaced confidence one of my squads left the defences and jumped into close combat. Meanwhile on the right his troops, somewhat dizzy from all the up and down were finally starting to close up on my positions. Simultaneously my centre started to crumble a little bit as well. Meanwhile mortars banged away at each other with futile aggression and David managed to break the squad I had at the top of the cliff with his 10-2 kill stack.
This was terrible news as his half squad/hero combination killed the squad I sent against them and pushed on for the cliffs. Well the half squad did, the hero still couldn't get up there. I managed to get a replacement squad into the village just in time as David's halfsquad climbed the cliffs and jumped into CC just after they arrived. The village was in danger but David needed more troops in there to be certain. Unfortunately troops was what he was now desperately short of. His kill stack was too far away and the remainder of his forces were bottled up in close combat around the cliff base.
My task was a simple one, the close combats had to continue. I didn't have to win them but I did have to make sure David didn't. I sent another squad and my 9-1 up through the tunnel to the village to reinforce the melee there (they arrived pinned and CX but beggars can't be choosers) while what was left of my force (not much) reinforced such tattered remnants of my defenders as hadn't already been killed in melee. I cleared his half squad out of the village and remained alone and unchallenged at the top of the cliff. His only other nearby squad was locked in melee with a squad and half squad of my own. His 10-2 led kill stack looked menacing but with only one turn to go it couldn't get to the cliff and climb up in the remaining time.
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| End game. I seem to have won |
A victory, somewhat surprisingly for me. At the end of the game I had four squad equivalents left, David had three. Given the rarity of effective fire results that means a lot of brutal close combats.
Tenente Forghetti brushed dust off his uniform, out of his hair, off his hands, out of his eyes and then went back to his uniform again. It was a little difficult to see what was going on but from the absence of swearing and screaming the battle seemed to be dying down. A corporal emerged from the murk ten centimetres away and inadvertantly hit him in the eye while saluting.
"We've won sir," announced the corporal in tones of disbelief.
"How?" asked Forghetti clutching his eye.
"I think most of them got lost and accidentally attacked their own command post."
"That was my command post!"
"Oh! Are you all right? Your eye seems to be weeping."
"Wounded defending my command post."
"Well done sir, the propaganda papers will love it."
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