WW2 Western Desert turn 3 game 1

Game 1 of campaign turn 3 has an Italian infantry force supported by limited armour under attack from an Allied armoured force. There is only one objective in this game, a set of hills in the top left. I use my recently made palm trees to mark objectives. So with one objective I took the opportunity to use all 3 palm tree objective markers to create an oasis.

Map of terrain and objective

Tabletop setup

The units for each side were selected and laid out. Each unit was diced for to determine whether it would be available for battle. As neither force has been involved in a loss, units are only excluded in a score of 1. If they had lost a battle and not been re-equiped with supplies, then a score of 1 or 2 would exclude them .

Italians reduce their units by 4 units.

Allies are rather more fortunate and only reduce their force by 1 unit.

The next step in setting up the game was to dice for battle events. The Italian's diced for flank attack and aggressive defence. This will mean they can advance 30 percent of their units and attack first. However, the Allies will have 30 percent of their forces off-table and able to arrive on a flank, which is diced for.

The Allies have a delayed arrival with 30 percent of their forces starting the game off table. This means they will have limited forces available on table due to the delay and flanking units. They will take time to build up their forces for an all out assault.

Both sides will have air support.

Initial position of forces

Initial force deployment

The opening phase of the battle had an Italian armoured car force quickly strike at the deployed Allies, successfully inflict damage on their artillery units.

An initial strike by armoured car units.

Opening action.

Having done their damage the armoured cars quickly retired to avoid the advancing tanks and were supported by armoured elements. Delayed Allied units started to arrive and both forces started to organise their units for the upcoming battle. Air support arrived early on and attacks for both sides produced no results.

Allied forces start to arrive in greater numbers.

Allied air support arrives.

Italian air support.

Italian armour moves forward hand has initial success.

The battle started to take shape with the arrival of the Allied flanking units on the left. While in the centre tanks from both sides were engaged.

Allied flanking units arrive on the left and threaten forces defending the objective.

Flanking forces.

Allied Grant tanks were able to overcome the M13/40 tanks in the centre. On the flank the defending Italian forces were putting up a good defence and wearing down the attacking units.

Allied forces close in on the objective.

The assault on the objective is underway.

Taking of the objective proved to be very problematic. The Allies had to pause the assault to rush up more units as attacking units were whittled away.

Supporting units are moved up.

Attack on the objective.

The objecive was finally taken after some very stubborn defence.

A victory to the Allies.

25 Pounders support the attack on the objective.

A good start to the campaign turn and Allied counterattack.