[RERomine]

Turn 18

Alpha is pretty much just taking a beating now. The enemy has stopped advancing more or less 200m out. My infantry is to spent to try to move forward and assault with more than half a dozen tanks sitting there.

Incoming mail on a meaningful target for a change. The enemy found my strong point in Bravo's line. They succeeded in destroying one tank and immobilizing another. I only took one infantry casualty here, but three squads are running. The only bright side is some of the artillery was short, so the enemy infantry got some of the steel as well. My mortars are continuing to shell the enemy tank cluster between two immobilized tanks.

I moved two Yankee tanks over with the Zulu tank to help deal with the Matilda Is in the area. This might have saved their lives since artillery is now falling where they were. The Matildas have pushed my infantry out of the gully and were getting hit ineffectively by 37mm rounds. Even though my infantry has been pushed out the gully, I wouldn't call this a breach in my line. Those two enemy tanks won't last long. The issue in Bravo's sector is more of a worry than this minor worry in Charlie's.

Lead enemy tanks in Delta's sector stopped again. A couple of trucks are moving up and one blundered into the impact zone of my mortars. The squad they were carrying got clobbered; only two men left. I'm slowly moving my infantry closer by popping smoke. If I can keep the Matilda IIs buttoned and without infantry support, my engineers might be able to destroy one or more. One of my IGs continued to fire at the lead tank, but the other is out of ammo.

Echo is holding up with the enemy targeting the engineer wadi. Three support company units are still in there, but pinned. The mortar was replaced with a troop of 25-pdrs. There is also a Matilda II holding up to fire at one of the squads. Maybe their own artillery will put it out of action. Additional enemy artillery blasted the area just southeast of the wadi. There had been one enemy squad there, but he is gone. I hit the enemy just east and northeast of the wadi with light and medium mortar fire. A Matilda I got caught in the fire, but only plinks resulted.

Spotted the third Matilda II moving toward the salient, so that is good. Foxtrot continues to move east in the wadi, while my tanks maneuver around for positions. Outside Foxtrot's position, I carefully pushed a platoon of tanks through some soft stand. They should get shots at a Matilda I next turn. My armored cars spotted a fast moving truck heading toward the salient and fired at it. It is still alive, but had holes. An enemy artillery troop started dropping rounds on Foxtrot's machine gun position.

Enemy artillery started to drop on another machine gun position on the plateau. They like to shoot at machine guns.

Casualties

Friendly: 1xM11/39 tank destroyed. Estimated 20 casualties.

Enemy: Estimated 20 casualties.