Italian Long Campaign

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Early EN bombardment, the heavy smoke obscures my HMGs LOS.



By the time some of the heavy smoke lifted, around turn 5, the EN is fast approaching my screening force. Here is the main EN mobile force in 2nd Company sector.

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The main battle in turns 6 to 15 were largely focused on 2nd Company.

Some of the faster EN armour finds themselves in the minefield.



Turn 11

My medium tanks are unable to keep up with the EN's advance and are slowly overwhelmed by numbers.



Turn 14

Approx. 6 EN tanks are left running and fighting. My AT Rifle team takes out 1 tank and sends another 2 routing off the map.



Turn 22

The EN tank advance has been stopped and I start to concentrate 2nd Company to advance, reclaiming the objective flags.

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Turn 11

1st Company was the secondary sector of the battle. The EN advance was largely infantry led and was stopped by the combination of HMG fires and mortars.



Turn 22

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Battle Report

Once the EN force was heavily attrited, they started to break. I moved J platoon to cut off the line of retreat.

The battle was largely decided once the EN tank advance exhausted itself. There were a few turns where the EN had penetrated 2nd Company's screening force. My tanks were lost quite early on, while there were at least 6-7 EN tanks still running around.

[sigeena]

Next up another Defend battle against UK.

In the last battle, I found my tanks were not as effective, as the EN's heavy bombardment isolated their position and they got overrun by the EN's fast moving tanks.

In this new defend battle, I decided to buy a pair of 75mm ATGs instead.

Here's my set-up.

I decided to strong point 2 positions. 1 with a trio of 90mm ATG emplacements and the other with a pair of 75mm ATGs. I also bought some 20mm AAs to help cover the flanks of the strongpoints.

3rd Coy takes the centre, with 1st Coy in the south and 2nd Coy in the north.

Minefields are laid to cover most expected approaches. I expect the early battle to be fought by my HMGs, and as the EN tanks approach to within 1.2km, to be engaged by my 90mm ATGs. My 75mm ATGs will engage closer to 600m. The difference in range engagement is due to the PEN of the primary weapons. 90mm ATGs have a PEN of 14, 75mm have a PEN of 9.

I usually try not to defend every objective, especially when I know the EN still has running tanks.

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Turn 5

After the initial EN bombardment lifted, our scouts spotted a company sized force of EN tanks moving towards our positions. There were at least 12-15 heavy infantry tanks, of the Valentine and Matilda variety. These have good front and side armour. Probably only my 90mm ATGs will be able to destroy them. The EN tanks were coming towards 3rd Company, while the lighter EN armour is speeding towards 1st Company.

2nd Company is likely to be a quiet sector.

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Turn 8

Our 90mm ATGs start to engage the EN tanks. We try to score hits on their flanks as they come.

Our 75mm ATGs remain silent as they need the tanks to close to within 500metres or so for a likely penetrating hit.

Also note that the EN artillery has torn up lots of ground



Turn 12

The 90mm ATGs are doing very well. Alot of the EN tanks have been wrecked and now our scouts spotted the accompanying EN infantry. There's easily 3 companies worth.

Also worth noting that our trio of 90mm ATGs only have about 30 AP rounds each, with each scoring every 3rd round or so, we can probably only engage 30 EN tanks before we run out of AP ammo.

We plot some of our own artillery bombardments to slow down the EN infantry advance.



Turn 22

In around Turn 19 or so, we spotted fresh EN Valentine tanks reinforcements. My 90mm ATGs have just run out of AP ammo and my 75mm would only be able to penetrate from 500m or so.

The EN infantry renew their advance.

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Turn 34

Once our 75mm ATGs fall silent to the EN infantry, our only hope of destroying the EN tanks is with our own infantry. To do this effectively, we need to isolate their tanks from their accompanying infantry.

Here, 1 of the Valentines is immobilised by our mines.

We bring up our remaining heavy weapons to disrupt the EN infantry.



Turn 40

A combination of heavy weapons and mortars impede the EN infantry and probably not more than a half platoon is supporting the EN tanks.



Turn 43

The EN tanks split their force, with 1 lone tank heading north into 2nd Company and the other pair heading into 3rd Company.

We lay some smoke, and expect imminent close assault with the EN tanks.

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Turn 49

Shortly after destroying the EN tanks, our infantry are able to advance confidently. We plaster the immobilised EN tanks with our artillery and push forward with our reserve infantry.

Most of 1st Company, which were hidden by a small ridgeline along the EN flank sprung to life and pushed fast into the EN line of retreat.

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Battle Report at Turn 54

This was a real long battle. I was very surprised by the number of infantry tanks. Usually, our 90mm ATGs would have taken out all of them by turn 15-18 and it will just be an attritional exercise with their infantry before sending our infantry at the right moment.

In this one, the EN tanks just kept coming and once our heavy ATGs are out of ammo, we could only take them out via close assaults, which are harder to plan for because the EN infantry tanks move so slowly.

Perhaps I need to rethink the use of my own tanks. I didn't buy them this time round and opted for the 75mm ATGs. But once again, I feel that the 75mm ATGs have been a waste of points. They are too large, so were easily spotted and their PEN is unable to engage Valentines or Matildas.

Up till Turn 43, I wasn't sure I had this battle in the bag. Was probably counting on timed objective points to score me a marginal victory.