Italian Alpini Infantry
| Tankovy
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Dave's awesome table that he set up before we arrived. I defended the far end (possibly a mistake) and Ben attacked from this end! |
The Soviet light tanks take advantage of the crops on their left flank ready to advance and possibly sweep around and encircle the Alpini. |
The Alpini have no recon but the Soviet BA10s make a recon move behind the woods, ready to point out the Italian Infantry for the T34s |
Turn 1
T70s advance through the work of the communal farms, five year plans be damned! They fire on the pioneers in the buildings infront of them but to no avail. |
The Red Army advances under direction of their command tanks. Like the light tanks to their left, their initial fire keeps the heads of the Alpini down but does no damage. |
A BA10 locates the company's objective and reports in, lurking this side of the wood so the Italian Solothurn can't pick it off! |
Turn 2
The rest of the Soviet armour moves in behind the wood, waiting before they will push through and join the eventual assault! The circling German aircraft though are happy with what they can see! |
... ah well... never mind... That 3 ended up being a confirmed kill though so that's 2 T34s down in that platoon! |
T34s on both sides of the wood advance towards the objective and into very close range! |
On this side their machine guns inflict the first casualty on the Italians. Whilst i'd lost nothing to this point I wasn't overly smug about this as I wasn't sure I was going to hold the middle! |
The first platoon and company HQ wade into the Alpini who rise up to meet them. Fire from the 47/32s inflected some hits but failed to repel the tank assault... and so it began! |
The unknown hero in the centre of the Italian line! |
Another round of fighting costs the Alpini three teams in return for one bailed tank! |
Another round goes Ben's way... the Italians hold but don't have the numbers now to inflict the damage they need! |
My turn now and reserves finally arrive! A second platoon arrives and moves at the double up the table onto the back objective. If they can push forward they might be able to get into the fight! |
The pioneers jump out of their buildings and prepare to counterattack! |
Smoke from the cannons and flamethrowers pour into the T34s in the centre! |
German aircraft support the pioneers by strafing the light tanks in the fields and taking the pressure off them! Its all going well! |
... and then the pioneers fail their tank terror test and refuse to assault... |
Turn 4
Ignoring the objective for now the centre T34s turn their attention on the cannons... |
The Tanks on the Soviet right flank the man packed guns! |
The T70s push into the back of the pioneers, still floundering in the open... |
The T34s bring down one AT gun! |
T70s kill all the demolishers they can see! |
And the AT assets suffer 50% losses! Finally good shooting for Mother Russia! |
In go the T34s on the right and with no defensive fire the AT guns and 1iC fear the worst! |
Not quite the worst but the company commander goes down in a blaze of machine gun fire and is rolled over by tanks. |
The remaining two teams back off towards Soviet lines and turn about, ready to fire next turn. They're still protecting the objective so there is at least one more turn to push the Russians back! |
The cannons fail to damage the advancing T34's in the centre and both guns are destroyed! |
Turn four and I still only get one reserve unit on! This isn't helping... but I make the best of what I have and the howitzers roll on with line of sight to tanks on the front objective! |
So some things had not gone my way but the Germans seemed to be giving a lot of planes to the Don Front today! The T70s are the only viable target for the bombers! |
The light AT guns fail to damage the T34s on the centre objective... as do the howitzers... even on the rear armour! |
If this assault works the survivors and reserves can turn on the other T34s on the objective! |
But... the elite pioneers failed their tank terror again and the infantry who choose to throw in their lot are gunned down and forced to back away from the tanks. |
Turn 5
Turn 5 and the T70s push in towards their original targets, the pioneers! They bag themselves a long range kill! |
The rest of the second combat platoon is destroyed by machine gun fire! |
Ok, so we ended up playing one more turn as Ben wrapped up the game 6-1 by killing the rest of the 47/32s and taking the last objective by the pictures of the carnage stop there! My light tanks made an appearance too, hiding behind the wood to deny the back objective to the Soviets too. So what did I take from this game... lots and it was a really fun game! I learnt about the tolerances of my army against its bane, tank companies... this means I'll be well prepared going forward. I also realise that against this type of enemy the key Avanti, tank terror or firepower tests have to go well for me as I've only got so many AT assets as I'm not buying German Allies yet! (PAK40s would have made a big difference!) Ben played well and attacked from a strong position, meaning that even if I had have had great AT assets I'd have only have had very limited opportunities to use them. It's also obvious that I got very lucky with the Stuka with four turns of air support proving effective. Now the question is, do I keep this moving forward to hit heavy tanks at range or do I reorganise for a 10th platoon as having both sets of big guns on the table from the start would be better. (Of course I could drop the HMGs and take more 47/32s whilst keeping the plane in... but then there could be lots of Strelkovy at Brighton!) So, in conclusion, I hope you enjoyed the AAR and i'm looking forward to playing more games against armour to put what I learned to use! Jersey James |
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