Second battle of a US long campaign. Meeting Engagement vs Italians. Pure desert....no towns, coastline, roads, trees.....nothing but sand and hills. And one small stream.
My forces (2 Combat Groups, a mech infantry company, 2 platoons of engineers, and 2 Cavalry Recon platoons) have advanced and taken 2 of the 3 middle VH clusters, while meeting only masses of Italian motor infantry.
By Turn 3, I have the high ground, overlooking a valley and ridge full of Italians, and have pinned most of the enemy.
Light casualties on my side encourage me to deploy the mech infantry on the forward slope, with the tanks on the ridgetop. Recon elements also mixed with these defenses. Two-thirds of my force is now deployed along this center ridge, the remaing artillery and HQ units guarding the rear VH cluster.
End of my Turn 3, and all hell breaks loose.
Italian bombardment begins....100/105mm battery drops on the troops along the slope. No casualties. Then.....305mm Naval Guns. Not one...not two....not three.
No. Eleven. Eleven batteries of 305mm Death-From-Above, I-Want-My-Momma, Armageddon-In-A-Box artillery.
What is this?
We aren't anywhere near the coast.End result: 2 turns of this shelling and an entire mech infantry company (10 squads, 3 HMGs, 3 ATGs, 5 halftracks), 3 Shermans, 2 Lees, 5 Jeeps, 6 Recon Patrols, 3 Greyhounds, and the mascot (Skippy the dog) are destroyed. 2 Shermans, a Lee, and 4 halftracks immobilized, one Lee with Main Gun KO'd, and one Greyhound with no Radio Mast. And what units survived are in a state of panicked rout.
In disgust, I surrendered......and found out I had a 6-1 ratio in points. :rolleyes:
So...no more computer-generated campaigns for me. I'll stick the ones like Heroes or Utah-Rhine, where some modicum of intelligent thought has gone into the opposing force make-up.
I mean, come on.....the Italians had 11 motor infantry companies (each with it's own 305mm gun battery), 8 tanks, and some AA and mortar squads. What crap.......
