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Now now young Warspite1 -

Don't you bandy rules and regulations with me. You probably don't realise that everything has changed after Brexit.

However, I have to agree that to exercise a Warspexit at this time might be ungentlemanly, and as a moderator for the very fine Wargamers Club for Gentlemen I am honour-bound to accept your challenge.

I will even, in the interets of fairness, take the role of Electric Whiskers and command the fine Italian troops in a desperate attempt to take Sidi Biranni within 5 turns.

I shall now send you a PM.

Cheers,

Rich

Turn 1 - Axis Turn
18th September 1941

The first turn is devastating for the defenders of the Halfaya Pass. The Coldstream Guards evaporate. I thought the British had another artillery in the pass but it appears to have disappeared. Maybe I got confused.

Turn 1
18th September 1941

I am going to try attacking rather than falling back, I am also going to set the air force bombers to interdict. What cost me last time was that too many Italian units ended up reorganising. I will try to inflict that on the Italians by attacking - even though it means getting swallowed up.

Turn 1 - Axis Turn
18th September 1941

The red unit is still there so a ceasefire will take effect.

Turn 1
18th September 1941

The hugely one-sided attacks are something of a disaster as expected - except one. The Rifle Brigade force units of the Marmarcia Division to retreat. I desperately hope that this causes the division to reorganise - although with the Halfaya Pass gone, this won't matter unless the attacking units there also reorganise.

Turn 2
21st September 1940

From what I can tell, its likely that just one Italian unit was reorganising (I didn't see the Maletti Group move). The British infantry on the coast road are simply brushed aside.

I hope these units aren't amongst those that don't reconstitute - bizarrely I can't see that the docs confirm which.....

It all hangs now on what degree of reorganising the Italians suffer next turn.

Turn 3 - Axis and Commonwealth Turn
25th September 1940

The Maletti group destroy further British units on the way to El Hamra. I notice a Marmarcia unit moving but then nothing else before the turn ends. RichMunn says he failed a proficiency test so I don't know if the other divisions were reorganising or not. Either way, this gives my opponent two turns to take Sidi Barrani, which is pretty much certain unless a goodly number of divisions are reorganising. One can but hope.....

Turn 4 - Axis and Commonwealth Turn
28th September 1940

Sadly it looks like all units are available. I do what I can - a companu of the Rifle Brigade take El-Hamra, another company, in conjunction with a company of 11th Hussars take Sofafi. I then throw every AA unit in the Delta (3) onto the Sidi Barrani-Sofafi road. I throw my Blenheims against the tanks on the road but they fail to touch a single enemy unit.....

Once again its all on the last turn.

Turn 5 - Axis and Commonwealth Turn
1st October 1940

And so the game ends. It would be good to get RichMunn's comments on what happened to the Italians this time. I expected the last two turns to be frantic attacking with everything - but of course I don't know what the position with the Italians was.

Interesting that is two games out of the 3 you have played that the Italians have failed to achieve the turn 5 objectives to allow the game to continue into ceasefire.
Even in our game I barely took Sidi Barani due to a death or glory run by a single tank battalion if I remember rightly.
I think I would recommend anyone else interested in the CFNA (and it is a great theatre to play) that they start with O'Connors raid.

What do you think ?

ORIGINAL: devoncop

Interesting that is two games out of the 3 you have played that the Italians have failed to achieve the turn 5 objectives to allow the game to continue into ceasefire.
Even in our game I barely took Sidi Barani due to a death or glory run by a single tank battalion if I remember rightly.
I think I would recommend anyone else interested in the CFNA (and it is a great theatre to play) that they start with O'Connors raid.

What do you think ?

warspite1

I'd like to know what happened in the last two Italian turns before commenting - particularly with regards to reorganising. I know that he said he suffered a proficiency failure early in the turn on Turn 3 - ouch!

In my case, from Turn 2 I had major units reorganise - the Cirene was available for Turn 1 and Turn 5. Considering where that meant they were, there was absolutely no point in them being available in Turn 5. My tanks were unavailable at key times as was the Marmarcia which I needed to put pressure on Sofafi and Sidi Barrani from the south.

Hi all

I was very happy after 2 turns. But I then realised (and this is unforgivable) that the 3 hexes had to be taken in turn, ie El Hahmra by turn 3, then Sofafi by turn 4, then Sidi Barrani by turn 5.

So at turn 3 I went hell-for-leather for El Hamhra, and in so doing got in there but somehow (for the first time ever) had a proficiency failure and my turn ended before I could even start the advance on Sidi Barrani. I had had so few problems with timing in this game (usually I have done loads of movement and attacking, and still had over half my turn left) that it was not a concern, I could of course have moved my units up along the coast road before resolving all battles, but since I didn't think it would be a problem
I ....er...didn't! And then I...er...couldn't!

I did not have any real problem with units being in a reorganising state. It was just that sfter turn 3 couldn't get close enough to Sidi Barrani.

I knew after turn 4 that I could not get enough into the attack on Sidi Barrani to take it, and I couldn't! In fact, nowhere near enough against that ferocious fortified group set up by Warspite.

So well played Warspite, but as I said to you at the beginning of this farrago, I really didn't want my many inadequacies exposed in an AAR.

Nevertheless, if you want another go at this early 5 turn challenge, choose your side and we will go again!