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Italy vs Britain, 4000 points, meeting engagement.
10-15% arty. (I accidentally ended up with more 50mm than I expected, so I overshot the 10% by a fair margin.)

Large map, lots of hills, rough terrain, very few trees. Perfectly suited to tanks, IMO. Wish I had some decent ones :rolleyes:

Before we enjoy watching these two less-than-powerful armies fling tennis balls at each other we'd like some additional info:

1) who's who? Are you playing the garlic munchers, Katana?

2) what year?

1) Si
2) 43

Brits aren't that bad, IMO.
Got some nice arty, lot of good ACs and by this time, even fairly good tanks by this time.
Italian equipment OTOH is mediocre across the board. There are some contraptions in that OOB that noone else has AFAIK, but other than that...
There's one unit that I really like, but I only got a couple of them to play with. I can't tell you what it is yet, I'll let Vetkin find out first

Ok, I'm all deployed and engines are revving good to go.

Hint: I was supposed to air-drop some tanks to your rear but I bought the wrong gliders, they couldn't handle the weight hehehe so I'm stuck with a bunch of under-armored under-gunned little tanks.

The British Commander adjusted his wig and unsheathed his saber: "ARTILLERY!!!!! FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And with that, the British Army advanced.

Bring some umbrellas, it's gonna rain 8 inchers pretty soon

Your Turn

Shame about those tanks :rolleyes:
I see you managed to drop some para's, though. Too bad they dropped right in he middle of my troops. They're all dead now.

Brittish artillery has better luck, killing three soft veh with bits on and scaring the h*ll out of the infantry.
Half my army is moving east, the other half is running madly in the other direction.

The Brits are moving forward, a few vehicles get stuck in cornfields (stupid)

Anyways, I spot some pretty mean-looking trucks with oversized cannons mounted on them.

Oh yeah, and I take all available VHes

Your Turn

That's Ok, I'll get them back...

I just discovered that retreating vehicles won't unload :rolleyes:
Still busy to try and get everyone one their feet and moving at least vaguely in the right direction.

If those trucks had a German crew your matildas in the south east would be dead by now. Think 88 that can move and shoot...

your turn

Recon elements clash resulting in the destruction of 3 of your armored cars and 1 of your ?armored trucks? My tanks are moving into position.

I am under heavy fire by what looks like 88mm shells but are actually !90mm!

I see a massive tank up north, plus 3 more overwatched on a hill.

Your Turn

Kill some light tanks after lots of trying. Just about every Italian unit not shooting is running away

I destroy an AA-truck and 2 of those scary 90mm tanks. A fair trade for 2 more Stuarts destroyed. I also destroy an MC squad down south, with 3 more pushed back.

You know...those airborne tanks, the Tetrachs, are performing pretty well I didn't expect them to be able to tackle those relatively heavy-armored armored cars you Italians have.

The Stuart's 37mm autocannon doesn't penetrate those armored car bastards in the front, but the 3 inch or is it pound? guns in the Tetrarchs do.

Your Turn

Re: Tetrarchs.
That makes two of us :rolleyes:

Got a Matilda, lost an AC,a tank and had a bunch of guns jamming.
I can see LOTS of Brittish armor, but no infantry/APCs so far.
Hope those 90mm live long enough to stop them...

Another one of your 90mm trucks up north is blown to bits.

A fierce battle between a platoon of Matildas and a platoon of P-26s rage on the forested hills near the north VHes. Those P-26s have armor!!

Anyways, many shots are fired but all glance off. Retaliatory attacks by the Italian tanks achieve the same results - nothing.

In the middle, a Tetrarch is 'de-weaponized' by rifle grenades. A Staghounds rushes forward to help and pushes back the infantry squad.

Another MC squad disperses to the south.

Your Turn

One P26 lost it's main gun, another just the optics, during your turn. Blasted Tetrarchs (Well, I wish they were)
Didn't get much chance to shoot back during my turn, these guys are supressed real easy. If you thought the french sucked...
On the bright side, I killed some SAS
Deploying them ON my VHs? :rolleyes:

I destroy one of your fleeing armored cars.

I try to hit that 37mm truck on the hill but miss with everything

Up North, the battle still rages as 47mm and 2 pounders smash at each other. The Matildas and the P26s are heavily dented and at the point of breaking, I think I disabled one of the P26s and disabled the main gun of another. However, one of my Matilda's main gun malfunctioned due to the stress and constant non-penetrating hits... and another Matilda coming to reinforce the area gets immobilized by engine breakdown!

Anyways, down south, my mixed platoon of anti-infantry and AT tanks move slowly forward, constantly assaulted and fired upon by 20mm Inf-AT guns, rifle squads and MC squads. An MC squad is destroyed and the rest move back under the barrage.

Your Turn

You got that 37AA in my turn...
I kill a Stuart and a ShermanIII in return.
Otherwise, mostly running away. I swear I can hear them hammering on the left hand side of my monitor, trying to get out:rolleyes:

The British army, angry for the lost of the Stuart and Sherman, make the insolent Italians pay this turn by blowing up a whole platoon of P-26s, 2 in the tank battle in the north, and 2 in the middle. An armored car is also destroyed by a .50 cal and an infantry squad is wiped out by a Sherman w/o a main gun

Your Turn

Jeez, this is worse than playing Viking
One tank manages to fire. No result.
In the south I barely annoy a Stuart.
90% of my toops are either hiding or running away.
These guys are so unbelievably crap, it's almost comical.

2 ACs, a 37mm truck and a 90mm truck are blown to bits this turn.

The British army slowly moves forward, taking advantage of the Italians' morale (or lack thereof)

A Matilda is blown in the process by a brave crewMAN (1)

And a Tetrarch crew is forced to abandon as infantry pound the small tank with 7mm MG which almost penetrate.

Your Turn

Thanks also for the complement about being worse than Viking.

Viking however, is a great tactician. I've learned a few things from him which I'm using even now in our match.

1.) Position tanks well
2.) Don't rush to the VHes
3.) Use AT guns
4.) Don't place your stuff at the edge of your deployment zone
5.) Know when to push forward with your tanks
6.) Always accompany tanks with infantry