Our foray into the ASL desert continues with two playings of A50 ...And Here We Damn Well Stay. The first game had me taking the British. The second go around we switched sides.
A50 is set in the El Alamein area in Egypt. Fifteen German PzIII J, L and N and two armor leaders try to push past a small British force nestled in amongst a bunch of sand dunes. The British get six squads with some light support weapons and three 57L anti-tank guns which will carry the workload, looking to tear up some Panzers.
The British force can set up hidden in the sand, so the German tanks will drive into an ambush. Their goal is to get eight tanks with functioning weapons past hexrow U on the British side of the map and remain there until the end of any British turn. Each knocked out or unmanned AT gun at that time reduces the number needed by two. There is also a hillock on the side of German board entry. The British also suffer ammunition shortage.
Five turns, very dry, moderate dust and a mild breeze ensure that there will be vehicle dust, and a halved extra die roll modifier on every shot.
A look at my setup before I hide everything. Two guns are required to setup a bit more forward and one further back.
The sand and dunes are placed on the map in a way that ensures the German tanks will be making bog rolls at some point. The infantry have a small mortar, anti-tank rifle and a couple of light machine guns. They can definitely be effective when they inevitably get side and rear shots.
Will opted to enter on a wide front, spread out. It will be a target rich environment for the British.
At first, it looked like Will was not going to use the vehicle dust from the first tanks to cover the rest, but he quickly moved into two tank blobs with the dust from the forward tanks helping to blur my view of the rest. I opened up with the back AT gun on the first tank entering, but didn't get a result. It didn't take long for me to reveal all three guns. No time like the present. At the end of German turn 1, I had only punched the ticket on one Panzer.
Will also somehow managed to avoid my three boresighted hexes. My turn 1 prep fire did a little damage, immobilizing one tank and burning another. An immobilization on the German side of the board is almost as good as a kill except if the crew doesn't bail out, it's gun can still be a pain. My gun on the bottom board also got the low ammo marker due to the ammo shortage penalty.
German 2 and Will gives up on the vehicle dust screen and gets everybody moving in different directions. I kill another tank but the crew gets out. Now I have to deal with German crews who start moving towards the uppermost gun. Some of the tanks start moving to over-run the gun, but the guns are difficult to get to as the Panzers have to take bog rolls in every sand and sand adjacent hex. Crossing a dune crest hexside makes the bog chances even riskier. Two turns and some of his tanks are already across the victory line. I have to make sure that some of them die before the end of one of my turns.
The British infantry are now in the game, but I am unable to make them effective. I get a shock result on a Panzer.
In German 3, Will starts to move his tanks across and behind the dune crests, out of sight of the guns, or hull down if he wants. The shock turns into an unconfirmed kill, and I score second shock on one tank and burn a second. He scores a direct hit on my uppermost gun eliminating it and reducing the number of tanks needed to win.
At this point, he is down six tanks, with a another shocked an one unconfirmed kill. I am down one gun with another suffering from low ammo.
Turn 4, Will rolls gusts, removing the burning tank smoke. The UK tank recovers and the the shock turns into a UK on the other, but my guns get hot and kill them both. I kill a third and the Germans are on the ropes. My infantry has left the comfort of their foxholes and are closing with the German tanks.
Will has two tanks that can't move, one is immobile, the other is mired in the sand. He decides he's had enough, and will be unlikely to get what he needs and concedes.
We realize that I had pulled the wrong foxholes, the sand foxholes would provide less protection, but he really wasn't doing anything to cause me to use that TEM, so no harm.
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Our next session, we flip sides, giving me the Panzers and the attack.
My plan is to enter in a single blob, using the vehicle dust to screen the majority of my tanks. The two tanks with armor leaders will set up behind the hillock, hull down to the guns and try to hit from long range. It was a cool idea, but the moderate dust modifier made it a fool's folly and I could have used them forward.
My blob enters the board and look like they mean business.
Will opens up with the first gun at the bottom of the board, but getting no result. My hillock tanks return fire to no avail.
In the bottom of turn 1, Will reveals the second gun and between the two, knock out three Panzers. Well, that's unfortunate. Losing them at that rate will make this a short scenario. Will also suffers the low ammo result on his gun at the bottom of the board.
Turn 2 goes better for me. My hillock tanks get a pin result on the bottom most gun. My efforts to keep the blob together to take advantage of the vehicle dust go fairly well. I manage to bog two of them, but the blob is mostly intact. Will doesn't get any results from guns this turn, but he gets his infantry involved earlier than I did, ending with three melees at the end of the turn. The third gun reveals itself at the board's lower sand dune.
I get six tanks to the sand dune at the top left of the map on turn 3. I have three tanks locked in melee because they are bogged. Will is using his infantry better than I did. My overwatch tanks at the hillock have given up the futile long range firing, moving out to give the British guns something else to think about. I'm two tanks short of the eight I need to have at the end of any turn past the U hexrow.
Will promptly K/O's two of them. Two of the bogged tanks end up immobilized and in melee, just short of the line to gain, leaving me with four across the line, three bogged and in melee, and two on their own at the bottom.
Top of turn 4, Will burns one of the moving tanks and punches the ticket on the bogged Panzer. This leaves me with one mobile tank and only the possibility of five across the line, even if the second mobile tank managed to eliminate or un-man one of the guns, I would still be 1 tank short. We call it there.
The Germans have the edge in the recorded games on ROAR 14-7. Two British victories here.
The guns are difficult to deal with at a distance. After two games I think the German blob is the way to go, but as soon as a gun pops up, the German player needs to move the blob straight at it, over-running it if possible and covering it in dust, then turn towards the second one and do the same. It doesn't seem to be difficult to get across the line, but it's difficult to make it to the end of the British half of the turn.
Neither of us took the chance to OVR the guns, although I think Will was trying to get there when he got the direct hit, removing the chance.
There is a Scenario Replay article in the '92 Annual on this scenario. It's been a long time since I read it and wanted to have my own fresh take. Now I'll go back to read it and see what they did in their playing 34 years ago.
Next we are heading for Mareth, Tunisia for desert at night. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.
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