Friday, August 05, 2005

Camp Cromwell Bulletin 04/08/05


At Fort Floreat on Tuesday

Jim’s Bersaliglieri v. Nick’s US Armour
1500 pts Cauldron scenario. Ities chose to defend.

Nick got a good deployment – all in one corner except his Shermans which were in reserve, but they came on immediately anyway.

The US advanced cautiously with 90/53 paranoia very evident, but the Honeys mowed down the crew of the 90/53 deployed facing the US advance for the loss of just one.
With one 88 gone & the other on the wrong end of the ridge, the Shermans came out to play.

They were slowly and systematically blasting the defenceless Itie infantry on the exposed hillside, when Musollini’s minion pointed out that the closest Sherman was 405mm away from the nearest objective and that this constituted an Itie victory under the Cauldron rules. Was that Cheesey or what?


Jim’s Bersaliglieri v. Chris’ Russians

1500 pts Hold the Line scenario. Ities chose to defend. Infantry & a/t guns deployed around the objective. Light guns & 90.53s in ambush.

The Russians advanced two hordes of infantry directly at the closest objective. Their SUs & Matildas skulked in the rear with 90/53 paranoia.

The Sturmovics came 1st turn, but there was slim pickings with so few Ities actually on the table.

The light guns ambushed one of the hordes and decimated it. The SUs came out to try and counter them, but the 90/53s zapped the SUs.

M14s attacked the infantry but were beaten off with heavy losses, but the survivors rallied and destroyed the Russian command.

The Sturmovics finally returned with a bang and wiped out the Itie Recon plus a heap of Itie infantry (missing all their own near the template).

Despite enormous losses both Russian infantry hordes had just kept passing morale and grinding their way forward onto the objective.

The Russians had just 3 teams left in their inf platoon on the objective. The other platoon had 2 teams left. The Matildas were intact but still too far away. (The SUs & command had been exterminated).

The best Itie infantry was still too far away (curse of the big table & lousy reinforcement dice), but the remnants at the front had little opposition and made one last counterattack to save the battle. But they just could not buy a kill & were beaten off leaving the Russians on the objective.

Camp Cromwell on Thursday

Steve MkII's Russians v. Jim's Bersaligieri

1500 pts Envelopment Mission, Russians defending as Inf v. Motorised. Steve MkI provided advice to MkII.

The Envelopment Mission is on the website this week - similar to a Hold the Line with some defences, but the attackers get flank manouvres.

The Ities advanced cautiously wary of the priority Sturmoviks. The Ities were kept well spread out & did a lot of skulking behind woods as well as having the 90s deployed as AA. The Sturmoviks came often as priority should, but mostly weren't that effective. They attacked their own side twice, but without effect.

The Ities got a big boost when a Bersaligeri Platoon charged an infantry horde in a wood and destroyed it losing only 3 teams.

Then the Recon came in on the flank and with help from the infantry destroyed the SU76s before the KVs got them.

The Russians struck back destroying the other Bersaligieri and the light guns on the other flank with an SMG attack + Sturmovics.

The Russians were reduced to a few smg inf, their artillery, & their KVs, but their minefields restricted the Itie lines of attack & the KVs were invincible (90s too far away).

Dodging the KVs, the M14s forced the artillery to redeploy and a combination of tank fire & artillery destroyed them.

The artillery then smoke screened the KVs so the M14s could take an objective unopposed after finishing off the smgs..

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