Camp Cromwell 13/04/06

Present: Nick, Jim, Peter, SteveJ, MarkO, MarkW.

Mahrajah 2005 Grand Final

Nick's 2000 pts US Infantry: HQ, 2 inf, weapons, mortars, a/tank, 105s, TDs, Shermans, Honeys.
Jim's 2000 pts Carri: HQ M14, 3 5M14, 6L6, 90/53, 75s, 105s, Guastatori.
Breakthrough scenario in Tunisian terrain (K&C recipe using Nick's program), Ities attacking.

The Itie 105s tried to take out the US 105s, but after about 8 turns they had disabled just 2 guns before giving up & trying (unsuccessfully) to find better targets. Their 75s were severely hampered by the terrain blocking line of sight & the loss of their observer to a/tank guns. Eventually they got their hq into a good spot & did some moderately effective pinning & smoking. The US 105s took out a couple of 75s. All up, not an impressive day for the drop-shorts.
The 90/53's had nowhere with a decent field of fire to deploy so had to move up to do so. They were caught by a mortar battery as they deployed and destroyed - much to the chagrine of the Itie command who had overlooked the mortars (next turn they smashed them with massed tank fire, but too late).
But that was all secondary to the main action. Covered by the terrain, the Itie's impressive (in numbers anyway) armoured column moved across the table, around the US right flank and towards the rear objective. The US moved their armour & TDs to meet the threat while GIs & a/tank covered the forward objective.
The Guastatori were the Itie flanking force and although available early were held back to attack in concert with the tanks. When the Shermans advanced to meet the Carri, they rushed forward and attacked under cover of smoke, but their flame throwers failed, good mg dice stopped the attack (to the usual cries of doom from the Ities). The Honeys then finished them off with more mg fire. But the Guastatori did not die in vain, their attack bought time for the Carri to close in.
The Itie armoured column split around the village hill. The L6s turned right towards the forward objective as a diversion while the 3 Carri platoons pressed on against the US armour. Now the dice gods changed their tune. The Carri platoons took losses but always passed morale and kept on coming. They got behind the Shermans and Ronsoned the lot. They picked off 3 Honeys & the others failed morale. The TDs fell mainly to the L6s which had swept the GIs aside to round the hill.
With the US armour destroyed the Ities only had to mop up. The Carri took the far objective and secured it by pinning down the GIs supposed to defend it. Not only that, but the L6s somehow survived the a/tank fire, beat off the GI's counterattack and also held the other objective. More medals for those guys - another MVP job.
Pic M2005 1: The new Mahrajah receives the trophy from the umpire.
Pic M2005 2: The loser contemplates what might have been.

Chris' DAK Recon v. MarkW's DOGs in a 1500 pt FFA

Chris won a close battle.
More info on the blog if someone writes it up.