WWII in the desert

 People away for lots of reasons, so just me & SteveJ tonight.  We had a desertrt on the table, so added some detail & found two ready made armies on the shelves.
Italians: SteveJ defending.
British: Jim attacking.
Rules: Camp Cromwell Mech War.

The Iralians are dug in around theb oasis.
The Brits are moving up under the cover of ridges. 

The Crusaders tally ho around to the left to take on the M14's.
The Brit inf move up onto the ridge & engage in a fire fight with the Fusileri with the supprt from their artillery & bugs. 

The 25pdrs range in before the Italian artillery & hep their Infantry get the upper hand on the right of their line. But the right of the Itakian line has an M14 for support & that part is indecisive.
In the tanld uel, the Italins gained an advantage when their first shot as the Crusaders moved up was blessed with hot dice & the Crusaders are not getting the luck they need to strike back. 

The brit tansk have been destroyed for small loss.
The Brit inf on the right make a desperate charge at the weakened Italians on that end of the line, but the dice gods favoured the Italians there too & the Hail Mary move failed.
With no armour left & heavy infantry losses, the Brits conceed the battle.

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Egypt 1882

 After last weeks batle I noticed that the British had some Indian troops in the armies, so modified a lancer and an infantry stl by giving them tourbans & 3D printed a brigade each of Bengal Lancers & infantry. 

Tonight we tweaked the battlefield a bit with a lot of small ridges to potentially restrict lines of fire & set up a smaller battle than last week, but this the British force was half Indian.  Jim commanded the Anglo-Indians.  & Steve & Mark had the Egyptians.

The starting deployment viewed from behind the B/I's.  Indians on their left.

The B/I force spread out as it advanced fearing being outflanked by the more numerous Egyptian cavalry & confident of the their superior firepower.

The B/I's advanced into rifle range & a firefight erupted all along the line.

The first combat was a mutal cavalry charge on the Indian's flank.
The left of the Egyotian charge was hit by rifle fire  before the charge & then teh Bengali's threw hot dice & broke them staight up. 

The other Bengal lancer unit held on against amassed enemy long enough for their comrades to hit their enemy in flank completing the rout of the Egyptian cavalry on that flank.
The Indian infantry with the support of the British artillery broke half the Egyptian infatry on their flank. 
But on the other flank, the Egyptian had the artillery support & the dice gods favoured favoured their riflemen & it was the Brits thayt were getting the worst of the firefight. 

The Indians soon completely broke all the Egyptians on their flank.
But it was a very different story on the other flank.  A combination of artillery & rifle fire broke the left flank British unit which created an overlap that lead to British line falling like dominoes from the left.
Then the Egyptian cavalry attacking in mass broke the British cavalry's front line. 

Both sides had won a flank but had high casuaties in total.  However, the Egptians had more units left unshaken so it was the Brit/Indian force that broke.

Last week the Brits blew away the Egyptians behind earthworks, but this week the Egyptians in the open won the firefight.  Meanwhile the Indians rated similar to the Egyptians won against equal numbers. It seemed that both left flanks had the better of the dice, but it was also significant that teh flank with the artilery superiority won in both cases.

It was very apparent that the increased range & firepower of the breach loading rifle rifles made firefights brief affairs.  That combined with the small forces being deployed in single lines without support made for a quick & exciting fight. 

Tel El Kebir 1882

British: SteveJ & Mike: 10 inf, 4 cav, 3 cannon
Egyptians: Jim: 14 inf, 6 cav, 1 mounted inf on camels, 4 cannon

The Egyptians have a line of entrenchments accross a plateau in front of their camp.

The British concentrated their forces on their right, with a pinning force in the centre & and a detachment on their left of the railway line & canal.

On the right, the British lancers defeated the Egyptian cavaly though only half their cavalry was still fit to continue to fight.
In the centre the British engaged at extreme range without decisive casualties to either side while the Egyptians moved some of their infantry to the left to reinforce the defnce of the camp.
On the far flank the British line overlapped the Egyptians allowing them to bring more rifles muskets to bear as they engaged the Egyptian infantry with better dice.
The Egyptian cavalry counterattacked the british cvalry there & initially had some success,  reaking one cavalry unit but evntually the whole Egyptian left broke.  

On the Egyptian left their victorious cavalryhas been left iso;ated by the collapse of the infantry while the British infantry advance on the camp. 

On the right the British have cross the canal with their cavalry & infantry still fit to fight. but the Egyprtians have deployed infantty & artillery to cause them them fall back over the escarpment safe from the artillery. In the centre, the had advanced to more effective range, but here got the worse of teh fire fight & fell back as the Egptians advanced to counterattack.
On the far flank the ring of rifles is decimating the defenders fo the camp, though the Egptians artillery stopped a cavalry attack on them.

In the centre, even the shaken British infnatry mustered enough firepower to make the Egyptians fall abck to their entrenchments.
On the left, the ring of rifles eventually broke enough of the defenders for teh Egyptians to fal below half strength & concede defeat.

The Brits only lost 2 units broken, though they had a lot shaken.  The forces were about equal in our points system, but their entranchments were a mixed blessing for the Egyptians as they concneded the initiative to the British, & they couldn't stop the overlap of their left rolling up their line.