SOTW: Eritrean Camerone... Spoiler Alert

[Shep]

It's Beau Geste all over again! Will Beau and Digby survive?

The Legion holds the fort against overwhelming odds. Will they run out of ammo? Will they run out of guts? The cafard get them before the Italians do?

Find out in East Africa, at the Eritrean Camerone.

[Shep]

My own little AAR.

I tried this one earlier this week, and had a blast. I took the L'Etrange, of course. Beau and Digby acquitted themselves famously, knocking back wave after wave of Italians, who attacked from all sides. I simply used the default setup and went at it.

Shades of Zulu and Beau Geste indeed.

The game started off with a bit of long range plinking between the 75 on the hill and the French mortar and hotchkiss machine gun. Even after the whole game, both sides remained intact. So much for accuracy. Then came the infantry phase, and finally the little baby tank that the Italians had. It ran off after the French ATR let in some daylight.

The AI just did not get organized or aggressive with the Italian hordes. They have so many troopies it seems like they could have done the job had they all charged at once from different sides. I'd like to try this out as the Italians vs. a human just for that reason. They seem to have overwhelming numbers.

E. Camerone also models the dramatic elevations of CMAK. It genuinely feels like a desert mountain valley. I'm already thinking it will be a great thing to build a map of the Kall Trail.

[Sargento Garcia]

believe it or not one of my defending platoons made 80 enemy soldiers wound or killed in this scenario.

Is this a CM alltime record?

For my it was...

[Kozure]

Played this as the Italians, since the scenario suggested Italians vs. AI. After having played the scenario, I could see why playing the French would be a little limited in terms of tactics.

I shuffled some of the initial placements around, trying to make sure that all of the long range plinking units in the heavy weapons platoons would have cover. I've found that even brush or rough can make the difference between a unit staying and fighting or breaking within a few minutes. I spent the first few turns trying to get units into cover in the rough nearby the initial start-up areas.

I tried to have my units not fire initially, but they saw me first and opened up. I responded with howitzer and MMG fire, holding off the artillery until I saw where the companies would enter first.

The first company (A Coy) entered on the west road. I marshalled troops behind the low rise. Knowing that they'd have to cross a lot of open ground before reaching the perimeter, I didn't want to commit anyone piecemeal.

The other companies arrived in platoons on the east road (C Coy) and filtering through the valleys to the NE (A Coy) and NW (D Coy). Knowing I had to make some dint in the defences before the turn count got too high, I made sure B Coy was completely in position before cresting the ridge. I ordered a preliminary artillery barrage with the 65mm FO on the center of the compound, shifting to the west side just before the attack. When the tankettes arrived, and most of A coy was in position to create a diversionary attack on the NE perimiter, I launched B company's attack on the WSW side. Despite the prep arty and almost all the platoons cresting the ridge at the same time, the attack broke down almost immediately, with most of the squads going to ground immediately. A brave few made it into the rough at the base of the western ridge, which put them within a good firing distance of the west perimeter. Through bounding, I slowly advanced other squads. As the Italians in this scenario concentrate their LMGs into two squads, leaving the other two squads without LMG support, I would use the LMG squads as base of fire units, leaving the rifle squads to do most of the advancing.

While B Coy's attack was underway, C Coy made its journey over the hills to the east of the fort, once again pausing in shelter to organize. A Coy was already providing diversionary fire on the east side.

I made a tactical mistake of trying to get my 75mm spotter (arrived with B Coy) into a better observation location, exposing him to fire and causing him to panic. It took the better part of 5 turns to get B Coy's commander up to where he broke and then rally the FO. Fortunately, he pulled himself together fairly well, and he and the commander were able to sneak into a covered position in the rough on a hill SW of the main road which oversaw the fort. I plotted fire to hit the middle of the compound once again, expecting to shift fire as needed.

Meanwhile, I shifted the 65mm fire from east side to west side as needed to cover the advance. I was somewhat surprised to find that not even the 75mm guns had smoke rounds, so I was forced to rely on the dust kicked up by explosions to cover my advancing ragazzi.

Casualties thus far were fairly light, but I wasn't making much progress. My sharpshooter had plinked the SE MMG nest and I was sure that a few of the foxholes with "last seen" markers only held bodies, but I didn't want to take the chance.

Advancing my tankettes to hull down positions in case they had light AT guns, I hadn't seen any AT fire, so I tried to get my tankettes closer. A few non-penetrating hits and I reversed them out of harm's way. Since they had gotten hit once or twice without damage, I figured I was up against a very small calibre gun or possibly a ATR. Not much threat, but I didn't want to waste the tanks.

I waited for C coy to make final manoeuvres, then had the 75mm barrage precede them. Once again, their attack faltered about 150-200m out, even with all of A Coy providing covering fire. Strangely, at one point, of the defending infantry squads jumped out of their foxholes and ran at A Coy, making it to within 75m before being gunned down. Legion Etranger fanatacism, I suppose.

Some units were wavering and taking casualties on both the east and west sides - I kept a close eye on morale and command lines. All of the companies save D coy kept a steady fire all around the perimeter while the last platoons of D coy crept into position through the NW valley.

I finally threw all of B, C, and D company into an all out simultaneous attack on turn 22. At that point, several of the French units began to surrender. B pressed in on the SE corner, while D assaulted down the slopes to the NE. C hopped from brush patch to brush patch, keeping steady fire on the remaining units on the wall on the eastern perimeter.

When lead squads in B coy overran the outer sandbagged foxholes, I knew the gig was up, but those whacky Frenchmen kept on fighting. D coy got squads actually into the fort building and C coy were mopping up the eastern perimeter when they surrendered on turn 27.

Not many left.

71% - 29% Tactical Victory. Casualties were high - 113 for him and 93 for us, with about 20-30% fatality rate.

I think the thing that I noticed that how few of the units broke... they all pretty much fought until they were out of ammo or completely wiped out. I guess that's crack units for you.

Lessons learned included being more careful with where I sent my FOs (even though I thought he was out of range and LOS) and making sure to coordinate attacks even more than I had been.

Having not played with Italian forces at all before, I was confused at first by the four squad (two LMG, two rifle) structure, but I was able to adapt and use it. It certainly does make for a slightly different tactical approach. The platoon HQs are tiny, though, with only a pistol and a rifle apiece. I had to be even more careful with them than I am usually.

A good scenario, but not many tactical options for the attacker, and virtually none for the defender.

[ January 10, 2004, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: Kozure ]

[moop]

The AI just did not get organized or aggressive with the Italian hordes. They have so many troopies it seems like they could have done the job had they all charged at once from different sides. I'd like to try this out as the Italians vs. a human just for that reason.

Yup. I tried this as the Italians versus a friend. It took me 12 turns to gather every soldier, the tanks, and many reinforcements in a position that completely surrounds the French fort. Soldiers hid behind reverse slopes and assumed positions in the hills for suppressing fire as 2 seperate artillery observers pound the hell out of the legion. My 75 used the camoflouge of the bombardment to open up and destroy the small building.

Then I sent every soldier I had forward at once. THE ITALIANS ARE TERRIBLE! They seemed to say "No one told us there'd be guns involved!" Instead of pouring unimaginable amounts of suppressing fire onto the single company of French most of my force decided to sneak into underbrush. Also the legion targeted my platoon and company HQ's, which idiotically consist of only two men and are very easy to kill. The Italians abandoned my painstaking set up of good positions with plenty of support from other platoons, mortars and MG's to sneak uselessly around. If I had had half as many good German troops I am sure that my set up of suppressing fire in the hills and tactic of surrounding and bombardment would have worked. Still though, I am not really bitter about losing. It was perhaps the most intense fire-fight I have seen in ANY CM game.

[Berlichtingen]

This should be fairly tough for the Italians, particularly if they throw thier men away in dribs and drabs. Concentrate, pound with supporting arms and overrun. It won't be a cheap victory