SOTW: Attack on Nibeiwa Fort... Spoiler Alert

[Sargento Garcia]

After read this thread, I have played as italian, without change the defense set up,

I have win the IA by a tactical victory.

As defender I did send away the small italian tanks, reverse to the middle of the fort.

After realising that only infantry was coming from the rearside all my tanks were sent there, mopped up the moving soldiers at the cemetery and took 29 pow,

After the mine fields (6 kills) some Matildas did it into the perimeter, but only four of them survived to the 75 mm AA (two kills) , the brave ethiopean HQ who was lucky enough to hit with normal hand granades (one kill).

I could have sent out the map the trucks, because they were helpless, that would have reduced my losses (17 vehicles) but anyway it was impresive to see how easy the italian cemetery fulled up with the corpses of the allied forces.

[Lt. Smash]

Originally posted by Urban Shocker:

3) I do not know what the Italians can do to stop the Brits. It'll be interesting to try from the defenders point of view to see different tactical arragements would be more effective and stopping the Brits. The italians have only a few assets that could trouble the Brits other than minefields.

I agree. It could be very interesting to play as the Italians....or very frustrating. Based on my attack on Nibeiwa, the Italians looked more like the Iraqi in the first Gulf War. If you can keep the Italians together, it might be fun.

[Lt. Smash]

I guess I should say...

*** SPOILER WARNING ****

Boy, this thread has given me a little CMAK confidence. First, as a noob, I always am not sure if my tactics are sound. Second, I like to play scenarios in chronological order....as it seems other do, too. Third, I was surprised by the default British setup, too: all infantry on the East and tanks on the West?!? Fourth, I, too used the TRPs to target the sandbags that were near my attack.

I should say before I get too deep into this is that I have not yet finished this scenario. I am about 1/3 of the way through. So, the tide may turn but this thread caught my eye and I thought I throw in my two cents.

Given the bizarre initial deployment, I moved the infantry and tanks behind the western ridges. I split my units into three task forces with plans to send a third of my forces to the main gate, a third of my forces to the Central Entrance, and a third in reserve to help exploit a hole as it appeared.

As I already mentioned, I put my TRPs on sandbags. Since I was attacking from the west, I put the TRPs along the western edge of the fort. I let loose with my 25 pounders on the fortifications around the main gate and turned my 3in mortars on the central entrance. In retrospect, this was a mistake. I should have conducted a little recon and launched more intelligent fire missions. As it was, I dropped a lot of lead with little visible effect.

As the scenario began, I crested ridges with two platoons of Matildas to do some preliminary recon and found more M11/39s sitting in the open than I ever imagined! My gunners opened fire as I brought more tanks and ATRs to the ridge to engage the enemy. The opening turns were like shooting fish in a barrel. My Matilda's took out around a dozen (yes, 12) M11/39s without a single loss. Very quickly the M11s started retreating (I assume breaking) and many took several hits before being knocked out.

As the number of moving M11s disapated, my tankers began taking shots at trucks moving around the fort with some success. Very quickly the fort became still and very little movement was noticed. Those crews that survived and squads on the outside of the fort began surrendering. Given the desert setting, I could not help but think that the Italians looked like the Iraqis in the first Gulf War.

With some success under my belt, I made my second mistake. Rather than bring my tanks forward followed by my infantry, I sent the infantry forward with my tanks as overwatch. Without HE ammo, the Matilda's could do little when machine guns or infantry began firing at my infantry moving in the open. As my infantry took tremendous losses (~40-50% in the two exposed platoons) and dove for cover, I figured out that my tanks could take care of the miscellaneous guns and distract the Italian infantry and began advancing the tanks ahead of the infantry.

I was surprised when a platoon of reinforcements showed up on the east side of the map. This was a little disappointing since I had moved everyone over to the west side of the map earlier. Needless to say, this lone platoon has not done much on its own. It has only performed a little recon which simply confirmed that I was happy not to advance from the east.

Today, my tanks are entering the main gate and central entrance and my infantry is hiding behind ridges and in brush waiting to advance into building in the fort. I'll post an update as I complete the scenario in the next few days.

[Monty]

Quick question: I want to play it as Allied attacker offcourse, should i give the A.I. the freedom to place units at will or as scenario default ??

btw i miss this often in the scenario info !

Monty

[Kingfish]

Stick to scenario default for the axis.

[Monty]

Thanks for quick answer !

Monty

[Hans]

A few notes on Nibeiwa

The Allied setup is the historical way the initial attack went in. The set up zones are extened to allow the player to adjust for his own types of attack.

The location of the Italian mines and tanks is historical but the ATGs and arty/MGs locations are best guess.

The numbers of Italian/Libyan conscript infantry has been drastically cut to make the game more playable.

[Monty]

Ineresting Hans,

Yesterday i had a quick look at the map, today i want to start with the battle.

If i recall ok, the inf. is on one side of the fort, all the tanks on the other side ?

I think i change the setup

I dont know where the mines are, so i think its a gamble on the first try ? Cool, i hope i guess good hehe

Monty

[Lt. Smash]

Originally posted by Hans:

A few notes on Nibeiwa

The Allied setup is the historical way the initial attack went in. The set up zones are extened to allow the player to adjust for his own types of attack.

Oh, now I'll want to go back and play it using the historical British setup. Thanks for mentioning this.

[Shep]

Anyone out there playing this one PBEM or TCP/IP?

A head to head game report would be especially valuable, since we have only 1-Player reports thus far.

Also, how have the newbies done? Anything learned/applied by reading here?

[archi]

I don't spoil anything that you don't get out of the briefing.

I'm a "newbie." I gave the allies +25% more troops for this one. I was the Italians. I hid everything the first turn. My at guns started chirping enthuastically. I used the mortars to hit the matildas to try to immobilize them. I got a few of them and pounded them with guns until they got out. When the light stuff started coming I let my AT rifles join in. The Solothurn is a very nice AT rifle! I mostly wasted my artillery trying to walk it around. It scared them though. I used some mortars on their infantry. When my reinforcements came I foolishly got about half of it blown up. The "good" tanks I put behind the ridge which is right behind the trenchline. They were safe there and managed to hurt a truely large number of british infantry. Rommel's air support did very little, immobilizing a few troop carriers. Most of my AT guns were knocked out.

When some of his infantry approached the trenchlines on my left flank I had the men pour fire into the closest squads from about 150 yards. they took down the brits.

I managed to spook, blow up, or otherwise damage most of his tanks etc.

It was a tough battle, I'm not really sure why that Matildas weren't able to roll over me. I guess it was a proposition of my effective suppresion and damage to his infantry.

[Paco QNS]

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--- Or: what do you expected in this topic? ---

I tried this battle, from the allied side, giving the italians a +1 Experience Bonus.

Judging the initial set up -historical- too "interesting" to my taste, I asigned half the tank force to support my infantry attack.

a)Arty Plan: Pre-targeted the sandbagged positions in TentMosque, SallyPort, and the dual and foursome in the left and right flanks of my easterly combined armas attack. Also pre-target the center HQ position, and the dual sandbagged forts of the main gate -didn´t used a shell in the last, though-.

b)East Assault: The infantry will probe the defenses, with an initial jump-point staged in the cemetery, to assault the SallyPort. To prevent an ambush there /too obvious/ a recon was made in a wide front, clearing also a external sandbag -near the TentMosque-. The Matildas were extremely useful, only two inmobs -the M menace-, and one KO by inmob+gunhits. Another couple distracted the TentMosque -being also inmobilized-. The last Matilda supported the advance into the Camp. Only cleared the Port and the four houserows to the HQ -only disputing this (not taking it), with a Rifle squad versus a Bersaglieri inside the building in the end turn-.

The assault was too cautious, and slow. ((Lesson learned: half the 3´ mortars ammo will have been better invested in smoke, helping the infantry attack, and not trying to smash guns)).

c)West tank attack: a real duck shooting of italian "tanks". Two inmobs by mines and another in front of the guns of the MainGate. The rest of tanks entered the Camp -unsupported-, and suffered one Abandoned and two KO -one of them a BREW-UP by a Platoon HQ (Tte. Viale)-. At end, one Matilda was holding a northern flag and two others were near the General HQ.

((Lesson learned: better have joined the tanks with the infantry and then mutually support them)).

FINAL TALLY: Major Victory as Allied, 74% to 26%.

160 men OK (404 axis OK); 59 casualties (290 axis cas.); 14 KIA (69 axis KIA); 5 captured -Matilda crewmembers- (62 axis captured); 8 axis guns destroyed; 6 allied vehicles destroyed (27 axis vehicles destroyed).

All in all, a nice and entertaining scenario. ((Mental final note: stay in roads to avoid mine losses))

[Foxtrot Xray]

"Those sandbag thingies" are called sangars, if I'm not mistaken.

What is a TRP?

Just got the bundle pack, lots to learn.

This last stint has made me very bitter towards Fritz...My gun fires 700 shots a minute and if it would fire 1400 it would not be going too quickly for me.

Ira Robinson, New Zealand gunner

[Foxtrot Xray]

Can tcp "attack on Nibeiwa Fort" right now if anyone is interested and online. I'll check back here within 30 minutes to see if there's any takers.

I'll play either side, but am motivated by curiosity as to what the reported hordes of Italian rattletraps can do if used creatively.

Re Italian tank survivability: There are advantages to boxy designs with paper thin armour and two man crews! It takes ten hits to kill the buggers!

[Chief Trois]

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I played against the Italian AI for a tactical victory, and made many mistakes getting there.

I knew that historically the Italian tanks and guns had nothing for the Matildas, so I decided on a combined infantry-armor assault from the side on which the Indian infantry sets up on as a default (east?). My idea was that the infantry would go first and spot any minefields, and then the Matildas would go through the gaps. I had the TRPs laid on the sandbags on that side of the camp.

Lessons learned:

(1) Under fire, infantry will not reliably detect AT minefield by walking through them. I lost 7 Matildas to minefields that the infantry had walked through, thank you very much chaps.

(2) What artillery? I rained steel death on all of the sandbags I could see, and accounted for precisely one gun. I suspect that I was particularly unlucky in this regard.

(3) Screw subtle. My surviving Matildas blew off most of their MG ammo before I realized that the most effective way to take out the Italian guns was to mash them flat. But by the lime that little idea had dawned on me, the Matildas had nothing left for the Eytie infantry.

I won only because I managed to blunder the reinforcing tanks into the tank through a minefield gap. Once I had them in and close to the Italian HQ, the AI went predictably beserk and threw the kitchen sink at them. To little effect. One tank got immoblilzed at the entrance to the camp, the other two accounted for 103 infantry and a number of vehicles and guns between them. Of the original tanks, four were KO (two to the minefields) and the rest immobilized.

[Hans]

Hey I thought this was a great idea. So when is the next SOTW going up?

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Chief Trois:

Lessons learned:

(1) Under fire, infantry will not reliably detect AT minefield by walking through them. I lost 7 Matildas to minefields that the infantry had walked through, thank you very much chaps.

Unless the code has been radically changed for CMAK, infantry units can not detect AT mines. The only way to do so would be to have a vehicle move over it and set a mine off. Likewise, to detect an AP minefield you need to have an infantry unit set one off. Daisy chain mines are the exception, as they are laid above ground and thus easily spotted.

[JonS]

Originally posted by Hans:

A few notes on Nibeiwa

The Allied setup is the historical way the initial attack went in.

Sort of.

The 4/7th Rajputs put in a diversionary raid at 0300 on the side where they show up in this scen. But by 0730 (i.e. the approx start time of the scen) they were long gone.

At about 0730 7RTR attacked with their 48x Matildas against the unmined entrance opposite where they show up in the scen. About 15 minutes later they were followed by the 2nd Bn Queens Own Cameroon Highlanders. These guys don't seem to show up in this scen.

Nevertheless, 'tis a fun scen. Cheers Hans I repositioned the troops id'd as the Rajputs so they could support the 'tildas, and had a jolly time trundling round squashing things and accepting surrenders.

I wondered about the use of buildings to simulate tents though - seems a bit odd. Also, as far as I can tell, the Italians seems to have had a mix of M11s and M13s, not all of one type.

BTW, the position of the minefields was well known to the attacking troops from prior recce, and could perhaps have been included in the British briefing, or on the map with via landmarks.

Regards

JonS

[Guest BigAlMoho]

Hello,

Doing this one PBEM as the Allies, I discovered that having houses represent tents constitutes a game-breaking situation... Skip this dog...

Thanks,

Al