Unconditional Surrender - Italian Campaign July 1943 to September 1944

 Time to tackle the big one, the Italian Campaign which runs from July 1943 until September 1944. One of the more ambitious Unconditional Surrender scenarios, but hopefully this will be a bit more manageable than AHGCs 'Anzio' which used to take an age to play.

There are two main scenario options here, to start in July 1943 with Italy still in the war or start in August, with Italy out of the war. I went with the July option as I just thought it would look nice to have the map packed with Italian units! The geography and extensive use of naval operations makes this one of the most complicated scenarios.

The victory conditions are stiff, the Allies have to reduce the Axis to holding four cities or less by September 1944, which given that north of Bologna there are no less than five cities as well as two in Sardinia and Corsica, it is a tall order. If they use an amphibious invasion after June 1944, the requirement is three cities! Historically the Allies didn't breach the Gothic Line until 1945. If the Germans keep the Allies entirely out of Italy by September 1943, they immediately win, so the Allies have to attack soon.

The initial setup has US 5th Army in Tunis and 9th Airforce, the British have 8th Army and the RAF in the Central med. Both armies are armoured. The British also have three garrison armies, and both the USAAF and RAF have a couple of sorties on them. I realised later that the various British 'garrison armies' are actually supposed to represent the various allied contingent Corps (Poles, French etc) and combined with the two British tank unit attachments are actually quite powerful when reinforced albeit without the staying power of a full army. 

The Italians have around ten ground units around Italy including two in the mobilisation box, and a rather battered air unit on Catania in Sicily. The Germans main units are 8th and 10th Armies in Rome and Taranto respectively, plus a couple of garrison units in the north with another in the mobilisation box. A rather battered Luftwaffe unit is based in Naples, in range of Sicily, Taranto etc.

There are lots of restrictions on where naval invasions can take place on this map, which are listed separately with diagrams. The Allies can't simply sail from Tunis to Venice! The approach needs to be more step by step. The biggest restriction is that on the western coast of Italy they can only land around Genoa or Naples as otherwise the Axis garrison requirements would be enormous.

There is an awful lot of stuff going on with events, reinforcements etc. Both the Germans and Italians have 'tanks' events (there arent any German panzer armies) although the German tanks are withdrawn later on. A special rule is that destroyed German units go straight into the mobilisation box so they can be reactivated the same turn. The Germans get another field army later in 1943 (the 4th).

The Allies start with two invasions, a paradrop, tanks plus Ultra and Free Forces events. The British invasion is single use whereas the US one comes back after four turns. There is another US invasion on the reinforcement track, plus 7th US Army and 12th Army Air Force. The provision of all the invasion counters mean the Allies can continuously threaten amphibious landings.

From June 1944, resources available to both sides drop markedly as resources are devoted to the D Day invasion. Both the British and Germans get limited production per turn thereafter, and the Germans lose their 'tanks' event.

I spent some time thinking about attack options for the Allies (and re reading the rules on amphibious invasions). While it was tempting to go for Taranto, it is essential to knock out Italy on the first turn which requires taking two Italian cities. Sicily was the obvious choice as it is air range of both the British and US. I'm using the fixed historical weather as it is so crucial to the course of the campaign, which mean July, August and September 1943 are clear weather.

The operation started with the USAAF and RAF attacking the German and Italian airfields. The RAF had mixed success but the US did very well. After repeated strikes both Axis air units were rendered inoperable.

8th Army then landed west of Catania, with air support they assaulted the German garrison unit and eliminated it. The various bonuses made this a fairly likely result.

Eagle eyed readers may notice that a German unit has arrived at Salerno. It moved down there in the strategic movement phase which happens for both sides before the operations phase.

US 5th Army did much the same thing at Palermo, although this time the US were fighting Italians. Both Allies committed their air forces to ground support to increase the combat differential. I didn't use the paras as I had other ideas for them.

With Palermo and Catania captured, Italy surrendered and all the Italian units were removed. I'd forgotten to use the Italian tanks in the battle for Palermo, but their intervention wouldn't have changed the result. 

In a bold move the Allied paras dropped into Caglieri  on Sardinia. They siezed control of the port and the British shipped in 9th Army who could clear Corsica and Sardinia, while providing a handy airbase for operations against Northern Italy.

In the production phase the Germans rebuilt their destroyed garrison units in Northern Italy, they will have to figure out how to defend the entire peninsular with five units next turn!

The Allies couldnt invade in August (the next 'surprise attack' event is in September) so the Germans sent 10th Army to block easy access to the toe of Italy and sent three garrison armies to defend Genoa, Trieste and Venice. These are all pretty safe as they are out of Allied air range, whereas the Luftwaffe moved north of Rome to give them air cover. 8th Army and a garrison defended Naples and Monte Cassino. I'll worry about defending Salerno next turn when the invasion threat reopens.

The Allies kept two units on Malta to threaten invasions in the Adriatic and south coast while rebuilding their airforces. British 9th 'Army' completed the occupation of Sardinia and Corsica, ending up on a port to threaten Genoa. Otherwise August was quite quiet.

September was the last turn of good summer weather and the Germans concentrated on the defence of the Bay of Naples with two field and one garrison army. Taranto and Bari were abandoned (but still Axis controlled).

The British simply occupied the ports on the southern coast and sea transported a garrison unit in as well. The US pushed up by land as far as Salerno but didn't have the MP left to attack. The Allies also moved another unit by sea into Catania but kept a 'floating reserve' in Malta.

In October the weather turned to 'poor', reducing the effect of armour and air and restricting units to assault combat only. The Germans occupied the Gustav Line along the Rapido and Sangro rivers with 8th and 10th Armies, but left a garrison unit in Naples.

The Allies used their 'surprise attack' to amphibiously assault Naples, supported by all the adjacent Allied units to get extra combat bonuses. Now what I SHOULD have done was use the surprise attack for a land assault, as it gives you a +2 combat modifier, but in all the excitement I completely forget...

The Allied attack failed by a very fine margin and Naples held out. The Allies have now got their air units based on mainland Italy, but still too far south to be able to support attacks at the top of the Med. They do keep hammering the Luftwaffe however, and generally the Allies have air superiority now.

November had a brief gasp of good weather and the US conducted a ground assault against Naples. The Germans threw in their tanks and  the attack was defeated. Naples continued to hold out. 8th Army occupied eastern Italy as far north as the Sangro, Allied air could relocate to Foggia in future turns.

The weather in December was 'severe' so both sides contented themselves with rebuilding their air forces and shuffling units around a bit. In the main it was stalemate on the Gustav Line. Another German field army (4th) had arrived, so with the Allies getting closer, it was sent to garrison Venice.

In January 1944 however, the weather cleared a bit and 8th Army conducted an amphibious assault on Trieste! The USAAF suppressed the Luftwaffe and the RAF supported the attack. Once again the Germans threw in their armour and once again the invasion failed. Dear me!

February was more ineffective slogging on the Gustav Line in poor weather. Naples continued to hold out against assault.

March saw the arrival of more US aircraft as another airforce marker turned up. They sea transported to Corsica where they could cover northern Italy. The allies now outnumbered the German 3:1 in the air.

The Allies conducted another assault on Naples which failed once again. It was starting to look fairly hopeless for the Allies at this point.

However the British conducted another amphibious assault in the Adriatic, aimed at Venice. The Luftwaffe was completely crippled by the USAAF so unable to intervene whereas as the British threw in the RAF, tanks and an Ultra Intelligence event. As before German armour raced to intervene.

But this time It wasn't enough and the Allies got ashore. Well, that is a turn up.

In April the weather was still poor but German 4th Army moved out from Trieste and conducted a counterattack supported by the Luftwaffe, German armour and support (assault) attacks by the two adjacent garrison armies. The Allies threw in everything they had, including those very useful British tank events. The German attack failed.

The Allies responded ferociously. The US assaulted Naples (again) but this time overran the garrison and captured the city. 8th Army assaulted the Sangro sector of the Gustav Line and pushed German 8th Army back. The icing on the cake was that the last Allied floating reserve assaulted and took Trieste, incidentally isolating German 4th Army who were now completely cut off.

The isolated Germans dropped to 'low supply'.

Time marches on. Heaps of casualties in the eliminated boxes and lots of events to come on the time track. 

The weather cleared in May and would remain fair until September. The trapped 4th Army tried to break out west via Venice and once more both sides threw in every support element they could muster. This was the last turn the Germans could use their 'tanks' event as in June they would lose it as Normandy attracted Hitlers attention.

The Allies broke through the Gustav Line decisively now. The US advanced to the gates of Rome while 8th Army pursued (German) 8th Army up the Adriatic coast where it halted south of Bologna. The Axis now held only five cities, if they were reduced to four they would lose, so were forced to fight for Rome. The newly arrived US 7th Army (armoured) was sea transported into Venice, along with a US air wing. 

In the logistics phase, the trapped German 4th Army remained unsupplied and was removed. The Allies now controlled the entire stretch of land from Venice to Trieste. A reorganised German garrison unit occupied Zagreb to keep the supply route from Germany open.

In June the Germans reorganised their defences as best as they could, the real risk was that with its flank hanging open, Rome could be isolated (with a hefty negative combat modifier). The partially rebuilt 4th Army appeared west of Milan, a garrison unit moved down to support the LOC of the Rome garrison (you can see it in the next photo) and German 8th Army garrisoned Bologna.

It was all too little too late however, as British 8th Army launched a fairly speculative attack against Bologna to isolate it from the south - if it failed 7th US Army would attack it. In the event 8th Army rolled 6:2 and with all the various force modifiers, it was enough to push the Germans out and Bologna fell.

Only holding Axis four cities in June 1944 was an immediate Allied win, and I didn't need to play the July - September turns. Well that was a turn up, just like the North Africa game, the Axis held out for months then collapsed in the last few turns. I really enjoyed that and I appreciated the subtlety of the scenario design after playing a few turns, even if it was weighed down the many, many special rules to cover the peculiarities of the campaign. Yes I made some mistakes with the rules (again) and operational decisions (again) but it was still and enjoyable and challenging game. Another scenario with lots of replay value.

tbh the level of abstraction is so high with this game system it does often feel as if you are playing the system rather than a strategic game, but it does give a flavour of strategic decision making and I now completely appreciate how important the capture of airbases was to further an advance and what a huge advantage command of the sea was for the Allies.  I'm just kicking myself that I didn't use one of the 'surprise attack' events ot mount a 1000 bomber raid on the Gustav Line to break the deadlock there! Maybe next time.

Air War - Mysteres over Mitla

 After the previous outing with SPIs Air War, John organised another Zoom session, this time with rather more players. To keep things (relatively) simple, this was another early jet cannon encounter, this time over the Mitla Pass in 1956 during the Suez crisis. Israeli paras had seized the Mitla Pass and the Egyptians sent a flight of Meteors to attack them. The Israeli top cover was a couple of Mysteres. We had no less than seven players for this, plus John running it and once again we were graced by the presence of the games original designer, David Isby, to keep us all straight.  

My home made Air War setup has expanded considerably! This was a six map sheet game, and coupled with the QRS, control sheets for six aircraft, my laptop, dice and various charts and tables, it all took up quite a bit of room. I had to use the chairs either side hold various other bits of paper as my back isn't up to standing up over a table for two hours wearing my headset.

I said the scenario was 'simple', well it isn't really. All those counters are various types of IDF ground forces blue = trucks, red = M3 halftracks, green = occupied buildings, red = quad .50 cal AA and yellow = ammo dump. The Egyptians get various amounts of VPs for destroying them. I'd actually misplaced the ammo dump, it should be up by the AA guns. 

The real complexity is the terrain. The four sheets either side of the central two are ground level 8, the four hex columns either side of the pass are ground level 12, and the base of the pass itself (where all the targets are) is level 4. So the Egyptians need to crest the hills either side of the pass, dive down and then run along the trench blowing stuff up. As we played this on 4th May, Star Wars day, it seemed entirely appropriate that we were playing a flying trench assault game - their is even a 'Death Star exhaust port' in the ammo dump.

The simplicity was mainly that we weren't using missiles and the targets are all static - much easier to hit than something flying around!

Here are the good guys, a pair of Israeli Mysteres. As I'd been practicing, I was elected to be Israeli and was paired with Nigel, whose played this much more than me. Nigel was Blue 1, I was Blue 2, and Nigel was also the IDF 'honcho', or more experienced pilot, as he was.

The Mysteres are marginally better than Meteors, they turn on a button, cruise, accelerate and dive faster and carry more ammo, but there are only two of them.

We also had Micheal manning the Israeli AA guns and John running the IDF paras as well as running the games.

The Egyptians have no less than four Meteors, Red 1 (Russell), 2 (Divid), 3 (Tim) and 4 (Chris). Russell was the CO, and had to secretly plan the attack. He opted for a cannon only attack, no bombs at low altitude. At altitude 13 they would just skim the top of the mountains before diving into the pass. They would come on two waves, R1 leading on turn 2, R2, R3 and R4 coming on in line abreast on turn 3.

Nigels brother Ian had made up these revised aircraft control sheets which I used for the IDF olanes. They are much clearer and easier to use than the supplied ones, and big enough for me to use tiddlywinks to record altitude, acceleration etc. I used my custom counters for energy, throttle, movement and flight attitude.

The assembled multitudes.

We were all tracking the progress on our own maps, so I don't have to worry too much with blurry shots like this one, but we kept Tims map pinned as the main control map. There was a lot going on so it was useful to have a master reference map.

We didnt know the Egyptian plan up front, but had ot pick a flight profile. All we knew was the Egyptians were coming from the west somewhere between altitude 9 and 61 (approx 15,000 feet). We started in the southwest quadrant at altitude 70, full throttle and a shallow dive to gain some energy. It was a bit of a gamble as the Egyptians could have come on behind us, but we were manouverable enough to  dive and turn.

We were fortunate to retain the initiative for the entire game, partly thanks to Nigels 'honcho' status. On turn 2 Red 1 appeared at the far end of the map, and far away and thousands of feet below us.

We then essentially spend several turns in a power dive to get down to the level of the Egyptians, while also accumulating a mass of energy and making turns and lateral rolls to get into position for  a high speed diving attack.

It takes a while to pull out of a steep dive, so I did a few calculations as to when I'd have to start pulling up. It would be very embarrassing to pile into the ground. The Egyptians kept reasonable formation as they chugged across our front, but Red 2 decided he wanted a bit more altitude to clear the mountains. With only 1 level of clearance it precluding them from some manouvres, particularly turns at 90 degrees, as they result in a loss of altitude. 

The Egyptians all successfully crested the mountains and went into shallow dives to target the northern convoy. Nigel and I screamed down after them. Nigel had pulled out a bit too soon and was at level 15 whereas the Egyptians were all between 10 and 12, whereas I was at 13. The range and height differential meant that Blue 1 was out of range whereas I wasn't. We'd been able to line up as we'd got behind the Egyptians as they made their attack run, so were able to line up as they moved first.

The IDF AA all missed, the Egyptians managed to hit a couple of trucks - it was a hard shot as although the planes look adjacent, they are still relatively high, so the height difference extended the range. Blue 1 was out of range of the Egyptians, but I was in medium range of Red 2 and let fly. It was a decent shot, not quite up the tail pipe, but not a deflection shot either and duly landed a hit which exceeded the Meteors damage tolerance. David failed to eject and went down in flames!

We'd been playing for two and a quarter hours at that point and it seemed a good time to stop and wash up. Tim and Russell both ran the rest of the their attack runs later, but failed to do any significant damage.

That was far more fun than the rather dry account seems. Having Nigel and David playing was really helpful as they corrected a few basic mistakes a number of us had been making around things like turning and diving. Coupled with the practice sessions I'd had before, I actually felt like I was flying the plane and had some idea of getting it to go where I wanted, rather than just randomly setting controls and hoping for the best. I think we all got a lot out of it, and David Isby commented that he was delighted we'd managed to achieve a roughly historical result.

More sessions are planned for the future, but tbh I think I'm 'Air Warred out' at that point. I may come back to it at some point, but it was an interesting intellectual challenge I felt I wanted to beat and I feel I've done that. I've got new things I want to try, and while the occasional bit of retro gaming is fun, I'd like to do some new stuff.

Sink the Bismarck! (again)

 Jim put on another game session using Worthington Games' 'Sink the Bismarck'. This is a solo game but is suitable for team play. Fairly obviously it covers the Bismarck and Prinz Eugens sortie into the Atlantic, and the Germans need to do better than historically to win.

The game is played on this stylised (but very useful!) map of the North Atlantic. Each large grid area is subdivided into four small ones. The Bismarck can cover two (small) squares per turn and Eugen three although both can burn extra fuel to get one additional square of movement. There is alos aU Boat flotilla with a movement of one.

The various capital aships have fairly obvious ratings for hull boxes and firepower, and surface engagements are resolved with simple dice rolling to score hits. The Germans have the option to close or extend the range, with various benefits and penalties, or break off altogether. The British will generally stick around to fight if they are superior, or atttempt to break off if not.

The Germans gain VP by sinking British ships (eg KGV is worth 4) and convoys (1ea) but lose VP if the Eugen or Bismarck are sunk. To win they need to get 6 VP and get home to Brest or Bergen and ideally sink at least one warship to get a medal.

We had quite a turnout for this one, and a suitable array of dodgy hats. I'd commanded Eugen before so this time was cast as British. The British team was myself (Adm Holland on Hood), John A (Home Fleet) and Russell (Force H). The wicked Germans were Tim (Lutjens), Mark (Bismarck) and Terry (Eugen),

It transpired that only a few people had read the rules beforehand so there was a certain degree of chaos while the turn sequence and general flow of events was mastered, but we soon got into it. Slightly unfortunately the Germans ran into the Home Fleet on turn 1(!), and managed to escape albeit with serious damage to the Bismarck.

Regular readers may recall that the Germans navigate across the map, and any encounters are governed by sheets like this. Dice for the sheet (1 in this case), then two more dice determine which event block is used. The coloured areas on the block show which specific squares are affected by the various events listed which can be anything from thick fog, meeting up with a tanker to finding a convoy or the Home Fleet(!). 

Some events are more likely to take place in certain areas of the map, eg the main convoy routes are rows E and F. Although it looks complex, it actually works very well, and is a way of introducing semi random encounters with a vey rich variety of types.

After the initial bruising encounter, things went a bit better for the Germans and they headed south west into the Atlantic. They did run into more heavy units, but managed to break off from KGV and Rodney while actually sinking HMS Renown!

The U-Boats had great success and damaged KGV and sank HMS Ark Royal before she could get any planes off. They also sank a convoy too.

Tim kept a good track of the German progress (shown above). The heavy damage incurred early in the sortie meant the German surface units were disinclined to hang around and headed back to France at the first opportunity and both surface ships made it back to Brest OK. Sadly having only sunk one elderly battleship, the Fuhrer was none to pleased and with only 5 VP in total the Germans lost, although they did get nice medals for sinking a capital ship. 

Having got some idea of what we were doing, we gave it another go the following evening.

This time the Germans were a bit more canny and went for the southwest Atlantic, sinking Rodney and Ramilles on the way. Sadly they lost firstly Prinz Eugen mid Atlantic to the Home Fleet and then Bismarck was caught by force H, damaged by aircraft and despatched by Renown.  This time they didn't encounter any convoys at all! The Germans were winning on VP until Bismarck went down, so overall it was a much closer game.

Cluedo Hostage Rescue

 We were short on numbers so John produced a perennial favourite, Cleudo Hostage Rescue, Johns game of SAS derring do on a Cluedo board (Clue for our US cousins). 

A brief recap - terrorists have seized hostages in a country house and dumped the body of Mr Black on the steps outside. There are half a dozen hostages (Reverend Green, Mrs White etc) and an unknown number of terrorists. We have a team of eight SAS soldiers to rescue the hostages. There is a limited amount of intel available on the situation from local law enforcement of varying reliability, but we were fairly sure the Conservatory and Ballroom were empty. We were fortunate that Colonel Mustard had escaped, and as a military man, gave us reliable intel that there were six terrorists.

Our SAS team had two specialists (medic No. 2) and dog handler (No. 8) and a section leader (No. 1). We were all armed with carbines and pistols, and the five non specialist had a stun grenade each.

Based on the intel, we planned to make our entrance through the Conservatory and Ballroom, my four guys (Nos 1-4) would then clear the right hand side of the building, while marks guys (5-8) would clear the left. Mark had the dog and I had the medic. The figures normally activate in number order, with two actions each, but the leader can spend an action to change the activation order, which is handy sometimes.

We came across two rooms with a pair of terrorists in each (and a pair of hostages), and despite getting the correct sequence of door opening, chucking grenades and following up with a fusillade of small arms fire onto the stunned terrorists, we were hideously unlucky and not one but two terrorists managed to detonate their suicide vests, sadly we lost a couple of the hostages (Rev Green and Mrs Peacock) but managed to save Mrs White although she was badly wounded. The medic stabilised her. We also had two troopers wounded, one quite badly, by the explosions.

Clearing the last room went better, despite my section leader managing to miss one of his shots and we rescued Professor Plum without further friendly losses and finally found Miss Scarlet hiding in the kitchen. All the terrorissts were killed.

So, not a brilliantly successful operation, but four of the hostages escaped alive and we didn't have any troopers actually killed. Back to markmanship and room clearing school though I think.

Operation Torch Nov 1942 to June 1943

 More Unconditional Surrender, this time the Operation Torch scenario. This one has a relatively low unit count but uses a double sized map and is the longest scenario I've played so far, with no less than eight turns (months). 

All set up. The map stretches from Casablanca to Tripoli, but as with Third Reichs treatment of this area, there is only a narrow playable area along the coastal strip, which avoids silly outflanking via deep desert movement of large forces.

The Allies win by capturing every city in French North Africa, anything else is a win for the Axis. This one definitely requires reading some of the more obscure rules on naval landings, naval transport, port supply etc. The Allies can use a captured port as a supply source for two units (including air), while the Axis can only get Low Supply from a port. They can make a die roll to get up to full supply (50:50) as convoys battle their way through. Interestingly the low supply/unsupplied states mirror those I use in my own operational rules, PanzerGruppe.  

The control sheet, there are lots of special events and you will also notice some French will and production markers. As I liked the look of the counters, I went with the optional rule to make the Vichy French stand and fight, so they have to be conquered like any other minor power. I balanced this by using the Allied optional rule of giving them their Ultra and Free French events up front, rather than dicing for their turn of

their arrival.

Vichy has three units, two garrison armies and one field army. Their Will is five so I need to capture either three cities or two cities and destroy their field army to get them to surrender. I'm sure that wont present any problems.

The initial Allied force consists of 1st US Army (motorised) and 1st Canadian Army (Armour). The US get an air wing too, and the British get 9th Army, a garrison unit. Given the length of front, that is a lot of ground for three ground units! The US force is an interesting one, being motorised it gets more attacks in good weather. but lacking armour, although it does have a 'tanks' event, presumably to represent the brief but glorious life of 1st Armored Div.

Tunisia and Libya are interesting. 5th Panzer Army starts in Tunis but cannot activate on turn 1. The Axis airforce is permanently based in Sicily and counts as an air unit with four sorties used, so two sorties are available each turn. Its range reaches just west of Tunis, but not much further.

Equally 8th Army and DAK and lined are up ready to go, but don't enter the game and activate until February 1943, at which point Tripoli automatically becomes Allied controlled. The Africa Korps are already setup on the Mareth Line. Italian 1st Army also arrives in Feb 1943, rocking up at Gabes or Tunis. So this is very much a game of two halves, firstly the Allies clearing the coastal areas west of Tunis, and then the drive from east and west on Tunisia itself.

The Allies land in Oran and Algiers. One of the Vichy units is destroyed, the other retires eastwards with a step loss. I put the British into Oran and US into Algiers to get the air a bit closer to the front. The ground units go in first, then I sea transport the air unit in as it can stack. 9th Army will have to wait for more port capacity.

I am so used to attacking (Axis) player going first, that I played the first few turns the wrong way around!  The Axis should have gone first, which of course is why you cant activate 5th Panzer on the first turn. I noticed what I was doing after a bit and had to re-set some things, but you may notice some narrative inconsistencies.

The other thing is that the weather on the Mediterranean boards in winter is bad, really bad, which largely negates the Allied superiority in armour and airpower.

In December, more bad weather. 5th Panzer Army motors west to conduct a delaying action, but the Vichy French are doing an excellent job of holding up the Allies.

9th Army lands in Oran, while 1st Army and the US fruitlessly assault the French in the  Algerian mountains. The bad weather grounds the air, increases the MP cost of everything and only allows on attack per turn. What I should have done was send 1st Army back to clear Casablanca to force a French surrender, as at this rate Vichy is going to stop the Allies all on their own.

The French and 5th Panzer pull back a hex in January, and once more the Allies fruitlessly assault the French, just pushing them back one hex.

9th Army rocks up outside Casablanca but cant do much against the defended city in the bad weather.

Conscious that February is rapidly approaching, the French and Panzers pull back a bit more. The Allies are losing faster than the Axis are winning.

I take an executive decision that with Algiers and Oran occupied and Casablanca and Gabes now threatened, the French surrender. I've given myself too much of a task to do, and I don't want to reset the entire game back to the beginning.

That leaves the Allies to attack 5th Panzer directly, as they are on low supply this turn. Despite the weather being 'severe' (the worst possible), they manage to push the Germans back.

In the south, 8th Army now activates and assaults the Mareth Line, but the torrential rainstorms preclude any success and Rommel beats them off. Tripoli is now Allied controlled though, and supplies 8th Army and the Desert Airforce.

In their turn the Germans had to fall back as 1st Allied Army had enough movement to slip around the mountains and encircle them. 5th Panzer falls back to Tunis, while 1st Italian Army moves into the mountains to hold the centre.

As we roll into March, the weather improves slightly and 8th Army attacks Mareth again with air support, but bounces off again.  1st Army attacks 1st Italian Army and the US pursue the Germans taking a long odds shot at Tunis which duly fails. The Italians repel the British too. 

The exposed US Army is now 'Kasserined' by Italian 1st Army, the only Axis unit in full supply in April. I would have done it with the Panzers, but they are on low supply. The US are surrounded by ZOC and the Italians throw in their 'tanks' event. Both sides commit their airforces and the US uses its Ultra advantage. The US are very fortunate to defeat the attack, as a loss could have severely weakened or even destroyed the US as it is unable to retreat.

Montgomery finally defeats the DAK, pushing them back to Gabes with loss. As Tom Hanks might say "That guy is overrated".

The Allies now have a strategic choice, relieve 1st US Army or open up the south. Exploiting success 1st British Army moves through the mountains to attack DAK in the rear as it retreats, this also isolates Italian 1st Army.

DAK, surrounded and out of supplies, surrenders. All the Axis can do now is hang on. 9th Army has meanwhile reappeared after a lengthy road march from Casablanca and opens up a supply route to the US Army. I completely forgot about the strategic movement rule which would have moved it rather quicker! 

In June the first clear weather of the game opens up the map to mobile warfare, 8th Army storms north supported by the Desert Airforce to attack Tunis and manages to take a step off 5th Panzer Army. The US now join the fight and both sides throw in everything they've got - planes, tanks, special events. I assume the German 'tanks' are the Tiger battalion. 

The Germans are weakened, isolated and at reduced strength and finally succumb. Tunis falls.

The Allies now occupy all cities on the map. In July the remaining Italians are on low supply but not completely cut off. Algiers is open to attack, but due to Allied ZOC the Italians would have to detour through the mountains and can't quite retake the city.  

 

As it is impossible for the Axis to win now, I call it there with an Allied victory. Just in time to invade Sicily, but that is a whole other game.

I really enjoyed that, despite making a number of mistakes. It took a while to play so I didn't try it again, but it gave me a good feel for Allied offensive operations. I suspect that is also a good tryout for the Italian campaign, which also features narrow fronts, rugged terrain and dreadful weather in winter. I'd like to try that again but feel I need to move onto Italy as the next logical step. It was good to have the Axis on the defensive for a change, and the game was completely transformed in a couple of turns very late in the day by the sun putting in an appearance. Great stuff.