Ambitious Assault--ASLSK#2--Wargame AAR

Played ASL Scenario #9 solitaire. Avola, Sicily, 10 July, 1943. Americans and Brits converge on a town defended by Italians. I took Peter's advice and dispersed the Italians (rather than concentrating in mutually supporting positions), in an attempt to complicate the Allied mission of clearing the town.

When the Americans approached from the north, they advanced over the main hill and down into the center of town. I had split them into a base-of-fire element and an assault element. The base-of-fire element exchanged fires with the first Italian defensive position (situated in woods to the west of the town), and the Americans had the worst of it. Then, I really blew it by advancing the assault element through the woods, where they ran into point-blank fire from the Italians. The whole element broke and ran for cover, and I lost about a squad equivalent.

After that, I kept firing and eventually broke the Italians and then killed them all when I flushed them out of the woodline into the line of sight of the base-of-fire element. Still, it took time. By the time the Brits entered the town from the south, I had all but destroyed the second Italian position, but there were two groups still untouched.

Once again into the breech: I advanced the American assault unit, trying to surround the Italian main position (equipped with a very potent heavy machine gun). The Yanks "drew fire", wounding the lieutenant and sending the whole element routing again. The Brits tried to probe next to the building where the Italians were holed up but paid heavily. By game end, there was no time to regroup and try again.

Another platoon of Italians simply moved out of the path of the attack, forcing the Allies to chase them, but the Allies ran out of time before bringing them to ground.

Lessons Learned: Even Italians can be deadly. I need to look into using smoke grenades to assist in the assault, and/or put more soldiers into the base-of-fire element, so that I can achieve fire superiority against the Italians.