From: "Gary J. Robinson" Subject: Some Tunisia play notes This report concerns The Gamers' "Tunisia," an OCS series game. We finished up our Tunisia game. Interesting lessons were learned by all. I hope to have some photos from this game scanned soon. In the meantime, some tidbits will have to suffice.... We started with the Kasserine Pass campaign start. The initial Axis onslaught was dampened by some freakish weather rolls which grounded the Luftwaffe during a critical turn. This campaign start is much different from the Kasserine scenario, because the Allies get to move first! The Americans were able to scuttle backwards and establish a solid defense. 1st Armored absorbed the brunt of the attack, losing several tracked artillery battalions, but it came through all right. Arnim's forces in the north launched several fruitless, costly attacks; Allied artillery here, as throughout the theater, claimed many an Axis step. The Allies responded by launching several thrusts of their own, consisting mainly of Free French divisions led by British Commandos. One such advance resulted in the advancing force being overrun and nearly wiped out by German mechanized forces in reserve. After these short, sharp conflicts in February, the northern front stayed fairly stable throughout the game. The real action came soon in the south, as Monty came storming onto the board, surprising the Axis with the speed and power of his offensive. 10-RE stacks of infantry overran the first line of the Mareth Line, despite a vicious Axis artillery barrage; exploiting British armor savaged Italian and German artillery between the fort lines and cut off the defenders in the rest of the first line. Italians surrendered en masse. The Afrika Korps was nowhere to be seen; it had been kept in the center, where vicious battles were waged for key mountain passes. The Americans adopted a strategy of "surround and conquer," cutting off exposed German units and bombarding the tar out of them/starving them out/doing massive concentric attacks on them. Allied casualties in the center were high, as powerful German armor formations smashed various low-caliber Allied infantry formations whenever the opportunity arose. One particularly savage German offensive resulted in the American center buckling, with three precious Allied "5" AR units being wiped out and leaving a ghastly hole in the Allied lines in the sector originally assigned to the Free French Corps. The Germans succeeded in taking and holding all the passes to the coastal plain, finally seizing the pass at Pichon after a continuing Italian/French/American meatgrinder that went on for weeks. The Americans saved up supply for large artillery barrages, and gradually attrited away Axis units. They also moved large quantities of supplies to the south, gradually relocating HQs in order to prepare for a southern offensive toward Gafsa and beyond. Monty took advantage of the absent Afrika Korps by smashing through the second Mareth line as well, pocketing most of the rest of the southern Axis army. At this point Rommel had no choice but to shift some high quality panzer formations to the south for a counterattack. British armor rolled into Gabes and immediately began to benefit from Allied supply ships unloading into the port. The American player meanwhile had snuck British 6th Armored to the south, in position to support U.S. 1st Armored, but 6th Armored was kept hidden under other units to disguise this shift of offensive power. The Americans advanced to clear the rail line and try to join hands with Monty. Strong Italian armored forces held Gafsa; over the course of a double turn the Italians were first ejected, then, disorganized, caught in a canyon, surrounded and destroyed by the massive firepower of U.S. 1st Armored Division and cooperating American infantry divisions. This same double turn revealed the presence of 10th Panzer in a perilous position west of Gabes at El Hamma. 10th Panzer had been positioned to make a slashing counterattack behind Monty's front lines; the double turn, however, resulted instead in 10th Panzer being cut off from any hope of retreat by British units strongly guarding the only coastal pass through the great salt marshes of the Chott Djerid. Rommel chose a totally unorthodox move: sending 10th Panzer rocketing west up the road, totally through the Chott Djerid and ending up in Gafsa, behind American lines. A fueled panzer division was now suddenly in a position to overrun airfields filled with parked aircraft, capture trucks and supplies, and destroy the Free French HQ that was supporting the sector and guarding a 7 SP supply dump, assisted only by a 2 AR antitank unit. The Allied rail net was also vulnerable. The game suddenly hung in the balance. Could the Axis reverse their terrible infantry losses at Mareth by severing the Allied rail net and capturing Bone from the south? The Allies held their breath to see who would win initiative. The Axis won initiative. The Allied players looked at each other grimly. The Axis player, however, failed to see the magnitude of the opportunity in front of him. One of the most intriguing features of the OCS is the limited intelligence feature, which often results in players only seeing their own weaknesses and not the weaknesses of their opponents. 10th Panzer made no attempt at rampaging behind Allied lines, and instead tried to make a run for it back to Axis lines north of the salt marsh. They could have made it too, had they abandoned their divisional trucks (which couldn't make it past the American units whose ZOCs guarded the passes to the coast). But, loathe to give up precious transport, they stopped along with the trucks only hexes away from freedom. Horror overtook them there, as not only U.S. 1st Armored, but also the previously hidden British 6th Armored Division surrounded them competely, hit them with repeated massive air and artillery bombardments, and finally conducted an all-out armored assault that wiped out 10th Panzer to a man. This tragedy, coupled with the horrendous losses inflicted by Monty in a third series of assaults on a hastily-constructed Axis hedgehog line, convinced the Axis player that all was lost and he resigned. It was late March. All players felt they had learned from the game. The Axis needed to move Afrika Korps south sooner; the Mareth Line fell too easily, and the British player was allowed to spend supply like water and get away with it because there was no meaningful counterattack. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Gary J. Robinson Gary@Games.lover.org | | Gary's Wargaming Web Page: http://www.concentric.net/~wiggler/ | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Signore Gaspare replied: 'And what do you say about the game of chess?' | | | | 'That is certainly a refined and ingenious recreation,' said Federico, | | 'but it seems to me to possess one defect; namely, that it is possible | | for it to demand too much knowledge, so that anyone who wishes to become| | an outstanding player must, I think, give to it as much time and study | | as he would to learning some noble science or performing well something | | or other of importance; and yet for all his pains when all is said and | | done all he knows is a game. Therefore as far as chess is concerned we | | reach what is a very rare conclusion: that mediocrity is more to be | | praised than excellence.' | | | | - Baldesar Castiglione, "Etiquette for Renaissance Gentlemen," 1528 A.D.| +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+