Tunis is a busy port city, the French invested heavily into their colonial possession with the city centre not unlike a European city. Having swept the French from their positions outside the city, the Battered Italians turned on the Jewel of Tunisia.
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| Faá di Bruno |
Despite the stormy weather, the Regia Marina towed their only Navy Monitor into place to provide fire support to ground forces attacking the city, Ongoing Patrols of MTB's and Corvettes protected the vulnerable ship and took opportune shots at the defenders.
Both sides were largely unsuited to Urban warfare, a lack of SMG's on both sides and the weak armour of Italian tanks meant it was going to be a gruelling fight, Italy's advantage lay in its access to tank Flamethrowers which I was eager to exploit.
Street fighting in pest (Tunis)
In this battle we chose the scenario Street fighting in Pest from the Budapest campaign book, the game was fought on a 4x4 map divided into quarters, the two quarters on the French side were worth 4 VP each and the 2 on the Italian side are worth 2VP each. To control a zone and score the VP at least one of your units must be fully in the quarter whilst none of your opponents units occupy that same quarter. Half the French army starts deployed whilst the other half stays in reserve.
Urban warfare
Players can use the Urban warfare assets if a battle takes place at or adjacent to a Cultural or Commercial centre or factory. The attacker and defender can use 1 asset for every 500 points (rounding up) of their force, assets can only be chosen once unless specified. Italy's assets are in Yellow, France's assets are in Green
Attackers assets | Neutral assets | Defenders assets |
Preliminary bombardment: see page 131 Boltaction Rulebook. | Sewer infiltration: 2 units can be set to outflank, instead of coming on from table edges they can advance from any point on the battlefield so long as it’s more than 6 inches from an enemy. | Fortified building: Pick a ruin or building, units that occupy said asset get +1 to wound ie veteran is wounded on a 6+ |
Smoke screen: Call in a smoke screen, see page 84 roll of a 1 counts as a 2. | Snipers: Get a free regular sniper team. | Street barricades: D3 Linear obstacles counts as hard cover, impassable to vehicles can be destroyed on a HE roll of 10+ |
Big Push: Free infantry squad identical to the cheapest in your force. | Molotov cocktails: One unit gets anti tank grenades for free, this asset can be chosen more than once. | Minefield: deploy d3 Tank traps |
Night infiltration: 2 Units can deploy as Snipers and spotters. | Ammo dump: Select one ruin or building, units that occupy that structure reroll 1’s to miss in Shooting and assault. | Barbed wire: Get d3+1 8inch Wire obstacles to place anywh ere in your table half before battle. |
Prisoner interrogation: Reveal 3 enemy units before battle. | Frontline aid post: Select one ruin or building, that structure gives the same benefit as a medic within 6’’ of itself. | Ambush: D3 units can start in ambush. |
Turn 1
The Italians forward deployed their 2 Sniper teams on their left flank, behind them the Forward air observer and the Free forward artillery observer I got for having a Naval unit adjacent to the battlefield.
Turn 1 saw the French go on ambush whilst the entire Italian army ran onto the board, the Italian snipers killed an AT Gunner and wiped out the AT Rifle team.
French MMG using its ambush fired onto the advancing Italian infantry on the right, killing a man and giving them a Pin.
Turn 2 saw more pushing with the Italian's whilst the French brought on most of their reserves to counter them, the Italians called in their Air and Arty support.
The street fighting intensified as the Char b tank fired its Light howtizer killing 4 members of the Italian infantry squad pushing up on the french in the ruins, whilst it's light AT continued to miss against the L3 tankette.
Turn 3 the Aircraft came in and the arty was delayed, the medium bomb landed on the French regulars that came out of reserve last turn and killed 4 members after they went down. The Colonials charged in and engaged the French regulars defending the barricade, the combat was tense as both sides killed 6 men each in the first round of close combat, round 2 the Italians killed 5 whilst the French killed 4, leaving only the Italian NCO to sneak back towards his own lines. Italian snipers picked off the French LT whilst the Italian Mortar zeroed in on the French MMG.
The rest of turn 3 was inconclusive with another missed Char b shot and Italian infantry taking a sprinkling of casualties from small arms.
Turn 4 the Italian LT snapped to action ordering the colonials to charge the AT Gun, the AT gun missed it's shot and was wiped out by the charging Libyans.
The L3 tankette moved up and Machinegunned the Regulars moving up in the ruin at the top of the above photo, whilst the Flamethrower L3 burnt the French infantry out of their ruins in the middle.
The final act of the game was an attempted advance order by the Veteran Char b, the French rolling a Fubar and the tank reserved off of the board ending the game with a lone French infantry squad going down after trying to charge the L3 tankette and engaging with their AT Grenades.
This secured the last objective on the campaign map for Italy, the 5 Victory cards were now drawn and 5 VP awarded to Italy ending the campaign.
Avanti Savoia!
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