Rommel's First Offensive - solo AAR

[zovs66]

Changing directions a bit, I startup War on the Southern Front from the Strategic War series and select the scenario entitled #230: Rommel's First Offensive.

So in this solo AAR I'll take the Axis and be playing against the Allied AI.

This scenario is 14 turns long covering the time period of 24 March to 25 April 1941.

This is from the scenario description:

"North Africa, March 24th 1941: Rommel had arrived in Tripoli mid February, by mid March he assessed that the British were not going to attack, indeed they were using troops from North Africa to bolster the defence of Greece. Accordingly, he attacked using 5th Light Division with two Italian divisions. Meeting little opposition they swiftly moved east along three axes of advance, arriving piecemeal at Tobruk on April 10th. The British had reinforced Tobruk with the 7th Australian Division which grimly held the port. Rommel bypassed Tobruk and finally ran out of steam after taking the Halfaya Pass at Buq-Buq on April 25th."

Here you can see the starting map zoomed out.


I now added in the jump map and all the yellow squares on the jump map are objective or VP hexes/locations.


Here is the Victory Dialog showing how many objectives I need to take.


As you can see the first objective is Msus and in the lead I have the 5th Light Panzer Division along with the Italian 7th Bersaglieri Regiment, VII Armored Battalion, 132nd Armored Division and elements of the HQ DAK and X Italian Corps.

[zovs66]

Turn 1

Starting off I send out two recon aircraft but only get minimal results back.


So I'll have to do a recon in force.

The Italians discover nothing yet.


The 5th Light is a bit more successful.


Stumbling across a combined arms force.


Making some adjustments to my moves my ending turn looks like this:


I decide not to attack yet, these two units should be isolated and I want to see if I can keep my losses to a minimum.

I do decide to try an air attack with Italian bombers but its not quite so successful.


For those that do not know the numbers before the slash are my losses and the numbers after the slash are the enemies losses.

[zovs66]

Turn 2

During the Allied turn, part of my 5th Light Pz. was attacked by Allied air and I lost a few points.

My Air Support is shown as the following.


Using all my Stukas and lastly the Italian bombers I don't seem to get a lot of effect. This was my last attack with the bombers. The Stukas all showed a brown 1, so I was assuming this was losses to the air unit, but it might have been to the Allies, I did not check the VPs until just now, so I'll have to keep an eye on that. Another inconsistency between the series is in the loss/victory screen, it would be nice to have the losses segregated out like the other series.


Well I decided to reduce the British position, it took three attacks.

#1


#2


#3


End of turn 2 positions and losses.

[zovs66]

Turn 3

No much Allied reaction yet.

Mostly moving into position heading for now towards Msus. But do decide to make an air attack on the Free French units there which totally obliterates them.


End of turn 3 positions.

[zovs66]

Turn 4

No Allied contact.

Just movement end of turn 4 positions.

[zovs66]

Turn 5

Again no contact and just moving into positions.

[zovs66]

Turn 6

British air attacks on this hex.


Moving into attack position near Benghazi and stumbled across a NZ unit and brining in some Stuka attack.


First Italian attack on Benghazi was not successful.


End of turn 6 positions.

[zovs66]

Turn 7

Mud conditions!

Allies air attack again.


Benghazi, nice Italian Stuka attack.


Second Italian Stuka attack obliterates the garrison!


German Stuka attack.


Two German attacks to mop up the NZ infantry.


Second attack.


End of turn 7 positions.

[zovs66]

Turn 8

Allies attack the Italians.


Tough battle here.


Capture Gazala and almost overran and took Derna.

Ending positions.

[zovs66]

Turn 9

An Allied air attack but 7 of my units (all German) are out of supply (so need to figure out why, the supply toggle shows all is okay).


The 7 units out of supply and the one hex that was attacked by air.


Italian attack goes in okay, but did not expect the CW to retreat like so.


Final positions at end of turn.