Sidi Bou Zid - Pictures
These are the pictures from the first leg - Chris Pringle was playing his Americans and I was playing the Germans. All models, apart from the Marder-III are H&R/Navwar
Combat Command C strung out across the desert in its starting positions. H&R Shermans
Sidi Bou Zid and the German defenders. The Mosque model was brought by Chris from a tourist shop in Istanbul.
T30 75mm HMC
First blood to the Germans - long range shot by a Marder-III in the vicinity of Sidi Bou Zid. 2nd Battalion 1st Armoured lurks, hull down, in the wadi.
105mm HMC of the 68th Artillery take up positions in Sadagiria
II Abt 7 Panzer Regiment arrive on table
The Marder-III chooses to advance in support. Model by Scotia - the hull is good but the casemate is way too low and really needs replacing. This is the wrong model of Marder, the 90th had the earlier version with the Russian 76.2mm.
Panzers close on the Shermans. Out of shot several Shermans are already burning
Run away! The armoured infantry bolt for the table edge.
I Abt 5 Panzer Regiment arrives
PzKfw-IIIL of I Abt 5 Panzer Regiment
US 37mm bounces shots off the armour of the PzKfw-III
As the US halftracks flee they are shot up by KG Stenkhoff. The T30 blows up. As is traditional any new unit you slave over before a game dies without doing anything useful!
Last M3 75mm GMC of 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion tries desperately to stem the tide of panzers
Predictably the US forces got gut to pieces. However Chris did manage to get 8 halftracks off the board, and killed a couple of Panzers, so scored 16 victory points.
In the Second leg Chris tried a different strategy and sent his tanks after the half tracks mostly ignoring the Shermans except for some long range sniping with the 88 and the Marders. This move wrecked all the halftracks and deprived the US of nearly all their artillery, only the 81mm mortar remained hidden in the Wadi. However it gave the US forces time to secure Sidi Salem, and take up defensive positions. This proved to be a game winner, although all the US tanks succumbed to the panzers they managed to destroy 5 panzers and a Marder give me 24 victory points. To be fair to Chris I think he misunderstood the victory conditions when he first deployed (or I didn't explain them properly) and he may have done better if he'd understood them more clearly.