Kasserine Kick-off : Feb 14, 1943

[MengJiao]

  Well its exactly 78 years since Rommel unleashed whatever he could find against the US II Corps in Tunisia.  I've probably played more Kasserine Pass games than any other and that includes Gettysburg, Waterloo and the Battle of the Bulge.  Anyway...this Battalion Combat one seems like the best so far.

So far, KG Gerhardt has kicked things off with a SNAFU, CCC has gotten back to Sbeiitla, CCA has rescued Water's Battalion, KG Stinkoff has gotten entangled with KG Gerhardt and Rommel is on the phone with Gerhardt and we're only about halfway through Feb 14.

This is such an intriguing presentation of a pretty ideal battle...scale is about a mile and battalions are the basic units in the BCS.  Time is about a day...seems pretty ideal (especially after OCS yikes and yikes again).  anyway here's an image at about noon on the 14th:

 

[Gusington]

I like that the Roman aqueducts are represented

[MengJiao]

I like that the Roman aqueducts are represented

  Yep, there are many touches of intense coolness to this presentation of Kasserine.  For example, there are some extra tank destroyers for CCA in every box of Brazen Chariots.  I guess you are supposed to limit yourself to just one set, but still they can be handy for slowing down those Tigers about to hammer on a straggling infantry battalion.  Plus, given the sparse road net, its kind of hard to avoid having coordination problems sowing potential SNAFUs into the converging Axis forces.  AND Rommel isn't sure what ultimate victory hexes Commando Supremo is going to set once the Tigers get rolling in toward Kasserine.  Still, driving off the map to the west or north gives an automatic victory so its not all that mysterious.
   Slightly more mysterious is the representation of Drake's TF (a lot bigger than Water's force on the Djebel to the north).  Drake apparently had close to 2000 men.  the game has them as 10 steps that can barely move.  Presumably they needed some kind of transport for their heavy weapons and didn't have it.  Still if you beef them up with South Africans from Brazen Chariots (who are Orange and just as green as the Americans in this battle) they can recapture Sidi bou Zid if KG has the Bungles and SNAFU rolls that it did in this game.  Anyway they retook Sidi bou Zid and are causing roughly the historical amount of confusion to 10 Pz's advance on the 15th.
   

[MengJiao]

I like that the Roman aqueducts are represented

  Yep, there are many touches of intense coolness to this presentation of Kasserine.
 

   Here, after three days of battle, the battered US 1st Armored Division is barely holding on to Sbeitla in the face of attacks from the 21st and 10th Panzer Divisions:
   
 

[MengJiao]

I like that the Roman aqueducts are represented

  Yep, there are many touches of intense coolness to this presentation of Kasserine.
 

   Here, after three days of battle, the battered US 1st Armored Division is barely holding on to Sbeitla in the face of attacks from the 21st and 10th Panzer Divisions:
 

   And on the morning of the 18th...the Afrika Korps arrives at Kasserine from the SW, demonstrating why it was just as well that the US 1st Armored got out of Sbeilta right about then.  It was going to be hard to hold with the Afrika Korps behind them no matter what.  Sort of ironically, I've sent on 21 PZ KG off to rejoin Rommel just as the British Guards Brigade turns up in Sbeilta just in time to assist in getting out of there if they are not trapped in a giant traffic jam of ever-widening SNAFUs.  Meanwhile it will not be until the 19th that Commando Supremo sets the objectives (and victory conditions) and also meanwhile, KG Gerhardt is off on a loop to Foudouk and airstrikes have put the Tigers out of action:

   

[MengJiao]

   And on the morning of the 18th...the Afrika Korps arrives at Kasserine from the SW, demonstrating why it was just as well that the US 1st Armored got out of Sbeilta right about then.  It was going to be hard to hold with the Afrika Korps behind them no matter what.  Sort of ironically, I've sent on 21 PZ KG off to rejoin Rommel just as the British Guards Brigade turns up in Sbeilta just in time to assist in getting out of there if they are not trapped in a giant traffic jam of ever-widening SNAFUs.  Meanwhile it will not be until the 19th that Commando Supremo sets the objectives (and victory conditions) and also meanwhile, KG Gerhardt is off on a loop to Foudouk and airstrikes have put the Tigers out of action:

 

  And DAK punches into Kasserine.  TF Stark is just going to have to get out of there, then the TF and Welvert's French Troops and US Rangers can probably hold the road along the Hatab River:

[Uberhaus]

If my grandfather was still alive to see your AAR he'd smash his teletype, burn his codebooks, dig a slit trench and ready his Lee-Enfield all over again.
I'm going to look into getting this from MMP, looks very nice.  Thanks for the AAR Meng Jiao, it makes me quiver.

[MengJiao]

If my grandfather was still alive to see your AAR he'd smash his teletype, burn his codebooks, dig a slit trench and ready his Lee-Enfield all over again.
I'm going to look into getting this from MMP, looks very nice.  Thanks for the AAR Meng Jiao, it makes me quiver.

  Glad you like it and I do recommend the game.  It's about 60 bucks brand new on ebay these days.  MMP seems to have raised its prices and changed its website so I'd say get it on ebay or amazon.  I got this copy in a "bid" set up on ebay, so that's another thing to watch for.

[MengJiao]

  And DAK punches into Kasserine.  TF Stark is just going to have to get out of there, then the TF and Welvert's French Troops and US Rangers can probably hold the road along the Hatab River:

  On the 19th TF Stark undergoes a partial SNAFU and can't get away-- it is more or less chopped to peices by DAK and half of 21 PZ.  But sorry don't feed the bulldog and you don't get points for capturing 6 or 7 thousand Americans in this game (just as well maybe since three months later the allies would capture all 300,000 Axis troops in Tunisia) AND the morning of the 20th finds Rommel stuck...can't get to Tebessa the objective he wanted.  SNAFUs have slowed down everybody on the limited road net.  Most of the US 34th Division is arriving with shattering amounts of artillery and a big command control radius.  Even TF Stark gets out some minefields.  The Allies couldn't get out of Sbeilta even if they wanted to.

The offensive is over.  Maybe the Ziegler- Commando Supremo short thrust to Le Kef solution with lots of support was the better plan than the Rommel-Kesselring deep thrust to Tebessa.  After All Commando Supremo might have had a better idea of how the war was going since Italy had just had its entire army in Russia wiped out by Little Saturn only a month and a half ago.  And that's the third entire Italian Army wiped out (1 in Eithiopia, one by Operation Compass earlier)...if you count things in Russia that's a total of seven axis armies gone before 3 or 4 more surrender in Tunis for a total of 10 or 11 a few months after Kasserine.

So I'll try the Ziegler solution -- more Axis air cover (representing the better support on the shorter thrust) and fewer US battalions wandering around Faid Pass.  Plus Ziegler will know that Rommel is a diversion (Morgenluft) and Le Kef is the objective.