Sicily 1943 : Taking the Initiative Part 1

For a while now I have been pondering the long and conflicted history of Sicily and more specifically how I have three collections/periods who all fought for Sicily through the ages. The Greeks Athenians and Spartans, the Norman’s and Arabs and then WW2 Allies and Axis powers. I thought it would be kind of fun to try and find a scenario that we could play the same battle but over the three different periods ?

I found a scenario which I think might work in this little book I have had for ages

The scenario is described as taking the initiative a small force is holding out against a much larger attacker while reserves are brought up to try and hold the river crossings. As is my want I tweaked things a bit, the Italians would be defending in this battle the Americans assaulting. The river would be crossable for infantry. I added in the potential for both American and German paratroopers to arrive. Basically a D6 would be pulled from the bag each turn and rolled, this gave an increasing likely hood as time went on that more American Paratroopers would arrive but a fairly unlikely chance of Fallschirmjager arriving ! The American objective was to get to and capture the two nearest bridges.

The terrain setup for 1943, the small Italian force is dug in the far village with some artillery and mortar support near their baseline.

They have also sent two small tankettes forward to help the defence ?

Turn one starts and the allied commander rolls a ‘one’ bringing on a unit of Fallschirmjager 😂 the Americans start their advance to the first bridge crossing armour and infantry in trucks

Second turn and the Allies manage to call in some American paratroopers as well who immediately assault an Italian sniper position on the hill

The battle is just starting to hot up and the Italians bring on some reserve infantry to guard one of the second bridges

A British Hurricane flying over from Malta supports the assault

The American armour make it into the village but foolishly pause at the junction to fire, the Italians have positioned an antitank rifle in the olive grove and a lucky shot knocks the track of the leading Sherman, it is immobilised for the whole battle and completely block the road, everything else will now have to skirt around the village wasting time !

After this success the Americans counter and manage to land a mortar round directly on the Fallschirmjager squad they are wiped out

The American log jam is kicking in and slowing their progress down. To add to this the small Italian flame tank melts the tyres on the M8 Greyhound, it too is no immobilised in the village.

General Patton rushes across the bridge to find out what the hold up is (at this point I put all my efforts into the Fallschirmjager capturing the General but sadly this was just a dream), the Second Sherman starts to move around the village to progress.

Some Italians were hiding in the village which is targeted setting one of the buildings on fire

The Hurricane sweeps about trying to pin down the defenders

Whilst the Henschel attempts to shoot down the Hurricane. The Italians in the forward village hold on as along as possible

Chaos in the village with burning vehicles

View from the church

Italians strategically pull back from the village to create a second defence line. Sadly and but perhaps not before time the flame tank takes a hit and whoosh !🔥🔥🔥🔥

The Americans are now starting to outflank the village

But at this point they are still some way from the two objective bridges

A shot from behind the American lines

Unlikely as it seems second and then a third unit of Fallschirmjager are activated on the table, but these are then attacked by American paratroopers who also arrive on the table

The Americans advance slowly but relentlessly towards their objectives, much of their infantry has been thrown back but the Americans push forward with their armour. Claiming both bridges

The bridge on the left is still contested but the Italians have made the Americans pay dearly for the victory.

Once again a fun game played out over the day. Bolt action giving quick and flexible rules. The plan is to reset the table at some point to play broadly the same scenario but in the two earlier periods, this will probably be in 2026 now.

We had a trip to Manchester on Saturday, a bit of shopping a splendid Model Railway show and an Art gallery where we saw this lovely Lady Butler picture of the Crimea. I would definitely put this on the wall if I had it.

Finally have been been painting some units are only partly completed but these WW2 German zombies are the only unit to get finished so far ……..not sure when they will get some action if ever ? But I did have some good ideas about how I would use them…..we’ll see.

Once again thanks for popping by and reading my progress

A few more games and things before Christmas, I have no real intention of stopping over Christmas anyway

Thanks Matt❤️