It's a Long Way to Tipperary Tournament - Round 3 - S43 DIME Beach

[Steel God]

Situation at the end of Turn 16 – 1200 July 11th 1943

Well, isolating the Livorno’s infantry battalions along the Gela River certainly got a reaction from Brian, unfortunately much more than I was hoping for.  He didn’t just move up an Italian unit and pull them back, he also shifted all his German Armor to the west, including putting his Tigers in the stack with the Italian Armor and Motorcycle troops which will make them much more effective since they cannot be so casually assaulted with those infantry escorts.  This does make his position adjacent to the Acale River’s west bank a bit weaker though which he is either willing to risk because he judges the distance to VPs from that direction to be too far away, or he has help coming in the form of some of the HG Panzer Grenadiers that had been mucking about east of the Acale River.  I have not been able to see them all for some time, and some could have moved back north and then south again.  I think pushing against the Italians remains my best bet.  

Brian’s rearrangement of his troops makes the idea of casual assaults much less appealing, so we did some rearranging of our own, making sure all our infantry battalions are now double stacked, which should give them numerical advantages in the event of all assaults, except in the sector occupied by the Livorno infantry and they have some disruptions and hopefully low ammo issues as a result of being isolated.  I did consider assaulting them with my 1st ID battalions opposite them but too many low ammo issues of my own to feel comfortable with it.  Generally, just resorted to SA fires and one assault on the HG Panzer Gren unit that was disrupted in the 45th ID sector.  They are in a bad way after 2 successful assaults and unless he does have someone coming up behind them, I expect Brian to pull back in that sector this turn.  The score stands at 654 pretty much where it has been +/- 15 VPs for quite some time.