Bon Giorno Tomahawks

I spent a good part of yesterday playing Chris Maiorana's latest Command Ops masterpiece, Across the Tartar Ditch. Chris just keeps knocking out great additions to Command Ops in a theater not yet part of any of the official expansions. Look for this one later this week or next on Sharp End Gaming. This is not an easy scenario for either side!

All of that blizkrieging left me homesick for Sicily though. I returned to the sunny Mediterranean today at a very tactical level with Aris' semi-historical scenario for Combat Mission Fortress Italy: Bon Giorno Tomahawks.

Pz. Kpfw IV's brew up as they're flanked by a platoon of Shermans. More tanks support infantry in the village

 The scenario concerns a hypothetical attack by elements of 2/179th of the 45th Infantry Division on July 13th, 1943 against a hilltop village held by elements of the Herman Goering Division. While the situation and the terrain are hypothetical, these units were in the area specified in the scenario briefing at the time and did fight.

I didn't grab a bunch of screenshots; I honestly just wanted to play. This would make a great scenario for some awesome screenshots though; there's nothing subtle about this scenario and there's a lot of stuff exploding and a lot of lead in the air.

Unfortunately, we're dealing with a prepared position on high ground, backed up by armor. I did my best to avoid heavy casualties, but ended the scenario feeling like I'd taken a beating.

And while I did, the Germans took an even worse beating. There were about a dozen smoke columns around the town and entire platoons laying dead in and around the buildings. Once I drove the tanks into the town (!) it was pretty grim for the defenders.

This was a fun, if not particularly historically accurate scenario. I first tried it real time but ended up playing it WEGO because of all of the troops under my control. The Combat Mission games reward micro-management, that's for sure!