Post by FaithandFire on Jul 12, 2008 19:24:59 GMT -5
There is panic on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria this evening as evacuation orders accompanied the announcement that the British 8th Army is abandoning its positions at El Alamein and retreating eastward toward Palestine. A massed British armored counterattack to drive Rommel off of Ruweisat Ridge today has failed.
Yesterday the Axis forces mounted attacks on the British fortified lines and, after some of the most intense fighting of the North African campaign so far, managed a small breakthrough. Over the evening Axis armor poured through and seized Rusiewat Ridge, a key piece of terrain dominating the center of the British positions.
The British tank armada hurled itself at the ridge today, counting on their superior numbers and firepower to prevail. Instead, they ran into a veritable torrent of Axis fire. German tanks, backed up up by their infamous 88mm guns, firing from fixed positions on the ridge line stopped the British assault cold, inflicting catastrophic casualties. The arrival of Italian tank units on the British flank and rear late in the day, sealed the fate of the allied forces.
Egypt has fallen.
Capt. Chuckles, the hero of the earlier border battle with Rommel's forces, has been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Having had one platoon of tanks destroyed while in the vanguard of the first assault, he promptly returned to the field with a second platoon, only to be killed while making a second assault on the ridge.
NOTE - Sorry, guys! I thought the scenario was balanced!!
Yesterday the Axis forces mounted attacks on the British fortified lines and, after some of the most intense fighting of the North African campaign so far, managed a small breakthrough. Over the evening Axis armor poured through and seized Rusiewat Ridge, a key piece of terrain dominating the center of the British positions.
The British tank armada hurled itself at the ridge today, counting on their superior numbers and firepower to prevail. Instead, they ran into a veritable torrent of Axis fire. German tanks, backed up up by their infamous 88mm guns, firing from fixed positions on the ridge line stopped the British assault cold, inflicting catastrophic casualties. The arrival of Italian tank units on the British flank and rear late in the day, sealed the fate of the allied forces.
Egypt has fallen.
Capt. Chuckles, the hero of the earlier border battle with Rommel's forces, has been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Having had one platoon of tanks destroyed while in the vanguard of the first assault, he promptly returned to the field with a second platoon, only to be killed while making a second assault on the ridge.
NOTE - Sorry, guys! I thought the scenario was balanced!!
