Norm’s Americans were victorious over Eldon’s Germans in a close fought battle in Canicatti, Sicily on July 1943. The Americans had to clear out all the German MMCs from the hill behind the town while the Germans either had to prevent that or eliminate/recall/immobolize 4 American AFVs.
The battle saw two of Norm’s Shermans destroyed by an 50L antitank gun on a pillbox on the hill, which incidentally had a commanding view of the town. One of Norm’s Shermans was recalled after breaking the MA after a faile repair attempt. German infantry rained fire from trenches on the hill and another antitank gun lurked in the buildings below. The pillbox antitank gun eventually wore out and broke, and the Shermans then began to pummel the Germans in their trenches. The lurking antitank gun finally opened up on the lone hull down Sherman in its LOS but was never able to take it out – even after scoring a critical hit. Eventually, Norm’s infantry was able to mop up the remaining forces in the hill and the game was over – decided at the very end.
We made two critical rules misinterpretations which was not surprising, considering the two players were relatively new to ASL. They were:
- A critical hit on one of Norm’s tanks on the last turn of the game was ruled ineffective as we thought the shot hit the wall the tank was behind – it was hull down at the time and the dice were tied (snakeyes!). This was incorrect as critical hits automatically hit the turret if the tank is hull down.
- One of Norm’s tanks broke his malf’ed main gun during a repair attempt and was automatically recalled. We thought repair attempts were mandatory, but these are in fact is optional. Norm would not chanced a repair of his gun if that would have introduced the chance of the AFV being recalled.