Thermo #1*
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Anzac Delay vs German Advance*

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24 April 1941 *

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Scenario Design: Pyros Lambert*
Map Design: Pyros Lambert*
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Primary Objectives:*
You should deploy in the East edge of the map and you must assist to the defense of the area.*
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Secondary Objectives:*
You should try to stop the enemy flanking maneuver from the South.*
You should try to inflict maximum damage to the enemy tank columns that will move along the North road and will exit the map as soon as they reach the East edge of the map.*
You should be very cautious with the casualty rate of your Core Force because you might face total destruction during this battle!*
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INTEL:*
You will face two Infantry Bn advancing from the West to the East and two Pz Coys (convoy) advancing from the West and exiting at the NE edge of the map.*
The Monastery will be target of a multi-directional attack, and the enemy patrols will try to infiltrate your lines.*
I suggest you to deploy your artillery assets somewhere to the SE corner.* 
You should kill as many tanks as possible in order to score killing points.*
Be cautious with the enemy ON-Map artillery units and try to counter-strike them at any occasion (look for smoke traces).*
The enemy will receive as reinforcements several ammo unit (resupply) next to each on map artillery after turn 50.*
You should always consider to retreat and create a new defensive perimeter backward (to the East) from your current positions.*
Whenever possible try to take advantage of the tall buildings.*
The enemy is controlling both the West edge of the map.*
The convoy will leave the map from the NE exit location.*
You should make use of any forward deployed 25 pdr gun for direct fire missions rather than indirect artillery missions.*
It may be rewarding if you can redeploy your AUX artillery to the rear of your lines.*
Expect heavy artillery barrage and several air strikes during the first turns of the battle that will neutralize your forward infantry positions and your rear artillery park.*
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Historical Background*
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Guns v. Tanks, Molos  *
(text from www.nzetc.org)*
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Brigadier Miles meanwhile took advantage of this slow beginning of the attack to confer with his commanding officers about details of the withdrawal, and General Freyberg arrived at the gathering. He suggested that some guns might possibly be brought out when 6 Brigade withdrew that night. Accordingly, Miles ordered that each battery must take out half its complement of guns, which greatly complicated existing arrangements.*
From midday for a full hour the whole front was heavily dive-bombed and machine-gunned from the air. Grey smoke from the bursting bombs covered the gun areas and observation officers on the heights above watched keenly for signs of the long-awaited advance. No immediate danger seemed to threaten, but there was much movement in the distance. Meanwhile an officer of 25 Battalion complained that there were no anti-tank guns in his area, a matter that was hard to check and therefore worrying to Miles's headquarters. (The officer was mistaken: three troops of the 5th Field and six guns of 31 Anti-Tank Battery were all well forward.)*
A rather half-hearted attempt by the enemy to get tanks across the swampy land early in the afternoon resulted in one of them getting stuck in the mud, and this deterred the German commander from any further efforts to develop the only kind of tank attack that had any hope of success. In this at least the Germans were less thorough than their reputation suggested. Their hasty dismissal of the cross-country route to Molos was a godsend to the defence. The tank attack they chose to mount in mid-afternoon was by single file along the road, a method offering such little hope of success (against what must by that time have been recognised by the Germans as a strong gun group) that Miles and Duff had not even considered this possibility. They had not counted on meeting an enemy so impatient and contemptuous of opposition as to mount such a suicidal assault.*
The attack along the road, moreover, bore little relation to an infantry attack (supported by a reconnaissance unit) mounted along the road and along the rough country south of it. This was slow to develop, however, having been delayed by 6th Field concentrations in the morning and early afternoon. Motorcyclists and cyclists led the attack along the road at 4 p.m. and for the moment the 6th Field was silent, its communications having been cut by a heavy air raid. The infantry posts on the extreme left of 25 Battalion therefore went into action and quickly checked the advance along the road. For the New Zealand infantry this was the beginning of a difficult action in which the weakness of their dispositions on this flank were soon exploited. The following enemy infantry, unable to get farther along the road, pushed up into the hills and began to turn the flank of 25 Battalion, which responded rather slowly to this challenge.*
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