A Qualified Success Battle Report - Game 0

My buddy Greg and I have started to play through A Qualified Success, a "Pint Sized Campaign" written for the WWII game Chain of Command. The campaign focuses on Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, specifically the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry pushing north toward Syracuse while the Italian Coastal defenders and Napoli Infantry Regiment try to slow them down.

July 10, 1943

1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment has been scattered across Southwest Sicily overnight in the opening hours of Operation Husky, the invasion of that island by the Allies. By morning, Lt. Harry Kane manages to gather disparate groups of paratroopers into something resembling a platoon and begins moving towards the bridge that was their original objective.

Meanwhile the 54th Napoli Infantry Regiment is responding to scattered and confusing reports of paratroopers all along the coast and further inland. A platoon under Tenente Bortolo Saracco moves to pursue reports of British soldiers West of Cassibile.
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Kane’s paratroopers have not made it to their objective when they are forced to seek shelter in the Villa del Marchese, a stone mansion set among an olive orchard and farmland.

A squad from the 54th Napoli supported by a Fiat light tank moves through the waist high crops towards the villa when they are pinned down by accurate Bren fire from the windows. A rifle squad under Sergente Matarazzo, a 40 year old office clerk who suddenly finds bravery under this baptism of fire, attempts to flank the villa to the left. Meanwhile an Italian machine gun opens up from the Italian right flank, putting additional pressure on the paratroopers.

Sniper fire from the villa temporarily silences the machine gun and Lt Kane senses the opportunity to pressure the right flank of the Italians. A British squad moves out to toss some grenades at the machine gun crew but as they hop over a low stone wall a fresh section of Italians appear out of a ditch and the paras are caught in a withering fire in the open. Dragging their wounded sergeant they pull back behind the stone wall.

As Matarazzo’s rifle team moves within grenade range of the Villa's windows, Kane decides to abandon the villa and pull back into the nearby hills. Concern about being ambushed by additional paratroopers causes the Italians not to pursue. Now Kane will need to hold out and await relief from the 8th Army Forces fighting their way inland from the beaches...