Play Testing Israelis vs Egyptians 1967 (FOW)

Over the last month we have been getting in as many games of FOW for the Six Day War as possible. This weekend I finally remembered to bring my camera.

I was running an Israeli Tank Company, with 8 M51 Shermans, a platoon of Pattons, AMX-13's and Air support. I had, up to this point, stayed with the M50 Sherman mounting a 75mm gun similar to the Panther tank, but after watching shot after shot bounce off the front of the Egyptian T-55's I decided to go with the M51. The M51 Sherman carried a 105mm main gun that used fin stabilized HEAT rounds, and could deal with almost anything it encountered. That means it has an AT rating of 17 compared to 14 for the M50 in the game.

My opponent, Rob, took an Egyptian Infantry Battalion with two understrength companies, backed up by six IS-IIIs and a company of ten T-55's. So really it was just infantry in name since he almost had more tanks than infantry stands.

Our mission was breakthrough, with me as the attacker and the lists were 1780 points.
Be warned there was lots of proxies on the  board as I'm still building up the armies.

My M50 Shermans proxied as M51s.

Advancing towards the objectives.

IS-III's defending the town with an Egyptian Infantry company.

 Robert had sporadic air, thus the Stuka in the above picture representing Iraqi MiG-17s, but it could never get through the IAF. Rob's Egyptian infantry were an eclectic mix of Egyptian, German and Russian miniatures.

Avoiding the IS-III's since none of my tanks could kill them from the front.

I double the Shermans and the AMX-13s to stay away from the IS-III's in village. While the 122mm gun on the Stalins could potentially kill my M48's, kept them in the open to engage the infantry, and the IS-III's were horrendous at shooting throughout the game.

Those IS-IIIs sure do look like IS-2's.

A brave platoon of Shermans begins to move around the village.

 With the AMX-13's reaching the far right of the board, I moved one sherman platoon back around the left of the village to make the Stalins choose which enemy to face, leaving one group with side shots.

Objectives under control, now to wait for turn 6.

The Egyptian T-55's come on from the flank but fail to kill any Israeli tanks, even with stabilizers.

The long range shooting from Israeli tanks is devastating.

 The M48's with rangefinders and the Israeli equivalent of Semi indirect fire, hit with all six shots, and after the M51's joined in, the surviving few T-55's ran.

And the flanking platoon manages to get to the sides of the IS-III's.

While on the other side of the board the 2iC and three M51's managed to flank the IS-III's and kill several of them for the loss of only one Sherman. The poor Egyptian Infantry chased the Shermans around  for three turns but manged to miss every RPG shot they took. Then turn six began with me holding both objectives.

This game worked out well overall and was closer than it seemed. Had the Egyptian reinforcements turned up earlier, before I was able to consolidate my armor against them, things could have been very different.