Gabr El Ahmar August 1940

Inspired by Tims Corinth Canal game I thought I'd put on an NBC game using my slightly tweaked WW2 version (units were slower, shorter ranged and stood a bit closer together than on the nuclear battlefield!).

I'd bought the kit to do all the scenarios from Frank Chadwicks 'Benghazi Handicap' some years ago and added them to my existing 6mm desert stuff. As Simon had expressed an interest in using NBC for desert warfare I took the opportunity to work up the stats for the desert in 1940-42, largely based on my early Eastern Front stats.

This particular engagement was the first tank battle between British and Italian forces involving medium tanks, and was a chance to use my M11/39s.

The battlefield from the east. I oriented it this way as that is how I'll set the table up to play the game over Skype. The Italians are approaching from the North (right) and British from the South (left). The battle was fought along the coast road leading from Sidi Aziz to Fort Capuzzo. The map is my attempt to convert the one in the Benghazi Handicap book into hexes.

It was very interesting converting the Command Decision scenario into NBC as it raised a whole load questions about force/space ratios and movement rates. I ended up tweaking the NBC movement rates quite a bit to reflect operational experience of actual unit movement rates in various terrain types. The ranges were a bit of a fudge as rather than measuring hex-hex it is not unreasonable to assume that the units actually fill up a fair bit of the hex (so adjacent units are actually quite close).


The OBs were quite easy, I converted the CD platoons into NBC company equivalents and I applied the standard unit quality ratings. Morale levels are the hardest, but in the end I settled on CD morale 8 being the NBC equivalent of normal morale, plus or minus up and down levels from there (so CD Morale 10 or 11 units would essentially be immune to morale tests).

The combatants ended up looking like this. Once again I regretted selling my 15mm desert stuff, 6mm is a bit small for remote gaming.

British advanced guard, 8th Hussars with mainly Vickers IVb and a few A9s, plus a portee Hotchkiss 37mm AT troop and A Sqdn, 11th Hussars in Rolls Royce armoured cars.

Main body, 7th Armoured Brigade, 1st RTR with a squadron each of Mk VIb and A9s, Brigade HQ and A/1KRRC with another portee troop of 37mm guns, supported by a battery of RHA 18/25pdrs. The scenario lists 6th RTR, but that seems unlikely as they were assigned to the other brigade. 

Advanced Guard, Raggruppamento Aresca. I Medium Tank Battalion  with M11/39s and a company of Bersaglieri motorcyclists.

Aresca Main body. II Med Tank Bn (M11/39), IX Light Tank Bn (L3/35), Brigade HQ and brigade 47mm AT company. Supported by a full towed 75mm artillery battalion.

I kept similar sides to the Corinth Canal game to give each side a taste of using rather different quality troops to last time. Tim G, Richard and Simon got the Italians, while John and Tim C got 7th Armoured Brigade in its 1940 incarnation, probably the finest armoured formation ever fielded by the British Army. Just a shame there aren't very many of them....

As is currently the new normal, we ran this one over Skype over two nights.

The battlefield from the north. Gabr El Ahmar is raised on some extra hexes to show it can see over the lower hills. The unsightly labels are essential to help players orient themselves via video call.

I sent the players tons of briefing materials, and we had two seperate email threads going to deal with scenario questions and deployment discussion. It helps to be very prepared for remote games as you just don't have a chance for the pre-game chat. 

The Italian advance guard set up on Hill 32, and could see all the British armour 2 miles away down the valley.

8th Hussars set up on the road (the British were worried about an Italian dash for Fort Capuzzo), while 11th Hussars set up in the wadi, cunningly avoiding the movement penalties for crossing it. 

The Italians rumbled into hull down positions overlooking the main road, while the British pushed north.

The Italians opened fire at fairly long range, which didn't do any damage, but it prompted 8th Hussars to charge the Italian tanks! The Bersaglieri had been busy digging in when the great mass of British armour turned up.

It was all very unpleasant! Columns of black smoke rose into the sky, and when roll call was taken, it turned out that the British had lost over half their tanks, including all the cruisers, and the Italians had been wiped out! Hot dice on both sides.

Meanwhile the rest of 7th Armoured Brigade rolled up on Hill 38, ready to exploit the situation. The RHA set up their 18/25pdrs in support.

8th Hussars occupied the rest of Hill 32, and 11th Hussars tore up the road towards Sidi Aziz.

Ooer, the Italian main body then appeared from the east. Colonel Aresca personally leading II Medium Tank Bn.

The light tanks, AT guns and 75mm artillery rolled on behind Hill 31.

The remains of 8th Hussars (two weak squadrons of Mk VIb and a troop of portees) moved to stop them,

1st RTR pressed rapidly westwards to intervene. The KRRC headed for the Gabr, masked by the hill.

The Italian artillery soon spotted the clouds of dust from 1st RTR and opened fire on them, rapidly followed up by a close assault by Colonel Aresca and his M11/39s. The cavalry spirit was certainly alive today, and no-one had failed any morale tests at all.

This rapidly degenerated into a close range slugging match. At this stage every single element of both sides has taken a hit, but the grim struggle continues.

Meanwhile 8th Hussars charge the L3/35s on the hill.

Another bloodbath ensues, every Italian base is hit and a squadron of Mk VI goes up in flames, destroyed by the 47mm AT guns. The L3s can't actually damage the Vickers lights...

The KRRC occupy the farm and start to dig in. Their FOO scans the swirling tank battle for targets.

11th Hussars return from their roaming and join the battle on Hill 31, hoping to use their Boys ATRs at close range.

The Italians very wisely decide to withdraw, deliberately failing a morale test so they can fall back. This then opens up the British to Italian 75mm gunfire over open sights, and the KRRC spotters locate the firing Italian guns and bring down CB fire. Blimey, quite a lot going on.

Back with Aresca and 1st RTR, things are getting very messy. Both Briagde HQs are destroyed and the British lose the last of their light tanks. Everyone passes their morale and hangs on though.

The RHA provide fire support, shelling their opposite numbers.

Meanwhile 1KRRC are in firm possession of the farm.

We resumed the following day. View from the south. The Italians are clustered behind Hill 31 while they shell the Rolls Royces and Vickers Lights on the hill. The rest of the battlefield is littered with burning tanks.

The remains of 8th Hussars come off the hill to engage the few remaining M11/39s. Each side is down to a handful of operational tanks now. The Italian 75s continue to shell the British.

In a surprise move, the 11th Hussars disengage and head for the coastal road.

The tank battle ends in mutual annihilation.

The Italian artillery scores a long range hit on the 11th Hussars and one of the armoured car troops goes up in flames.

The survivors however motor down the road in fine style and capture the exit point leading to Sidi Aziz.

Meanwhile, the Italian L3s reorganise themselves and living up to their 'high speed' designation, set off south in the direction of Fort Capuzzo.

The RHA finally manage to hit one of the Italian batteries.

This prompts them to pack up and head for home.

Much to everyone's surprise, the 37mm portees up on Gabr el Ahmar open fire at extreme range and manage to knock out a company of L3s. The rest of them pressed on but time ran out.  The game had a random end time, 8-12 turns or four to six hours, and the timer stopped at five hours, which is pretty average for a WW2 brigade level engagement.  

At the end of the game the British were left in possession of both Gabr El Ahmar and the road leading to Sidi Aziz, while the Italians hadn't made it down to Fort Capuzzo. On paper, a fairly resounding British victory, however both sides had managed to lose the bulk of their armour and although I'm sure the majority had either broken down or suffered just minor damage, it would cripple both sides ability to continue the campaign.

In real life, Aresca actually won this battle. 8th Hussars were bounced by the Italian Advance Guard and withdrew after losing half a dozen tanks without managing to knock out any of the M11/39s in return. The main bodies never really got to grips after a short while later 7th Armoured Div withdrew back to Egypt to refit as it vehicles were suffering heavy wear. Later in 1940 they launched Operation Compass and destroyed the entire Italian Army in Cyrencia, but that is a different story.

I realised after the game that I'd been a bit over generous with the morale ratings (only one unit failed its morale in the entire game!), so for future converted CD scenarios I'll rank it down a notch. I also need to tweak some of the equipment ratings to better reflect actual effective ranges in the desert, but on the whole it worked well and the players claimed to enjoy it. The biggest surprise was how quickly it went, I'm used to NBC games being a bit sedate. Tim thought it was because I was rolling all the dice. With multiple dice of different dice being thrown for movement and combat resolution, the scope for 'dice dithering' in f2f games is fairly great, whereas with the umpire doing it, it flew along.