Tummar West, December 6th 1940

 Now that I've got a good stock of 15mm desert stuff, I thought I'd revisit some of the games I ran during lockdown with my 6mm stuff and NATO Brigade Commander, and do them again in 15mm with One Hour WW2. Decent scenarios warrant a number of replays I feel. In this case I went right back to Operation Compass and I managed to run this game on December 10th, just a few days (and 84 years) after the real battle on  Dec 6th 1940.

This is a scenario from Benghazi Handicap and features 4th Indian Div rolling up the Italian fortresses as the first phase of Operation Compass, Wavells great desert counteroffensive.

 Specifically this battle features 5th Indian Brigade and 4th Libyan Raggruppamento.

Battlefield from the south. The fortified camp of Tummar West is fairly obvious in the middle of the table. The British have to capture the northern hill and the camp and the road exit leading east as the Brigade is supposed to be taking Tummar East after this attack. Some British armoured cars are dimly visible shooting up Italian supply convoys west of the camp.

The British first wave - 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers who have been fully motorised, supported by 25th Field Regt and 7th Medium Regt with 6" howitzers. The Indian assault is staggered so the heavy guns (and tanks) can switch from one fort to the next.

Jerry commands the 1RRF and John is the brigadier, resplendant in his Indian Pattern Carrier. The brigade also has two LOG columns - my Austin K2 Ambulance and Scammel heavy recovery vehicle.

The follow up wave are 7th RTR in Matildas and 3/1 Punjab Regt. The Matildas are late as they have been busy attacking Nibiewa further south. Mark has 7th RTR and Jim has 3/1 Punjab on Tuesday. On Wednesday Ian will take over the Punjabs.

Here are the bulk of 4th Libyan Raggruppamento, VII Buerat Bn, XIV Sorman Bn and I/2nd Libyan Artillery. VII Bn has been reinforced with a company of autocanone and normally XIV Bn would be light infantry but has also been reinforced, giving it a bit more firepower. Tim and Pete command these guys.

There is currently a sandstorm, restricting visibility to 1 hex!

Off table is more artillery (III/202 Arty), XV Jefren Bn and IX Light Tank Battalion, the divisional reserve. Pete will command these on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Micheal and Simon take over. Russell is regimental CO in his racy saloon car. The Italians just have one LOG column. 

And here is the British propaganda film! The Desert Air Force will be more random than in our regular games. Close air support wasn't really a thing in the desert  in1940.

The Italians also have some planes, busy chasing off the British armoured cars. Like the RAF, they will be somewhat random.

So off we go, 1st RRF sets up quite aggressively to attack the camp from the south. Personally I'd have tried to pick the defences apart piecemeal rather than go in at 2:3 odds against a fortification, but hey ho.

The British close up with the wall very aggressively. In fact this deployment does restrict the Italian fire as the sandstorm is still in effect, so only the VII Libyan  can actually see them. They open up with small arms and the Italian artillery drops fairly ineffective shell fire on them.

Fortune favours the brave! Behind a stunning heavy artillery barrage and shot in by one half of the battalion, with other half storms over the perimeter wall and routs the Libyans! Well blow me down. I guess the RRF are veterans and the Libyans were poor, but even so. The 6" howitzers helped a lot too, as they ignore the rudimentary defences.

The RRF had to leave their lorries behind outside the fort, and the Matildas roll up a bit late to the party.

The Italians respond by firing everything they have at the troops inside the camp. The Italian gunners heroically fire over open sights. The weight of fire inflicts enough losses to disorganise the British. 

The British artillery switches to the gun positions inside the camp, while the British LOG busily resupplies 1/RRF who are really quite battered after their accelerated assault. 7th RTR manouvres up to the edge of the fort, relying on their heavy armour to shrug off the Italian fire. 

The British artillery reduces the Italian guns to half strength and they become disordered.

The Italians choose to fire rather than reorganise, and combined with their artillery and fire from Hill 89 it is sufficient to rout the first wave of 1/RRF. The British have been ejected from the camp again!

The British artillery hammers the Italian guns as the second wave of 1/RRF somewhat nervously crosses the wall and reoccupies Hill 92 over the corpses of their pals. The Matildas attempt to assault the disorganised Italian artillery, six dice needing 3+, and they roll..... one measly hit. The tanks are repulsed and lose 1 hit (I've reverted to this system as I find it easier to remember).

The Italian guns only have one hit left and even if they reorganise are unlikely to survive, so they limber up and pull out. The only access for wheeled vehicles is via the gates in the camp wall, so they drive out of the camp eastwards. They would have gone further but had to limber up while under a barrage.

The XIV Libyan Bn pours fire into the British infantry across the valley coupled with their offtable artillery and inflicts enough hits to disorganise them. The autocanone boost their firepower quite a lot. A good defensive position this one!

Just as the attack is faltering, the 1/3 Punjabs come marching on. They follow in the footsteps of the Matildas.

There is a bit of a lull in the fighting. 1/RRF reorganises in situ and the Matildas motor off to cut the road east while the Punjabs march parallel to the fort. Sadly for the Italian gunners they are spotted and their convoy blown to pieces by 25pdrs as they try to escape. It is all down the XIV Libyan now.

The Reggia Aeronautica puts in an appearance and bombs the Punjabs. Meanwhile the Italians resupply their guns and the XIV keep up a steady fire on 1/RRF.

It is now the turn of the British to run out of ammunition and the supply columns busily ferry shells forwards. 1/RRF pulls back behind the hill, disordered but out of sight to reorganise next turn while the Matildas shell Hill 89 ineffectively. The Punjabs shake out into line and close with the camp perimeter while the Desert Airforce turns up and bombs Hill 89. It doesn't inflict much damage but suppresses the defenders.

Just about to go into turn 7, and we stopped for the evening there. The British are lined up to assault Hill 89, and unbeknownst to them, the Italian reinforcements are just about to turn up. The Italians still control both objectives (the Matildas didn't occupy the road exit hex on their drive north), so still everything to play for.

The British artillery is fairly ineffective and the first assault by the Punjabs is repulsed. They have taken so many losses now that they are disorganised. The other half of the Regiment has occupied the centre of the camp. The Libyans are in poor shape now though.

The Italian reinforcements arrive and the L3s manouvre into the rear of the battered Punjabs. Russell (the Italian CO) comes along to watch in his racy saloon. Personally I would have withdrawn the remaining fortress garrison at this point (they only had 1 hit left and couldn't reorganise after being assaulted), but they decided to hang on for one more turn.

7th RTR had taken the road exit but was rather nonplussed when XIV Libyan came alongside, using the wadis as cover. This rather maximises their firepower and protection and puts the tanks at a considerable disadvantage. A certain degree of British consternation was visible at this point.

They stuck to their guns however. The Matildas moved away from the Italian infantry and instead pick on the L3s. The Punjabs in the camp overran the rest of the garrison, but the battered elements outside also decided to hang on rather than withdrawing away from the Italian tanks.

Despite the presence of the Matildas, the Italians can hardly pass up this opportunity and the Italian artillery and a passing flight of Maachi 202 fighters brass up the Punjabs.

And the L3s overrun the Punjabs and they disintegrate! The L3s may only be light tanks, but they are still tanks as far as infantrymen are concerned and an armoured overrun from the rear nets them a six dice attack. Ouch.  

The Libyan infantry meanwhile hop out of their wadi and (re) take the road exit hex. They start to dig in here, but it is in full view of both the Matildas and the Punjabs on Hill 89. They may have been better off sticking to the adjacent wadi.

The Matildas  and resupplied British artillery shoot up the L3s who take enough hits to disorganise them. The wisely elect to withdraw out of range to reorganise. The camp is firmly in British hands now as both the RRF and Punjabs occupy it. Jerry used his engineers to breach the camp wall so the RRF motor transport can join them. 7th RTR wants to pursue the L3s but the Brigadier is more concerned with taking and holding the remaining objective so the Matilda also pull back to take the Libyan infantry under fire.

The Libyans haven't finished digging in and just distintegrate under the massed British artillery and tank fire, supported by the Indian infantry on Hill 89. They break and withdraw back towards Tummar East along the wadis. This allows 1/RRF to simply mount up into their lorries and motor to the objective and occupy it.

With only one manouvre unit left there isn't any realistic prospect of the Italians contesting either objective, so they reorganise in peace and then withdraw back to their original positions. A well earned British victory, although they might struggle to take the next fort, having lost half their infantry in this attack! 

I was a bit dubious that the British would be able to pull that off as the original scenario relies very much on differences in troop quality and artillery support to give the heavily outnumbered attackers an advantage, but in fact the quality differences in One Hour WW2 worked fine too and that 'veteran' status for the Indians made a big difference. The poorer Italian units just fell apart rapidly, although the gunners put up a really good fight.

The rule amendments worked fine too, the only addition I need to make is to allow engineers to function if their parent unit is stationary or firing. Originally I played it that an engineering action occupied the whole unit for a turn, but as they are actually a unit with engineers attached, I don't see why the unit can't shoot while the engineers do their stuff. Now I've loosened up the assault bonuses, I may as well loosen up the engineer bonuses too.