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. 

QRF 15mm R35

The Renault 35 was a light tank designed to replace the Renault FT in independant tank battalions and with over 1500 produced it was was most numerous French tank of the war. It equipped 21 battalions in May 1940 (along with eight battalions of Renault FT) and was also supplied to Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia and captured versions were used by the Italians and Germans. A fairly ubiquitous vehicle then, although when I picked these up I was primarily thinking of their use in 1st Rumanian Armoured Div (where they served well into 1944, many upgraded with Soviet 45mm guns).

So, along with he rest of my recetn QRF order, I added two of these. I went with the short 37,, version as these were the most numerous, although I do also have some spare R35 turrets provided by Mr Gow, so I may have a go at building some of the R40 turrets with a long 37, which would also do for the Rumanian 45mm turrets,

Here they are in all their tiny tank glory. For an interwar designed two man light tank they were astonishingly long lived and served in every theatre of WW2 in Europe. They thick armour helped a lot, and actually having a gun (unlike the poor old Matilda 1 which was very similar). 

These are lovely little castings, very crisp and easy to assemble (just hull, turret and seperate tracks). The tracks are a bit unusual in that they are double sided, so you can stick either track on either side, but it keeps the complex suspension system delightfully open.

Engine deck, you can also see the neat casting of the rear turret hatch hinge. If I do make up some extra turrets I might brave doing a commander hanging out of the back.

You can see the excellent detail on the suspension which really brings the tank alive it is just a shame that the side portions of the exposed track are a bit flat.

I spent a long time thinking about what colours to paint these. The original French R35s were mainly done in an exuberent factory paint scheme, while Rumanian R3s were in  a very boring mid green. I wanted to be reasonably authentic, but in my copy of Vauvilliers 'French Tanks and Armoured Vehicles' I noticed the H35 light tanks were done in a mid green and red brown disruptive scheme. This would do nicely for captured specimens in German and Italian (mainland Europe) service and would look close enough to a dirty Rumanian scheme for wargaming purposes as well as being a proper French scheme. So, green and brown it was, followed by my usual daubings of mud, dust and an inkwash on the tracks. Vive la France! 

March to the Sea

Continuing our procession through games suitable for lockdown play, Tim  pulled out another classic, 'March to the Sea', covering Shermans campaign in Georgia in the American Civil War. This was another ancient matrix game, first seeing the light of day in 1995 I believe, and reputedly a Chris Engle original.

In the cast list, I drew General Johnson, commanding the Army of Tennesse at Cassville, while opposing me was Tim C as Sherman, commanding the Army of the Tennessee. All very confusing. My fellow Rebs included Richard and Jerry as dashing cavalry commanders with various raiding forces over in Alabama, while the plodding Yanks included Simon and John. John had managed to get his technology set up, so was able to join the game.

Although virtual games are fun to play, they aren't quite as photogenic as being  there! I ended up taking a series of photos of Skype on the screen. Here we see Jerry as Bedfords Raiders lurking in Alabama. 54mm figures and hand crafted map courtesy of Tim G.

Our cavalry took an immediate dislike to the US railway line running from Nashville through Chattanooga down to Atlanta. At this stage I shall confess a shocking ignorance of the ACW, although my gaming pals all seemed very au fait with the proceedings as an earnest discussion about rail lines and the intervention of tornados in battles ensued. 

Well, I've seen 'Gone with the Wind' and read 'The Red Badge of Courage' (and seen the very fine film too) so I had a bit of a grounding in what was about to pass.

Over at Cassville my chaps made a half hearted attempt to dig in, but very unfairly Sherman and Schofield advanced towards us on a broad front. Fortunately they were rather sluggish, so nothing unpleasant occurred.

In June however, Schofield appeared on the left flank and the Union launched an attack on our positions which we repelled. In line with my orders, I prepared a series of fallback positions in order to fight a delaying action, taking advantage of our interior lines and superior mobility.

Meanwhile our cavalry bypassed the Yanks in fine style and set abut tearing up the railway lines. 

Sadly, Simons Army also neatly bypassed the Confederate cavalry and took up camp outside Atlanta! Ooer. I was still on the wrong side of the mountains facing Sherman and Scofield.

Bedfords Raiders bravely pursued them, but the Yanks took up defensive positions outside Atlanta.

The next Union assault came in at Cassville and our prepared positions came into their own as we fell back in succession while delaying the enemy and inflicting losses. (note the red hit markers all over the Union forces). This was so successful we even managed to break contact with Sherman in the mountains.

Meanwhile, back up the rail line, a horrible melee ensued around Chattanooga. Schofield lost interest in helping Sherman, and instead turned around to clear the Union lines of communications.

The Army of Tennessee used the railroad to travel back to Atlanta and launched an assault on the Yanks, who were by now partially dug in. Bedfords Raiders were ineffective operating in support. Luckily Sherman was lagging some way behind as they struggled through the mountains.

We had time to reorganise and launch another attack just as Shermans Army began to appear. The US troops outside Atlanta were looking quite ragged now.

We launched a final assault as Sherman moved to engage, and the Third Battle of Atlanta turned into a massive battle.

My Army spent much of its effrot holding off Sherman, but this time Bedfords Raiders got stuck in and managed to overrun the ragged US troops.

When the smoke cleared, the besieging US Army had been destroyed. My chaps were a bit tatty, but they'd held on and beaten off Sherman with some losses. Most important, we still held Atlanta, although as it had been fought over for three months, it was a bit of a smoking ruin by now.

The campaign ended at that point, and when we totted up the various objectives, the Rebels had done quite well although Sherman was clearly going to kick them out of Atlanta in Spring once the weather improved.

That went very well, we were all a bit more used to the virtual format and we did it in two short sessions over two days. Taking each player in turn gave it some structure and we rattled through it and reached a good conclusion in a reasonable length of time. As much of my day is now spent in video conference calls, I was glad not to overdo it in the evening as well. It was good to play with John as well, as he's missed a few weeks now. Many thanks to Tim for organising it.