Alamein 42 Designer Notes

Transcription

1 Alamein 42 Designer Notes Click on the green hyper-links below and at the end of each section to navigate through these designer notes. You can also access each section at any time by pressing the "Help Topics" in the top left corner of the Window. Table of Contents I. Designer Comments Why El Alamein The Map Challenge The Order-of-Battle Tanks by Type OOB Organization & Command Air, AAA and AT Guns Explicit Supply Interesting Units Components Minefields II. The History Events leading up to Alamein 42 Events covered in Alamein 42 III. The Scenarios Scenario Introduction Scenario List Scenario Overviews IV. Bibliography Page 1

2 I. Designer Comments Why El Alamein? Some 35 years ago, I discovered wargames and my very first board game was the old Avalon Hill boardgame called Africa Korps! So the Desert War has always held a special place in my heart. A long time passed before my partner, Dave "Blackie" Blackburn and I, teamed up with John Tiller to help make computer wargames, and it was Blackie who first suggested that we look at the desert for a Panzer Campaign. After all, he and I had previously researched a game idea for another company in this theatre, one that never came to be, but we had much of this material at hand, including a set of 1:100,000 scale maps which provided fairly detailed topographical data. We learned shortly after, however, that Wig Graves was already well on the way with a Tobruk '41 Panzer Campaign and, as there were only a few games in the series at that time, we thought the one desert title was perhaps enough. So the idea for the Panzer Campaign El Alamein game went on to the back burner. During this "back burner" period a number of new games were created and, with that, a number of interesting enhancements were made in the game engine, including Explicit Supply and Strategy Operations. Also during this time, we designers learned new ways to take set piece battles, battles such as Kursk '43 and Rzhev '42, where huge amounts of men, tanks, and guns were amassed along heavily fortified lines, and make a very interesting gaming Page 2

3 situation. And so it is in Alamein '42, we felt we could offer a whole host of interesting options for battles which included fluid, running gun fights like those near Gazala in May '42, the pursuit across the desert leading to the early struggle for Alamein in July, as well as the traditional Second Alamein battle where Monty broke the Africa Korps' back. Furthermore, we had some neat ideas to involve Malta in an interesting standalone scenario and as a hypothetical "What If" in the main campaign. During this time a number of new books covering Alamein were published and these really began to rekindle our awareness of this game idea. One book, by Jon Latimer, contained a detailed framework of the Order-of-battle (OOB) of both the sides involved. Stephen Bungray's "Alamein" was also published at this time, as well as the story of some of the fighting men told in the book "End of the Beginning" by Tim Clayton and Phil Craig. And there was Bireman and Smiths' new book, which is in my opinion, misnamed "The Battle of Alamein". I say this book is misnamed because it chronicles much of the fighting in the period covered by our game, not just the critical Alamein portion. The arrival of Montgomery is in Part 4, and Second Alamein in Part 5, so it really encompasses a summary of the desert war. All these new books got us thinking again, surely we could make a fascinating Panzer Campaign from this critical turning point in the desert, where the Western Allies turned the tide with Germany at an obscure RR stop named El Alamein. The Map Challenge! As with any game, before any scenarios can be built you first need two critical pieces - the Map and the OOB. Both of these presented their own special challenge. Page 3

4 To properly cover the fighting in the Western Desert in 1942 we created a map that now stands as the largest of any Panzer Campaign. It is huge! Fortunately, for the Gazala battles, we were able to use some of Tobruk '41 game map created by Wig Grave's, with many thanks to Wig. But we still had a huge area to cover. As previously mentioned, we had quite a lot of coverage from photocopied 100,000 maps, from a previous project, which helped tremendously. It is desert terrain, which is more simplistic to make than other maps in the series, but we used all sources that we could to try to accurately portray the area. Now some of the references did not always agree, trails are often difficult to find on any two sources that matched. We also went on an exhausting search to find just where the railroad ran, as it had been extended by 1942 and almost reached Tobruk. Where sources didn't match, we applied our best "guesstimates" based on a consensus from all the sources. But of these instances, few were critical to game play. Suffice it to say, we did not have a map that showed every patch of broken, or rough ground, so some latitude was used here. When we first started it was suggested that we make it all the way back to El Agheila, but this really was impractical because of the distances involved, however, there is still lots of map for players to use for their own scenarios. Another important point is the use of an "inset" map for the Malta Operation. We quickly discounted putting in Malta as a separate file, because we wanted it for a Strategy Operation in the game, and it wasn't practical to place it correctly on the map as it is some 960 km ENE of Tobruk and that is a lot of flat blue sea to cover. We would also like to thank Jason Petho for dusting off some of his unfinished work on Malta. Jason has been working on "A Battle Atlas: Operazione C3", which is as yet unpublished, but should be available in as his time allows for working on it. As you will see in the scenarios, we included Malta as a rather interesting twist on the main campaign as well as an interesting "What If" standalone scenario. In the end we were pleased with the results of our map. We elected to make areas on the south of the map as "impassable", to show the Qattara Depression and areas which were not useful for the game. The look and feel of the map is a good representation of the area where the battle took place. The Order-of-Battle Page 4

5 The second challenge that we had to overcome was the designing an Order of Battle that covered the time period we wanted to cover in the game. It seemed simple enough at the outset. As previously indicated, we started with Latimer's OOB for 2nd Alamein and it provided detail down to the regiment, and battalion, which included attachments at the Corps and Army level. This was very good information to work from. However, we quickly discovered that there were more units involved in the earlier fighting that were not included in the detail. What was more confusing was that divisions in the early fighting were made of different brigades, depending on the time period. The 5th Indian Division was a very good example of this. Also, at times, some brigades were detached and functioned as parts of different divisions. A prime example of this is the British 44th Infantry Division, a unit that made a poor showing as a division at Alam Halfa in August and was split up, with each brigade serving as the infantry component for an armored division in Second Alamein. In the end, we settled on one single Order-of-Battle file, with a section covering the early battles, (including Gazala up to First Alamein), and a second complete repeat of the OOB for the Second Alamein battle. In this second part there are some different divisions, different organizational structure for some units as well as newer tanks are available to both sides. There is a third component to the OOB and this is the part for the "Invade Malta" option. For the British this is a completely separate organization so that the Allied aircraft from the Desert Air Force, based in Egypt cannot fly air support missions in Malta as it is obviously way too far away. However, Axis aircraft can reach Malta easily by redeploying to air bases in Sicily and Tunisia. But it was not just the unit organization that was scrambled from time period to time period. This period in the desert saw a great transition in the tanks. For example, "the Queens Bay, 2nd Dragoons Guards", were equipped with 2 squadrons of Crusaders and one of Grants, in the Early Battles, but by second Alamein, this unit was made up of one squadron of Crusaders, and two of Shermans. So you see, not only the tank type changed, but also the number of light vs. battle tanks squadrons, that made up the Armored Division organization, had changed as well. These issues will be discussed in a later section entitled "Tanks by Type." The Italians were another story altogether. You can easily find out which divisions were present and how the Corps were structured. With a little digging you could even find out which regiments made up which division. But how were these regiments structured? How many tanks and armored cars were present at each critical phase of the battle? Finding detailed information in English books for the Italians is spotty at best. So for this we turned to Franco Agostini, an Italian gentleman who we owe our thanks. Franco came through on the numbers and provided valuable research and input on the Italian part of the OOB. I met Franco on a forum when he was taking me to task for issues he felt needed reviewing in the Sicily '43 game. He struck me as a man who knew what he was talking about. Below are some sample excerpts of information Franco provided. On Armored Cars he wrote: I rewrite all situations 20/5/42 39 efficient 1 at repair 30/5/42 23 efficient 15 at repair Page 5

6 5/8/42 12 efficient 4 at repair (in 5 days) 27/09/42 25 efficient and 22 at repair (but it is all AB at repair not only from III Nizza, there are 1 other cavalry unit and 1 bersaglieri unit on AB) Of the Ariete he said: 20/5/ fanteria carrista (Ariete) 107 M13/40, 63 M14/41 efficient; 16 and 7 at repair 132 artiglieria(ariete) 17 75/18 (semoventi) efficient, 3 at repair So you can see how valuable his contribution was to the project. Franco was always concerned that his English was difficult to understand, and at times it was tricky to follow, but there are two things I can say for sure on this point. One, is that his English is far better than my Italian, and secondly, the Italian portion of the OOB is far better that we could have done without his insight. For this Franco we thank you. Tanks by Type Of all the Panzer Campaign Order-of-Battles I've had a hand helping to make, never before has the type, and number of tanks by type, been so important. This fact is likely not one that will be missed by many people. Also there are so many books available, even the dozen or more I relied on as primary reference, were enough to overwhelm you with details. Unfortunately some of this detail just didn't always add up. For example, for the opening battle at Gazala, Delaney says in his book, "Fighting the Desert Fox", that there were 843 British tanks, a quarter of which were Grants. On the other hand, Mitcham in his book, "Rommel's Greatest Victory", provides a table showing British 850 tanks, which is close enough for an operational games purposes and so, given mechanical breakdowns, is essentially a match with Delaney's 843. But Mitcham puts the total number of Grants at 167, which is slightly less than a fifth. This is a pretty significant difference, as an additional 45 Grants is more than twice the total number of German Pz-IIIj's that both sources say the other side had. With only 19 Pz-IIIj's, and less than 40 Pz IV in service at this time, according to both Delaney and Mitcham, you can see where 45 more of the best British tanks will be a factor! So which source do you believe? And when you decide what information to use and which pieces to disregard, how do you determine which unit gets what type of tanks? This too varies depending upon the date. Page 6

7 At this point you have to dig a little deeper. We used whatever we could find on the overall organization and cross-reference information in the various books, by looking up the reference to each regiment listed in the index, and then reading each in turn for clues, or mention, of the type of tanks being used. In researching the battles, Latimer and Perrett indicated, that by the time of Alamein, the British tank brigades were built around two battle tank regiments and one light tank regiment. A regiment is made up of three squadrons, each of which consists of roughly 17 tanks, so there are between 50 and 60 tanks in a regiment. In the earlier battles, such as those depicted in the scenarios around the Gazala Line, the organization was the other way around, with two light and one medium regiment. Meanwhile, the Army tank brigades were made up of infantry tanks that were mainly Matilda and Valentine tanks. At this point, the similarities begin to break down. Mitcham says regiments of the 4th Armored Brigade were made up of one Grant and two Crusader squadrons, while he says the units of the 2nd and 22nd Armored Brigades were made up of two Grant and one Stuart squadrons. But it can't be this way for a couple reasons. First of all if there were two Grant squadrons in the 2nd and 22nd, with one squadron of the 4th Brigade also being Grants, that would be 15 squadrons of Grants, or roughly 255 Grant tanks. But remember, from the information above, that there were likely 67 Grants available. At 14 Grant tanks per 15 squadrons, there would still be too many Grants and not enough other squadrons available to make up the totals of the other tank types to arrive at the grand total of 850 total tanks, given a fixed number of regiments and squadrons. Mitcham, in his chart on tanks by type, shows 277 infantry tanks and quotes another source that says these were made up with 110 Matildas and 167 Valentines. These 277 Infantry Page 7

8 tanks equipped the five regiments of the Army tank brigades. But in the text Mitcham says that three of these regiments are Matilda's and the other two are Valentine's. However, using three squadrons of 17 tanks per regiment, clearly it must be two regiments of Matilda's and three of Valentine's for the math to work out. The net result of all this is was an unending task of shuffling tanks by type around to various squadrons, all the while keeping the tanks type totals constant. Thus, during the early days of making the game, while I was in bed reading Clayton and Craig's (2002), "End of the Beginning", and came across a reference such as " 22nd Brigade had driven right onto one of the best executed tank traps of the desert war. As Grants and Crusaders burst into flames " I would stop reading, get out of bed, return to my computer to make the appropriate change in the Order of Battle in the interest of keeping the game as historically correct as possible. However, while it is important, in Strawson (1967), that we can read that, "A Sqdn of the 8th Hussar's was made up of Honey's, while B and C Sqdn were Grants", in the big picture, the game will yield the most historical results as long as the accurate tanks total by type as documented by authors, such as Delaney (1998) and Mitcham (2001), is respected in the Game Order of Battle. I'd be remiss at this point if I didn't single out the early assistance of Rick Bancroft in this "tank tally" period. I plugged numbers and tank types from various sources into the game OOB file, Rick knocked together a great working spreadsheet and populated it with the OOB data, so we could see how the detailed changes we made as a result of our research reflected the total number of tanks by type. OOB Organization & Command One guiding principle in the OOB, that was essential for this game, was to include enough detail to give the right feel for the game, without having too many units, which would slow down the fluid action. Panzer Campaigns original design was at battalion level, but the requirement for company units was demanded by the tanks. As discussed above, British armored regiments were made up of 3 squadrons of tanks of very different speeds, defense, and firepower. So company sized or squadron units of around 17 tanks seemed to be the best solution. Armored cars on both sides posed their own problem. Previously, in Tobruk '41, these formations, as well as the tanks, were made up of units as small as two and three vehicles, as they did often operate in these small units. But this provides so many units that a game player, with his "God like" point-of-view in a turn based game, can exploit. Yet company sized units representing the full squadrons didn't have the correct feel either. What we used here was a lesson learned from the development of the Sicily '43 game with the deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division. What we desired was a widely scattered drop of penny-packet troops, which slowly combined to form more effective fighting units. The solution in Sicily was the "double sized platoon" or "half company" units. This gave the game the widely spread drop, but didn't dominate the play with double the units like platoons would have done. Page 8

9 Thus for Alamein '42 we went with units of around 9 vehicles per armored car unit for both sides. A spin-off advantage this provided was the combing units' rule, where when three units of the same type were combined into a single units, it functions at its best for Battle Fatigue. With upwards of six units of nine armored cars each, there was an opportunity for players to have more than one very effective "battalion sized" unit, from a single armored car battalion in the game. We did the same thing for the German Panzers, that is used the "half sized company", but for more than just the reason outlined above for the armored cars. For a start, the Germans at this time, were simply the masters of the desert when it game to flexible deployments of their tanks. Like the British, the Germans had a number of different types of Panzers, but unlike the British, they mixed their tank types within even the smallest platoon formations. The wide difference in firepower of these tank types can be seen by the values we have assigned to them in the game. As the Germans were infamous for creating "adhoc" formations on the fly during a battle, we did away with the "Battalion" level in the formal OOB Organization. That is, instead of a Panzer regiment made up of a couple Battalions, each with a few companies of platoons of a mixed variety of tanks, even at the smallest level possible, we simply made the Panzer regiment to be made up of a large group, over 20, half sized company units (or double platoons) of roughly eight tanks. These panzer building blocks allowed the flexibility to accurately have the correct number of Panzers by type within the regiment, while allowing for "adhoc" combined units where, for example, Pz-IIIh's of different companies and battalions fought together most effectively. But we weren't done completely with tilting the playing field when it came to tanks and the flexibility one side held over the other. The last thing that we saw that the Germans were regarded as "Out Generalling" the British Command in was control, so we removed the Brigade HQ units from the German OOB and left only a single Division HQ, with a very large command radius, to establish that last missing effect of, "drive the tanks anywhere and appear as effective fighting units where they are least expected." The Germans can thus create KG units, and while there are no KG HQs in the game, the Axis player doesn't need to concern himself with this extra detail. However he will still have to deal with Regimental HQs for the Italians. One the flip side, not only do the British lines of command have to run from the fighting units, to Brigade and up to Division, but the Brigade HQ quality rating is less and the command radius is lower than Brigade HQ's in other games of the Series. This we felt was fair, because the British struggled in the desert to find out how to make the best use of their equipment and men together in an effective fighting force. The effects of these tank organization and command issues we believe does justice to the operational feel of this battle and provides similar strengths and weaknesses for both sides. Air, AAA and AT Guns Page 9

10 As was a practice in some games, starting back with Normandy '44, there are a number of units intentionally left out of the Order-of-Battle. For example, much if not all of the fighter aircraft have been removed from the Air component. At the start of the Gazala, according to Bungay, there were 500 Axis Aircraft which included ~200 Bf 109's. These Aircraft concentrated their effort on the Allied "Desert Air Force" fighters and thus had little direct impact on the ground war as ground attack aircraft. This has been built into the Interception rate as defined in the Parameter Data. Many of the remaining aircraft in the Axis air arsenal were Italian. Because of their lower serviceability, I've reduced the number of aircraft slightly to compensate. This way the total Air Unit Availability (parameter) for the Axis could remain stable, and not have a German aircraft unavailable due to Italian aircraft serviceability. The Order-of-Battle includes only some of the Allied fighters, as these were more prone to be used in ground attacks, but were kept busy by the German fighters. This fact has always been a something we had to keep in mind when we considered aircraft in this, a largely ground based operational game. Allied Air strength in the Middle East combined included more aircraft that could be called on during the time period covered in the game. However, these squadrons often had other equally vital duties in the Middle East to fulfill, such as maritime interdiction of supplies. Thus they were not all available for every mission to support the ground troops in the desert. It should also be noted that the Allies prior to the Second Battle of Alamein flew so many photo air recon mission over the German lines that, according to Latimer, they claimed they knew virtually every gun position. Yet when the fighting started, despite the heaviest concentration of artillery up to that point in the war, the Allied were still unable to neutralize all of the known AT gun and artillery positions. Also, the accuracy of pin point targeting by aircraft performing level bombing for ground support missions was not up to the standard of dive bombing support missions like those later in the war, so Allied level bombers such as Boston s and Baltimore s have been designated as heavy bombers in game terms so that they use the "Carpet Bombing" rules when they attack thus the scatter my hit another hex than planned, possibly even a friendly hex. The Germans too had some additional Recon Air units on the books. Historically, however, these German air recon units had little influence at this later stage of the battle and their inclusion was unwarranted. German command at the start of the Second Battle of Alamein was paralyzed by the ferocity when the barrage opened up, and many communication lines to the forward units were knocked out. In some other cases, available German air missions were reduced to account for air strikes being driven off by Allied Anti-Aircraft units, which themselves are often omitted intentionally from the OOB, particularly the light AAA Guns. Historically these units spent most of their time in their true AA role, and thus are not needed Page 10

11 as many players would not resist the urge to avail themselves of these units for ground combat uses. Of course German 88's must be included, as they came into common use as extremely effective Anti-Tank weapons in the desert. Thus these have been accounted for as accurately as possible throughout the game. Also, some heavier British Bofors AA Guns have been included, but by and large most of the Allied AA Guns are represented in the AA combat values assigned to the ground combat units. The same can be said of a very a large number of the lighter AT Guns on both sides - Allied 2-pdrs and Axis 37mm. There are guns of this caliber and sometimes larger which were part of the infantry company units on each side. This is reflected in the game Hard Attack values of these units and not separate unit counters, as one of our goals was to keep the unit density as low as possible and yet still reflect all these weapons deployed in their historical manner. This manner of deployment is factored into the reasoning for the Hard Range as well. While it can be documented that a British 2-pdr has no less range than a German 37mm Anti-Tank Gun, it can also be documented that time and again the British armour blundered into unseen German AT Guns - even at Second Alamein. Thus we've given the German Infantry units a hard range of 1 and the Allied Units a hard attack range of Zero (thus only effective when assaulted) because of how these weapons were used and effective historically, and not just how far they could throw a shell. Even with the above in effect, there still needed to be some separate Anti-Tank Gun Units and these have been assigned a higher defense value than in other games such as Tobruk. The reasoning for this was simply the survivability of the units in a sustained fight. One need only read about the British defense at the Snipe Position, or the terrible toll German and even Italian AT Guns took on advancing British armour in various phases of the battle, to justify these values. Suffice to say, we didn't just stumble into the value the way they are presented in the game. The testers, Ed Williams, Rick Bancroft, Paul Sinatra and Bob Hutchison, tried a number of potential models, each time weighting the specific effect on a small scale, as well as the overall effect on the scenario and larger picture of the battle. All opinions didn't agree 100% with how Blackie and I modeled the values in the final OOB, but then this is a part of wargaming we've all come to accept. If players wish to modify the units and combat values in the game, then they are free to experiment with the Order-of-Battle Editor, as I am sure many of them will. I would, however, encourage anyone with the desire to tinker with the values to keep in mind the results they get both on the small scale, such as one unit firing at another, as well as the effect of the casualties, victory and overall strength of the two sides over the longer period of the battles. Explicit Supply Page 11

12 The war in the desert, at least insofar as the longer mobile campaigns are concerned, was very much a war about Supply. So here was an ideal place for the Panzer Campaigns Explicit Supply rules. Explicit Supply, an optional supply rule where players moved actual Supply Trucks units on the map, has been a part of the series since the fourth title, Tobruk 41. There are a few Explicit Supply Scenarios in this game too, and these are noted with the lowercase *s* after the filename such as #0619_01s_Tobruk_to_Alamein.scn. In general, for Explicit Supply to have much impact on play, the effect must be felt over time. Thus this option is available only in the more mobile campaigns, where supply is not only a factor, but where the players, particularly the German must move his supply forward and selectively decide which units to re-supply and when. Determining the amount of Explicit Supply present at the start of a battle, and the number, size, and frequency of supply as the battle progresses--given the changing size of each army--has been a mathematical balancing act, based on a formula derived by John Tiller. The formula has been revised over time and with practice from previous games to arrive at appropriate levels. But in this title, supply calculations comparable to those used in Bulge 44, Korsun 44 and Market-Garden 44 just didn t work right because of the more running gun style of battle in the desert. Therefore we decided to do a few things differently for Alamein. First we dropped the Defense strength value of the Supply Units due to their vulnerability to air interdiction in the wide-open desert. Adding to the vulnerability of trucks and in fact to the vulnerability of all units in open terrain in this game is the fact that we made open terrain "really" open by putting a positive combat modifier on Clear terrain. Our reasoning is that there are just not as many places to hide in the desert as in clear hex in Russia, Normandy or Sicily, for example. While trucks speeds on average were the same, for an added dimension we used different Unit Quality levels for various truck units, more or less at random, to give a skilled player more factors to judge when plotting his move. The next thing we did differently was to reduce the Supply radius in which units become automatically supplied by Supply Trucks in Deployed Mode. The idea for this came first from accounts in the Alamein book by Latimer, where there were numerous accounts of tanks leaving the infantry to fend for themselves as they withdrew to take on more fuel. There were also excerpts concerning fuel trucks been blown to Page 12

13 pieces as they ran the risk to move far forward to support the tanks. So the earliest tests were conducted with the Supply range as low as 1 and 3, so that a player literally had to drive his supply trucks right up to the unit or pull the unit back to the truck to draw fuel and\or ammo. However, values this low made a player too conscious of driving his supply trucks around and took away from the game so we raised it to a range of 5. This is still considerably shorter than previous values of around 10, but it showed a new and important consideration and advantage to the Axis Side. In this Title, supply has to be tight for the Axis player, and the way the Explicit Supply Rules work, any unit in need of Supply that is within range of a Deployed Supply Truck is automatically serviced. Keeping the Supply Range short as we have means an Axis player can be more particular about who gets supplies. In fact he may be able to better control the supply, and to funnel it to his most powerful troops, instead of squandering it on weaker units. There is much information in the literature on Supply in North Africa, including actual tonnages delivered to port and the amount of fuel required to move the fuel forward for the panzers fighting at the front. However, if players want a succinct look at supply, refer to chapter three of Bungay s "Alamein" which is listed in the bibliography. During the later stages of testing when we were hammering out the explicit supply levels, I relied heavily on the input of tester and Korea 85 scenario designer Ed "Volcano" Williams to work the kinks out of what we were trying to do here. Thanks, Ed, you were a big help as always. Interesting Units Components In any game there is usually a few units or game components which attract attention and raise a few eyebrows in players. Examples have included "Magen" or "Ohr" units in Market Garden 44, the special "Stomach" and "Ear" Battalions and Goliath remote control tanks in Kursk 43. El Alamein 42 has a few as well, and I thought I would point out some that came up for discussion during the testing of the game. On the Allies side, of note are the Long Range Desert Group units. These small, fast and largely combat ineffective units in terms of an Operational Game can still pack a punch, as they do have an assault value. That is all that is required for capturing unescorted Explicit Supply units moving forward to support the Axis drive on Alamein. Their presence alone may mean the German will have to designate some motorized units to escort duty. However, even in games without Explicit Supply, the presence of these units can cause zone-of-control effects on the Virtual Supply Lines which follow the vital coastal road, and reduce the flow of VST Supply to the front. The Long Range Desert Group units can also spot units moving up especially those in Travel mode and thus more vulnerable to attack -- and can call in Air Missions. They are also the game "Deception Units," and as such they can deploy to interdict reinforcements. In this game s Parameter or PDT, these Deception units have higher values than ever before, so Page 13

14 they can move around in the desert in a manner befitting the effect of the original Special Air Service Units. The Long Range Desert Group units arrive with a high degree of variability near the south edge of the map. The just "appear" in these non-critical areas, and can scatter wildly in their entry hex. Their method of entry prevents a Human German Opponent from waiting in an area for them to show up, even knowing the time and or place. I believe these units will add a very interesting dimension to an already challenging Campaign Game. As Deception played a role in the Desert War, the Allied Order-of-Battle for the Second Alamein contains six units amounting to 108 "Dummy Tanks". What effect these units might have in play is hard to gauge, but in play between Human opponents, they might just keep the Axis player from acting with too much haste when considering deployment of his reserves. There are also some native troops in the Commonwealth ANZAC section. These fierce warriors are the Maori, made up of natives from New Zealand. There is only one battalion of these units, so their presence will not dominate the battle. However, you will see they have some different combat values and a different image in the unit window, will make them stand out. Some other units which may stand out are Commonwealth units in the 1st Free French, which represent the Jewish Volunteer Battalion. This unit made a notable stand at Bir Hacheim in the Gazala Battles. On the Axis side, part of the 15th Rifle Brigade in what was "Group Cruewall" in the Gazala Battles is made up of German French Foreign Legion Troops. While I have not been able to find much detail on these units, I did read that Rommel thought them a largely undisciplined group, but one he respected as fighters. On a more humorous note, I came across a reference that indicated Rommel would instruct his driver to "lock up the spare" whenever he visited them in the field for fear they might strand him in their own self interest by taking anything that would aid themselves and their unit. During the month of July, Rommel was facing a serious manpower crisis in North Africa. Some of the reinforcements sent to his aid were units of Ramcke s Parachute Brigade which were flown in from Crete. Of note with these Parachute troops was the abundance of the brand new MG-42 belt fed machine-gun, made out of a light alloy that was virtually sand-proof. For this reason the components of this brigade have a higher soft attack rating as well as a soft attack range of 2 hexes. One of the battalions from this brigade, FJ-Lehr, lead by one Major Otto Burkhardt, was equipped with a variety of experimental or "Special Weapons," which included among other things some very early Recoilless rifle, a flare gun modified to fire an explosive charge, some fully automatic rifles, and a mortar that bounced Page 14

15 the round before exploding so as to spread shrapnel at chest height. This unit s chief drawback is the lack of motorized transport, may be more apparent in some earlier campaign "What If" Strategy/Operations where an earlier arrival of Ramcke s Brigade is depicted. Minefields Mines in the Panzer Campaign Series often comes under scrutiny of players who feel that all mines that are "theirs", thus friendly mines, should remain visible at all times, so the owning player won't accidentally step on them. On the surface this idea is appealing to players who think top down. They reason that because they can see them on the map at some point, that HQ would know where they were and thus all units would avoid them. True enough. But I like to explain that just because HQ (ie You the player) knows where all the mines are, doesn't mean that each and every units in the games also knows where each and every mine. Furthermore, even if each unit on the map were to have a specialty "Mine Officer" to keep track of them all, then who is to say mistakes wouldn't still happen sometimes. So for Alamein '42, where mines play such a dominant role, I collected a few references to illustrate the point that, "There is no such thing as a friendly Minefield." Here is a good quote from Clayton and Craig - "End of the Beginning" which characterizes the Page 15

16 design feelings about Mines: June 5-14: "Ordered forward toward the Sidra Ridge from the north, 32nd Army Tank Brigade first ran on to an unmarked minefield laid by British infantry,..." June 18-20: ".., their platoon of four 6-pounders had entered Tobruk through the minefield that surrounded it, a minefield full of mines whose location was by now unknown to the defenders, and which destroyed the odd portee." But this next reference says it best. It comes from "Rommel's Greatest Victory" by Samual W. Mitcham. The confusion of battle is perhaps best illustrated by the exploit of Maj. C. C. Lomax, the commander of HQ Squadron of the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers. Leading a column of supply trucks and trying to find the 201st Guards Brigade Box at Knightsbridge, he veered too far north and got lost in the darkness. Suddenly he spotted a low trip wire, which denoted the boundary of a minefield. His driver hit the brakes and they stopped a few feet from the wire. Two sentries approached and identified themselves as Guardsmen. Lomax asked if this was the Knightsbridge Box, and they replied that it was. "How very fortunate!" the major exclaimed. "Another few yards and we would all have been in the minefield." "On the contrary, sir," one of the sentries replied, "another few yards and you will be out of it." He and his whole convoy (which was following in his tracks) had passed through the entire minefield without hitting a single mine! Even when crossing a known "Friendly Minefield", in a lane swept clean to allow friendly troops to pass, there were mishaps as illustrated by this reference from Jon Latimer's "Alamein": On the route following 22nd Battalion came the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry on a mine-free track cleared and marked by the Kiwi infantry. 'Lurch, clank, bump. Up comes the dust again and before we've gone few yards we're back in the "pea-souper" once more,' recalled the, Yeomanry's historian as the precious protecting darkness dissolved. At 0600 hours the lead squadron was well forward of the infantry and thus became the only armoured regiment to break out beyond the infantry on the first day of the battle. But it was at a heavy price. Those in the rear of the column have been speculating about the origin of a new addition to the carnival of noise which is going on around them. Something different, this one. Deeper and more earth-shaking than the rest. Woomph! This is quite unmistakable. A very sinister sound.' Mines' - despite the declaration that the lanes were clear. The armour ought to have been clear of the minefields, but 'Woo-umph! There it goes again And this time there is no mistake. A spurt of flame appears in the distance through a gap in the fog and quickly grows into a flaming mass. So accidentally running into mines, be they in "cleared lanes", or stumbling into a minefield, even a known minefield was not uncommon. Therefore, when you run a unit into a hex containing a mine - even one of your own - one that you wouldn't have run into had the hex been marked, because you had another unit in the line-of-sight a few turns ago, then think nothing more of it. These sorts of things happened, not only here in the desert, but in all theaters of WWII. With mines in the game unseen in hexes when they disappear from the players view, Page 16

17 understand that this is not a bug or a problem that needs to be fixed. This is just part of the game, all be it one aspect that some players find frustrating, due to the fact that had they see the mine on the map at some point from their "God-like" overhead perspective. BE WARNED! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FRIENDLY MINEFIELD If you step on a mine during game play, you might be lucky like Major Lomax was in the reference above. If you're moving units near to known mines, but in places you thought were clear, and you step on a mine, well that happens, even if you are delayed and you lose some units, well that happened too. Mines are just part of the game, and they sure can be frustrating when you run into them when you least expected to, with a unit you really needed somewhere, that is now delayed, disrupted, or weakened, because of that damn "friendly minefield." Click here to jump to The History Section Page 17

18 II. The History As a wargamer and a history buff myself interested in the Desert War, names and battles like Alamein, Tobruk and Crusader are certainly familiar. But details of the events and the order of things tend to become less clear when one has been playing games and reading on other fronts. And while there are numerous published sources anyone could access at a public library, I thought it prudent to include a very brief synopsis of events leading up to the period covered by this game and a few brief facts to help frame the action and scenarios included in Alamein '42. For this I would like to thank Garreth Hughes from "World War 2 Timeline" ( ) for the use of his dates and facts. Players interested in all the details are encouraged to visit the full list of events at his website under Timelines => War in the Desert, and then select the year. Events leading up to Alamein ' August: Five Italian divisions and 200 tanks in Cyrenaica under Marshal Graziani, cross the Libyan/Egyptian border and advance toward Sidi Barrani in Egypt. Italian advance in Egypt continues as they capture Sidi Barrani, 60 miles from frontier. At this point the Italians halt their offensive and begin to construct a number of fortified camps. December: The Western Desert Force which is 30,000 strong and under the command of Wavell takes to the offensive 'Operation Compass'. While pursuing the retreating Italians, the British forces in North Africa take Sollum, Fort Capuzzo and several other crucial Italian defensive positions. They also capture another 38,000 Italians along the way. Mussolini requests German assistance for his hard-pressed troops in Cyrenaica, asking for a Panzer Division, Luftwaffe Page 18

19 units and various logistical support January: Tobruk surrenders to British and Australian troops who capture 25,000 Italians, along with 208 guns and 87 tanks. Combined British and Australian losses were about 450. The British government now orders Wavells XIII Corps to capture Benghazi. February: Italian forces make repeated attempts to break through the weak British blocking forces at Beda Fomm, but cannot. Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel is appointed to command the German forces being sent to Africa. The Italians surrender 20,000 men, 200 guns and 120 tanks to just 3,000 British troops. Lieutenant General Rommel arrives in Tripoli and two weeks later, reconnaissance elements of the German 5th Light Division clash with British forces for the first time in Africa, at Nofilia near El Agheila. March: Rommel, conducts a limited offensive to recapture El Agheila from the British, which succeeds with startling ease. This encourages Rommel to push forward towards Mersa Brega. April: Elements of the 5th Light Division capture Mechili and threaten to cut of the 9th Australian Division which is withdrawing at speed towards Tobruk along the coast. Derna is captured the 5th Light Division along with Generals Neame and O'Connor later in the day. Rommel makes an attempt to capture Tobruk off the march. However, the 9th Australian Division repulses the attack, forcing the Germans to think again. By now the Germans are pretty exhausted after 3 weeks of continuous action and their vehicles in serious need of an overhaul German advance spearheads capture Sollum. Rommel receives orders from Berlin that he is to consolidate on the Egyptian frontier and concentrate of capturing Tobruk. Only then will he be allowed to push into Egypt. But the German troops cross the Egyptian border and capture the Halfaya Pass, forcing the British to pull back to a defensive line running from Buq Buq on the coast to Sofafi, some 50km in to the desert. The British also begin construction of a major defensive line in front of Mersa Matruh. (This Defensive line will play a role in the Alamein '42 game 14 months later) May: The British Army under Auchinleck, launch an offensive, operation 'Brevity' against the Afrika Korps and manage to recapture Halfaya Pass, Sollum and Capuzzo. The Afrika Korps counter-attack against the British and retake Sollum and Capuzzo, although the Halfaya Pass remains in British hands. Berlin orders Rommel to leave Tobruk to the Page 19

20 Italians and to concentrate the Afrika Korps near the Egyptian border. June: The British Army begins 'Operation Battleaxe' to relieve Australian held Tobruk and then advance towards Derna. However, they meet fierce counter attacks by the Afrika Korps and are unable to make any headway. July: General Wavell is relieved of his command as C-in-C of the Middle East, by General Sir Claude Auchinleck. August: A brigade of the 9th Australian Division which is besieged at Tobruk is relieved by sea, as Polish reinforcements arrive. After demands from the Australian Prime Minister, the British agree to relieve the remainder of the 9th Australian Division from Tobruk. September: General Sir Claude Auchinleck begins planning forthcoming British Offensive, 'Operation Crusader' November: 'Operation Crusader', the British Eighth Army's offensive to relieve Tobruk begins. Rommel, who arrives back from Rome that day, is caught by surprise, allowing the British XXX Corps to advance 50-miles and capture the axis airfield 10 miles south of Sidi Rezegh. The Tobruk garrison links up with the Eighth Army and the Siege is lifted December: The German and Italian forces withdraw to a defensive position at Gazala. The Eighth Army attacks. Rommel, fearful that the British will outflank him, orders the retreat. The British retake Benghazi January: Rommel's battered forces reach the Tripolitanian frontier having evaded all British attempts to cut them off. Without consulting higher authority, Rommel launches a counter-offensive against the 8th Army. The 21st Panzer Division quickly seizes Mersa Brega, German troops capture Msus, which threatens the 4th Indian Divisions position at Benghazi. Lieutenant General Ritchie, orders the 4th Indian Division to withdraw to a line running from Derna to Mechili, but this order is countermanded by General Auchinleck who wanted the 8th Army to counter-attack. However, the 8th Army was to widely dispersed and Rommel s forces were advancing to quickly. Page 20

21 February: After just over 2 weeks of frenetic action, Rommel's counter-offensive comes to a halt in front of the Gazala line, a series of self supporting fortified boxes running south from Gazala for a hundred miles to Bir Hacheim. Although not complete, it presents too much of an obstacle for the Afrika Korps who by this time are running low on fuel and reserves. Events covered in Alamein ' May: The battle for the Gazala line begins (Operation Venezia), as the Afrika Korps thrusts around the southern end of the Eighth Army's defensive positions towards Tobruk. However the Free French forces at Bir Hacheim manage hold up this advance. The battle of the 'Cauldron' begins as Rommel attacks the fortified box in the Gazala line that is held by the 150th Brigade of the British 50th Division. The Italians attack from the west as elements of the Afrika Korps attack from the east. Meanwhile Rommel's anti-tank gunners, repulse a number of British armoured counter-attacks against his position in the 'Cauldron'. However, Lieutenant General Ritchie is hampered by his inability to concentrate his armour and so is unable to relieve the 150th Brigade. June: The Eighth Army launches a counter-attack against the Afrika Korps forces that are inside the 'Cauldron. This is codenamed 'Aberdeen', but went disastrously wrong from the start, with an infantry tank brigade being destroyed in minefields and an Indian infantry brigade attacking the wrong positions. This left the remainder of the force, the 22nd Armoured Brigade to be repulsed easily by the untouched German defenses. British losses for this operation were 150 tanks, 133 guns and 6,000 troops Page 21

22 German and Italian troops captures Bir Hacheim finally from the Free French, who had been totally cut off since the 26 May Lieutenant General Ritchie gives General Norrie permission to withdraw XXX Corps past Tobruk and as far as Mersa Matruh to re-equip. General Gott's XIII is ordered to take up defensive positions on the Egyptian frontier. This left the city exposed to another siege, for which its defenses were inadequate, having been allowed to deteriorate during the winter. The Eighth Army's withdrawal reaches the Egyptian frontier, leaving behind the 2nd South African Division to form the basis of a 30,000 strong garrison at Tobruk. The Germans isolates Tobruk by cutting the coast road at Gambut. Rommel turns and launches a surprise against Tobruk. This throws the garrison into confusion which allows German troops to breach the outer defenses. The fortress falls in one day with the capture of 32,000 prisoners and tons of fuel and food German advanced elements reach the Egyptian border. Rommel signals Kesselring for permission to continue the advance in to Egypt, pointing out that at Tobruk his forces has captured large quantities of fuel and supplies. Rommel is made a Field Marshal and launches attacks against Mersa Matruh. Meanwhile, Kesselring, Cavallero (Italian Chief of Staff in Rome) and Bastico (Italian C-in-C in Libya) arrive at Rommel's HQ and give permission for him to continue his advance in to Egypt. Mersa Matruh falls after heavy fighting Rommel spearheads reaches El Alamein. July: Rommel captures 2,000 prisoners from the El Alamein 'box' but loses 18 of his 55 remaining tanks. The British hold El Alamein despite heavy attacks, Rommel is now down to 26 tanks. Due to exhaustion and lack of supplies, especially fuel for the armoured divisions, Rommel orders his German and Italian forces to suspend all offensive operations before El Alamein and begin constructing defensive positions. August: Montgomery takes command of Eighth Army. The Afrika Korps fails to break through the British 8th Army's lines and advance toward Alexandria, 120km away in the battle of Alam Halfa. The German lose about 30 tanks and are forced to withdraw Page 22