Game Reports

Road to Tebessa 1943 (Added game report on 8/July)

Posted by Fire at Will on 30 Jun 2013, 07:13

Now on the last stages of preparing the SOTCW game for our Gauntlet show this coming weekend.
http://www.deesidedefenders.co.uk/gauntlet2013.html

All the terrain is now sorted, here's an impression of the finished table laid out in my garage. On the day I will need to add more lines of stones, which define crest line and therefore limits line of sight.
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More details can be found over on the SOTCW blog
http://sotcw.blogspot.co.uk/

I've also rebased some old Airfix Foreign Legion to provide part of the French forces
Image
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Posted by Peter on 30 Jun 2013, 09:05

Looks great Will! And have fun at the show :thumbup:

And don't forget to post some pictures here ;-)
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Peter  Belgium

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Posted by Mário on 30 Jun 2013, 18:02

Looks great
But it does not look like the Tebessa region, I'm sorry. I ‘have been there and it is not desert, it’s mostly farmland, most of all cereal (wheat) fields. Tebessa lies in the region known as the "Hauts plateaux" between the two ridges of the Atlas mountains, the desert starts south of the Atlas. One wrong idea that most people have is that the Algerian and Tunisian campaign was desert warfare, it was not, the land is like the south of Italy, Spain and Portugal. Effects of Hollywood (see the Kasserine battle in the film Patton with the tanks rolling over a sand desert that really is 300Km to the south).If you put some grass fields and some olive trees it will be better.
The houses are great, perhaps a little too good, a lot of them, even today, have nor plaster nor paint.
Have a good game, I will love to see the batrep.
Mário
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Posted by Fire at Will on 02 Jul 2013, 07:06

Mário wrote:Looks great
But it does not look like the Tebessa region, I'm sorry. I ‘have been there and it is not desert, it’s mostly farmland, most of all cereal (wheat) fields. Tebessa lies in the region known as the "Hauts plateaux" between the two ridges of the Atlas mountains, the desert starts south of the Atlas. One wrong idea that most people have is that the Algerian and Tunisian campaign was desert warfare, it was not, the land is like the south of Italy, Spain and Portugal. Effects of Hollywood (see the Kasserine battle in the film Patton with the tanks rolling over a sand desert that really is 300Km to the south).If you put some grass fields and some olive trees it will be better.
The houses are great, perhaps a little too good, a lot of them, even today, have nor plaster nor paint.
Have a good game, I will love to see the batrep.
Mário


Mario, thanks for observation about the terrain, I had expected it to be more arable, but crops would not be very visible in February.
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Posted by Xantippos on 02 Jul 2013, 11:57

Very nice scenario. Using the Airfix French Foreign legion as WW2 is something I also do in my wargames ;-) .
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Posted by Fire at Will on 04 Jul 2013, 06:57

Another update, now I've sorted out some of the forces

The British
Image

The Italians
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The French
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More tomorrow

Progress is being logged over on the SOTCW events blog
http://sotcw.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Tebessa
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Posted by Fire at Will on 04 Jul 2013, 15:59

Next batch

The Americans
Image

The Germans
Image

All packed up now, just the last minute panics to go.
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Posted by Peter on 04 Jul 2013, 18:45

Let the battle begin! ;-)

Great painted armies :thumbup:

Have fun Will :thumbup:
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 07 Jul 2013, 06:26

How did it go? How I wish I had been present. :mrgreen:
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Posted by Fire at Will on 08 Jul 2013, 15:45

Bluefalchion wrote:How did it go? How I wish I had been present. :mrgreen:


Played the game on Saturday at Gauntlet. As usual I got so caught up in the game that I didn't take pictures of all the action

The game opened with Stukas circling the French defenders of the southern town Bordj Oum Ali (they failed to knock out the guns and only killed three of the defenders)
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French deployed around El Ma el Abiod
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Italian troops preparing to attack El Ma el Abiod from the east.
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German troops massing to the south.
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Italians commence their assault on the ridge to their north they succeeded in badly damaging one of the Stuarts rushing to support the defenders of El Ma el Abiod (They subsequently fell back fo two turns due to a poor morale check)
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The Germans decide to deploy the heavy tank company first (The players could bring on one company of their choice each turn)
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As the Stuarts flee their bigger brothers turn up to deal with the troublesome 20mm AT Rifle
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The French grimly hold on against the Italian assault
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The Germans proceed systematically, amassing their forces ready for an assault
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Having dealt with the AT Rifle the Grants move on to support the French and in a magnificent bit of shooting take out all the Semovente company
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The german assault on Bordj Oum Ali gets underway just before the British arrive to reinforce the position
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Meanwhile the Italians are in serious trouble as the Americans concentrate on them "Where are the Germans, they should have arrived from the south by now?"
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For the British and French around Bordj Oum Ali things are not looking good either, already they have lost two Crusaders and a pair of 6pounders to the Panzers
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The US seem content with occupying a blocking position while finishing off the Italians (Their Motorcycle company was down to 5 figures by the game end, but had continually passed their morale checks)
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Finishing of the French defenders of Bordj Oum Ali and the remaining 6 pounders the Panzers push on as the Valentines flee
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The one success for the Royal Horse Artillery one heavy and one light damage inflicted on the Tiger
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US driving the Italian remnants south
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A final Stuka strike manages to disable the US commander's tank
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Game end - the Germans were on a roll and looked strong enough to defeat the Americans as they had very minimal losses.
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Rules were Rapid Fire with a variation on the anti-tank fire.
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 08 Jul 2013, 18:26

Awesome pics! Thanks for posting those.
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Posted by Peter on 08 Jul 2013, 19:21

Excellent review and pictures! Thanks for sharing! :thumbup:
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 09 Jul 2013, 04:38

Oh, I loved your review as well. Why not play it out and see how the Yanks would have fared against Jerry?
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Posted by dykio on 15 Jan 2015, 10:29

Wauw, i just saw this fore the first time and it looks fantastic to play such an enormoes game. Do you know where i can get the rapid fire rules, and which models did you use for that fantastic painted italian army?

Thanks,
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dykio  Netherlands
 
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Posted by Fire at Will on 16 Jan 2015, 08:46

dykio wrote:Wauw, i just saw this fore the first time and it looks fantastic to play such an enormoes game. Do you know where i can get the rapid fire rules, and which models did you use for that fantastic painted italian army?

Thanks,


Rapid Fire rules are available here
http://www.rapid-fire.uk.com/

Italian figures are all plastic, mainly Waterloo 1815. Vehicles are Italeri, Frontline and some Ready to Roll.
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Posted by dykio on 17 Jan 2015, 18:59

Thanks again will. And keep those game reports coming, i really like them !!!
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Posted by Ochoin on 18 Jan 2015, 14:29

A model game report. Really enjoyed reading it.

donald
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Posted by guilhem on 18 Jan 2015, 18:30

very nice battle...
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