2nd Alamein Pocket Orbat

8th Army HQ and Army Troops

I haven’t had a good parade for some time now. It is easily the best way of managing large orbats. There is no substitute for hauling the toys out of their boxes and putting them into their fighting formations prior to a game, so whilst I heartily disliked true scale parades, 15mm ones are great fun. The troops on parade usually benefit from an extra lick of paint too.  Sorting out the Pocket Orbat for 2nd ALAMEIN took longer than I thought, and it will probably be tweaked after a game or two.

8th Army vs Panzer Armee Afrika

All the toys now fit onto two of my steel Parade Trays¹, whereas before it took six. This looks like a much more manageable way of fighting Alamein in a day with six or so players, and as a bonus, four trays worth of toys are freed up for CRETE, TUNISIA, SARDINIA and ITALY.

The detailed pictures are being added to the Pocket Orbat, and should be published in a week or so.

 

1. A very grand name for a Tegometal display shelf backing panel.

ALAMEIN Operation Lightfoot D+4 to 5 – 27 to 28 Oct 1942

An Exhausted 50th Division is Fought to a Standstill on D+5

By now the cauldron had been renamed “Plum Pudding Hill” by the Umpire, as it had turned into a big pile of infantry with tanks poured over them like custard.   I should have imposed some order earlier, but Gary R and Tim G were passing   all their morale tests, and having fun, so it seemed simpler top go with the flow.

Plum Pudding Hill

When the combat finally resolved, both 50th Infantry Division and 22nd Armoured Brigade were shattered. 21 Panzer was in little better shape, so when leading elements of 10th Armoured Division appeared to their rear, they were foced to  turn about and fight them off.

Ariete in Position to prevent the Inevitable Breakthrough

Pavia was confident in the deep south that having Ariete supporting them for a counterattack would stave off any threatened breakthrough from 4th Light Armoured Brigade. The earlier failure to stem the northern breakthrough was having consequences though, as Ariete was called north to bolster the Italian withdrawal. There seemed to be a callous lack of sympathy from the German High Command as they efficiently regrouped prior to withdrawing, and Pavia broadcast their betrayal to anyone who would listen.

Ramke had known this for a few hours already, through Luftwaffe channels, but when the order came to pull back, they were still heavily engaged and had to wait until 50th Division and the dashing “Pip” Roberts had immolated themselves on “Plum Pudding Hill” before sloping off in the gathering dusk of D+5.

Pavia Abandoned to their Fate

Finally, 1st Free French had driven off the remains of Kampfgruppe Kiel, and threaded a way through the minefields to the south of Pavia, paving the way for 4th Light Armoured Brigade to break out into the open desert.

Free French – Bon Alors!

2nd Alamein – NQM Squared – The South

44 Inf Div and 7Armd Div

Having walked through the northern third of 2nd Alamein to see if the real estate fitted (it did), I worked through the head-to-head infantry attack of 44th Infantry Division against Folgore.

Folgore Defence in Depth

The battle commenced with a divisional barrage that put serious disorganisation of 1/3 onto the dug in division (25pdrs M against dug-in infantry M). The infantry then followed this in, winning the firefight and evicting the first line of defences with 100% disorganisation in the close assault.

Ramke Falschirmjäger Brigade

 

I ruled that, being veteran, Folgore could immediately counterattack with its second line of defence, during the second close assault phase and pull its first line of defence out to reorganise. 44 Div were allowed to do the same in the third close assault phase, ending the turn. In future though, I shall restrict immediate counter attacks in the enemy’s turn to veteran troops.

Pavia and Folgore

This produced a very satisfying to-and-fro battle that left both sides’ infantry at about 50% casualties, with all artillery ammunition exhausted by the end of 4 rounds of fighting.

Folgore and Ramke from Allied Lines

Other rulings were that:

Infantry could not pursue beyond their one square range.

Infantry could attack a diagonal square, but only if they were able to attack it orthogonally from the front or flank without interference from enemy on their own front or flank.

In other words, they could not ignore an enemy to their front in order to concentrate an attack on an enemy to their diagonal front, and they can only do this because the one free diagonal move per game turn that they are allowed places the square they wish to attack in reach.

2nd Alamein – NQM Squared – The North

Allied 9 AUS – 51 HD – 1SA looking North

Before committing too heavily to squares, I set up this scenario as a TaGWiT (Tactical Game With Toys), to see what the real estate looked like, and to see if 2nd Alamein fitting into 22 squares from top to bottom was a realistic proposition.

The top third of the battlefield (7 squares) fits three Commonwealth divisions – 9 AUS, 51 HD and 1SA, and a third to half of MITEIYIRA RIDGE. This gives two squares or 6Km per division, which is fine, as the frontage of 51HD started at just over a mile wide and spread to about 2.5 miles.

el Alamein 51HD advance

Axis North Front Line at 2nd ALAMEIN

It all looks very crowded on the tabletop, but like KURSK, this was a head-on WWI-style frontal attack with little room for manoeuvre.

2nd Battle of El Alamein – 001

 

An Allied division fits nicely into 4-5 squares. I have some work to do on the look of contours, they are  too high-rise at the moment and Iwould like to avoid the square platform with cliff-edge look. There is nothing wrong with that approach – I’m just not fond of it. My first attempt was to just take a band saw to some of the squared cowboy terrain pieces that  seen little real wargame use over the past five years.

7 Bersaglieri in Thompsons Post Looking East

 

Thompsons Post and Breakout

PSC Kickstarter 2 – CMP Tractors and 25 Pounders

The new CMP tractor sits nicely in size in between the Fow 1:120 and the Denzil Skinner 1:100 scale Morris Quads, so a crafty wargamer will place the Skinners closest, the CMPs in the table centre and the FoWs at the far end to give a false sense of perspective. John Sandars was a past master of this wheeze, except that he used 1/35th and 1/72nd models in his dioramas.

Here are the WIP photos. I was delighted to see that the British gunners look like people, and not Orkses. They are still a little short in the leg, but they fit in nicely with everyone elses’ caricatures. I should have gone in for fantasy gaming *sigh*

I thought it would be fun to see if the kit could produce one of the cut-down narrow-wheelbase 25pdrs used in Burma. The nearest unfinished gun is a reasonable enough approximation. The cam net on the back of the CMP hides the fact that I struggled to get a close fit at the back of the tractor. It also frees up a spare wheel. I am going to need a total of 8 for the extra four 25 Pdrs that can be part assembled from the kit sprue, and will have to find four spare limbers from somewhere.

More Tilting

Flatbeds are much more useful on the wargames table than trucks with covered canopies, but having overdosed on PSC 15mm Raupenschleppers the tinkerer in me thought,

“what would a tilt frame look like?”

Here is the answer: For good measure, I added some canopy struts to one of the QRF  Bedford QLBs that had been assembled earlier. Now it is just crying out for a couple of scruffy gunners lounging in the back.

7th Armoured Division

Hands up if you are a WW2 wargamer, who has not, at some time, painted something from 7th Armoured Division, (The Desert Rats).* Here is the NQM version. It comprises an eclectic mix of Command Decision, Flames of War, the defunct MM Models, Plastic Soldier Company, Peter Pig, QRF,  Roco and the odd scratchbuild.

The full orbat can be seen on the 8th Army page.

Summary Orbat:

Divisional troops:

1st Household Cavalry Regiment

11th Hussars

2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry

44th Reconnaissance Regiment

3rd Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery

4th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

97th (Kent Yeomanry) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

65th (Suffolk & Norfolk Yeomanry) Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery

15th (Isle of Man) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery

4th, 21st, Field Squadron, Royal Engineers

143rd Field Park Squadron, Royal Engineers

7th Armoured Division Signals

4th Light Armoured Brigade

Royal Scots Greys, 4th/8th Hussars, 1st Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps (Truck Mounted Motor Battalion)

22nd Armoured Brigade

1st Royal Tank Regiment, 5th Royal Tank Regiment, 4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters), 1st Battalion, Rifle Brigade (Motor Battalion)

Not shown is the under command:

1st Free French Brigade Group

 

*If you did put your hand up, take it down again if you have painted an Airfix Tiger Tank in desert camouflage  🙂

Humble Pie is Delicious!

Having ranted about the Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) 6 pdr in my last post, I put the model together and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong! Next to a Peter Pig (PP) 6 pdr, the PSC offering actually looks slightly smaller, wider and thinner. Next to a 1/76 model it is obviously 1/100.

From top to bottom: Airfix PP, PSC 6 pdrs

A correctly-scaled standing figure should be able to rest his shirt pocket on the top of the gun shield and crouch down to see through the gunsight, but as the PSC gunshield is 14mm off the ground, and the PP is 13mm neither is possible. However, as the PSC gunner is 11mm to his eye when kneeling, he must be a Guardsman, making the gun look smaller than it really is! Others have already commented that Flames of War models are exaggerated in the vertical axis to compensate for the thickness of the figure base, as common FoW practice is not to base tanks. Olicanalad’s excellent basing shows why this should not be an issue.

I fished my Airfix 6pdr out, and it is noticibly larger than the PSC 15mm jobbie, but here’s the thing; the PP overscale barrel looks more like the picture below to my eyes than the PSC offering, which is visually a little thin but is probably to scale (I don’t have a micrometer handy)*.

With the 3.7cm Pak, the situation is reversed. Here, the PSC offering is visibly higher (15mm) and longer than PP (12mm). (The gun is listed as 1.17m tall).

In appearance however, the PP 3.7cm Pak 36 looks too small, but this is due to the thickness of the figure bases, as I was too lazy to do what YesthatPhil does, which is to shim the gun up. I looked more closely at the crew figures on the PSC sprues to find a visible difference in height and bulk between different figures on the same sprue – so I’m still not entirely happy. At least I can use the PSC 6 pdrs! Previously, I never really cared about this sort of stuff; must be getting old.

*We’ve been here before.

On the Workbench – Scratchbuilt searchlight

Sometimes a project starts with a rummage through the bits box; this was one such. Having transcribed the ALAMEIN orbat, I needed something to represent 27th (London Electrical Engineers) Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery.

The core was a German ROCO searchlight/radar body, with extra gubbins added to make it look more British.

Its not every day that a regiment has engineers and artillery in its title. I well remember a demonstration at Chatham of the TA searchlight troop, as a young Sapper subaltern, back in the late ’70s. Credit went to the Troop Commander for being able to keep a straight face when shouting the command “Expose!” in front of the assembled audience. Very illuminating that was!

The model is pretty generic as I want to be able to use it for various nationalities, so it has no figures on the stand and will probably appear at 8th Army HQ or an airstrip as extra clutter.

 

On the Workbench – Mini Monty

Rather than just grumble about the way that 15mm has morphed into chibi 20mm, I decided to demonstrate my case by turning a beautifully sculpted 1/72 scale (25mm) Monty into a 15mm Fat Controller. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you … Mini Monty.

It took a mere 4 razor saw cuts to remove 10mm from the figure’s chest, abdomen, femur and legs. the worst of it is, he looks pretty good next to the flames of war fellow on his left in the picture below.

I’ve been watching too much Game of Thrones recently; bring more *i*s and wine!